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Back from travels finally. So much to catch up on.
Last week, the world leading nation in solar panel manufacturing announced big cuts to subsidies in order to make their electricity cheaper. Can you believe? The cuts are big enough for The Motley Fool to headline this “Why the Lights Went Out on Solar Today”. (h.t GWPF)
Put this in perspective — in late 2016, Scientific American declared that China Is Dominating the Solar Industry. Apparently, the Chinese forced the prices down, drove US leaders out of business, and the US could only hope to be second. Without a hint of impending doom, Scientific American went on to title one sub-part: AN INDUSTRY PROPELLED BY TAX CREDITS. The Chinese government picked a “winner”, grabbed the industry from all over the world, brought it to China, and ran with it. Now apparently rising electricity prices hurt too much. Who could have seen that coming?
“According to some veterans in the U.S. solar industry, China bought solar companies and invited others to move to China, where they found cheap, skilled labor. Instead of paying taxes, they received tax credits.”
Last week the Chinese government announced solar subsidy cuts:
[Capital Watch] Chinese regulators said Friday they were unexpectedly suspending construction of new solar panel farms and cut subsidies to the industry, sending solar energy companies’ stocks plummeting Monday.
Chinese solar stocks immediately fell:
Some media reports said this policy approach was the most austere in years, and that it indicated a more significant rollback of subsidies for industry players.
The stock price falls in a day were in the order of 13 to 31%.
Look at a few home truths from a communist giant
Using unheard of transparency in the world of renewables, a Chinese academic explains that the main reason to cut solar subsidies is to “make electricity cheaper“.
Lin Boqiang, director of the China Center for Energy Economics Research at Xiamen University, said the policy will curb the fast growth of PV power bases, amid efforts by the central government to make electricity cheaper for consumers.
“This year’s government work report clearly stipulated that 2018 electricity prices will be lowered by 10 percent. But the PV subsidy comes from continuous hiking of electricity prices in the past, which was paid for by ordinary consumers,” Lin told the Global Times on Sunday,
He added that with the need to cut electricity prices, the PV subsidies must now be scaled back.
The academic also admitted that the PV subsidy is paid for by “ordinary consumers”. If only Australia could aspire to have academics so honest, open and free to speak?
Both moves are aimed at keeping in check the more than 100 billion yuan (US$15.6 billion) deficit in a state-run renewable energy fund, which is financed by a surcharge on power users’ bills.
All this and Chinese electricity consumers don’t even get meaningfully votes…
UPDATE: China is really jumping on the brakes:
h/t Pat in comments
6 Jun: Motley Fool: Travis Hoium: China Just Dealt a Massive Blow to the Solar Industry
No company will be spared from the reduction in China’s solar incentives. Out of 99 gigawatts (GW) of solar projects built in 2017, 53 GW were built in China. That bullish streak came to an end on Monday when China took steps to slow its solar industry. Feed-in tariffs that provide set prices for electric power sent to the grid will be cut and distributed generation (DG) projects will be capped until further notice. Early estimates are that solar installations will fall to around 35 GW in 2018, with a lot of that already installed. The impact of the policy changes will be widespread, and no company will be spared…
China’s National Development and Reform Commission said there would be no more planned ground-mounted solar projects in 2018 and subsidies for future ground-mounted projects would be forbidden…
Distributed solar farms were also capped at 10 GW for 2018, a level that may have already been exceeded…
Demand is going to fall and prices could go with it. Roth Capital estimates the solar market will be oversupplied by 34 GW of panels…
Even SunPower’s (NASDAQ:SPWR) premium-priced high-efficiency solar panels will have a little more competition as Chinese manufacturers look to dump solar panels on anyone who will buy them…
So if 50% of the worlds solar was being built in China and it has suddenly slammed on the brakes there will be a flood of cheap panels in the next few months but solar manufacturers will go broke as the industry adjusts, and then panel prices will recover in a smaller market.
9.7 out of 10 based on 85 ratings
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9.2 out of 10 based on 15 ratings
According to the Met Office:
“Britain has enjoyed its sunniest and warmest May since records began in 1929, provisional figures show…”
The average daytime maximum temperature was 62.6F (17.0C), just beating the previous all-time high of 62.4F (16.9C) set in May 1992.
However not-so-provisional, long known and well studied records show that this May was just like a lot of other Mays. So far, this controversial and unexpected result has not been reported.
The Met Office appear to have lost the worlds oldest and longest temperature dataset. Luckily unfunded blogger, Paul Homewood of Notalotofpeopleknowthat, kept a copy of the historic Central England Temperature record on a spare USB stick and spotted that this May in England really wasn’t that unusual.
Spot the warming effect of CO2 — Not:
 Central England Temperatures The legendary data appears to have gone missing sometime in the last three weeks:
Tom Peterkin, Telegraph
The average temperature from May 1 to 10 was the highest ever noted since meteorologists first started gathering precise daily data in 1772.
If only all Met Bureaus had a 359 year thermometer record to selectively sweep so they could meet their mandatory Hottest Ever Headline Quota.
The Agency-of-Data-Amnesia has been reporting the first ten days of May as a national benchmark for at least the last 456 hours. It’s up there with the Hottest EVER Bank Holiday — a climate marker of an era that started when Bank Holiday Weekends were first discovered as long ago as 1978.
Coming soon, the hottest EVER third weekend of June.
Keep reading →
9.2 out of 10 based on 118 ratings
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8.6 out of 10 based on 25 ratings
I’m travelling this long weekend (again). Things may be slower here….
My email replies will definitely be delayed.
8.3 out of 10 based on 17 ratings
 … Showing an uncanny knack to do exactly the wrong thing in an expensive way and with prosaic timing, the Turnbull government is apparently considering using Australian cars to control the climate. As a nation of die-hard car heads with the lowest population density in the world and award winning high prices for electricity, we qualify as the last advanced nation on Earth who should go “electric”.
Currently, EV’s are so rare here, we have one for every 1,750 square kilometers. Don’t be fooled by the Australian continent’s map of charging points. Each charging point is scaled up to approx 14,000 times its real size.
The day after Trump was elected on a vow to quash Paris, we signed up, now as the US winds back emissions rules, Turnbull wants to ramp them up:
The Australian, Ben Packham and Remy Varga
The car industry has warned that some of Australia’s most popular cars will be taken off the market, or face significant price hikes, under tough carbon-emissions standards being actively considered by the Turnbull government.
The Federal Chamber of Automotive Industries said the Toyota Hilux and Ford Ranger, the nation’s top-selling cars last year, would be among those at risk under proposed emissions rules, similar to those abandoned by US President Donald Trump.
How many storms will we stop with this?
There are 1.2 billion cars in the world, and Australian drive 1.5% of them. We have a 19 million strong car fleet, and Minister Frydenberg predicts an electric vehicle “revolution” with “more than one million EVs on Australian roads by 2030”. Sure. We have all of 4,000 EVs now. That’s the entire national tally.
Only 996,000 new EV’s to go.
Australians love their big cars. And only 2 of the top 20 sellers would pass the proposed 105 g CO2/km limit. But that’s ok, because the rules will only apply to new cars, which means more people will keep driving the old ones. Too bad if you own a new car sales yard. Too bad if you wanted to reduce CO2.
More than 500,000 SUVs, four-wheel-drives and large utes were sold in Australia last year. None would meet the proposed new standard.
Compliance cost estimates: $2 billion pa
According to a regulatory impact statement prepared by the Department of Infrastructure, Regional Development and Cities, the average annual cost for those required to comply with the policy would be more than $2bn a year. If the government opted for a softer target of 119gCO2/km, the compliance burden would fall to about $1.4bn.
And the rest…!
UPDATE: From commenter TdeF: … the CO2 limit of 106g/km translates into a petrol limit of 4.6litres/100km.
This eliminates even the smallest lightest 4 cylinder Toyotas. Clearly the only way to meet this limit is for hybrid or electric cars, of any weight. According to this standard all electric cars pass, no matter how heavy. That is not true however. If we assume deceleration costs nothing, energy costs vary directly with vehicle weight and all energy costs translate directly into CO2. So this is once again an anti Fossil fuel limit. Consider that in Australia today is that 90% of all power is coal. The wind and solar are name plate, sometimes of zero value.
So how much CO2 in g/km does a Tesla S generate with a 65kwhr battery in Australia today? 60KwHr and a rage of 350km. Firstly coal produces 1kg of CO2 per kwhr, and add 5% for distribution losses and the Tesla S generates 70kg of CO2 at the power stations in 350km. This is 200g/km. Ban Electric cars!
Lets pay more to increase emissions?
But EV’s were never much good at reducing CO2 unless you live in France, where they have nuclear power. A Norweigan study found EV’s were worse than useless in countries where electricity was made from, you guessed it, coal. In China, which is powered by 65% coal, one study estimated EV’s produce 50% more CO2 than gas guzzlers. (Not that there is anything wrong with that, by why pay more for it?). Australia, of course is even more dependent on coal than China is with our grid being 73% coal fired. These are coal fired cars.
Let’s pay more to raise the price of electricity and gas, and ruin the grid?
Let’s pay more to pay more. The Australian Energy Market Commission (AEMC) estimates that each new EV could add $2,000 a year to the cost of infrastructure and generation. At the moment that will be paid for by people who mostly don’t own electric cars. Often-times the same people who are paying for other people’s solar panels and other people’s wind farms.
And if people get the new fat-batteries that supercharge nice and fast with 50kW chargers, each new car will be like adding 20 new houses on the grid. Just what we need.
Sell this as a “Win” for consumers?
This will save Australians money, but not the way the Minister thinks.
Cities Minister Paul Fletcher, who is leading the government’s Ministerial Forum on Vehicle Emissions with Energy Minister Josh Frydenberg, said the government was yet to finalise the policy, but “any decision will place savings for Australians front and centre”.
“Under a fuel efficiency standard, the average motorist in Australia could save up to $500 a year in fuel costs,” he said.
The average motorist will save thousands by holding onto their old cars, or by buying second hand cars, and mostly from ex-government agencies which are still “rich” enough to afford aquiring the new ones.
Even without a fuel efficiency standard the average motorist is free, as far as I know, to buy cars with better fuel economy, and mostly they don’t.
After 2.5 years of development, this is all they have?
Apparently the development team has been working for 30 months on this plan.
Carmakers would be forced to meet the target as the average emission level of all vehicles they sell in Australia, or face fines for breaching the limit.
To sell cars such as the Hilux and Ranger, which typically emit more than 260gCO2/km, manufacturers would have to sell more electric vehicles and hybrids. The Toyota Corolla, which is leading vehicle sales this year, emits 96gCO2/km in its hybrid electric form, while the 1.8-litre petrol version emits 159gCO2/km, the Green Vehicle Guide says.
Bureaucrats looking for a tooth fairy:
It’s understood energy bureaucrats are continuing to model the 105gCO2/km target under different EV uptake scenarios to come up with a policy that will have no theoretical impact on prices and won’t force drivers to switch cars.
The only good news, the damage might not start til 2025. Then Australians will have to buy 200,000 EV’s a year to meet the target.
Yet another climate-change czar,
Wants a carbon-tax, on each new car,
To stop droughts, hurricanes,
Heatwaves, extreme rains,
And flash flooding in Kandahar.
__ Ruairi
Image: Toyota Klugar, Fremantle, EurovisionNim
9.6 out of 10 based on 82 ratings
Score 1 for Chevron
 In 2011, environmentalists won the worlds largest judgement against Chevron (holy moley $18 billion), but it turned out it was all based on fraud, fake witnesses and telling lies. Who would think people who say they like trees and human rights would be so self serving? The award has since been overturned — indeed the tables have turned, and last week Chevron was awarded $38 million in damages.
Strangely, bad behaviour of planet-saving-people doesn’t appear to rate highly in the news. Hands up who thinks the BBC/ABC/CBC would fail to mention it if environmentalists won a $38m suit against a money-laundering-witness-tampering oil company?
[May 25th, 2018] SAN RAMON, Calif.–(BUSINESS WIRE)–May 25, 2018– The Supreme Court of Gibraltar has issued a judgment against Pablo Fajardo, Luis Yanza, Ermel Chavez, Frente de Defensa de la Amazonia (the “Front”) and Servicios Fromboliere for their role in a conspiracy to procure and attempt to enforce a fraudulent Ecuadorian judgment against Chevron. The court awarded Chevron Corporation$38 million in damages and interest and issued a permanent injunction against the defendants, preventing them from assisting or supporting the case against Chevron in any way.
Donziger and Fajardo, an Ecuadorian lawyer, were found by a U.S. Federal Court to have engaged in extortion, money laundering, wire fraud, Foreign Corrupt Practices Act violations, witness tampering and obstruction of justice. The Front, which has long been involved in peddling a dishonest public relations campaign against Chevron aimed at extorting a settlement from the company, and Servicios Fromboliere, an Ecuadorian law firm established by Fajardo, are both shareholders in Amazonia and part of the extensive web of obscure entities established by the participants in the fraud against Chevron to attempt to hide their misconduct and profit from it.
The backstory –thanks to The Daily Caller, and Tim Pearce
An Ecuador court issued an $18 billion judgement against Chevron in February 2011 for environmental and social harm the company allegedly caused to the Amazon. The amount was later reduced to $9.5 billion, but a U.S. district court in New York nullified the judgement due to fraudulent and illegal activities by Steven Donziger, the lead American lawyer behind the lawsuit, according to the district court ruling.
The New York district court found that while Donziger had initiated the case with good intentions, he corrupted the process through telling half-truths, outright lies, and using fake evidence and witnesses.
“If ever there were a case warranting equitable relief with respect to a judgment procured by fraud, this is it,” the district court ruling said.
The dark side of environmentalism has been turned into a play that’s too hot for at least one actor
“The $18 billion dollar prize” by the intrepid Phelim McAleer:
Haven’t heard about it?? Funny. The same media that reported endlessly on the so-called “pollution” went pretty quiet when the case turned out to be a fraud. And a load of Hollywood celebrities who helped promote the fraud have also gone very quiet recently. Yes I’m talking about you Sting, Mia Farrow and Danny Glover.
The play shows how the plaintiffs, led by Donziger, bribed the judge and ghost wrote the judgment that awarded them this massive amount. And they were helped on their fraud by a cheerleading media that reported the allegations as fact but have been silent as the truth was revealed.
The scope of the fraud was enormous and at times farcical. Along with bribing judges, they used ludicrous code words to describe the top secret payments. It was all revealed when a New York court, realizing that something was amiss, ordered Donziger to hand over his files. In those files and diaries, Donziger admitted illegal bribes to judges and court officials as he wondered if he had “done a deal with the devil.”
That is one heck of a carrot:
In one of the most outrageous examples, Donziger secretly fought and stopped the Ecuadorian government from cleaning up their pollution because it wouldn’t look good for his case. Donziger was also going to become very rich in the process. He stood to pocket $1.2 billion before the fraud was uncovered.
The script is based on Donziger’s own diary, yet the actor couldn’t cope. It’s almost like it was a religious blasphemy…
Apparently, the actor had difficultly performing the part because it cast the environmental movement in a negative light, the sources say. But the facts attached to a lawsuit involving Chevron Corp. show that environmental activists colluded with Donziger to bribe a judge [in Ecuador] and ghostwrite a massive legal judgment against the company that initially totaled $18 billion. …
“The $18-Billion Prize reveals a dirty secret that many environmental lawsuits are frauds based on outrageous claims and sometimes outright lies and that the media are little more than stenographers for these liars,” McAleer said in an email.
You can support the play or go see it in San Francisco — click here for info.
Where are the media? The last story on “Donziger” on the BBC was 2014. The last story on Donziger on the ABC was never, though it did find time to report the fraudulent case in 2011 “Ecuador orders Chevron to pay $8.6b” and “Chevron ordered to pay for Amazon damage“.
h/t Scott of the Pacific and David E.
9.8 out of 10 based on 108 ratings
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9.3 out of 10 based on 16 ratings
Climate change might bring more food as it expands into the arctic. In a big surprise, scientists found that agriculture works best in places without much snow and ice.
Burn oil and feed the world
Only a third of the giant northern boreal forest is able to be cropped at the moment. With any luck, serious global warming will set in, allowing us to raise the edge of the zone of arable land and feed millions more hungry people.
Obviously , we need to spend billions to stop this.
Though Canadians and Russians may disagree (especially if they thought CO2 actually mattered, but who does?).
Given CO2’s mixed performance in the last hundred years, I predict disappointment…
Keep reading →
9.3 out of 10 based on 60 ratings
Australians aren’t buying Turnbulls fence-sitting do-everything (do nothing) energy plan
There is a lesson for politicians all over the world.
 Labor, Liberal, what’s the difference? In Australia the Labor party is 100% Gung Ho about controlling the global weather with our power supply. Despite that Dead-Weight handicap, slightly more Australians think that the Labor party will be better at managing electricity prices than the Liberal government*.
A Newspoll conducted for The Australian revealed that only 37 per cent believed the Coalition and Mr Turnbull would be better at maintaining energy supply and keeping power prices lower, compared with 39 per cent who backed Labor to deliver the reform. Almost a quarter of voters were undecided.
…the voters who wanted to Axe The Tax are still out there, and their electricity bills are even higher.
It’s not as insanely crazy as it sounds. By trying to half-way appease both sides both sides of politics Turnbull pleases no one. He’s crushed the issue as a vote winner for conservatives, which is not all that surprising since he’s not all that conservative. His gut instincts are screwed.
Labor are offering themselves as chief-witchdoctors. This is a gold plated gift to conservatives. But the government is saying that they will be witchdoctors too, just the slow-doctor kind. Thus they are completely knobbled as Witchdoctor-Exorcists. They can’t mock the feathers and masks because they wear them themselves. Conservative pollies could have a field day with the narcissistic delusion of using windmills to hold back the tide, instead they are reduced to saying “Trust Us” — electricity has gotten obscenely expensive on our watch, but it will be worse if you put Labor in charge.
The findings come despite modelling showing that the opposition’s renewable energy and climate change target policies would add up to $300 a year to annual power bills.
Fighting with imaginary numbers.
Instead of “neutralizing” the climate issue, Turnbull gave the issue to the Labor Party
Tony Abbott won a ninety seat landslide on the Blood Oath to Axe the Tax. Compare that to the King of the Hollow Men, Turnbull, who offered a Labor Lite version to Australia and won by almost nothing. He used stealth and deception to sneak in an Emissions Trading Scheme, hiding it because he knew Australians would not want it, and now he wants to sell us, of all things, a National Energy Guarantee, as if we should believe him?
No wonder voters are confused
The Labor plan is worse than the Liberal plan — but the Liberals can’t explain why. They can hardly say that renewables are shockingly expensive, and disruptive and “we’ll install less of these horrible things than Labor will”.
What can they say? — That Labor’s plan to change the planetary climate is burko, but we have one too. Vote for me and go slow-burko!
Standing in no mans land on the climate is not “compromise” or “statesmanship”. It’s not a negotiated middle position. It’s just cowardly nothingness. Either man-made emissions matter or they don’t. If they do matter, do something, go nuclear. If they don’t matter, laugh and axe the tax, and then count up all the seats you are about to win… the voters who wanted to Axe The Tax are still out there, and their electricity bills are even higher.
If Australians are confused in that poll about why electricity is expensive the Liberals have themselves to blame.
From the frying-pan into the fire,
As with Labor the prices go higher,
Due to climate witchcraft,
But with Liberals as daft,
It makes their kilowatt cost nigh as dire.
–Ruairi
*For foreign readers Liberals in Australia means conservative liberal, not leftie “liberal”. In theory anyway.
*Image Two Lassa Witch Doctors This media comes from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention‘s Public Health Image Library(PHIL), with identification number #1322
9.8 out of 10 based on 84 ratings
Light posting as I am in Sydney at The Australian Taxpayers Association Friedman18 conference, and having a great time too. Fantastic panel with Ian Plimer and the wonderful former Senator Nick Minchin today.
I’m looking forward to appearing on Outsiders Sky at 10:15am with Ross Cameron and Rowan Dean. (Perhaps someone can record it or find the right link in comments thanks….) Podcast audio here.
KimH suggests those without Foxtel download the Foxtel play app on your windows device …
Dave posted some links:
9.3 out of 10 based on 84 ratings
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10 out of 10 based on 11 ratings
Science Funding is monopsonistic, one-sided and poses a real threat to science. Governments are strangling research. The more money governments throw at politicized science, the tighter the deadly grip.
Read the cutting commentary from Don Aitkin — the former vice-chancellor of the University of Canberra and foundation chairman of the Australian Research Council. There’s a vested interest here, rarely discussed, that has ballooned in the last thirty years to billions of dollars.
In The Australian and on Aitken’s blog
Don’t you Dare Upset The Money Making Machine
The engine works this way. There is strong pressure on all academics to bring in research grant money for the department, the faculty and university. Those who do it well find their careers advancing quickly. To assist them there are media sections in universities whose job it is to frame the research work of academics in a way that will gain the attention of the media. Such media releases will come with as arresting a headline as the media section can devise. Buzzwords like ‘breakthrough’, ‘crucial’, ‘cutting edge’ and ‘revolution’ will be used. If possible, the staff members will appear on television, with the accompaniment of familiar stock images of laboratories and machines. The staff members will also be aware (or made aware) of the opportunity they have to advance their careers and names through writing another version of their published journal article for The Conversation, a website in which academics can write in more accessible language for an inquiring lay readership. Free from the requirements of journal house-rules, the staff members will be able to lard up their findings, call for urgency in funding and, where that is apposite, demand political attention. The output of the engine is heightened recognition of the name of the university, the academics and their area, and of course the likely prospect of more research money. All those in the engine-room think that they are just doing their jobs. The engine did not exist thirty years ago.
None of this is much of a problem in the more recondite areas of academic research, string theory in physics, for example, or advanced econometrics in the social sciences. But it is a problem, and a rapidly growing one, in areas of research where what is actually the case is contested vigorously by others. An eye has to be kept on the source of the money going to higher education research, which in our country is overwhelmingly the Australian Government. In 2014, not quite four billion dollars was available within the higher education system for research, all of it from the Commonwealth. In addition universities made another billion or thereabouts from consultancy and research for other funders. That is a lot of money. As the last Chairman of the Australian Research Grants Committee in 1987 I had a little over $30 million to parcel out. The engine has been most effective.
To have people such as Ridd decrying the hyperbole with which some research has been couched is obviously to imperil future grant money, and it would be understandable if academics within JCU have appealed to their vice-chancellor to shut Ridd up.
Something like this was presumably the reason Bob Carter, an internationally distinguished geologist at JCU who died in 2016, was stripped of his adjunct status (which meant he could not use the university library’s resources, a real penalty). Carter, like Ridd, was concerned to point to the errors of balance and rigour in research and publication on the reef.
There is no likely good outcome from this. Early on, I wrote to the JCU vice-chancellor to suggest she move to settle the issues quickly and away from the court.
JCU’s reputation can only worsen as the trial continues…
Read it all and comments at both The Australian and Don’s blog.
h/t to Jennifer Marohasy and Bob Fernley-Jones.
9.6 out of 10 based on 121 ratings
Spot the vested interest
The biggest competitor for hydro in Australia is cheap old coal power. Surprise me, Snowy Hydro jumped into the national energy debate a few days ago on behalf of taxpayers themselves.
With Turnbull offering five-billion-dollar gravy to build an unnecessary hydro storage battery, it is no surprise to hear Snowy Hydro pretending that Australia needs more intermittent unreliables. The more solar and wind rock the system, the more Big-Hydro is needed to stabilize the boat. The big question is why hardly any journalists or politicians seem able to spot the obvious vested interest:
Ben Packham, The Australian:
The government-owned company building Malcolm Turnbull’s Snowy 2.0 pumped hydro project has added fuel to the energy wars by declaring wind and solar are clearly cheaper options than coal.
And if you owned Hydro stocks, you’d say that too. Coal is every generators enemy for a reason. It’s cheaper than they are.
See the tiny numbers above the columns in this graph? Those are actual settlement prices — tiny wholesale bargain sales of coal fired electrons at 1c per kilowatt hour.
Source: AER report on the closure of Hazelwood
Hydro can only fantasize about supplying electricity that cheaply. In the same AER report the Murray Hydro settlement prices were $44 – $122 per MW/h.
At least a few people in politics can spot the obvious:
The Coalition’s pro-coal faction questioned the claim, saying Snowy 2.0’s business model depended on the shift away from coal-fired power.
Why are the only sensible people called the “pro-coal” faction as if they are organized by the industry? They are the anti-stupid-waste faction. Their comment was spot on. Without renewables, there’s no reason for Snowy 2.0.
No one mention the cheapest source of electricity by far — old coal stations at $30/MWh
Snowy Hydro said its modelling showed the cost of wind power was $70-$80/MWh, and the cost of solar power was $77-$99/MWh, including price premiums for energy storage. It said new power from new high-efficiency low-emissions coal generators cost $78-$120/MWh.
See the word “new”? What goes unsaid is the price of old coal. The government owned company lies by omission.
Who does Snowy Hydro serve — not the taxpayers who own it.
“Regardless of views on climate policy or the future energy mix, what’s clear is the cost of building wind and solar — even with a price premium added for ‘firming’ capacity — is cheaper than new coal generation,” the company said in a document outlining the economic case for Snowy 2.0.
Keep reading →
9.3 out of 10 based on 68 ratings
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8.4 out of 10 based on 13 ratings
New essential poll today shows 35% of respondents support cutting spending on the ABC.
The ABC once had a hallowed status, but those days are over. One in three Australians are not enthused with non-stop naked Green-Labor advertising combined with derision and scorn for the deplorable half of the population.
We pay 14 cents a day for the ABC and it’s not worth it.
 … ABC ratings plummet 13% in the last year
Showing that this survey is not an abberation, the whole nation is voting with the remote control:
Last week ABC News attracted about 660,000 viewers in the mainland capital cities. This compares with about 760,000 viewers a year ago.
That’s a trend line headed for zero by 2025.
Most Australians don’t watch the prime time 7pm news service they are forced to pay for. Apparently the ABC is a subsidy package for poor inner city elites who can afford to live in Darlinghurst but not to pay for their own news service.
The ABC rescue plan is a workshop on telling stories
The ABC solution yesterday is to get better at “storytelling”. It does not include employing a second conservative or libertarian commentator (one, Amanda Vanstone, a soft-left Turnbull supporter, is enough). It does not include making the ABC “the place to be” for national debate of key issues. Nor does it include representing the other half of the population.
“We want to improve our storytelling for 7pm news,” the strategy document says. “To do so, we’ll begin writing workshops for TV news. These will be aimed at reporters at all levels to help reinforce how TV news storytelling is different and to remind reporters what producers are looking for.”
In a flash of insight, they also realized that a news service might need to tell “stories with impact”. Perhaps in future they might mention Rotherham*, instead of running 30 days strait about Rolf Harris? ABC News hammers the few pet topics of inner city ABC editors to the point that David and I sometimes have to pause the playback to check the date. Is there any other news service in the world where viewers wonder if they have accidentally played yesterdays news again? Lately, I swear I saw this exact same piece on sheep and for two weeks.
In long gone decades the 7:30 Report used to be “must see” viewing for anyone interested in politics in Australia. Now, whatever. At least they could bring back Chris Uhlman. Better yet. Give us back our 14c. That’s $200 a year for any family of four. How many Australians would buy that subscription?
And of course, the real cost of the ABC each year is measured in billions. For starters, there’s the damage done by government funded druid schemes to slow storms in 2100 that the ABC never asked one hard question about.
*Rotherham, UK: most Australians have no idea. Thanks to 18C you are not free to say much below, except “God Help Us”.
9.2 out of 10 based on 75 ratings
 Panels are going in everywhere in Perth. In Western Australia the uptake of solar panels has rocketed as electricity prices leaped — there’s a slow motion solar train-wreck underway. Solar PV panels are now on more than one in four houses and growing at a phenomenal rate.
The South West Grid is small, with around one million customers and a daily peak of around 2 – 3,000 MW. But the solar generation now totals as much as 1,000MW, and is growing at blistering 180MW a year. Already, there are times solar can be the largest “single” source on this grid, and the AEMO has no control over it, which is why emergency notices are being issued more and more. The AEMO suggests the answer is more batteries, but we are still subsiding the installation of these unnecessary panels making the problem worse, and electricity prices are forecast to rise another 7% this year. As readers TomOMason and TonyfromOz say, so much for cheap solar — watch out: “Batteries Not Included”. The hidden costs get you every time, and the cost of the impact on the rest of the grid is only becoming known as we do this live experiment.
Solar panels are becoming an emergency in WA, equivalent to a bushfire
The growth of panels is so disruptive the AEMO sometimes has to invoke the “hisk risk state” and force the baseload coal and gas generators off the grid for fear of an overload. This is supposed to be something triggered only in exceptional circumstances. The rapid change to the grid generation will create a regular state of emergency in WA in a few years unless something changes.
Daniel Mercer in The West Australian
Extraordinary powers designed for emergencies such major power plant failures or bushfires are being triggered to protect WA’s main grid from soaring output generated by rooftop solar panels.
In comments to a Parliamentary inquiry, the body that runs the south-west electricity system has warned the market can no longer cope with the solar power being pumped out during certain conditions.
Experts have warned a looming crunch may lead to increased risks of blackouts and higher power costs for consumers.
There is now almost 1000MW of solar powered generation across the south west interconnected system — the biggest single source on the grid — with about 200,000 installations on households.
Solar spells “disastrous” trends for conventional power stations
From a January news report: Solar may overwhelm the WA Grid
Daniel Mercer in The West Australian, Jan 8th, 2018
It is believed solar power could displace 100 per cent of traditional generation such as coal- and gas-fired plants for short intervals within as few as five years based on current trends.
While this would happen initially only during specific weather conditions, such as mild, sunny days when demand for electricity was low but production from solar panels was high, the trend could be disastrous for conventional power stations.
This is one of the hidden costs of solar power.
The uptake of solar panels here has accelerated due to painful electricity prices and an ongoing subsidy. Here in the sunny state they work well but not well enough to make them worth installing without the subsidy. If they aren’t economic in most of WA, they won’t be economic anywhere other than remote off-grid locations.
In the even smaller North-West grid of Western Australia, the powers-that-be have limited the uptake of solar subsidies in Broome to 10% of the towns power for fear of grid fluctuations. (Thanks to RickWill for reminding me).
The SWIS grid is not connected to the whole NEM in Australia. The market rules are different, so is the structure. It’s largely government controlled. Therefore I’m very interested in hearing from anyone with insight into our system. Please, if you can help, get in touch through comments below or email joanne at this site domain.
h/t to Vic, Pat
Other posts on Solar Power
9.6 out of 10 based on 66 ratings
Last chance to book for the Friedman conference!
Science is nothing without free speech. Join the ATA and friends — people who fight for it. I’ll be speaking with Ian Plimer next weekend on How to Destroy an Electricity Grid.
It’s a great line up of speakers on May 25-27, or come for the Gala dinner. Get a 10% discount with the code Nova18.
Bookings close today.
As Senator David Leyonhjelm penned in his most recent oped:
“[The Friedman Conference] is a true festival of dangerous ideas, where people can voice their vision of the future and not find themselves in hot water because someone is offended.
9.6 out of 10 based on 37 ratings
UPDATE Watch Peter Ridd on Sky News. I’ll be on the show myself next Sunday. – Jo
 Peter Ridd as a first year undergraduate science student at James Cook University back in 1978. This is so much bigger than just one man and one university. Academic staff everywhere will be watching, most to see if they can say what they really think, but others, conversely to see whether James Cook University can get away with this. Can they squelch opinions they don’t like this easily?
James Cook Uni needs to be punished, mocked and heads should roll. We didn’t ask for this test, but it’s here. JCU don’t deserve a single dollar of taxpayer funds while they maintain this ridiculous anti-intellectual and political pogrom.
Peter Ridd wants his job back and he’s willing to fight to get it. Let’s help him!
Peter Ridd’s new website. Donate at his GoFundMe page.
Summary of Allegations with brief explanation
First they tried to punish Peter Ridd for daring to question divine institutions and sacred peer review. These are the words JCU wanted banned:
“…we can no longer trust the scientific organisations like the Australian Institute of Marine Science, even things like the ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies – a lot of this is stuff is coming out, the science is coming out not properly checked, tested or replicated and this is a great shame because we really need to be able to trust our scientific institutions and the fact is I do not think we can any more.”
Then it became an order for him not to discuss their campaign to silence him. Now this is about his right to free speech to discuss their effort to stop free speech. JCU objects to him raising funds to defend himself — Did he breach a confidentiality agreement that James Cook Uni had no right to ask for? Does he have a conflict of interest by accepting money from the IPA given to help him defend himself?
This is a pure free speech battle — uni’s can accuse, but victims can’t defend
This taints all research James Cook University puts out. We know all reports will be pre-filtered or self censored.
It’s nothing but a legal hammer to stop the uni being exposed for behaving like a parasitic political tool. JCU accepts funds as a scientific institution but if it sacks people for saying the wrong thing, it proves it is really producing political documents disguised as unbiased research. Obviously no JCU researchers are free to “discover” anything that threatens the grand gravy train or suggests taxpayers are not getting good value.
This taints all research the institution puts out. How do we know that any news they announce is the whole truth — we must assume every result is put through the political filter and inconvenient conclusions or implications are removed.
It’s become a parody — JCU are denying they curtail academic freedom while they shift to an Academic-DefCon1 level, and type in the launch codes to stop him not only speaking about scientific matters, but also legal and free speech matters. JCU are nice people but Ridd should be sacked for talking to his wife and using words like “amusement”. The mildest irony is illegal!
JCU say he was making things up when he claims they told him not to talk to his wife but it was “misconduct” to email her:
(d) [James Cook University] Claims that Ridd was wrong to state in the GoFundMe campaign that the university did not allow him to tell his wife about the original allegations. It is certainly true that after a couple of months the university finally relented and allowed Ridd to talk to his wife. Then shortly after, the university made two allegations of serious misconduct about emailing his wife information relating to the case.
Ridd is free to speak, as long as he says the right things. He is not free to trvialize, satirize or parody JCU:
(e) Accused Ridd that he “trivialised, satirised or parodied” the disciplinary process by sending a copy of a newspaper article about the case to an old friend with the subject line “for your amusement”. The university particularly objected to the use of the word “amusement”. Naughty word apparently, but the university thought-police got it totally wrong. Ridd sees nothing amusing about what is happening to him. The strain and pressure is constant and potentially crushing – he was being ironic.
JCU claims he intimidated them after they intimidated him: It is so unfair!
(f) At the initial, and very frightening, serious misconduct interview in August 2017 when Ridd was handed by the Dean and HR representative the first set of allegations, and where there was a clear and imminent threat of dismissal, Ridd made it clear that he was going to fight the allegations all the way. Ridd said the words, “You should look at me as a poisonous fruit” and “[the University] could eat me…but it will hurt; I will make sure it hurts”. The university claims that this “language used is threatening, insubordinate, disrespectful”. In context, Ridd had just been told he was going into a procedure where the university is the judge, jury and probable executioner. He was simply being defiant against the odds.
Of professors, there are only a few,
Who dare challenge or doubt peer-review,
Of all topics climatic,
Which is so problematic,
For alarmists who think it taboo.
–Ruairi
To be clear, the university is not questioning the veracity of what ex-professor Ridd has written, but rather his right to say this publicly. In particular, the university is claiming that he has not been collegial and continues to speak-out even after he was told to desist.
New allegations have been built on the original misconduct charges that I detailed back in February. The core issue continues to be Peter’s right to keep talking – including so that he can defend himself.
In particular, the university objects to the original GoFundMe campaign (that Peter has just reopened) because it breaches claimed confidentiality provisions in Peter’s employment agreement. The university claims that Peter Ridd was not allowed to talk about their action against him. Peter disputes this.
Of course, if Peter had gone along with all of this, he would have been unable to raise funds to get legal advice – to defend himself! All of the documentation is now being made public – all of this information, and more can be found at Peter’s new website.
The Institute of Public Affairs published Climate Change, The Facts 2017, and continues to support Peter’s right to speak the truth. For media and comment contact Evan Mulholland on 0405 140 780, or at [email protected].
Buy the book if you haven’t already: this is another way of showing your support.
Just yesterday (Friday 18 May), Peter lodged papers in the Australian Federal Court. He is going to fight for his job back!
If you care about the truth, science and academic freedom, please donate to help bring this important case to court.
It doesn’t matter how little or how much you donate. Just make sure you are a part of this important effort by donating to Peter’s GoFundMe campaign.
There is more information at my blog, and a chart showing how much some reef researchers have fudged the figures.
Marohasy has a lot more about Ridd’s scientific importance, read it all.
See also WattsUp. “Climate skeptic professor Peter Ridd fired for his views by James Cook University @jcu”
“Let’s make them miserable using every legal method available. – Anthony Watts”
Suspending him from duty last month, JCU deputy vice-chancellor Tricia Brand said Professor Ridd had engaged in serious misconduct, including denigrating the university and its employees.
Terminating his employment, Vice-Chancellor Sandra Harding said he had “engaged in a pattern of conduct that misrepresents the nature and conduct of the disciplinary process through publications online and in the media”.
“You have repeatedly and knowingly breached your obligations to maintain the confidentiality of disciplinary processes,” Professor Harding wrote in a letter to Professor Ridd. “You have repeatedly and wilfully denigrated the university and your colleagues, and in doing so damaged the reputation of the university.”
Ridd is fighting back:
Professor Ridd responded by lodging new legal documents with the Federal Court. He said he would fight the sacking alongside 25 charges behind JCU’s “final censure” of him last year.
After already raising $100,000 from international donors in one day, Professor Ridd has turned again to the public for support.
“JCU appears to be willing to spend their near unlimited legal resources fighting me,” he said.
Professor Ridd claims he had been censured because he had “questioned the reliability of science coming from some of our most prestigious organisations who are claiming that the GBR is badly damaged”.
“All I am saying is we need to check this ‘science’,” he said.
Handy contacts:
Share your thoughts. Speak now while we still can:
The group-thinking warmists who preach,
A consensus, will censure free speech,
And those who might dare,
Have their science laid bare,
They would gladly dismiss and impeach.
–Ruairi
Last chance to book for the Friedman conference!
Science is nothing without free speech. Join the ATA and friends — people who fight for it. I’ll be speaking with Ian Plimer next weekend on How to Destroy an Electricity Grid. It’s a great line up of speakers on May 25-27, or come for the Gala dinner. Get a 10% discount with the code Nova18. Bookings close tomorrow.
h/t Jennifer, Steve H, Pat, Another Ian, Albert Parker, William Happer, David B.
9.8 out of 10 based on 98 ratings
Australia must surely be The Global Patsy
Is any country acting so decisively against its own interests?
Last chance to book for the Friedman conference!
I’ll be speaking with Ian Plimer next weekend. It’s a great line up of speakers on May 25-27, or come for the Gala dinner. Get a 10% discount with the code Nova18. Bookings close this Sunday.
We, the Global Crash Test Dummies of Renewable Energy, have the fourth largest known reserves of coal in the world. We have so much coal we can keep digging it up at the current rate for the next 294 years (assuming we don’t discover more, which we will)1. If we didn’t export three quarters of our coal, but used it all ourselves, it could power Australia for the next 1,000 years. (But we’d miss the money– better to sell the stuff before nukes make it worthless).
We have so much more coal than we need, most years we are the world’s largest exporter of coal.[2] Indeed, Australia contributes fully one third of the entire global coal export trade. (Three other countries, China, India and the US — dig up more than we do, but they use it themselves.)
Coal also makes up 3% of our entire GDP, employs near 50,000 people, is one of our top two exports, and brought in $54 billion dollars last year.[3]
If any nation was going to ask hard questions about the need to abandon coal it should be us. Instead, our leaders (bar Abbott) trip over themselves in the rush to sell out the national interests. All for the glorious pursuit of symbolic achievements in planetary air conditioning.
Our industrial competitors beam with joy as they pat us on the back, praise our greenness, and burn our coal.
Coal is not dying in the rest of the world either
The US and Russia have about 400 years of coal left at current production but China only 70. Countries with lower reserves are Indonesia (59 years) and the UK (17 theoretical years) which is as good as “run out”. The world as an average has 150 years left. All of this is just a best estimate based on assumptions that no one will discover more coal, and nor will they use more (or less) than they do currently. But you get the idea.
These are the countries with the most coal
These are the countries digging it up
These are the countries burning it up
These are the countries exporting it
 … No end to coal:
We will never run out of coal because sooner or later we will go nuclear, and sometime people will figure out fusion. No one will bother digging out the last coal. It will truly be a stranded asset then. We should use our coal now, while it’s still worth something.
REFERENCES
[1^]BP Energy Statistics 2017
[Backed up here: BP Statistical review 2017. h/t Anna]
[2^] EIA – Australian coal production
[3^] Austrade
9.7 out of 10 based on 64 ratings
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JoNova A science presenter, writer, speaker & former TV host; author of The Skeptic's Handbook (over 200,000 copies distributed & available in 15 languages).
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