Red-pill time
Basic facts, details, accuracy, buried under the weight of propaganda.
Here’s a lost fact: most of the world likes fossil fuels and wants even more of it.
The world is using more fossil fuels than ever.
And this is not exactly a new trend — starting in 1765 or so. Yet despite that, nine out of ten Australians speak as though they have been trained by a renewable energy ad bureau. And in a sense they have.
A few years ago, 88% of Australians would say that fossil fuels are in decline around the world and we must invest in “alternatives”. So nine out of ten people are just wrong. Despite all that connectivity (or possibly because of it) nine out of ten people know something that is not true and has never been true during their entire lives.
Lowy institute polls show how strong the effect of propaganda is. Vale the ABC, undoing science education, and destroying the national debate every day of the week.
89% of Australians think fossil fuels are in decline. Graph. Lowy Poll
On the plus side, the more wrong the reporting, the more the real story rattles the cage. When people get red-pilled they don’t just learn that fossil fuels are still popular and important, they also learn they can’t trust the media, that consensus means nothing, and that opinion polls are often junk. There is a lot of upside here for the truth-tellers.
Would you like contradictions with that?
In question two of the same survey, eighty percent of the population say that fossil fuels cause climate change and we should reduce them. This factoid has been used to scare politicians into signing up all to all kinds of bad deals and silly laws. Yet in questions 3 and 4 we find out that two thirds of the population also agrees that we should continue to export fossil fuels to developing nations. And half the population say we have an abundant supply and should not just export them, but use them too. Evidently most people think fossil fuels are good for the economy — both ours and the third worlds.
Assuming the people who disagreed with the first two questions were the same people who agreed with using more fossil fuels (as would be consistent) that still means one third of Australians will simultaneously say they believe fossil fuels are declining and causing climate change but we should export them and use them anyway.
Jobs trumps “climate change” every time
So what do the contradictions mean? Mostly that the media is telling porkies, but also that people are telling pollsters what they think they want to hear. On top of all that, the bigger truth is that people value the economy and jobs more than the imaginary threat of climate change (which is consistent with nearly every other survey done anywhere).
Let the Red-pilling begin.
h/t Simon.
REFERENCES
Global Energy Use, OWID: https://ourworldindata.org/fossil-fuels
EIA: US Government https://www.eia.gov/outlooks/aeo/
I’m not convinced at all that it matters very much what 7, 8, or 9 people out of 10 think, in terms of fossil fuels. Coal, oil, and gas are different, but it’s clear that oil is the only one that realistically runs our whole complex world.
The problem is that oil has to a certain price so that a whole range of extraction and production models can make a profit, but society will not and cannot pay that price. There is no sweet spot. The world of cheap oil and happy motoring are over.
[Trite Nihilist and baseless nonsense from TT. No facts, no links, no sensible point. It’s just low IQ dilution at the top of the thread. This belongs on an Unthreaded as it is “not even wrong” in relation to this post. – Jo]
170
[Comment removed by request of TdeF.]AD
10
This is getting weirder and weirder.
What is this?
321
Sounds like an incoherent version of peak oil. We are awash with cheap oil at the moment. We can certainly pay a lot more, as we already have.
432
Will US Shale Trigger Another Oil Price Crash?
A year after the pandemic and the disagreement within OPEC+ over supply management crushed oil prices, the industry finds itself at an all-too-familiar crossroads: Will OPEC’s bet that U.S. shale’s “drill, baby, drill” is gone forever be right this time? Analysts seem to concur that this is a safe bet, at least for this year, as U.S. shale overall will keep the promised spending discipline. In a sign that spending beyond cash flows is a thing of the past, major listed producers now say that growing production for growth’s sake would be a big mistake. Instead, they have vowed to return more cash to shareholders.
U.S. oil production may never return to the weekly peaks of 13 million barrels per day (bpd) just before last year’s market crash. But it is already steadying at around 11 million bpd, which is 1 million bpd above the May 2020 lows when producers curtailed output in response to impossibly low—and negative for a day—oil prices.
Drilling activity has been on the rise since the fall of 2020, and considering the lag between rising oil prices, the addition of oil rigs, and actual oil production, expectations are that U.S. oil production will gradually increase through the end of this year.
110
“Nine out of ten people are just wrong.”
That’s a consensus building, courtesy of Dr. Joseph Goebbels.
221
It’s simply called rubbish.
161
Are you saying that oil is clear! Sheer madness. Again.
131
Tilba tilba
As the price of oil rises more difficult to extract oil becomes profitable. Biden thinks he knows this, so he bans new drilling, and the price rockets. This just makes it more economic for others overseas to extract and send it to the US. Own goal for the US in so many ways…
There is plenty of oil out there. We have had cries, that I can remember, of it running out since the 1970s but the amount available is still the same. Of course at some stage, theoretically it will run out, but that is a long way off.
471
Indeed, with fracking the amount of available oil has mushroomed.
272
Fracking is uneconomic, environmentally awful, and the decline rates are horrendous. But mostly it doesn’t pay. Tar sands the same. The cost of production is too high in relation to the energy gained, and it’s higher than most economies are able to pay.
Investment in fracking has stalled.
Regular fuel in Melbourne was $A1.659 per litre … that is the highest metro price I can ever recall. And it’s not just a function of inflation – we have almost none.
149
Since that “lecture”, gas prices have gone under $2/gal several times.
251
Oil at $60 is undoubtedly a comfortable price level for U.S. shale. The longer OPEC+ is careful not to sink prices by easing the cuts too much, the more comfortable U.S. producers will be in their spending and drilling activity. OPEC+ will be closely watching and responding with production hikes to the potentially faster-than-expected recovery of American production. But the alliance will also need to be careful not to further ease the cuts sooner than the market requires, because sinking U.S. shale again by crashing oil prices will also sink the budgets of the OPEC producers, who continue to be too dependent on oil revenues and haven’t yet recovered from last year’s price collapse.
110
Stick to things you know about Tilba. Fracking is not uneconomic, it is used everywhere oil and gas are extracted.
181
The creditors of Chesapeake Energy might not agree with you 🙂
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/jun/29/chesapeake-energy-fracking-pioneer-files-for-bankruptcy-owing-9bn
113
Ah Yes the green-left’s cheat sheet, “The Guardian”. They’ll be cracking the Champagne at that news. Stuff the CO2 that bubbles out.
I’ll bet you’ll never read this in the Guardian though:
BP’s Argos platform arrives in Texas
“Argos, the centerpiece of bp’s $9 billion Mad Dog 2 project, has arrived in the US after safely completing its 16,000-mile journey from South Korea to the Kiewit Offshore Services fabrication yard in Ingleside, Texas.”
“Argos, a semi-submersible, floating production platform, will be the company’s fifth operated platform in the Gulf of Mexico– and the first new platform since Thunder Horse began production in 2008. It will provide bp with growth potential and an estimated 25% increase in production capacity in the region.
This underpins a key pillar of bp’s strategy: a resilient and focused hydrocarbons business that will be a key source of earnings to drive bp’s transformation into an integrated energy company.”
What’s that? BP, that epitome of green energy, has a hydrocarbon growth strategy? Oh dear. Yes.
And there we were watching the green idiots think that BP had become woke with all its green propaganda and rebadging.
https://www.energy-pedia.com/news/usa/bp%e2%80%99s-argos-platform-arrives-in-texas-182616
70
Fracking has been used in QLD to deliver a gas boom. Only in Philistine Victoria and now with Biden desperate to hamstring the industry, to name a couple is there opposition. Fracking is fantastic and claims its uneconomic make no sense at all.
142
When I was sharing a house we rented for $380 a week, I was paying over 80c a litre, and that house sold for over $2.6M. Stupid Sydney house prices but you get the idea of how much inflation is.
Cars are barely more, and much better value, than 20 years ago, while services are much more expensive so I’ll compare it with the aged pension that has more than doubled since 2002. Petrol prices have gone up from $0.88 to $1.41 in 2019 (dropping to $1.20 due to Covid). Using the pension as a guide, it should be $1.90. It’s peaked at $1.65 but averages $1.55. It’s about 85% of what poor people paid 20 years ago. Using average wages, even less.
61
I come from an area where the nearest refinery exclusively processes local fracked crude and syncrude from oil sands in Canada. The price of gasoline has almost doubled from a year ago. It’s now about US $0.7/L.
61
I think you will find the petrol price spike in Melbourne is a direct result of the two weeks of school holidays coinciding with Easter, which is traditionally when Melbournians leave town in droves for a few days (particularly after a year of virtually no travel).
The oil companies raised the price by 40c. per litre to take advantage of this obvious and wholly predictable fact.
31
TT,
What price do you think society isn’t paying? Modern combustion techniques result in mostly CO2 and water vapor as byproducts, neither of which has any required costs of remediation. We do pay the cost of cleaning up the combustion process, i.e. removing real pollution, but for all intents and purposes, that price is already baked in to the price of fossil fuels, at least it is in the developed world.
You need to get past the false climate change narrative as it’s clearly interfering with your logical processing, much in the same way that TDS has broken the minds of many otherwise intelligent people. It’s the natural consequence of weak minds accepting widely repeated lies that many accept due to confirmation bias alone and the more the lies are repeated, the stronger this bias becomes.
341
Patronising word salad.
You’re the one the body snatchers have invaded. Peak Oil deniers. Global Warming deniers. Greenhouse Gas deniers. Renewable deniers. Trump Crime Family deniers. Biden Win deniers. Pandemic deniers. Mask deniers. Vaccine deniers. Do you see the patterns there?
[Empty name-calling. TT is having a very bad day. Is the usual TT on holiday? Who is this low IQ substitute? This is not even worthy of “target practice”. It’s just dilution. – Jo]
156
The only pattern I see is that many people are so influenced by repeated emotional triggers, whether rational and justifiable or not, their ability to apply logic and reason becomes compromised. Nearly every despot who has risen to power has exploited this uniquely human weakness.
My conclusions about climate science are based on testable, repeatable science conforming to the scientific method. What I see being denied are the laws of physics, like Thermodynamic Laws, the Stefan-Boltzmann Law and more. It should come as no surprise that it’s the IPCC and it’s self serving ‘consensus’ who are guilty of this by fabricating the sciency sounding stuff you faithfully accept in their attempt to support your political agenda.
I can guarantee that someday you will have no choice but to accept this undeniable truth.
461
…thankyou. I will take that as a compliment!
161
TT,
Peak Oil has been predicted every year for 40 years since early 70s. Never happened. Over last decade, the ‘Peakers’ have given up predicting this fantasy – except for you.
The rest of your denial complaints have had serious problems with claims made for them. For example, there is no scientific evidence, anywhere, that wearing surgical masks provides any significant protection from virus transmission.
131
Peter – yes we have the denial concept pushed hard related to the imaginary impacts of fossil fuels. This has with masks unfortunately spilled over to public health.
Dr Young here in QLD has instituted mask mandates, without considering the significant NEGATIVE AND PROVEN health and safety consequences of masking. Like significantly reduced cognition – so why do we have courier and transport drivers not warned about this. I see them pull into the business I work at, all masked – and all increasing their own and other road users risk. We have warnings on medication about this, but masks? “its just a mask”….
Then we have the one which tipped me off. Severe headaches – the majority of wearers get headaches, some (like me) severely. My boss and others say that apart from the cognitive issues the headaches make it hard to concentrate. And are these headaches not indicative of other issues??? But no, “its just a mask”….
We have increased heart rate and lowered O2 sats in those wearing masks for extended periods (think many many Queenslanders at present). Again “its just a mask” so move on…
Breathing reduced O2 content air day in day out weakens the immune system and we see from the increased heart rate and lowered sats, and the severe headaches that this is not something benign at all. But again, Dr Young will just say ” its just a mask”…
And the punch line – they have no significant effect on covid or viruses. There are no studies which Dr Young can point to, that show that the masking does anything significant for covid. She just copies others blindly without thought of any negative consequences – which are significant.
Studies showing the negative impacts;
https://clinmedjournals.org/articles/jide/journal-of-infectious-diseases-and-epidemiology-jide-6-130.php
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7680614
https://www.researchgate.net/deref/https%3A%2F%2Fpubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov%2F32232837%2F
The extended use of the “denier” term needs to stop. Instead we need to engage in proper debate rather than silence and label , when as we see with masks, for example, we need to be talking about this on health grounds.
90
Happy motoring?
I’m just hoping for keeping the lights on and not freezing in winter.
210
Electricity prices have gone up more than three fold since 2002. The average price of fuel in Melbourne, $1.55, is 76% more than it was in 2002.
80
That’s the tragedy, before all this nonsense electricity prices rose less than inflation CONSISTENTLY.
40
It has long been my view that the climate change movement will hit a wall when people are directly affected. Windmills are hidden but blackouts are real, for example. We are finally approaching that point and I am optimistic.
542
They always blame capitalism.
120
I agree to some extent David, but alas, when the public are so well trained in nonsense, the public discussion is far from having a useful reply ready to go. Instead the corrupt will exploit the nonsense and then use the crisis to strengthen their position.
131
Thank you Jo for your contributions to the public discussion.
Your blog with its frank and sometimes humorous posts and the ensuing discussion are a shining light in the dismal discourse.
I just wish that you had even more readers.
50
David
my view that the climate change movement will hit a wall when people are directly affected. – but blackouts are real, for example. We are finally approaching that point and I am optimistic.
We are already at Peak Stupidity.
Northern Beaches Councils is proposing – Electric vehicle charging infrastructure plan Inviting feedback
Check out the plan and comment below
Supporting electric vehicle technology
The draft Electric Vehicle Charging Infrastructure Plan has been developed to guide the future management of publicly operated electric vehicle (EV) charging stations in the Northern Beaches.
The draft plan creates the framework for establishing a future network of EV charging stations and outlines conditions for the installation, management, maintenance and removal of EV charging infrastructure on identified Council sites.
Read the draft plan and have your say by:
completing the submission form below
emailing us at [email protected]
writing to us marked ‘EV charging infrastructure plan’ Northern Beaches Council,
PO Box 82 Manly, NSW 1655.
You may also like to speak directly with the project team at one of our upcoming drop-in sessions:
Dee Why Civic Centre – Banksia Room: Wednesday 21 April (5.30-6.30 pm).
Online: Thursday 6 May (5.30-6.30pm).
Registrations are required for both sessions.
So Ratepayers will subsidise Rich People who can afford Electric Cars – Why not Electric Car Manufacturers fund the Charging Infrastructure?
180
When the dawn of motoring arrived, it was the mob who made the fuel the cars run on that built the fueling infrastructure, it should be the same for electric vehicles, the power companies sell the power, let them build the charging stations.
90
Yes but….. not with the battlers’ [still driving an old Falcodore] money cross subsidising the woke’s indulgence.
Some seed money to get things going OK but after that any expansion must be funded by sales of electricity to EV owners or the normal borrowed money at commercial interest rates by an entity NOT set up to fail and leave the taxpayer carrying the bag.
71
Interesting that in the Socialist Republic of Victoria they are actually promoting an EV tax. So, basically a tax to make EV drivers contribute to road maintenance etc, which ICE vehicles do via fuel tax. Maybe it’s something to do with Andrews being off work at the moment? Because it poor optics for the Labour government to disincentivize a “green” policy. They usually lose votes in inner suburban Melbourne that way. Mind you I haven’t heard a quantum on the EV tax yet. Perhaps it will be hideously low. Or perhaps its a whole thought bubble exercise and it will be canned quietly. Later, when asked, the Labour politicians can say they tried but it was economically unsound – or weasel words to that effect.
31
This idea emerged first in SA.
https://www.caradvice.com.au/900290/south-australia-to-apply-road-tax-to-electric-vehicles-other-states-may-follow/
10
More than likely it will be a milage tax paid by ICE drivers as well, over and above their current petrol tax and rego.
Labor has never seen a tax they don’t like.
40
Had a quick look at this plan. The lack of any quantification struck me immediately! After some digging (not in the plan) there are 10 sites listed on the NB website going up to level 3 (50KW).
It would be useful if there was some kind of modelling of the electrical power needed. But alas.
The plan appears to be inconsistent with the tables on the council website where they confuse level 2 (22kW) with level 3 (50kW) chargers)
The level 3 (50KW) chargers have, according to the plan, a charging time of 20 to 60 minutes and are to be used at ‘high demand locations’. I guess where petrol stations are located now (or similar).
How should we compute the number of chargers? Filling up with petrol takes 5 minutes. Would we then require 20/5 to 60/5 equals 4 to 12 times as many chargers as there are petrol pumps?
Would that mean that at a ‘high demand location’ we may have 8×8 (8 for the number of petrol pumps and 8 as the average of 4 and 12) equals 64 chargers? You would at least end up with the same average capacity as a petrol station.
Which would be a power requirement of 64x50kW = 3.2MW? With 10 of those across the NB you reach 32MW. Not too bad but you need a mid-range wind farm to power that (accounting for ~20% capacity factor).
And that would be a sizeable charging station, allowing for 64 cars at the same time.
Does anyone know how such sites are designed?
10
Paul, the load on the local substation by a multi “super charger” station has always interested me. In my research a while back I found this power consumption chart of a major shopping centre and waddayano, I found it again. 😀
This is a case study which may help you. It is a study into power factor correction but the raw power usage is what would interest us. This is no piddlin shopping centre:
and it draws the same load that your theoretical “servo” would.
Hope this helps.
10
Thanks Hanrahan,
Yes, the Townsville shopping center looks like to be in the 3MW range. Do you know anything about fast charger power factor?
What surprises me is that a council (Northern Beaches) asks for feedback on what is to a large extent an electrical power technical issue. Surely, they can canvas opinions and views from rate payers but how will that ever result in a well thought out engineering solution?
Is it because the folks at NB do not have the skill to understand that they need a technical solution as well as a community accepted solution?
10
Under the Liberty brand we have had at least 4 new, large, servos built in town. The one I drive past has about 40 petrol fill points but doesn’t need a lot of RE. It’s on a major road but no way does the town need 100+ new bowsers total. The company can only be buying the real estate for EV charging but it would have to be Chinese money backing them.
My guess is that in ten years’ time there will be 10 EVs here and they will be Uni Profs and they have a charge point on campus anyway. I don’t give a rat’s whose money it is as long as it is not publicly funded.
20
I live with a sheeple, nothing will open his eyes. Blackouts? They would have nothing to do with green policies, he knows that.
10
Part of our brain is a creative fantasy machine. I guess an unintended corollary of the evolution of the trial-and-error mechanisms. Art and mythology are expressions of it, as is the blurring of the difference between fact and fiction. An ongoing struggle for sure.
00
Renewables are rapidly replaceables, always unreliables, non commandables and no replacement at all for fossil fuels. And the world wide ripoff of our electricity bills to pay strangers and investors for Chinese windmills and Chinese solar panels and Chinese rare earths is criminal.
Fossil fuels are in abundance and their use is growing, not shrinking. That’s the reality.
Coal is our second biggest export and we Australians are in total denial. Plus gas. And Iron Ore, our biggest export. It is Iron Oxide and that oxide becomes CO2 in Chinese Steel Mills. Per capita we are the biggest exporters of CO2 in the world. Then there are our 1 million camels, countless termites and so many sheep. We are climate criminals and should be punished with taxes.
Meanwhile Global Warming is dead. Long Live Climate Change. Whatever that means and no one knows and no one can explain, but it is a lie driving governments after 33 years of lies.
It is science nonsense to say the tiny gas CO2 on which all life depends and from which all life is made is not in constant equilibrium between between the vast oceans (98% of CO2) and the air (2%). Or that windmills make a difference. Where? To what?
Whether tiny CO2 causes Global Warming not is irrelevant and being buried. We do not control our huge planet and it is obviously cooling.
Meanwhile fossil fuels are the engine powering our modern world. And they are free. So whatever we pay is a gigantic game between governments, cartels, extortionists, Greens and opportunists.
Greta Thunburg would be better served by asking ‘How dare you’ of governments lying about fossil fuels and nuclear power. And the greatest lie at present is a fantasy of carbon dioxide control. After 33 years, how much control is there? Zero! And does anyone care?
And when did breathing become pollution?
481
“Renewables are rapidly replaceables”
I’ve read that wind turbines can’t be replaced atop their pylons, or not easily. Is that right?
190
The life of a turbine blade is 20 years. Blades are 40 metres and weigh 5 tonne and are attached 70 metres in the air. Simple. Blades cost about $300,000 each but the question is how to replace them. The design lifespan is 20 years anyway, so the whole thing is renewable for which you could use the more accurate term, totally obsolete and replaceable. If they last that long.
I doubt any of the turbines will be working in 20 years and it is likely they cannot be removed and the blades are not environmentally disposable, so they will stay in place, silent testament to the foolish Australians who export coal but refuse to use it themselves. Especially when no one wants our brown coal and if they did, we are not allowed dig it up. The Brumby Victoria Labor government banned one sale of $200Million to India. The currently Labor government is intent on removing Brown coal totally as a power source.
So we are spending as a nation about $6Billion a year in carbon taxes buried in our electricity bills on windmills and solar panels which have a lifespan of the modern car, if that long. Because we are saving the planet, apparently. For 20 years.
No one is being deceived. That is why they are called Renewables.
381
Well the Albany WA windfarm started in 2001 and is still going “strong”. could better systems be put in place now? Probably but like a 1980s Mercedes diesel car, they just keep going…
And likely saved “a bundle” in not having to upgrade the main distribution line from up north….
314
And in all that time, how much power has it generated, compared to a coal-fired power station?
221
The Albany facility has 12 wind turbines with a maximum generating capacity of 22 MW of electricity. At 30% average utilisation that’s an internmittent output of just 7 MW. It’s advertised as a tourist attraction!
Collie Power Station near Bunbury is coal powered with one steam turbine that generates a total capacity of 300 megawatts of electricity 24×7.
Cockburn Power Station (CKB) was commissioned in 2003 and is immediately south of the older Kwinana Power Station. It has a 160 MW natural gas powered Alstom GT13E2 gas turbine which provides steam to an 80 MW steam turbine that together generate a total 240 MW of electricity. It was the first combined cycle gas turbine power station in Western Australia.
251
Robber,
When I did the tourist thing, there was a brass plate there claiming an output that calculated a Capacity Factor of 41%.
Warwick Hughes, quite some years ago, calculated from the actual generation the the CF was no higher than 33%.
I might add that if there is a more advantageous site for wind generation in Australia, then I have never heard of it.
91
Logic would have it that SW WA is ideal for wind, the sailors of old knew all about the Roaring Forties, they plied them in the Great Circle Route from Cape of Good Hope. Many with unreliable timepieces misjudged the left turn to the Spice Islands and ran aground on our west coast.
Tropical and sub-tropical Qld, by comparison has little more than sea breezes to harness.
51
I revealed myself to be a Victorian when visiting Perth many years ago by my pronunciation of Cockburn.
They should make the whole word silent if they don’t like it’s proper sound, rather than just the “ck”.
21
how much of that is from developing economies, does that overall increase mask a decline in advanced economies.
this is the old colonial mindset in all its glory.
140
And I suppose China, which adds more coal power every year than our entire output, is a developing country?
371
According to the Paris agreement China is a developing country. That mis classification is at the heart of why China can get away with doing nothing and being a good corporate citizen on climate change. Lunatic logic.
311
Rumor is that France could drop out of Paris next year.
61
So Africans and Indians can’t have electricity lest your colonial sensibilities be stirred.
221
What this article does is claim the production from developing countries as if all countries are seeing the same increase,
If you examine country by country you get a different picture. Take Germany, China, and Nigeria as examples. As the overall wealth of a country increases it can afford to dump the polluting dirty coal generation for cleaner alternatives.
The colonial mindset is that you let poor countries have the cheap dirty power, because air quality in India, is not your concern.
Finally this is not a binary argument, Hanrahan, it is not coal or nothing.
128
About 67% of emissions come from “developing” countries, and with the increased plans for coal-fired stations in Africa this will increase.
The last figures I saw for Germany (about a year ago) pointed out that their overall emissions hadn’t dropped in 10 years.
Yes, their figures for electricity generation have dropped because of wind use (a little, very little solar), imports from Norwegian and Swedish hydro, French (& Czech) nuclear and Polish black coal. A switch to gas is in the plans (Nordstream 2) as their nuclear stations are shut down but may not succeed as several existing stations have been shut down, dismantled and sent to less paranoid countries. So they will have to rely on burning wood (doesn’t count under EU rules) and burning rubbish for district hot water schemes — they also don’t emit CO2 (under EU rules).
Drax in the UK burns mostly wood (from the USA) and their emissions from that are up 32% (in the real world) but don’t get counted, indeed get a generous subsidy. One power station in Denmark claims a 91% reduction in emissions. I wonder where the million tons of russian wood chips exported to the EU go? The Netherlands claim their emissions from coal fired generation is only 10-14%, whereas (in the real world) it is about 60%, but that is OFFSET by Certificates from the Norwegian hydro schemes.
The Beatrice wind farm has been fully operational since May 2019, so the latest Accounts reflect close to full operation. Revenue for the year was £372 million, of which £281million was government subsidy via Contracts for Difference: Output was 2382 GWh, meaning the sales price of their power was £38/MWh and a subsidy on top of £118/MWh. Despite this obscene subsidy, Beatrice only managed to make £83 million profit. Clearly it would not have been viable otherwise
https://notalotofpeopleknowthat.wordpress.com/2021/04/12/beatrice-wind-farm-received-281-million-subsidy-last-year/
CO2 levels have been increasing every year since 1957, regardless of how many Climate Conferences are held by the UN. The EU bureaucracy is just faking their figures and claiming to be “holier than thou”. Most nations have seen through this charade and will follow China and India in installing the cheapest method of generation, coal fired, even if they have to import the coal from Australia.
You are wlcome to your fantasies but why express them so publicly?
91
Let poor countries have cheap dirty power? Let?
Obviously capitalism has escaped YOUR colonial mindset. We do not LET them have anything, they buy it. They are sovereign countries that can make their own decisions. They do not need people like you to make their decisions for them.
101
‘…..because air quality in India, is not your concern.’ Hang about, I was told that dirty, filthy pollutant co2 was ‘well mixed’ in the atmosphere. Perhaps they err.
21
🙂
21
The US is still increasing gas fired real capacity faster than renewables.
https://www.cfact.org/2020/12/28/wind-and-solar-are-losing-ground-to-gas/
121
Alternatively, people are strongly influenced by the pollsters questions- what do they want to say that is often the answer. If alternative questions were framed Goven the major role of fossil fuels in world’s economy and trivial component of alternative energy Australia shpuld not use it money on alternative energy research.
60
I read that Port Fairy- somewhere in Victoria has got some rocks over a road and according to a “boffin” on coastal geomorphology that it’s due to Climate change. Swell in different directions will become the norm in 2100 and penguins (sob) will no what to do. Cuddle one now I say.
121
You have to love the expression ‘some scientists say’. That’s when the new generation of teenage journalists have an opinion. Besides, Professor Tim Flannery would agree. Reputedly an expert on really dead kangaroos. And who can question that?
201
Yeah,
There were some strong winds there. Who’d have expected such a thing?? At 40 degrees south it’s on the edge of the infamous “Roaring Forties”, known since the days of sail.
And did you see the photos of those boulders? Could they be pumice? ie the rock that floats?
( I still wouldn’t have wanted be there at the time.)
Cheers
Dave B
51
They are occasionally “repowered” by replacing original blades with blades of slightly larger size. In most cases I suspect this is the result of learning that the prevailing wind in a location is not what was originally thought, and the turbines can do slightly better on capactity factor with these new blades. In other instances the old blades have fatigued to the point they should be replaced before failure, which can take out the entire installation. However, sometimes the repowering is extreme, like replacing a unit with nameplate below 1,000 kW with 2,000 kW, and then you have to redesign placement of the whole wind farm as the larger units just interfere with one another, and the original foundations are inadequate for the new installation.
I was monitoring the repowering of a windfarm near here, and they were replacing the old units, which had been put up in about 2005 or so with much larger ones. Tower, blades, nacelle, generator etc. Blades probably chopped up and landfilled in central Wyoming. I’d like to return to see what they did about the foundations. I suspect a lot of the foundation is left behind as it is quite deep and reinforced.
111
This article provides some information, and it’s not pretty.
I doubt that Australian politicians who are forcing wind turbines onto the electricity grid and the environment are cognisant of these issues.
191
Some day in the long distant future, some boffin will ‘discover’ buried windmill foundations and wonder why we were using such primitive technology.
51
The public at large have no idea at all about energy. There is a belief that because we have made so much progress in technology during the past century, that old ways of powering an economy can now be upgraded with elements of new technology and all will be well. However, sometimes the original limitation of a technology was one of physics and chemistry, and then you can “innovate” from dawn to dusk without any real improvement in the old technology. There is no more kinetic energy or dispatchability in the wind than there was 120years ago when the Jacobs wind charger was trying to electrify rural America.
The Diesel engine is the workhorse of our economy. It powers trains, ships, construction equipment, over the road trucks, farm equipment, mines, and so forth; and as a “diesel” turbine it runs aircraft. We cannot as a matter of battery chemistry or other sorts of motors replace diesel. So, to realize the “green” promises being made there are only two possibilities.
1) We pretend to replace this infrastructure and simply lie to the people, who will never research things for themselves, but just believe what they are told. They will be happy to believe we have gone green, when in fact nothing has changed, except they pay more for everything.
2) We force a true abandonment of what works through idiotic laws using high taxes, fees, coercion, environmental standards that connot be met as a matter of how the universe works; and everyone learns to accept a far lower standard of living, but is propagandized into believing we are better off in some magical way.
There is at work here the same old trilemma that the Soviet Union faced; one cannot be simultaneously intelligent, honest, and a proponent of the GND, or new world order, or reset or, … whatever. Honestly I think giving people a “red pill” is a lot like doctoring dogs. You can hide in the pill in their food, but they manage to swallow the food and spit the pill out.
211
Pragmatism…FOSSIL FUELS ARE FINITE. Whether it’s 100, 1000 or 10000 years…fossil fuels will run out, given their current consumption. Fossil fuels are NOT the cause of CAGW, but it is sensible to wean ourselves off it, and replace them with renewables AND nuclear. If humanity wants to live with the basics of comfortable life (ie: electricity), then there must be a sensible combination of energy sources to ensure this.
313
In 100 years we are likel to have much better options, certainly in 1000.
171
Renewables which require intensive mining of gallium arsenide, tellurium, silver, crystalline silicon, lead, cadmium and other heavy metals*.
81
‘ … replace them with renewables AND nuclear …’
It might be best to think of gas and renewables until something new turns up. Nuclear in Australia is politically incorrect.
35
For best economics Nuclear is a fairly constant process, like coal fired, and is adversely affected by a variable supply from wind turbines (solar is more predictable). The gas you imply would as CCGT (Continuous as in the name) emits less CO2 than the best (current) coal fired technology, but is also adversely affectad by trying to add a wind supply – The Republic of Ireland tried that combination and rapidly abandoned it.
Emissions from OCGTs are almost as high as from the latest coal fired technologies and much more expensive (they have high maintenance costs due to on/off operation). Some how these costs and emissions aren’t counted by Greenies.
61
The Australian Greens don’t want nuclear or gas and that is the end of the matter. Do you still believe CO2 causes global warming?
21
Recall the old five, ten, and twenty year programs of the CCCP. Plan too far out and you’ve simply wasted your time and money, or worse, locked people into a ludicrous path. I have no idea what the correct horizon for transitioning will be, but it won’t be within the next hundred years anyway. In the energy crisis of the 1970s we allegedly had 20 years petroleum supply left, but rarely did anyone put this in perspective by pointing out that we had always had 20 years supply ahead of us from the 1890s until the 1970s. We actually have hundreds of years of hydrocarbons left even leaving out coal and oil shales.
When petroleum truly does become short on supply the price relative to other goods will reflect that truth. Right now petroleum is cheaper than it was in the 1970s, which cannot possibly indicate shortages and a time to begin transition.
71
In 1980 I started a new job in the oil industry and I clearly remember the 20 year life of oil, I thought if I can get 20 years out of this job I will have done well. Got close to 30 actually.
51
AH YES,the finite resource argument. What will finish of the oil industry, or rather, the exploration industry will be the availability of cheap electricity and heat. We will be able to quite literally make diesel out of air or seawater. If we had cheap electricity and heat why would we still produce hydrocarbon based fuel? Energy density! Stored energy of hydrocarbons for powering vehicles by either combustion or fuel cell extraction of protons and electrons has no comparison. Batteries are too heavy and too short lived to power heavy haulage vehicles any distance outside of a CBD. The hydrogen cycle is believing we can contain a bomb in every car. NH3 has promise but as pointed out to me CH4 is better with no contamination cycle. The cheap heat and electricity will come from thorium or uranium powered MSRs. Coming soon on a boat to Indonesia in four short years.
30
CHRIS @#9 said
Indeed. Coal is the only fossil fuel,
it’s “fossilized” dead trees. Oil will ever be with us and so will peat.
Mankind just uses them (oil and peat) faster than they are produced.
00
We need to forget the so-called “renewables” — they are a waste of irreplacable resources — and rapidly expand nuclear with the modern liquid fuel reactors.
00
Meanwhile Woodside are saying that they are the ‘good guys’. I laugh every-time I see their ads on TV, knowing that they just want to bump off their biggest competitor in the Energy sector.
“Woodside is well placed to be a part of the global energy transition. Our gas can help reduce emissions, displacing more intensive energy sources such as coal and biomass, while enabling customers to deliver affordable energy and climate action.”
Read their webpage but keep your puke bucket handy.
Woodside
101
Jo, this puts things in full perspective. Global TES is quite telling with all the trillions of dollars spent on wind and solar over the last few decades.
https://www.iea.org/data-and-statistics/?country=WORLD&fuel=Energy%20supply&indicator=TPESbySource
60
At least Trump showed us that if we can kick out the ideological loons, the economy and energy situation can improve quickly.
191
How much methane and oil there is to use, depends on the origin of the hydrocarbons. And it also depends on whether some of the reservoirs are refilling. Some of the middle east deposits will produce oil and natural gas for possibly thousands and thousands of years.
Fossil fuel is not fossil fuel. The origin of water that covers 70% of the earth’s surface and the intrusion hydrocarbons (all of the oil, natural gas, and bituminous coal are intrusions) in sandstone formations and in mud, is from methane that is extrude from the liquid core of the earth when it crystallizes.
An intrusion is a substance that was pushed into a formation. For example bituminous coal was formed by hot methane gas that flowed through large sandstone formations. The methane gas partially combusts taking the oxygen that is in the sandstone formation and leaving carbon.
The CH4 from the core has a low C13/C12 ratio and carries with it heavy metals. This explains why bituminous coal and the Alberta heavy oil deposits, both have heavy metals in them. The Alberta heavy oil deposits are found in three deposits that are 60 to 80 meters thick and cover an area about the same as the UK. The Alberta heavy oil deposits by themselves can provide all of the US oil requirements for roughly a 100 years.
The heavy metals carried by the liquid methane explains why there is helium in natural gas and oil reservoirs. The heavy metals drop out at depth leaving concentrated uranium and thorium. The uranium and thorium decay producing helium which floats up to the gas and oil reservoirs in the tiny cracks that are keep open by the constant pressure, as the system is still connected to the deep earth CH4.
This explains why some oil and natural gas fields in recent times have been found to refill. And explains why there is a massive amount of methane that flows into some bituminous coal deposits. In Australia, commercial natural gas is produced by drilling into the bituminous coal deposits.
The earth was struck by a Mars sized object about 100 million years after it was formed. That impact created the moon and removed CH4 and most of the water from the mantel.
The liquid of the earth is roughly the size of the moon, and is estimated to contain roughly 10% methane. At high pressure and temperature metals bind with methane. That is the reason the methane was dragged down to the liquid core of the planet.
Metals in the mantel bind to the extrude methane forming a sheath around the liquid methane that is extruded from the core when it crystallizes. The sheath forms a pipe like structure which transports both the methane and pressure. The methane filled pipes, that travel from the core of the planet up to lower mantel, are about a 1 to 1 ½ kilometers in diameter.
The pressure from the core, carried up to the surface is what moves the ocean plates and continental plates. At the ocean ridges all over the ocean floor the ocean plate is pushed apart in two directions by CH4 that is pushed up from the core of the planet.
The Fossil Theory for the origin of Oil, ‘Natural Gas, and Bituminous Coal is an urban legend that was started by the ‘Oil’ Companies, in an American Petroleum Institution publication, Origin of Crude Oil (published at the same time that Thomas Gold started to write papers, that included observations, to support the assertion, about the true origin of oil.)
The ‘Origin’ of Crude Oil has written by Geologists, all of who, were employed by the Oil companies at the time. There is not a single observational fact in that the API publication, the Origin of Crude to support the organic theory. The API Origin of Crude oil has zero reference to the Soviet Theory for the origin of hydrocarbons on the surface of the earth.
Thomas Gold, in his book on this subject provided more than 50 specific observations that proved that there is a massive source of primordial CH4 that is constantly pushing hydrocarbons into the biosphere and that the CH4 core methane is origin for the water that cover 70% of the earth and the massive hydrocarbon deposit that contain metals.
This is a letter from the Ukrainian institute of science threatening to sue Gold for not giving credit to past Soviet researchers who proved the idea.
http://www.gasresources.net/VAKreplytBriggs.htm
It should be recognized that Gold’s priority [related to the subject of the modern Soviet theory of abiotic petroleum origins] must be set at 1979 when he published his article: Gold, T, 1979, Terrestrial sources of carbon and earthquake outgassing, J. Petrol. Geol., Vol. 1, No. 3, p. 3-19.
Concerning this article, one must pay particular attention to the following fact: The references given in that article do not contain even one of the works of any of the Soviet scientists. The well-known key leaders of the problem of abiogenic petroleum origins had already published their ideas and theory on that subject in many books and articles, beginning in the year 1951. The quantity of such publications exceeds a thousand, and for short I shall limit myself with the list of several key sources following below.
https://rense.com/general63/refil.htm
Oil Fields Are Refilling… Naturally – Sometimes Rapidly
“The clams were the first thing I noticed,” he added. “They were pretty big, like the size of your hand, and it was obvious they had red blood inside, which is unusual. And these long tubes — 3, 4 and 5 feet long — we didn’t know what they were, but they started bleeding red fluid, too. We didn’t know what to make of it.”
The biologists they consulted did know what to make of it. “The experts immediately recognized them as chemo-synthetic communities,” creatures that get their energy from hydrocarbons — oil and gas — rather than from ordinary foods. So these animals are very much like, but still different from, recently discovered creatures living near very hot seafloor vent sites in the Pacific, Atlantic and other oceans.
The difference, Kennicutt said, is that the animals living around cold seeps live on methane and oil, while the creatures growing near hot water vents exploit sulfur compounds in the hot water.
91
We’ve heard this song before. However there is no evidence that any petroleum currently known has an abiogenic origin – and any purported examples cited by abiotic advocates can be explained by normal (organic) fossil fuel processes.
The world’s major oil reservoirs are not replenishing, abiotically or otherwise. In fact the rate of decline is increasing in many major fields. Fracking and tar sands are uneconomic. The future of civilisation will not be based on endless cheap oil and happy motoring!
126
Are you an expert on Petroleum resources or just another X-Spurt?
The world’s oil reserves took geological time to form so it will take a similar time for tapped reserves to refill, which is a few million years more than your lifetime.
How do you think petroleum reserves formed?
Your claim that Fracking is uneconomical is risible. It’s been in use since the 1970s. If it were uneconomical it wouldn’t have lasted long at all. So that statement alone is nonsense and places you squarely in the X-Spurt category.
20
Love your expansive comments William A. After reading them, I always feel a little bit better informed. There are so many misnomers in science- I think they are used to try and spice up boring sciency stuff so that the average reader might get interested. Fossil fuels is another one of those,. or as you point out a marketing exercise. Whether its oil, coal or gas maybe we need another descriptive term. “Hydrocarbon reserves” is probably too scary for most. Recycled CO2 reserves – maybe that will catch on? 🙂
41
Aloha! The “fossil skeptic” would say your little graph only shows up to 2019 and that was the peak of “peak fossil”! Do the same graph with 2020 and 2021 … nah nah nah na na na!!! Then they will end their skeptic rant with …”racist”!
12
Go find me an updated graph in this format. I searched for it. Good luck.
You’ll probably find a lot of graphs with projections out to 2040 that show even the renewables fans predict fossil fuel use will continue to rise.
2020 will be a little blip.
91
Everything that people know or believe is due to where they source their information. If one was to ask respondents to the survey where they source their information on the topic that will explain why there is a split in opinion on climate change perceptions. My siblings all source there news from the ABC whilst I source mine from sky / fox. My kids source it from schools, university and social media and even though I constantly tell them what the truth is they think I’m some sort of ignorant heretic.
The infiltration of society by the alarmists is insidious and affects all the institutions that affect our lives. How can our major banks in particular ANZ look at the graph above and pledge never to lend to fossil fuels. I immediately sold my shares when they announced their ban on fossil fuel lending and the price has risen 50% in the 6 months since. If you reward reckless behaviour of those that ignore reality then all you do is encourage it. As has been seen in the US elections the powers that be , the media, the corporates, the social network providers , governments, academe are able to create an alternative universe that anyone who cares to make even modest enquires will quickly find out is totally false.
We will never change peoples minds unless we can convince them to question their news sources and listen to sources that provide a contrary view. Like many religious conversions once a person converts they often become zealots for the new cause. We have to ensure that the flow of conversions is from alarmism to scepticism.
100
Had a quick look at Four Corners last night, the Narrabri gas field is of particular interest. Santos are keen but there are concerns over the Artesian Basin, this is seriously important.
I gained the impression that the Feds want a gas fired power station and Premier Gladys doesn’t. The voters will persecute her if she gets it wrong.
61
The voters might even persecute her even if she gets it right. Since when do most voters always get it right? We’ve seen many times how voters kicked out a more than half decent leader only to be replaced by a complete fool. Rudd and Gillard are just two examples of such fools.
151
An even better example was the replacement of President Trump with Imposter Biden, the most demented, intellectually challenged complete fool the United States has ever elected or in this case, installed via voter fraud. Biden should be in a high care Alzheimer’s ward in a nursing or old age home, not the White House.
It also showed the ignorance of the Sheeple and their incapacity for independent thought beyond what the Socialist Billionaires told them what to think.
161
I am no fan of President Joe Biden (he is too old, has lots of baggage, and thinks it’s the past) – but I don’t buy at all that he has dementia – it’s a trope of the Right that they love pushing. And his first 100 Days have been surprisingly good, I think.
But Trump in my view was a very bad president, had far more baggage and embarrassing children, and he could never get more than 45% of the voters to support him – a decent-sized majority definitely wanted him to be a one-term president.
There is no proof of voter fraud – I don’t know whether there was voter fraud – but I want some authority or court of competent jurisdiction to so determine … Trump and his supporters can repeat their refrain for ever, but it doesn’t make it true.
Al Gore had a far stronger case that the 2000 election was stolen from him, but he was an adult about it, and the country moved on in a reasonable manner. Trump stays in sore-loser land.
It’s always interesting the way the Right attacks voters as stupid and duped if they vote Democrat … conditional democracy indeed – the only good voter is a Republican one LOL.
112
Wow TT, you certainly live in an ABC bubble
20
The electorate will turn sharply against her if the lights go out, which may happen when Liddell closes.
Having weighed the evidence I will protest against Pilliga being turned into a gas field, based purely and simply on the precautionary principle. The Great Artesian Basin must not be polluted by Santos and Morrison better back off getting involved.
Voters cannot get it right all the time because circumstances change, that is the beauty of democracy, we can throw them out and try again.
26
I watched 4 Corners too (my ABC!). And yes – the closure of Liddell in 2023 is a critical milestone. (I’m clearly getting old – I remember the hullabaloo over the opening of Liddell 50 years ago).
Both the NSW and SA Liberal Governments seem hugely committed to a renewables-batteries future, and in the case of SA, Green Hydrogen production as well. The Federal Government is much more committed (almost zealously) over the big role of natural gas as the “bridge” between yucky coal and the sunny uplands of total green energy.
Some say it is political donations that is driving their policy position.
I must concede that I watched the program with a much sharper eye, having experienced this forum for some months!
08
The essence of the Left’s war against cheap energy is that if you plot standard of living (e.g. the human development index) vs per capita energy usage, you will get a straight line with a strong correlation coefficient.
The more energy you/society use, the higher yiur standard of living.
They (the Left/Elites) simply don’t want people to have a high and rising standard of living, including those in the Third World. Hence their stopping/restricting of Third World countries getting cheap energy.
In a Leftist utopia the only ones with a high standard of living are the regressive Leftist Elites (including the socialist billionaires with their fossil fueled private jets and chauffeured cars). Their slave army of useful idiot serfs seem quite content with a regression of their standard of living to pre-enlightenment times. And they seem quite content with riding bicycles or taking public transport everywhere.
111
I expect if you lined up the 2500 or so billionaires, a tiny handful would have ever voted for a labor or social democratic party in their entire lives. The overwhelming percentage of the rich (and not just billionaires, but those with say $10 million or more) are naturally conservative and support pro-business, low-tax, and low-wage parties.
This idea that there is a Left-Elite bunny-hug arrangement in place is just fanciful. Conservative commentators (and the Right in general) just can’t accept the fact that 90% of the ills in the world (as they perceive them) are caused by capitalism – because it leads to severe cognitive dissonance, upsetting the narrative.
Hence the attack on “the Left” as dumb sheeple who vote Dem (or as conniving Marxists poisoning our children’s minds, depending on the argument), and their supposed buddies in high and secret places, doing deals with the Illuminati.
As I say – it is a very strange view of the world.
114
A reminder of Age of Enlightenment values and how the Left are destroying these values:
71
Here is an unintended survey.
This is where you end up – in a f@scist echo chamber, when you deny history and are bound to repeat it …
Simon Holmes à Court: “have climate science deniers largely disappeared from this platform, or did I just block them all?”
https://mobile.twitter.com/simonahac/status/1381583009132900354
… and the comments that follow.
91
And isn’t the platform full of ugly people.
Check out this from Nobel laureate Professor Peter Doherty …
“We need Global Climate crimes against Humanity statutes.
When politicians embrace policies that drive increasing greenhouse gas levels & global warming, they are embracing policies that drive environmental degradation, ecocide & worse.
It’s already happening.”
https://mobile.twitter.com/ProfPCDoherty/status/1381561926195408898
Perhaps the good Professor can put tattoos and yellow stars to help identify and shame these instigators of “crimes against humanity.”
It wouldn’t be out of place.
121
I would like to see Professor Doherty tried for the same crimes he thinks others are committing. He is inadvertently responsible for environmental degradation, ecocide and worse.
He has an inflated notion of his own infallibility, stoked by the fawning veneration of the Melbourne university academics.
I might send him a response.
31
Peter Doherty has bee the subject of Jo’s posts a couple of times.
I don’t think this is the most recent one.
https://joannenova.com.au/2012/08/peter-doherty-responds-in-the-australian-but-science-is-not-done-by-committee/
21
Travis, those comments are extraordinary and terribly depressing.
They are evidence for how dumbed-down the Sheeple have become, although I suspect the opinions of rationalists are deleted or blocked as well.
Rudi Dutschke’s Marxist “long march through the institutions”, ongoing since the 1960’s, has, tragically, been successful.
101
There now an adopted standard for recycling of expired wind tower equipment DIN 4866.
Derived by collaboration of 25 or so manufacturers of the machines. At the the moment it is a pay for download. Interesting is the introduction that states that Germany has 30,000 machines in service of which 50% need to be dismantled in the next 10 years due to end of the 20 year operational subsidy program from the Government.
https://www.offshore-windindustry.com/news/press-releases/pm-6718-wind-energy-new-industry-standard-for-dismantling-disassembly-recycling-and-recovery
Anyone have a copy?
51
What should one make of that? As written it appears that at the end of the subsidy they are no longer economic even with a written down value of $zero.
That’s not what we are told.
100
Australias oldest wind farm at Esperance in WA is at the end of its supposed economic life (actually extended from 2014) and the local government has no plans to renew it, instead they have installed a gas fired turbine. This wind farm only supplied 20% of local requirements, so it seems the experiment was a failure and uneconomic.
In Germany it seems they are not viable once the 20 year subsidy expires also, so why are we still pressing on with this failing technology?
101
Murray, I’m astonished (and impressed) the windmill experiment was just that, it was recognised as a failure and a proper power generator installed.
In “green” projects, failure is normally a trigger to waste even more of other people’s money.
71
Pressing on because turnbull/photios are still pulling the strings in the liberal party I suspect. turnbull in effect bought the party when he ploughed over $1mill of his own cash into the ‘turnbull coalition team’ election campaign. They want to direct as much of our cash into their pockets as possible. The stuff coming from photios man kean in nsw is straight out of loony tunes greens wet dreams.
71
It proves that their only purpose is to harvest subsidies in an obscene wealth transfer from the poor to the rich.
In the US Warren Buffett freely admits that there is no reason to invest in windmills except so he can harvest the tax subsidy.
In Australia the Elites and well connect invest in windmills to skim off the top (and middle) the electricity bills of consumers a subsidy in the form of “renewable energy credits) for which the poor consumer pays for some of the world’s most expensive electricity (which used to be among the cheapest).
The Elites/Socialist Billionaires with the assistance of the slave serf army of useful idiots helped them achieve this.
81
Nobody invest in something solely to make a tax credit – a loss is still a loss. The 4Corners program said “all” energy investment in Australia is going into renewables, and they expect real returns, and the speed at which those technologies are improving mean that natural gas (for the east coast electricity market) cannot compete on price, and never will again.
19
That was a reply to Hanrahan #20. The numbering go messed up.
21
***Jo*** the numbering for replies is messed up. Replies aren’t a sub part of the original any more but a new number.
[I will send a message to the host but this usually only happens when a comment is removed for whatever reason especially on a whole number such as #19 etc, numbers in between don’t usually cause as much of a problem.
Just in case I’ll check the spam bucket in case some comments have been caught accidentally putting the number system out.]AD
31
I am having the same problem. i think I am replying to someone only to find out i have begun a new number.
20
This time it worked fine, so i will continue to monitor carefully.
30
This has been so for as long as I can remember. So best start a post with a name, a post number or a quote. I don’t always remember myself. 🙁
31
That Lowy report tells us 2 things about Australians;
1) Aussies have been conditioned by surveys to answer what the commissioner wants to hear. The available options for reply determine answers and as they’re increasingly more leading, respondents have no option but to agree with the wording chosen.
2) Aussies don’t give any thought to the fact that lobbyists put these survey ‘results’ in front of politicians, who don’t look at the way the question was phrased.
I always back out of surveys or research which is disingenuous, because I know a commissioning entity is looking for a result to their liking. If that survey is whether chilli should be a flavour on chips, then who cares. If it is that we should pay exorbitant prices for energy to have 1.5% of 3% of man made emissions reduced to zero, but still be brow beaten that we are the world’s per capita worst offenders despite meeting every world punitive mark, then………..
51
“Push polling” is an integral part of polling.
31
I answered a survey today, from the Yorke Peninsula Council (where I am a home-owner).
It was refreshingly blunt and to the point: it wishes to construct a major Waste Water Management System in Port Vincent and surrounds (and for those who do not know, Yorke Peninsula is very agricultural, sparsely populated, and chronically short of water).
Anyway, the two questions asked whether I would pay an extra $300 a year for ten years if they did NOT get a federal grant for the project, and would I still support the project if they did get the grant and I had to pay nothing additional (I said yes to both). I’m not used to being involved in such decision-making.
05
What sort of waste water project?
Sewage of water recycling?
Why did you tick yes?
20
Looks like we have a shortage of both fossil fuel supplies, and affordable coal fired generation, in NZ already.
https://www.energynewsbulletin.net/outlook-analysis/news/1403458/new-zealand-launches-inquiry-into-gas-security
https://www.stuff.co.nz/business/124640081/power-bills-start-to-climb-as-wholesale-prices-surge
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/business/440135/manufacturing-companies-question-hike-in-power-prices
40
Likely it comes down to this:
20
They’re not telling the media what they think they want to hear, but rather I believe they’re genuinely confused about it which is a clear sign of brainwashing, as this is an effect of it.
41
The results of the survey prove that ideology trumps logic and common sense for people of the left. The telling question is the one asking if we should allow the developing countries to keep using fossil fuels and 2/3 of respondents support this notion. This is despite these countries already emitting 2/3 of global GHG and being the sole cause of all emissions increases for the past 40 years. They are also the only group of countries that can cause future emissions growth because they are developing.
In essence, the respondents (obviously crazed left wingers) on one hand are are saying that CO2 is bad and we need to remove our 1%, but on the other hand they are saying that fossil fuels are good for developing countries and we need to double global CO2 levels this century to reduce poverty. With this kind of crazed logic it’s no wonder that many of these people have difficulty with maths along with determining their own gender.
10