Despite the obstacles, the free market just saved South Australian’s $110 million dollars
The Aurora plant was to be a bigger copy of Crescent Dunes, Solar Thermal Plant, California.
The Aurora Solar Thermal plant was going to be the biggest one in the world, but they couldn’t find enough private investors so it’s just been scrapped. That is despite the SA government being willing to give $110 million dollars, and the state being one of the sunniest, richest places in the world and with people already paying obscenely high prices for electricity. If Big-Solar could make it anywhere, surely there is no easier place on Planet Earth than in coal-less South Australia where competition from cheap reliable power has been completely extinguished?
A $650 million solar thermal power plant planned for Port Augusta will not go ahead after the company behind it failed to secure commercial finance for the project.
Despite all those fixed, unfair advantages, the market didn’t want to pay up for a 150MW bird frying power plant that would cost $650 million and probably only produce 30MW effectively. (The company’s prototype was Crescent Dunes which had a capacity factor of only 16%). Possibly investors also weren’t enthused about the dismal operation record of that smaller sister plant in California which was beset with maintenance issues and failed for one third of the time in its first two years. That 110MW plant cost $1.3b in 2015 and produced electricity at $178/MWh, nearly 6 times as pricey as the 53 year old Hazelwood coal plant managed in its last month of operation.
It was such a bad deal the government did everything it could to help:
Mr van Holst Pellekaan said the Government had done “everything it possibly can to support this project”, including extending deadlines, agreeing to changes to the project to add photovoltaic solar panels and introducing SolarReserve to potential financiers.
Earlier in 2017, the Federal Government confirmed it would grant $110 million in a concessional equity loan to support the project
The opposition (the same party that proposed the plant in 2017) blame its demise on the proposed $1.5b interconnector to NSW:
Opposition Leader Peter Malinauskas blamed the scrapping of the solar thermal power plant on the State Government’s plan for an interconnector to New South Wales.
He said the interconnector project, due to be completed by 2022, prioritised another state’s “dirty coal power over South Australian renewable power”.
“That was a bad decision and the people that are going to pay the price are the Port Augusta community, but also South Australian power consumers,” he said.
The unfree market can’t save us from stupid big government
That interconnector is a $1.5 billion project that will allow South Australia’s erratic electricity to help destroy baseload power in New South Wales just like it did in Victoria. Electricity prices are predicted to fall, but SA already has one interconnector to Victoria and prices have only gone up everywhere within 1,000km of that.
It takes big national planning to make big problems. Indeed, without the Heywood interconnector SA couldn’t have managed a state-wide blackout in 2016.
In the real economy, $1,500 million dollars buys a lot of electricity, or 6 gas fired plants, or most of one large advanced coal plant that could produce 2000MW of cheap electricity for 50 years (or indefinitely, as long we keep the maintenance going).
Kids are running the country.
h/t to Steve Hyland, Bill in Oz, Original Steve. Plus thanks to Graeme No 3 and AndrewWA in past comments for their help. And from TonyfromOz who says: “Everything about this SouthAus plant is the hyped to the max best case scenario that NO plant on Planet Earth has achieved yet…”
They knew Aurora was a turkey from the get-go. And those behind the interconnector and SA wind know that’s all a turkey. Think the boosters of Timmy’s Geothermia and the Illawarra Wave Generator were hoping to succeed? That’d be like watching Kojak and worrying he’ll get killed in the end and the baddie will get away. The only ones surprised are the public who continue to trust with no grounds for trust.
We should stop wasting time persuading those who already know that their globalist green plans are all turkeys. But when they say “war”, as in War on Coal, believe them. Give ’em their war.
Gutta viridans delenda est. Green Blob must be destroyed.
500
Jo – how much effort would it be to have a little applet on your web page that monitors the glorious renewable- loving “soviet states” that draw down power from the free enterprise coal-based states?
130
States? there is really only Queensland, NSW routinely imports
110
Tasmania also exports hydro power, pretty much 100% of the time.
71
Not when the water runs out.
And that seems to be about to happen
This year.
90
No it doesnt, look more often.
20
I spend some time during each day to take a look at the https://www.aemo.com.au/Electricity/National-Electricity-Market-NEM/Data-dashboard#nem-dispatch-overview website.
More often than not I see that TAS is pulling eneregy from Victoria.
e.g. Looking as I type I see Demand: 1138, Generation 641, Wind and Other 133 with the rest coming in from Vic. Unless I am just very unlucky and randomly pick those times Tas is pulling energy it seems that the hydro system is not keeping up these days.
30
You can see monthly generation history by fuel type at Anero.id site. Tas hydro varies from 200-1200 MW, generally peaking to meet morning and evening price/demand points, and then often using Vic imports to balance at other times.
10
Or mebbe…Stulti numquuam verificant.
70
Or How about .. Illegitimi non carborundum
30
nil carborundum illegitimi?
30
Don’t try google translate on these !!!
Ken’s translates to “Rats do not illegitimate?”
WTH ????
20
People named Roman, they go, the house?
00
:
No,No.
Romani ite domum
Now write it 100 times.
00
You don’t need Google, you need Terry Pratchett.
Illegitimi non carborundum roughly translates as ‘don’t let the bastards grind you down’, which seem apposite.
30
I don’t want to be abrasive, but carborundum is actually “silicon carbide”. 🙂
30
Oops, lol. ‘numquam’.
60
Of course. A Latin typo. The Romans used to do it all the time and they were slated for it.
160
Ah I knew it, qwerty is Latin for typewriter.
160
I saw the best electrons of coal generation destroyed by madness,
sulfer hydrogen nitrate,
dragging themselves through the national grid at dawn looking
for a renewable fix,
bituminousheaded hoppers burning for the ancient heavenly
connection to the steamy dynamo in the machinery of night,
120
🙂
31
The new inter-connector is being touted here in SA, by the state government, as a way of accessing the cheap reliable coal fired power of NSW.
Given the constraints on what the Heywood inter-connector can transmit to SA from the Latrobe valley in Victoria, that seems to be the truth. And presumably we here in SA be able to enjoy the benefits of reliable cheap coal power.
I certainly hope so as there is bugger all chance of a coal fired plant being actually built here. So buying it from 2500 Ks away ( ho, ho, ho ! ) seems the only option.
But the potential for SA’s windy turbines to undermine NSW’s coal fired generators is also a concern.
How could this be avoided ? What rules & regulations would be essential ?
Maybe Tony From Oz has some thoughts on this
171
PS : Does the fact that the Commonwealth government now does not have to spend $110 million on this boondoggle project, mean that the budget is even more in the black ?
171
$110 million to put into a HELE plant? Makes a lot more sense! Add that to the 1.5 bil for an interconnector, and poor old SA can start looking after herself! Can’t be that hard, its not a big state!
112
Still plenty of coal to be dug up in SA.
70
And a whole lot of uranium…..
20
You’re right, it’s not a big state. And it has no industry to power anymore.
90
How much use will this much-vaunted inter-connector be when Liddell closes? The farce (and the betrayal) deepens. Prices and reliability have each only one way to go; too bad they are in opposite directions.
250
AGL must be forced to divest Liddel.
The NSW government could do that
After all it was given to AGL for a pittance.
Once divested from AGL, it could be offered by auction
to the power company that offered the best deal interms of keeping it going long term
231
They would still have to deal through the Electricity Market.
No possibility of reduced power costs while the rigged market is in place.
KK
70
Trouble is that you would have to convince Gladys who is beginning to sound dangerously like a Green Blobbist!
00
They could buy another battery from Musk. The price for the last one just happened to be $110 million. What a coincidence.
110
They could think bigger battery – but
“Grid Scale Battery Nonsense 2019”
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2019/04/05/grid-scale-battery-nonsense-2019/
(Repeated)
70
But the potential for SA’s windy turbines to undermine NSW’s coal fired generators is also a concern.
How could this be avoided ?
Shouldn’t need any regulations NSW just need to install phase shifting transformers at its border to allow the state to rejecting imports just as some countries in Europe, Netherlands, Poland and the Czech republic, are doing with Germany.
https://new.siemens.com/global.en/products/energy/high-voltage/transformers/phase-shifting-transformers.html
90
Sorry, finger trouble typing the url. Try this one.
https://new.siemens.com/global/en/products/energy/high-voltage/transformers/phase-shifting-transformers.html
20
Actually, just refuse SA any power until they drop off thier wind power… simples ….
60
I think we need more information of these “Phase shifting transformers ”
How do they work and what dot they cost ?
21
This cost added to all the other costs associated with an intermittent supply working alongside a baseload supply just raises the cost of electricity to ridiculous levels and what’s worse is it never stops costing more to patch up a problem the economists missed in designing the whole mess .
20
Doesn’t the NATIONAL Electricity Market (NEM) mean that ALL generators get paid the same price, based on short time-period guesstimates of demand (15/30 minute???)?
If so, it does not matter how electricity is generated, interconnector or not. Having access to NSW generation may provide security but not lower prices.
Could someone with industry knowledge offer an opinion on this?
20
Why would they want to access nasty NSW coal power of any colour? surely they would be looking to export their wind power goodness at times that suited then regardless of demand. I mean like it would do so much to strengthen the NSW grid. Go Gladys!!!
00
Evil coal once again foils attempts to save the world.
120
Renewables = flogging a dead horse….an activity generally acknowledged as a waste of time and energy…
110
No offence, but you have to be off your medication to think building solar panels into your energy grid will build an extreme weather controlling machine … Oh wait … the 97% CSIRO … they’re 100% serious …
Data models for energy consumption
“In times of rapid change in the energy sector, we need rich data to plan for the energy system of tomorrow,” said Dr Berry.
This is particularly true in summer when the Australian energy system is most under strain due to high consumer demand and the increased likelihood of extreme weather events,”
https://www.innovationaus.com/2019/02/Data-models-for-energy-consumption
Wait. What?
How many solar panels must Australia build before Australia prevents it’s first extreme weather event?
140
My 13 yo daughter wanted to watch the clumate disaster movie “Geostorm”. She wanted to watch it as she reckoned she just wantd a good laugh…..and it was laughable…..people outrunning exploding gas mains in tiny electric cars…so funny….
130
Obviously an excellent education program there!
40
Get her on to the Sharnado series, pure gold. Also recommended Tremors, Mr and Mrs Gummer are my heroes.
00
What can I say? (I’d probably never stop)
However, remember that meme that renewables are cheaper than coal fired power.
This now failed proposal was going to cost $650 Million in total.
That’s for a plant that has a Nameplate of 150MW.
Going on the Capacity Factor (CF) of this technology, which is around 30% (28.7% from my research) so, that’s effectively just an equivalent power generation of 45MW. So, in reality, this technology has a CF no better really than wind power.
A 45MW plant for $650 Million. Please don’t even begin to tell me plants like this are cheaper than coal fired power.
As to that Capacity Factor, that’s from what I did back in 2013, when I researched every one of these type of plants in Spain, and back then, there were 24 of them, and now there are 34 of them in Spain. That Post is at the following link.
Solar Thermal Power (Concentrating Solar) Fail – Just Look At Spain
At the linked Post, there’s a graph which shows the insolation versus power generation for this technology, and click on the image to get it at a larger size on a new page.
The more heat diverted to the heat retention power block, the less power generation during daylight hours, and keep in mind that in most cases for those 24 listed plants in Spain, they use natural gas fired power to start up the turbine generator and deliver power until the solar function is hot enough to take over. There was one case in the U.S. where one of these plants was actually going to be reclassified as a natural gas fired plant because that source was in use more than the solar function.
At the bottom of the Post is a link to the current list for these plants, and if you go to the link, note the Nameplates, none higher than the much troubled Ivanpah plant in the U.S. The main problem is that they can only get enough heat from the Sun to drive a turbine capable of actually driving a 125MW generator, and Ivanpah has three of those 125MW generators. Most are in multiples of 50MW generators, so a 150MW plant has 3 X 50MW generators.
Tony.
310
(Gee Tony, you didn’t just link to a Model, now did you)
120
That happens when you believe your own hype. This is an immature technology, being rushed into megalomaniac projects while still suffering from teething problems.
50
Of course the State would be ecstatic to virtue signal their way with your money, all the way down the yellow brick, green unicorn road to the fetid swamp of Venezuelan bankruptcy; that’s what a socialist eco-Fascist boondoggles look like. You can be sure that the elite will still be swilling champagne and quaffing snails in Paris or wherever the current bubble-bound Green-fest de jour will be held.
In the meantime, one can’t wait for those useless trick cars and their hapless self-righteous, virtue signalling occupants to get hit with their “fair share” of the liquid fuel tax converted to a tax per km, once the proportion of trick cars reaches 2%.
It’s inevitable and it will be truly hysterical, as hysterical as their laughter is now when they believe they’re not only saving the planet and the grandchildren, but that its all a free ride into the Green sunset ad infinitum.
Back of envelope calculation suggests a NZ$ tax charge of around 12c / km ($120 per 1000 km or $1200 per 10000 km).
I can hear the prescient screeches, especially from the virtue signalling eco-Fascists.
But there’s just no avoiding that Leftist idea that everyone must pay their “fair share.”
170
Just noticed that my local shopping centre has installed two EV charging bays, rated at 6.6 KW, so seems that’s about 240 volts times 25 amps. As Telsa 3 has about 60 kWhr battery, I calculate that’s 9 hours to charge? So much for Silly Billy’s photo op standing by an EV charger saying it could charge in 8-10 minutes.
260
But just think of the smug virtue signalling the owners of $150,000 Teslas can experience at that shopping centre, while less affluent people chug past in their old petrol clunkers.
150
Oh, and I forgot to ask, do those charging stations displace a couple of disabled parking spots at the front of the shopping centre?
140
Yes, prime positions for the wealthy EVer’s.
120
And how do you pay or is charging “free” to encourage people to make the change.
90
No Tesla parking spots are for the disabled……..the mobility handicapped that is.
101
I wonder if one of us with an old clunker should park there & pretend to be recharging /
Delicious thought !
🙂
101
Shouldn’t be too hard to knock up a suitable holder that looks like a plug.
For added astonishment locate it behind a spring loaded numberplate holder like cars had in years agone. Prompted by
https://www.redpowermagazine.com/forums/topic/120740-you-go-girl/
(though I had one of those once)
70
It’ll be like people filling their BBQ gas bottles with LPG using fake fillers. Maybe the effluent owners of Teslas could fill their Tesla powerwalls from these free filling stations.
70
Of meander up with an electric toaster and a loaf of bread. 🙂
30
In winter, keep an electric heater in your car, so the car doesn’t get cold while you do the shopping. 🙂
I’m sure we could come up with lots of REAL uses for these power points. 🙂
60
Or even better, in summer, bring a bar fridge full of beer on the ute, plug it in
.. and then tell people they will have to wait until the beer is cold. 🙂
70
Once you make the physical connection it wouldnt take a whole lot to make a trickle charger out of it. I like it.
10
https://me.me/i/well-technically-its-green-parking-reserved-green-vehicles-none-19058754
80
Hilarious!
20
Going by the pic of Crescent Dunes at top, the new plant would be viable if we removed the solar reflectors and instead replaced them with pedal generators manned with pollies and greenies 24/7. I know the noise from worker complaints would be unbearable and so it should be built far from the rest of us clever people.
The rain would keep the “plant” cool and somewhat clean, hail would encourage faster pedalling and thereby output if we convince workers that it would cause hailproof covers to raise (pfft.. too expensive). Hot conditions would provide them with fluid from their sweat which they could drink. They’ll be paid when they’re finished because “Arbeit Macht Frei”.
Easy peasy.
200
In first year chemistry at University we were told ‘energy cannot be created or destroyed’.
They didn’t tell us that politicians had special exemptions from this natural law.
230
And Greenists get double pass exemptions !
Courtesy of their goddess Gaia !
Ummmm !
61
So who’s running the show?
This ongoing parody of real government and responsibility is a circus. States have ceded power to the Federal Government which is run by accountants and Greens.
You have to say our defence is run the same way. Diesel submarines which are no better than what we have for another $30Billion and run on a fuel which we have to import and for which we have 7 days reserve. Absolutely defenceless, both before and after we spend the money. Then the Australian Submarine company has spent millions on putting in their own diesel power plants because they cannot rely on South Australia’s grid for manufacturing, let alone the massive price of power.
It is all such a ridiculous farce, you can see Venezuela’s Maduro laughing at our utter stupidity. Socialist Australia. A country brought to its knees by endless laws about electricity. Brought to you by the Labor party, the Greens and the Liberal party all working to serve their masters in the 100,000 unelected bureaucrats in the EU and UN.
There was a time politicians felt a twinge of responsibility, but after party animals Julie Gillard, Julie Bishop and Christopher Pyne from SA, who cares? Helen Carbon Clarke is now third in charge at the UN, having pushed her country into UN carbon taxes.
We used to have real people as politicians, Bob Menzies, Gough Whitlam, Bob Hawke, Kim Beazley and Tony Abbott. Even Paul Keating was for the greater good. Good men with vision. Now we have self serving wimps, useful idiots like Malcolm Turnbull and Union lackeys like Gillard and Shorten. Woe is us.
Is no one home in Canberra?
190
Just be aware that Whitlam signed us into UNIDROIT in 1973 and all the thieving liars that took his post since haven’t fixed it, so the country’s inherent wealth is being siphoned away to Washington and Rothschild.
80
Central planning Tdef, the more power concentrated in one spot the less chance of others questioning the decisions, Hawke was a big supporter of eliminating state governments.
80
The local council amalgamations are based on the Soviet model of larger regional govts replacing state ones, but these report to the Supreme Soviet ( Federal govt ). This is why the amalgamations were pushed on people. its just implementing the Soviet model.
50
Off Topic but interesting :
“When a giant iceberg breaks away from near Britain’s Halley research base, it won’t be because of climate change.”
Quite a lengthy article about a glacier which is about to calve huge iceberg..And the scientists who are studying the glacier say it is NOT due to climate change.
I think we need to set up a Go Fund me” program for them as they will surely be outed by the dopey consensus mob.
https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-47817510
92
If green twits want to stop glaciers calving they simply need to stop it snowing first, which they proudly called called Global Warming™©® which they say causes less snow and also cooling and more snow blah blah. Hold them to an honest answer and their soiled pants tell the truth.
101
So this wonderful solar project / boondoggle located in ‘sunshine central’ couldn’t get funding even with the government guaranteed 100% LRET subsidy (approx AUD 60-80 per MWH delivered to the grid), and probably with help from the Clean Energy Finance Corporation to provide cheap financing at AU taxpayer expense? Wow – it must be a real DOG of a project. Thank god it didn’t happen. Remind me – who was promoting this crud?
120
Its interesting that they canned it now with so much “certainty” coming down the track. Renewables always need “certainty” , no business risk for them, just a gauranteed conveyor belt of money. Cough…Hepburn Springs….cough.
60
It’s a bit amusing to see the ex-premier blaming the planned NSW interconnect as the reason for the project not being able to secure funding. Amusing because he is admitting that his pet project was going to produce electricity at a higher rate than the rest of the country and was therefore going to gouge consumers even harder, creating even more energy poverty and job losses.
With this slip of thhe tongue, at least we now know how he really feels about the people who once voted for him.
100
Looks like a giant Fresnel lens, or the vinyl record that MAD magazine put in one issue.
The record had about 5 or 6 different endings, as there were 5 or 6 tracks starting at the outer edge of the record and which track played depended upon which track the stylus engaged. The first part of each track was the same tune, just the endings different.
30
I noticed that and wonder why the off-sets.
Could it be for easier access to repair or replace?
10
Mirrors (flat mirrors, BTW) are set in concentric circles. 13 outermost circles are incomplete and slowly peter out on the southern side. Look at the shadow of the tower, the picture is taken around 2 pm. Apparently mirrors south of the tower would contribute less.
10
It’s important to keep the truth as given in this post up in front of people.
Eventually the weight of true comment must be seen as credible and consumers will demand cheap power available from Any Source but Renewables.
KK
81
Crescent Dunes is in Nevada not California. I have lived in both states and they both suck.
50
Correct David from TX. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crescent_Dunes_Solar_Energy_Project
20
Oh that’s a shame. We could have used it to fry the cult leaders of the CAGW scam.
80
🙂
31
Good!
20
Just a sidelight on the issue: In the high-minded tradition of every environmentalist project, the US solar thermal power plant at Ivanpah (California? Nevada? whatever) has never generated its projected power. It uses a diesel generator to reach full power. Better yet, in the course of its ongoing major failure, it causes rafts of avian fatalities by incinerating birds that fly too close to the receiving tower. Locals call these occurrences “streamers” because of the smoke trails of burning plumage the dying birds leave in their plunge. The daily kill includes raptors and every other bird that wanders too close to the tower’s concentrated solar energy. Streamers occur, I understand, about every two minutes during daylight hours.
Airline pilots also complain that the mirrors are blinding when flying past them.
Congratulations, Aussies, for a wise decision.
140
Just a sidelight on the issue: In the high-minded tradition of every environmentalist project, the US solar thermal power plant at Ivanpah (California? Nevada? whatever) has never generated its projected power. It uses a diesel generator to reach full power. Better yet, in the course of its ongoing major failure, it causes rafts of avian fatalities by incinerating birds that fly too close to the receiving tower. Locals call these occurrences “streamers” because of the smoke trails of burning plumage the dying birds leave in their plunge. The daily kill includes raptors and every other bird that wanders too close to the tower’s concentrated solar energy. Streamers occur, I understand, about every two minutes during daylight hours.
Airline pilots also complain that the mirrors are blinding when flying past them.
Congratulations, Aussies, for a wise decision.
100
I’ve been checking AEMO’s Data Dashboard twice a day for several months now. When the wind blows in South Australia, yup – they can sell excess to Victoria – cheap. When the wind isn’t blowing – up goes the price of imported power. The ‘good word’ of the day is ‘intermittent’…..
I note that Tasmania also has some pretty steep prices on occasion.
The Internet – I can sit 7,000+ miles away and get a good idea of wind conditions (and thunder storms) in Australia. (And yes, Vegemite is available in the US.)
https://aemo.com.au/Electricity/National-Electricity-Market-NEM/Data-dashboard#nem-dispatch-overview
10
Good to hear food of the gods is available to our septic cousins.
00
“Septic”? I’m old enough to remember WW2, and having US Army and RAAF personnel in the house for a Sunday chicken lunch – and a game of cricket in the back yard afterwards. Is Coral Sea week still celebrated? Long memory…..
20
You should expect new/alternative technologies to prove themselves in niche markets before widespread adoption is warranted in the mainstream. This article effectively describes an atypical market (maybe not quite a niche but with similar characteristics) where costs are high, need is great, the area is well suit d to the particular resource and yet it is not competitive. If people paid attention to important things like costs, practicality and logic – most would be realizing solar is not ready for prime time in broad applications.
110
Sadly, probably no lessons will be learnt amongst the groups that need to learn them , mainly our political class and the mindless renewables fanboys.
This project was trumpeted as a major event/win for SA. All the usual hubris and claims of powering X thousand homes were there. In failure you might see a couple of paragraphs and some finger pointing. I have an interest in such things bit missed the announcement as it was quietly ushered through the media. Hot rocks, tidal and wave energy projects have all followed the same cycle.
I am not sure how the fanboys adjust their brains to deal with the concurrent ideas that renewables are way cheaper the coal and gas, and yet you cant get a solar project off the ground with all kinds of subsidies/contributions, tilted playing fields and all possible following winds. I guess the uncommercial “no brainer” is due to some conspiracy.
90
> I guess the uncommercial “no brainer” is due to some conspiracy.
Yep, we have one in our office, in his words coal is expensive, renewables are the way of the future as they cost nothing, etc. Every time we are lured into an argument about this as he preaches at us at least once a week he is convinced that Big Oil or Coal is buying up these projects and wrecking them.
10
Further to TonyfromOz’s comments at #8, there is an historical angle to this Australian infatuation with the Crescent Dunes example of solar thermal. It was the centrepiece of the ABC’s Four Corners program of 7 July 2014 called Power to the People.
The program made hysterical claims about Crescent Dunes powering Las Vegas by night, etc. The broader context was to claim, yet again, that the world was on the verge of major renewable breakthroughs, and that PM Tony Abbott’s Warburton review into reducing Australian renewable energy targets was retrograde.
It was already clear the ABC program was a complete concoction, so I complained to the ABC internal Audience and Consumer Affairs team about lack of mandated impartiality and diversity of perspectives. When they (of course) pronounced themselves well-pleased with the program, I further complained to Australian Communications and Media Authority, which also decided it could not intervene. Its report of the whole schmozzle is at:
/TV-investigations/Word-document-2015/3266-ABC-Four-Corners-docx.docx?la=en
We now go to an election with competitively idiotic energy policies from the major parties, coasting on the public misinformation from our national broadcaster about allegedly game-changing renewable technologies.
110
Sing out when you find an authority with teeth Tezza.
The ABC behemoth is getting noticeably grumpy and impatient today because the Prime Minister has shown no sign of calling the election to its timetable; he’s only obliged to petition for a half senate election and could continue his spluttering drive to a House election as late as November. What a far cry from Julia Gillard’s approach to election dates.
40
A half senate election would be a good idea.It would get rid of some of the dopey senators in the current list..
Might see some of the greenists and extreme right wing nutters all booted
And thus allow for some legislative progress between July 1st and mid November when a House of Reps election is required.
And in the meantime folks have extra cash in their pockets courtesy of the tax cuts in the budget..
I’m not Sco-Mo, but if I am was him, that would be my secret plan.
And of course Labor will be screaming ” We wuz robbed ”
All good !
21
Who are these extreme right wing nutjobs? Can you list them with examples of the extreme right wing things they have said?
10
Another blow to billy ocasio cortez.
How did he get a mobile phone mixed up with a car? 7 to 8 minutes?
A doughhead for our prime minister.
I can’t put up wiff that.
80
I think you’ve nailed it.
But who can blame him for not taking batteries on wheels as a serious future tachnology?
20
“Whiff” I think – something smells rotten.
40
Incidentally, Jo, you should correct the caption on the photo. Crescent Dunes is in Nevada, not California.
00
What Electricity Bill is promoting with his vision of 50% of new vehicles being electric is simply that households should be purchasing new, very large, very expensive, and very power hungry electrical appliances that will require even more baseload generation. You can fool some of the people, but hopefully not enough to get him elected.
40
Looks like a losing technology, but the tomatoes taste ok.
https://www.transcontinental.com.au/story/5934376/business-port-augusta-slams-sundrop-sale-speculation/
10
As an Adelaide boy I must confess to getting a slight warm fuzzy when I read this post this morning.
Although, in the interest of full disclosure, that fuzzy may also have been from my Saturday night cooking… 😀
20
It’s about time Australia stopped supporting the vasket case that is SA.Make them learn to live within their means. No bailout interconnects or submarine project…and cartinly no more subsidised industries like the failed car industry.
Make them move to were there is work…or no dole money. They have been a tick on Australia’s back for far to long.
40
so harsh, so very harsh
20
Reality! The Darwin
Award for getting it
right. Award fer getting
it wro-ong, immediately
or anon, the Extinction
Award, Naychur don’t do
no consensus polling.
10
S depressing that it took this long,….. and then only due to some foreign based finance decision, …..for this project to be seen as the farce it always was going to be.
You didnt even need the glaring examples of ivanpah or Spain to tell you that a 150 peak MW solar thermal plant with only 8-10 hours of storage, was a joke,
The proposal was obviously predicated on conning the gullible politicians of SA into subsidy rich contracts to enable a “Rebate Farm” to be constructed ,with no real regard for the trchnical or practical viability of the technology. !
I believe some of the proposed solar and Wind farm projects are also under review now ?
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Truely depressing that it took foreign finacial logic rather than Aussie common sense, to kill off this project .
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Thank God this bird torturing monstrosity has been canned. Pure, vile evil.
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Wanna win an election??????
Cut the beer tax and win a landslide a la Ontario
Posted on 5:22 pm, June 15, 2018 by Rafe Champion
Creativity and sex have long been linked, as has art with the contravention of bourgeois values. Long may it be so. By the way, what is wrong with bourgeois values?
On a main topic, apparently James Allen has a super post in The Spectator this week. Mine has not arrived but it looks as though the whole thing is posted on Facebook The Australian Climate Skeptics Group. The word has been around for a few days that the left liberals in Ontario Canada were recently wiped out by the Conservatives. This is the winning platform.
1/ Repeal the existing climate change policy that instituted a cap-and-trade system as well as opposing a minimum price on carbon emissions and any sort of carbon tax.
2/ Repeal the existing Green Energy Act.
3/ Scrap a planned hike of the minimum wage.
4/ Cut corporate taxes by almost 20 per cent as well as cutting middle-class income taxes by precisely 20 per cent for those earning between $42,960 and $85,923 per annum.
5/ Cut petrol taxes at the pump by 10 cents a litre by ending the 4.3 cent a litre carbon tax.
6/ Scrap an existing ideological sex education curriculum and replace it with one after real consultation with parents.
7/ Get rid of the new age methods of teaching maths and bring back old-fashioned, proven methods of teaching.
8/ Change the laws and taxes so that beer can be sold at pre-2008 prices.
Obviously it was the beer tax that did it, a record turnout despite non-compulsory voting.
And this left-wing Liberal Party that espoused every fashionable global warming cliché going and which had closed gas-fired electricity plants and driven power prices through the roof was slaughtered. There is no other word for it. In the post election legislature (now increased from 103 to 124 spots) it won 7 seats. Yes, 7 – the fourth prime number. That’s 7 out of 124, a total so low that the Liberals lost official party status. Indeed, it was the worst wipeout result in Ontario electoral history.
Meanwhile the Conservatives or Tories made all of the pledges I listed above, all of them, and won 76 of the 124 seats on offer – a massive majority. Of the remainder, a hard-left union party won 40 (becoming the official opposition) and the Greens took the final seat. Oh, and in this jurisdiction of non-compulsory voting it was the biggest voter turnout in 20 years. I suppose one thing you could say is that the Tories in Ontario were lucky not to be taking advice from Mark Textor and actually opted to put a Grand Canyon-sized gap between their policies and those of the lefties.
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Thanks D69,
I’ve sent your reply to my local federal member. In hope.
Cheers,
Dave B
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Capitalism is quite easy to understand. If it will make money they will invest, if it doesn’t they won’t.
Here in the UK we are edging our way to blackouts and a recent GWPF post suggests grid failure, as coal is replaced by wind and the hoped for CCGTs are not getting any takers as investors don’t see a return.
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Yes, the UK is so far down the path to ruin it’s hard to see how it can turn back.
Their failure is epitomised by the conversion of Drax coal fired power station to the burning of imported wood pellets as though the principal benefit coal brought to society, saving its forests, had been unlearned.
Australia is on a frolic all its own determinedly pushing for east coast grid failure and the AEMO which must be able to see this coming is yet to petition for embargoing the further closing of coal fired power stations without equivalent despatchable generation in place –oh yeah, its head Audrey Zibelman was one of the jubilant applauders of Hazelwood’s shutdown…
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Are we the first generation of humans to regress?
You mention Drax and they are now the subject of protest as they propose converting the remaining plant to gas. It is quite straightforward, they are being hit with global warming carbon taxes for using coal, the government won’t hand them any more taxpayer cash to burn trees, so gas is the alternative.
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Hivemind said April 6, 2019 at 9:31 pm · [Tasmania also exports hydro power, pretty much 100% of the time.]
Not so – as shown by Open Nem for Tas – if you pick the 1Y option
https://opennem.org.au/#/regions/tas
you can see they exported heavily June through Sept which happened to be a wet spell and that depressed prices so they made little. For about half the last 12 months they were mainly importing.
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