By Jo Nova
The trend is spreading. Coal, the stranded asset of a bygone era, is hot property again everywhere. All it took was a few weeks of an energy crisis, and decades of brainwashing against coal is evaporating.
On Friday, I wrote about how countries like Japan, Korea, and India were redirecting themselves towards coal power. Now Bloomberg, Fortune, and others are reporting this trend. As I write, Italy is considering delaying the closure of all its coal plants til 2038, Germany is reopening old coal plants. Thailand is restarting two coal plants it only shut down last year. Bangladesh is going to run its coal plants at max capacity all summer.
And the Ecoworriers are starting to fear this crisis will trigger a more permanent shift back to coal — which it absolutely will — not because of ‘sunk costs’ or any of the other excuses the greenies tell themselves, but because the oil crisis will break the sacred exorcism spell cast upon coal. Governments have been shocked at how vulnerable they are without fossil fuel energy.
People might be ordering EVs, but governments want fossil fuels.
Activists should be panicking — the whole anti-coal program was based on petty namecalling, teenage girls, and costumes — not hard numbers. It could fall over at any moment, and they will not be able to put it back together.
Italy may keep coal plants open til 2038 now:
Coal phase-out postponed: power plants remain in operation until 2038
A new lease of life for Italian coal-fired power plants. To address the energy crisis, in the event of an emergency, fossil fuels will be allowed to continue to be used until 2038 , thirteen years beyond the deadline set by the National Energy and Climate Plan, which called for a shutdown by December 2025. The extension was included in the billing decree with amendments presented by the League and Azione parties.
The measure also introduces a crackdown on telemarketing and measures to support less polluting transportation. Minister for European Affairs and the National Recovery and Resilience Plan (NRRP), Tommaso Foti, defends the decision: “All energy sources, at least in the immediate future, must be used to their fullest extent.” League MPs in the Productive Activities Committee call the extension “fair and responsible” during a time of international energy crisis.
German government not prepared to gamble on going without coal:
Energy crisis may force Germany to keep coal-fired power plants alive
Chancellor Friedrich Merz questioned Germany’s plans to abandon coal as a source of power. “We may need to keep our coal plants online for longer,” he said at an event organized by the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung in Frankfurt.
“I am not ready to gamble with the core of our energy supply just because we agreed on some deadlines years ago,” Merz said on Friday.
Coal use in Europe could be up 20%:
Iran War’s Gas Supply Shock Pushes Top Consumers Back to Coal
By Rajesh Kumar Singh, Will Wade, and Eva Brendel, Bloomberg
Power analysts with the London Stock Exchange Group estimate European countries could generate around 20% more electricity from coal this summer than last, if the European gas benchmark averages about 50 euros per megawatt-hour. That figure currently stands at around 54 euros.
“This is a bigger disruption than the Russian war,” said Tony Knutson, global head of thermal coal markets at consultancy Wood Mackenzie Ltd, given the impact on a larger number of countries. Those without enough gas will be forced to pull the coal lever, he added. “I don’t think they have a choice.”
Coal is back and nuclear is next: The Iran war is rewiring Asia’s energy future
By Nicolas Gordon, Fortune
Asian governments are temporarily pivoting to coal…
For Asia, which buys more than 80% of the crude and LNG that flows through the narrow waterway, the consequences have been swift: severe fuel shortages, export bans, and government budgets stretched to the breaking point.
South Korea urged households to take shorter showers, charge devices during off-peak hours and shift usage of high-energy appliances like washing machines to weekends. Samsung, meanwhile, barred employees from driving their car to work if the last digit of their license plate matches the last digit of the current date.
Southeast Asian governments are rolling out similar restrictions. Thailand introduced a four-day workweek for civil servants, and ordered higher office air-conditioning temperatures to curb demand. Vietnam’s airlines are suspending some domestic routes as the country braces for jet fuel shortages.
Thailand’s government is restarting two coal plants that it decommissioned last year.
Climate activists fear the comeback of coal:
The risk is that once a coal plant is brought back online, the sunk costs and political economy of energy pricing make it difficult to shut down again. “There’s a danger of a long-term carbon lock-in once countries decide to reverse plans to retire aging coal-fired fleets,” warns Sharon Seah, coordinator of the Climate Change in Southeast Asia program at ISEAS–Yusof Ishak Institute.
The long term ‘lock in’ of revived coal plants is what happens when reality hits the fantasy.
I am reminded of the smug smiles of self-important but utterly ignorant officials pressing the demolition buttons bringing down the cool towers of the Fiddlers Ferry power station at Widnes near Liverpool. Look how virtuous we are signalled the smiles, loudly applauded by an equally ignorant press bereft of any idea how to run a modern economy. Well, they are not laughing now. We in the UK will regret the wanton destruction of perfectly serviceable electricity generating potential.
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It is not ignorance that drives officialdom to blow up productive infrastructure to somehow replace it with a fantasy that could NEVER be equivalent.
Its corruption, greed and criminal connivance.
Even as we are shocked just how exposed the West’s power sources have become, there is no reason shown by “believers” in Net Zero” that can lead us to the conclusion they were all just ignorant.
At best most have done this for the free money.
At worst because they want dictatorial power at any cost.
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Start blowing up Irans oil refineries, their power stations and ports and watch who shouts that an evil King has destroyed the world’s economy.
Diogenes of Sinope is the Greek philosopher associated with the pursuit of honesty depicted searching with a lamp for an “honest man”.
That lamp runs on oil. There are no honest men. Only those who have oil and those that don’t.
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It is said that the situation in Amsterdam is so bad, honesty wise, that when Diogenes was spotted there and everybody thought he was looking for an “honest man”, he actually was looking for his lamp.
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They have found that it is necessary to have locally produced energy supplies. Those supplies can be coal, can be oil, can be gas or whichever energy supply that doesn’t have to be imported.
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At times of uncertainty – who’s a thunk?
Auto
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My immediate thought was that wind and solar do not have to be imported. But to get electricity from either of those energy sources takes a lot of UK imports because UK makes next to nothing.
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Since Al Gore’s fantasy on 30th June 1988 before the US Congress, no one has proven that the slow increase in atmospheric CO2 is caused by burning coal.
All of the laws, taxes, restrictions, windmills, solar panels are based are based this single unproven idea. That fossil fuels, humans can change CO2. That CO2 is not in rapid equilibrium with the 98% of the gas dissolved in the vast oceans.
After 38 years it’s still non science, political science. And disproven in 19858.
I can only hope that in Australia, One Nation gets enough political power to wipe out all the Climate Crap laws. And the Liberals hate One Nation even more than Labor or the Greens.
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The fallacy starts with
There’s something dreadfully wrong with the climate i.e. if the current weather is good then it will get worse.
That It’s caused by CO2 (no evidence has ever been found.
followed by 3. Mankind can fix it we just spend lots of money.
Politicians and bureaucrats love that last bit. It makes them feel superior.
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I believe it started with rapid runaway tipping point Global Warming. It morphed from Global Warming into Climate Change only in the 2010s when the Global Warming failed to turn up. The tipping point story has been quietly qeforgotten.
The UN formed the IPCC, a political Climate Change promotion body formed by the UN committee of failed politicians, the WMO (World Meteorological Organization) and with the Presidential Candidate Al Gore who would have been US president but for a few chads on punched votes in Florida. With Climate Change in the very title, it was a Godsend for polticians to achieve their ultimate dream of power, control of the weather, the tides, the ocean level, the clouds. Demi Gods with first class travel and no work to do. And the dreams of infinite taxes on breathing.
Too bad about the tipping point, the warming, the rapid sea level rise,the drowning polar bears etc.etc. Even Greta Thunberg has lost interest and is now saving Hamas and Cuban communism. We could all put in for her protest boat in the Straits of Hormuz.
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The UNIPCC own Climate Change™. They have defined it and it is their own label. The two words should never be used with capital letters without acknowledging that the words are Trade Marks of the UNIPCC.
Climate Change™
‘a change of climate which is attributed directly or indirectly to human activity that alters the composition of the global atmosphere and which is in addition to natural climate variability observed over comparable time periods’
So natural variation is excluded by definition.
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UNIPCC climate politics is another piece in the puzzle image that is being gradually revealed and objective world parliament leftist manoeuvring
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Climate minus natural climate variability and human industrial activity suggests static, constantly pristine conditions would prevail. Which has never happened and it never will. But if you instil the idea that the opposite applies, you have the key requisite to brainwash a generation into believing it is cooking the planet and sucking greenhouse gases out of the atmosphere will save us all.
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Otherwise could be described as moving goalposts
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And yet, I saw a recent interview with Al Gore stating that all the early predictions of the adverse effects of global warming had come true!
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As Mandy Rice-Davies in 1963, a blonde 18 year old central to the 1960s sensational Ministerial sex affair, when told of the Minister Profumo’s denial. “He would, wouldn’t he.”
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And yet, when you ask a warmenista what those correct predictions are, they can’t tell you.
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Related:
Video at link.
Of course, Australia remains FANATICALLY committed to the scam and will remain so until our once rich and free country is totally destroyed. We will remain committed to this biggest scam in history long after everyone else has abandoned it.
At least, that is, unless people vote our only sizeable conservative party into either power or the balance of power, One Nation. If not, we’ll have no nation, just more of the Lib/Lab/Greens/Teals until the bitter end.
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It’s going to be interesting to see which country caves last on Net Zero.
The UK looks like it wants to give Australia a run for it’s money, but I suspect that is mostly due to zealot (Ed Miliband) and a weak cuck leader who won’t reel him in (Keir Starmer). Meanwhile, the most popular party in the country (Reform) is vehemently against Net Zero and one of the parties tied for second most popular (Conservatives) is leaning that way and getting more strident with each passing month. Sooner or later, Miliband will be gone and rationality will return to the UK’s energy policies.
But in Australia, it still seems to be an institutional commitment rather than a few radical zealots. One Nation is really the only dissenter against Net Zero madness in the land down under. My money is on you guys being the last holdout and staying committed to Net Zero even after the countries that emit 99% of the world’s CO2 have long since abandoned it. Your politicians will be talking about Climate leadership while the lights go out and industry flees to friendlier climes, while every else is generating power with coal/gas/oil/nuclear/hydro and disconnecting all the intermittent crap that has been gumming up their grid reliability.
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We all saw what happened in Sri Lanka. But somehow we are immune.
We aren’t stupid apparently.
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Steve,
Newsflash!!! You can put this in the past tense for Australia.
Pollies like to say that Australia is transforming into a service economy. It’s odd that whatever service we get is some shade of awful. We may well be the last holdout on unreliable energy, but we must be well up with the leaders when it comes to implementing Terry Gilliam’s Brazil world.
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That’s the exact same slop American politicians fed us for a couple of decades before Trump shook things up and re-prioritized making stuff and classified natural resource supply chains as a matter of national security. Then Covid came along and proved him right, as the west learned to their chagrin that they couldn’t make anything anymore and had to rely on China providing them the things they needed in an emergency.
It is the ‘learn to code’ mindset that was being sold to mine workers by technocrats. But surprise of surprises, coding is one of the first jobs being eliminated by AI. You can just tell an AI what you want in plain English and it writes code 1000X faster than any human can. So now that miner who learned to code is out of a job … again. What’s next? Learn how to install HVAC to provide AC to all those data centers? Learn how to be a lineman to string power lines for all the power needed by those data centers? Learn how to build a giant EMP generator to kill all the machines before they kill us?
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Both the Coalition partners have dropped net zero emissions, first Nationals followed by the Liberals and now the new Leader and Deputy Leader are talking minerals and energy resources access, encouraging new oil refineries and other manufacturing industry businesses, yesterday calling on Albanese labor to join with the Coalition to repeal legislation that strictly limits mining and drilling for oil and gas exploration, and generally removing the roadblocks to economic prosperity and national security.
And suggesting that after the pandemic and now Iran operation defence deployments oil and gas shortages that Australia is well placed to be self sufficient and support our Asia Pacific Region neighbours, even supplying fuel from oil, shale oil, coal conversion and so on.
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They signed up to the Paris agreement, which implies Net Zero. They still haven’t abandoned Net Zero. They haven’t said they’ll leave the Paris Agreement. All they’ve said is that they procede to meet the agreement at their own pace, but they haven’t told us what that pace is.
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Media Release
https://www.minister.industry.gov.au/ministers/taylor/media-releases/australias-plan-reach-our-net-zero-target-2050
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Dennis, as RickWill replied on this subject last Wednesday:
If the Liberals want to get elected they have to become a conservative, pro-energy party, stop being fence-sitters and openly and proudly dissociate themselves from the anthropogenic global warming scam and return us to the state we were at before Howard initiated us onto this road of energy starvation.
Since the Liberals remain fully committed to self-destruction both of themselves and the nation in general, I see little chance of any change, especially since they just dumped rational conservative Moira Deeming, a sitting member.
One Nation is our only hope.
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PM Morrison Media release
https://www.scottmorrison.com.au/media/boosting-australias-fuel-security
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As I have posted several times the Morrison Government did not sign up to net zero at Glasgow COP 2021.
They offered an aspirational goal based on developing new technologies and without damaging the economy.
PM Morrison and Energy Minister Taylor 2018-2022 changed the direction and secured continued operation of two of six remaining oil refineries that had announced closure planning, made arrangements with the US via President Trump for Australia to buy US oil-fuel as needed and placed an initial $94 million order for oil to be stored in the US until new storage facilities could be designed, tenders let and contract let in Australia, abandoned by Albanese Labor.
Morrison and Trump commenced the AUKUS partnership in 2019 that was signed by President Biden and UK PM Johnson with PM Morrison in England September 2021 after Glasgow COP ended.
Now Deputy Leader Coalition Senator Canavan has recently discussed with journalists the know oil fields that have been tested already that a Coalition Government will open up, offshore SA and Far West QLD two examples.
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The fact that they even pretend to have an “aspirational goal” still means they are true believers.
They need to open and proudly denounce the entire scam like TRUMP did.
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At the Scotland Glasgow COP 2021 and before signing the AUKUS partnership in England signed by Morrison, Johnson and Biden, PM Morrison was urged by Johnson and Biden to sign up to an agreement committing to net zero emissions UN IPCC requirements, Morrison declined and instead offered an aspiration goal, based on development of new technology and without damaging the Australian economy, two factors Howard Government also imposed after Kyoto COP 1997.
The decision received criticism from left leaning media and other media insisting that Morrison “signed up to net zero”.
Now fast forward to 2026 …
After about 8 years of Coalition first negotiating with the EU Goverment for a Trade Agreement and not willing to give the EU Government many of the concessions terms and conditions demanded did not sign a trade agreement, until just recently when Albanese Labor announced a Trade Agreement has been signed !!!
Complete details withheld to date but investigative journalists have learnt and reported, Sky News after dark current affairs programmes, that the terms and conditions include EU Government interfering in the affairs of our sovereign nation, examples land use, others, and that Australia commits (Albanese Labor) to the Net Zero Emissions Glasgow 2021 COP impositions !!!
Enough information?
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If Greenlabor had been in govt, we likely wouldn’t even have these two refineries.
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And if as some claim Australia signed up to net zero at Glasgow 2021 why was it considered to be necessary for the EU Government (see close associates of UN) to require the Albanese Labor Government 2026 to agree to terms and conditions of a Trade Agreement including committing to “sign up” via Trade Agreement to UNIPCC Glasgow COP net zero?
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Ideology meets Reality. Reality always wins.
Precisely where are all of the pundits and pollies who claimed “no fossil fuels are needed”?
Apparently, reliable electrons are worth much more than unreliable electrons.
I’m still waiting for the Green demagogues to “bid into the load” 24 hours in advance, as thermal generators are required to do.
The Charade of Green Energy “worked” as long as there was someone else to blame. But that elasticity is gone. Today, it is “Do or Die”, and the Gaia-ists cannot “Do”. It is “Put Up or Shut Up” time, and all the Greens are silent except for excuses.
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Were the coal plants that Germany previously closed mothballed or did their demolition proceed immediately so they could never be reopened as is the standard practice in Australia?
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As of 2022, it appears that they did mothball coal plants rather than destroy them.
The sensible thing to do! Not what Australia does.
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The optics were better on demolishing nuclear plants, so the coal plants were mostly spared since there are only so many demolition companies to go around. Which is unfortunate, since the turnaround time to bring a new coal plant on line is a few years whereas bringing a new nuclear plant online takes over a decade. Germany would be in MUCH better shape right now if they had mothballed those nuclear plants rather than destroying them.
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Germany need those coal fired plants. At times the electricity generated in Germany by them is 25% of the total, or even more.
Don’t forget that Germany is where the Dunkelflaute was first named.
And during such weather electricity prices shoot up. In December 2024 wind fell to 6% of supply. Electricity prices went up 600% and because of their interconnections with much of the rest of Europe also got higher costs. Much agitation in Norway and Sweden, even to wanting to cut off exports through Denmark.
Dunkelflaute in Germany, meant Belgium, Denmark and the Netherlands also. Poland liked this as they exported coal-fired to Germany for inflated prices. France less so, even to restricting exports.
Wind droughts lasting about 2 weeks occur roughly every 5 years. From records for weather in the last 72 years.
In January 2025 Tuesday. by 5.30 pm on a cold (dark) afternoon the UK (the sort of weather that happens ever winter) was down to a single Medium size power station in reserves.
Demand spiked to 47GW, the wind stopped (although the UK has roughly 30GW of installed wind capacity but only producing 2.5GW) and several inter-connector cables to France and Belgium were off line.
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Could someone explain to me why Australia is restricted in our local use of hydrocarbon fuels and the coal power stations have been rendered uneconomic as a matter of Government policy, and yet there are no restrictions on coal or gas exports? (Or even oil exports for that matter, despite being deficient in oil, but we lack refining capacity.)
Do the Left think that the CO2 from burning exported hydrocarbons stays over the places it’s burned and it doesn’t mix uniformly into the atmosphere as a whole? (Not saying CO2 is a problem, but it is a problem according to climate alarmist ideology.)
Uniform atmospheric mixing within one hemisphere takes about 4 months in the tropics and between hemispheres about 1 year, so it doesn’t take long until the dreaded CO2 to return to Australia.
What is the logic?
My guess is that Australia cannot afford to not export valuable energy. Since our economy is deindustrialised and largely destroyed we survive only by valuable, easy-to-do exports of energy, rocks, selling dumbed-down university degrees to foreign students and of course vast amounts of borrowed money. Even Uniparty governments understand – to a limited extent – that the voting masses would be displeased with total economic collapse.
Oh, and lots of coffee shops for the idle masses to sit and contemplate their venti-size, decaf, triple-shot, foamed, non-GMO soy lattes.
Interhemispheric Exchange by Seasonal Modulation of the Hadley Circulation (1997) https://journals.ametsoc.org/view/journals/atsc/54/16/1520-0469_1997_054_2045_iebsmo_2.0.co_2.xml
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Australia is pursing the lowest cost electricity generating system.
ALDI currently selling 200W solar panels for $99. I get 5 hours average daily sunlight from a favourbly aligned solar panel at my location. So over 10 years that panel will pump out 3.653MWh at a cost of $27.1/MWh. Cheap power.
Now don’t go complicating this simple sum with your BS about the sun don’t shine at night because the sun is always shining somewhere.
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Yes … I’ve actually been told that by a committed lefty, albeit moderately well educated. And David Maddison is correct in that such people really believe they are morally superior because the CO2 pollution from manufacturing is now in China, or at least somewhere else, and so the planet is being saved.
There is no polite reply possible for these inanities.
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Dunning-Kruger effect. Stupid people think they are wise beyond their knowledge, education, experience, and ability.
They are actually too stupid to realize that they are, in fact, wrong. Delusional is more appropriate.
Ask any 14 year old. Everything is simple, it is You who are too stupid to realize how simple things truly are. Yeah, had that conversation with my own 14 year old. That’s what Green / Ideological persons are like: 14 yr olds. 25 yrs later, he’s amazed how smart I’ve become, as compared to my previous idiocy. The problem is that we are witnessing the Idiocy of chronologically adult but juvenile thinking persons in Power who have no valid reason to be there. It is time for them to starve and freeze in the dark. There is no better teacher than Reality, hunger and pain, to teach wisdom.
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As Mark Twain said, when I was 17 , my father was so dumb, I was embarrassed to be in the same room as him, now I’ve turned 21, I’m amazed at how smart he’s become.
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What is the cost of running power lines from ‘somewhere’ to where you wish to use the power?
This is why we are destroying the environment (in order to save it) by having to run power distribution lines from all of the disparate ‘somewheres’.
Add these costs to your $27.1/MWh to see the real costs
(or did you miss the /sarc tag)
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But not necessarily in Australia. I am amazed by the leftards who are not aware of the relationship between longitude and time.
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“…the sun is always shining somewhere.”
They once said that about the British Empire…
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An evil man will burn his own nation to the ground to rule over the ashes.” ~ Sun Tzu
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$$$$$
There is lots of money to be made selling hydrocarbons on the global market, and the global conglomerates who make that money liberally spread the wealth around to the political class. The domestic market is much less lucrative and (if it’s anything like the American hydrocarbon business) contains many more small/regional operators who have less cash laying around to grease the political wheels.
It’s basically the same reason why big box stores and giant fast food chains were allowed to stay open during Covid while smaller mom-and-pop operations were shut down. Big business buys political influence, and gets a substantial return on it’s investment. Small business operates on razor thin margins and doesn’t have a lot left over to feed the political pigs at the trough, so they get forgotten when carve-outs and exceptions to bad policies are made.
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So you are saying that every though it is bad, with political capture you can keep raking in the cash. So woke
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Yep
It’s called crony capitalism. Pay the right people for the right to operate your business and then sit back and watch as they crush up and coming competitors with over-regulation (that you are exempt from). Barack Obama formalized it in western political culture with his ‘too big to fail’ policy during the global financial crisis. Big banks got bailouts. Local/regional savings and loans got the bolt pistol to the forehead.
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Influence of vested interests including Union Movement investments and Union Industry Superannuation Funds that have become jobs for Union Labor favourites, and using member’s invested funds buying shares in publicly listed companies to gain influence and seats on boards of directors, the Keating Labor Superannuation Guarantee Levy paid by employers for employees is much more than meets the casual observer eyes.
As I posted yesterday the rewards of transferring government railways freight business to road transport private sector firms.
The subsidies for profit before earning operating profit for so called renewables investment.
See admission link posted here a few times UN Official Christiana Figueres late 2015 before Paris COP stated admitting that climate change politics is a wealth creation scheme and longer term to bring down the free enterprise system the socialists call capitalism.
Consider China CCP and controlled selective participation by approved members in business ventures capitalism based, the money is key
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Superannuation, remember the Royal Commission into banking and finance and the spotlight on “fees for no service” by financial advisers recommended and supported by superannuation funds?
The revelations about employees being registered by every employer into a new super fund and then discovering the older employment related fund deposits all gone, fees and charges?
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List of longest running or most expensive scams in world history.
NONE are comparable to the anthropogenic global warming scam.
😮 Bernie Madoff, 1970’s-2008, US$65 billion Ponzi scheme.
😮 Enron, 1985-2001, creative accounting to hide debt and inflate earnings.
😮 Wirecard, 2002-2020, fraudulent accounting to value of €1.9 billion.
😮 Theranos, 2003-2018, deceived investors and patients about the capabilities of their medical technology.
😮 Michaelangelo, 1506, Laocoön, suspected forgery, claimed to be of Ancient Roman origin but likely made by Michaelangelo.
😮 Victoria, Australia, 2026, A$15 billion on overcharging on Victoria’s “Big Build” projects.
😮 Anthropogenic global warming scam, 1979 with report Ad Hoc Study Group on Carbon Dioxide and Climate; Climate Research Board; Assembly of Mathematical and Physical Sciences; National Research Council (13 March 1979). Carbon Dioxide and Climate: A Scientific Assessment. Washington, D.C.: National Academies Press. doi:10.17226/12181. ISBN 978-0-309-11910-8.
https://www.nationalacademies.org/read/12181/chapter/1
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King Coal is alive and well.
Reality will always win along with the Truth – Eventually
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Remember in 2018 when President TRUMP at the UN warned the West and Germany about dependence on foreign energy?
The German delegation laughed. Look at the smug look on those wokesters’ faces.
Who’s laughing now?
https://youtu.be/FfJv9QYrlwg
TRUMP proven right, yet again.
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Ah, but the EU used to buy Russian energy via the back door.
Just like NZ.
Did you know NZ was buying Russian oil via Indian refineries to sneakily avoid Russian sanctions, while simultaneously backing Ukraine?
Politics is a dirty business…
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Did that start in “Helengrad” Wellington Parliament House Labor Government?
Followed by Jacinta the former socialist youth international leader?
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Forget about postponing this ignorant BS and nonsense until 2038, because we should understand the true data and postpone until 2100 or forever.
IOW why can’t they just look up the real data and then wake up? This only takes 5 minutes online, so what’s their problem?
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Good. Burn more coal
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The ‘energy crisis’. A left field event, apparently – so no blame attached.
The unsaid part: coal is widely geographically distributed, at scale. For 40 years western governments have been happy to rely increasingly on supply chains controlled by fundamentally hostile regimes, operating on the basis of their own self-interest rather than theoretical market forces.
Crises are surprisingly predictable.
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Oh, PNG. OK.
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This is what countries do when it turns out that the shift to renewables they were warned would not work out, does not work out.
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It intrigues me as to why the after 2007 Rudd Gillard renewable energy legislation required RET 32%, later Albanese Labor 2022 increased to RET 82%.
Because from my research engineering principles recommend a maximum of 30% of 100% electricity supply sources to be wind and solar technologies subject to cost-benefit analysis indicating it would be cost effective and with 100% controllable fuelled generators support.
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Howard’s RET expires in 2030. It is already dead in effect because LGCs are trading for $3.15/MWh. That would not put oil into your wind turbine.
The new renewable energy target is not legislated. It is aspirational.
All the new AEMO capacity contracts are simply taxpayer backed ROI build own operate contracts. So the estimated capital cost gets a guaranteed return. And you will help pick up the tab whether the projects generates electricity or not.
There is only one situation where grid connected wind or solar makes economic sense and that is to defer expenditure on new hydro dams where perched water storage is a constraint.
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Howard Kyoto COP 1997 objectives;
https://australiainstitute.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/Howards-Technology-Not-Taxes-WEB.pdf
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Text of media statement from the Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd.
Kevin Rudd, Prime Minister of AustraliaToday I have signed the instrument of ratification of the Kyoto Protocol. This is the first official act of the new Australian Government, demonstrating my Government’s commitment to tackling climate change.
Ratification of the Kyoto Protocol was considered and approved by the first Executive Council meeting of the Government this morning. The Governor-General has granted his approval for Australia to ratify the Kyoto Protocol at my request.
Under United Nations guidelines, ratification of the Kyoto Protocol enters into force 90 days after the Instrument of Ratification is received by the United Nations. Australia will become a full member of the Kyoto Protocol before the end of March 2008.
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The Abbott government attempted to repeal the Clean Energy Finance Corporation (CEFC) legislation, which was part of Labor’s renewable energy initiatives, but the repeal was voted down by the Senate with the support of the Greens and Labor. This marked a significant political battle over renewable energy policies in Australia during that time. The CEFC was designed to finance clean energy projects and was seen as a key component of Labor’s climate strategy.
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If all these coal plants come back online all over the world, I can guarantee that the CO2 levels ( via the Keeling Curve) will just keep going up in its usual gradual pattern. There won’t be a “ blip” or quick kick upwards, just as there wasn’t a kick downwards during the COVID lockdowns. Two things- world CO2 levels are not influenced by anthropogenic activities and if they were, the major emitters ( China , India ) are not limiting theirs anyway.
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FWIW – another one
“The coal plan”
“The Saskatchewan coal refurbishment plan, laid out by year until 2035.
This is the most detail I’ve seen so far, laying out expected cost per unit, and a year-by-year plan to rebuild them. And I go into some detail into how much cheaper this would be than building new natural gas-fired power plants. It’s a lot.”
https://pipelineonline.ca/the-coal-refurbishment-plan-laid-out-by-year-until-2035/#/?playlistId=0&videoId=0
Via https://www.smalldeadanimals.com/2026/03/30/the-coal-plan/
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Clintel are a group of Scientists who have the research and knowledge to explain the dubious modelling and how this has led to the waste of TRILLIONs of $ on our so called Climate Emergency.
The data proves there is no emergency and we are definitely living in the safest climate period in Human history, thanks to our use of Fossel Fuels.
We only need to look up the data since the start of the Industrial Revolution and then learn to think. So what’s their problem?
https://clintel.org/
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Perhaps we should demand that the “climate emergency” scientists take the Quiz from the co2 Coalition Scientists and see if they can pass it?
It’d be fun to see Holdren or Mann or Schmidt or Hansen or Dessler etc trying to complete the quiz.
https://co2coalition.org/climate-quiz/
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And Australian states governments threw a party as they blew up their forced closed coal fired power stations, bwahaha. DUMB AND DUMBEST
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Umm! Why do I get the distinct impression that they were all waiting for a perfectly good excuse to do ….. what they were always going to do all along ….. keep those coal fired power plants open for as long as possible, and please don’t try and tell me that those (who control those) in political power were not advised that the only ‘serious’ supplier of constant reliable sustainable power was, umm, you all know what!
As I’ve said all along ….. Coal Fired Power generation does have a future, and it looks like it will be quite a long future.
Tony.
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Yup, pay lip service while doing what is necessary.
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But first don’t worry about the future for Australians and their country, create wealth now from climate politics scare mongering based solutions that are tagged with sales and marketing “hyperbole and puffery”, renewable energy, green whatever sounds welcoming, tipping point, climate emergency, carbon dioxide “pollution”, oceans rising and will swamp the land coastal people live on, the list of creative explanations that when examined by intelligent qualified people are exposed as rubbish
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Get a grip carbonophobes, eschew cultural Marxist propaganda! We’re carbon based life-forms in this planet’s carbon cycle. Coal, oil and gas are all essential to the continuation and maintenance of life on planet Earth.
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Given that EU and UK world are running on sunshine and windmills and French nuclear and not prepared to fight for the Middle East oil, Trump has made an interesting call.
He is seriously considering ending the war with Iran without opening the straits of Hormuz. Then who has a problem?
As he says, the US is self sufficient in energy and oil and as no one else is prepared to fight for the straits of Hormuz, there is no pressing need for the US to do so.
Climate crap snooker. Europe in the corner pocket. Or course they can all, including Ukraine, go cap in hand to Russia.
Instead of Albanese demanding to know Trump’s exact intentions in the area without contributing an iota to oil independence. We can send Penny Wong to sort out the mullahs.
Australia will have to do it alone as on climate, save the world.
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Yes. Europe and Australia are not prepared to help keep the Strait open and the US doesn’t need it so why should the US bother?
Europe and Australia (and Japan etc.) can run their countries on wind, solar and Unicorn flatulence.
Let’s return Australia to pre-1900 transport technology with horses etc.. The Left will love it.
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As I have commented often here I have been watching the political global scams for decades past, my interest began when I heard on ABC Radio National’s India Pacific from 4 January to 8 February 1992: Whatever Happened To The New World Order, a six-lecture series and full text I purchased dated February 1992, Special Supplement.
Unfortunately only some people I have approached or posted comments to have been interested, and I have watched the horror movie of political agenda unfolding wondering when will people take notice?
Some politicians in government told me not to be concerned the UN is for the good of all people, a better future world, for all intents and purposes
Those people were war veterans who had experienced the Great Depression period as children and of parents who struggled to raise families, and then world war and refugees in the millions and need to resettlement and jobs – Snowy Mountains Hydro Electric Scheme from 1949 for example in Australia, homes and camps in Cooma, Jindabyne and other Mountain villages, multinational clubs where many ethnic groups mixed to socialise, etc
Meanwhile at the UN the leftists were beavering away worming their way in and implementing their since Fabians late 1800s Marxist objectives and “inevitability of gradualness” and other slogans based
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Of course many cannot accept that MAGA was based on businessman Donald Trump opposing the UN Lima Protocol favouring developing countries for transfer of manufacturing industry and removing trade barriers in developed countries to advantage developing countries for economic prosperity creation purposes, at the expense of developed economies.
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‘ … without opening the straits of Hormuz.’
A disaster beyond measure.
‘ … including Ukraine, go cap in hand to Russia.’
In your dreams.
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You missed every point.
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The latest..
“In recent days, Trump and his aides assessed that a mission to pry open the chokepoint would push the conflict beyond his timeline of four to six weeks.
He decided that the US should achieve its main goals of hobbling Iran’s navy and its missile stocks and wind down current hostilities while pressuring Tehran diplomatically to resume the free flow of trade.
If that fails, Washington would press allies in Europe and the Gulf to take the lead on reopening the strait, the officials said.”
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That won’t work.
The US wanders into the room and trashes the place, then tells us to clean up the mess.
He should have stuck to the script and attacked Cuba, everyone would have cheered.
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I love how Albanese is waiting for a call from the US for us to help out. Yeah, I always wait for a mate to ask for help when he’s in a fight before I help him.
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Not in the spirit of the ANZAC Treaty signed just after WW2 – Australia, New Zealand, United States !!!
Or the Five Eyes Intelligence Alliance of Australia, New Zealand, Canada, United Kingdom and United States, formed and based on military intelligence combined units embedded together at the Melbourne HQ of US General Macarthur who commanded the War In The Pacific military battles against the Japanese forces. In fact at least one Australian Army Military Intelligence Corps officer after WW2 was involved in establishing ASIO (Australian Security Intelligence Organisation and others).
ANZAC Prime Minister Albanese.
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Snowy Mountains Hydro Electric Scheme – renewable energy???
The Snowy Mountains Scheme, also known as the Snowy Hydro or the Snowy scheme, is a hydroelectricity and irrigation complex in south-east Australia. Near the border of New South Wales and Victoria, the scheme consists of sixteen major dams; nine power stations; two pumping stations; and 225 kilometres (140 mi) of tunnels, pipelines and aqueducts that were constructed between 1949 and 1974.
The scheme was completed under the supervision of Chief Engineer, Sir William Hudson. It is the largest engineering project undertaken in Australia.
Posted as an example of the spin the left excel in spreading, when Coalition Leader Angus Taylor commented that renewable energy is in his blood (genes) he was referring to his Grandfather Sir William Hudson
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All of what Dennis says above.
Here’s the link, and even though Dennis says it all, I want you to look at this link for one reason only.
As you scroll down, stop and actually read that section which deals with the Power Plants themselves.
All of this was built in a time when those size generators were the average size, as now China (the World leader in Hydro technology) has single hydro units getting up to 1500MW in size.
Read carefully the last column ….. Year of completion.
The oldest, Guthega, has been in operation since 1955, so 71 years, and the most recent Tumut Three (Pumped Hydro) since 1973, so 53 years.
Wind and Solar Plants can only dream of longevity like that.
You go and read about Chinese Hydro, and it gives a whole new perspective on that word ….. Technology.
Tony.
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As mentioned here before Tony, the Rubicon / Royston automated hydro electric system built in the 1920s under Sir John Monash as head of the victorian SEC. Not big, not grand, just still producing electricity 100 years after construction, All remote and automatic, the first ever system in the world. Still grinding out the power with very little “new” technology installed, mainly just maintenance of what the engineers built when vision was seen as a good thing. The plans these days are to build a 700 acre solar plant on the flood plain of the Rubicon river, this so it can be spliced in to the Rubicon A switch yard. The hydro system itself probably will never be upgraded with modern tech because it’s in forested country that is under various stages of discussion about “ownership”.
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I don’t like how the Left classify the original Snowy Mountains hydroelectric scheme among the “renewables” mix.
Unlike wind and solar, it is properly engineered and produces continuous power when operated within proper parameters.
Also hydroelectricity long predates the entire renewables scam and unlike wind and solar, is economically viable and doesn’t need subsidies.
And good luck trying to build any new dams in Australia today.
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David it’s all about diversions and political left positioning.
To explain “renewable” as in RET here transition away from fossil fuels to renewable energy many of the left sales people know that what we comment on is factual, as with land intensive, very expensive fully costed including transmission and firming, profit subsidies before earning profit from supply, and inefficiently unreliable intermittent operating times.
To convince the leftists quote “China has more reneweables than Australia” and pretend that means wind and solar and not other alternatives mainly hydro electric power stations. They even quote power stations converted to “green” wood chips they call biomass. And then total it all claim a misleading global of China related renewables installed figure, and then ignore capacity factor.
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They also play a game with nuclear power stations, how many are there worldwide they ask, and when answered 400 plus nuclear units they get annoyed and ask again power stations. That is also misleading because a plant as we know is one generator unit and a power station usually has two or more units and each one has a different generator installed capacity and combined installed capacity.
As if the simple number is meaningful.
Like SMR and where is a commercial SMR not realising that a small modular nuclear reactor is a nuclear reactor and designed for heating to produce steam, as compared to the ANSTO Lucas Heights Sydney First Of A Kind design built here to produce radio isotopes and for research, but still a small nuclear reactor.
The diversions and deceptive claims are many and varied and all crafted to deceive voters who are not well informed, and therefore promote RET as the only future with free energy, ignoring the cost of using that free wind and sunshine, like a free fuel sailing boat and ignore the expenses to utilise wind.
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FWIW – and still they come – USA
“Energy Department Saves More Coal Plants From Closure”
https://pjmedia.com/catherinesalgado/2026/03/30/energy-department-saves-more-coal-plants-from-closure-n4951259
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How about a candle factory for California?
sarc
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Double ended candles for profligate socialist California. (Burning the candles at both ends) These days even the billionaires are fleeing, as in New York. It takes real talent to chase away your highest tax contributors. Now the socialists are talking of making the new wealth taxes retrospective.
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Dennis
Some problems there I think
1. You wouldn’t be able to use paraffin wax
2. Bees wax might be in short supply.
3. Fat lamps and rushlights likely rated below the dignity of California
4. Carbide lights banned as hazardous
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The so call “activists” biggest fear is that there will be a global coal resurgence and their beloved CO2 level wont even notice. Just like the Covid slump.
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The CO2 level has not responded to 2 new coal fired power plants in China a week! CO2 growth is near a straight line for the last 45 years even though china as gone to 40% of world CO2 emissions.
But we are told China is also building hydro, solar and wind. As if that somehow reduces the CO2 from the 50 new coal power plants per year?
WInd and solar and hydro do not reduce CO2 output, but it sounds better than saying China is by far the greatest and fastest growing polluter on the planet. Not when your political donations, windmills and solar panels come from China.
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FWIW – for the covid files
“*It may not look like it, but there IS still bad news happening in places other than the State of Washington: Covid/Vax Updates”
https://rushbabe49.com/2026/03/30/it-may-not-look-like-it-but-there-is-still-bad-news-happening-in-places-other-than-the-state-of-washington-covid-vax-updates/
Via https://instapundit.com/786446/#disqus_thread
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The ironic political problem in clearing the straits of Hormuz without America is that the Europeans would have to work with Israel, masters of the region. And each with their large imported and unassimilatd anti Israel muslim populations, this may not be politically possible.
The same is very true of Australia. So no coal at home and no oil from the Middle East and a Royal Commission at home to try to explain the Bondi massacre of Jews in daylight at the most famous beach in Australia.
This is likely the reason none are going to help America clear the Strait of Hormuz and the reason the Americans are certainly not going to do it alone because as Trump says, America doesn’t need the oil.
This is an absurd political and economic and moral trap imported by the extreme leftist anti coal and anti Russia governments of Europe and Australia. Sit at home and condemn the Americans every day for fixing the massive Iran problem but hoping desperately that Trump finishes the job without their help.
Trump has rightly called them out. Why should Trump take the flak and lose American lives saving them again? The European total lack of gratitude continues from the last two wars while their official hatred of coal and oil and carbon and Israel is entirely political and historical fantasy, especially Germany and the UK.
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Meanwhile caught in the same political trap, Pakistan is holding ‘peace’ talks with all concerned Muslim and Arab and Pakistani neighbours without Israel, the US or Iran.
It’s farcical, trying not to help Israel while trying to solve the Shiite Iran problem as a Nuclear Iran openly threatens them all. 90% of all Shiites are in Iran which has spent most of its oil income in building a ballistic nuclear war machine to threaten them all, without limits. And the Americans may just go home without finishing the job completely. These are all states which have themselves waged war directly and indirectly on Israel.
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What a surprise. Not. Obviously coal is making a comeback because religious faith in the sun, wind and batteries was misplaced. Not a surprise to any informed person who can think rather than accept politicians, bureaucrats and various vested interests at their word.
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