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By Jo Nova It’s just another hiccup on the road to UtopiaTwo years ago the Victorian government banned new houses adding a gas connection. The houses had to be built “all electric”. It’s all part of a smooth and efficient transition, the government said. (And you ‘vill save money whether you like it or not.*). However the demand for electricity in some areas is so high that the voltage falls, and some householders can only use one hotplate on the stove at a time, or they can’t get the heat pump to work at all. And naturally, they can’t charge their electric vehicle. But it’s all for a good cause — pagan weather control. Even the ABC can’t spin this: Victorians transitioning from gas exacerbates growing problem of undervoltageABC News
Do the maths: by their own numbers, that’s 300,000 incidents a year where appliances fail: CitiPower said it had received about 1,000 voltage complaints in the past 12 months, and estimate that for every complaint there are 320 additional customers experiencing non-compliant voltages. Undervoltage issues were occurring primarily in older areas of the network, such as inner city and older suburban Melbourne, and older urban areas of Ballarat, Geelong and Bendigo. “…shortly after moving in, problems started. First, Ms Slako noticed she could only use one hotplate at a time on her induction cooktop. Then she found the microwave would not heat food at dinnertime, but would burn everything at other times. This month, she discovered her split system would not heat the house.” “There’s a sense of dread waiting for winter when I’m cold and the split system’s not heating reliably. From next year existing houses won’t be able to replace their gas appliances anymore. (Better lock in that new gas system now while you still can, eh?) In other news, thousands flee Victoria amid crime and bad governance. h/t David B *Savings, as calculated by our models, and not compared to actual electricity costs of 1995. Photo by Jo
 Image by Cortex Zone from Pixabay By Jo Nova A few weeks of high fuel prices have destroyed 20 years of climate propaganda, pfft!Australians have barely mentioned drilling for oil in Australia in the last twenty years. It was unthinkable. But two new polls show a dramatic awakening. Suddenly Australian voters want more oil and gas. In the first poll, 65% support more drilling for oil and gas, and in the second poll, it was 57%. These are whopping majorities. And we’ve barely started to discuss it. Only a small minority (just 16%) were still waving the Green flag and are opposed to oil drilling. Rarely in a democracy, do we see so many people line up on the opposite side of the government policy. Negativity to Renewables is rising. I don’t see how the Net Zero forced revolution is going to survive high fuel and electricity prices. Surging support for new refineries, oil and gas drilling, and biofuelsBy Geoff Chambers, The Australian, April 17th More than 70 per cent of Australians support the development of new fuel refineries and 65 per cent of voters back more oil and gas drilling in the wake of the Middle East war, as resistance to Anthony Albanese’s renewables revolution grows. Amid rising concerns about Australia’s fuel security following a fire at one of the two remaining oil refineries in the country, the poll showed surging support in favour of new refineries (73 per cent), unlocking more oil and gas to produce more fuel (65 per cent)… Only 10 per cent of Australians oppose developing more refineries and 16 per cent reject allowing more oil and gas drilling. The Mood of the Nation survey, (April 7-13), revealed “record high negativity towards the renewable energy transition”. The SECNewgate Mood of the Nation survey of 1237 voters across every state and territory A new Sky News poll of 1.500 Australians also finds that an overwhelming majority want more oil and gas drilling, even if it undermines Net Zero emissions. The numbers are so stark, that even 47% of Labor voters support oil and gas exploration. If the Opposition makes this an election issue, the Labor party will bleed voters. But the Liberals are vulnerable too. If they don’t champion oil and gas exploration, they will bleed votes to the Nationals and One Nation.
It’s not surprising that Australians are so willing to drop Net Zero. Hardly anyone ever really cared about this abstract UN policy. Last year half the country didn’t want to spend a single cent more to reach Net Zero targets and 83% didn’t want us to raise the target (which the Labor government then did anyway). Policies that are the opposite of what 80% of the voters want aren’t supposed to happen in a Democracy, yet the Labor Party did it anyway…
By Jo Nova Finally, the horror show that is “renewable energy” has had one expose on the mainstream media. A full hour of hard hitting investigation into the environmental destruction, the clubbed koalas, the dead bats, and the poor whipped slaves of Africa. For the first time, there are none of the usual caveats explaining how climate change is still a threat and we will “have to” do something. And Liam Bartlett mentions China or Chinese involvement more than 50 times. That will bite hard with Australians feeling the cost-of-living squeeze and it will be a dark new theme for most mainstream TV watchers who are used to soaking in the green fairytale story. The awful truth of our renewable fantasy is that it’s so uncompetitive, it’s so uneconomic, that we have the second largest reserves in the world for Cobalt, but we can’t afford to mine it, because it would push up the price or renewables even higher. Renewable energy is so uneconomic we have to use slave labor in Africa to even pretend it’s affordable. In Liam Bartlett’s questioning at the end Bowen tells us we are 150 million kilometers from the sun, like a grade schooler trying to show how smart he is in a trivia contest. If only he could cite how many barrels of diesel we need each day and where they are going to come from if the Strait of Hormuz doesn’t open soon. Because all the refineries in Asia that we normally buy from, rely on ships from the Middle East.
Bartlett might have done better asking what percentage of the giant mining haul trucks and combine harvesters were solar or wind powered, and how exactly, our renewable future will power the heavy machinery that our economy depends upon.
Giles Parkinson at the industry rag Reneweconomy is appalled (naturally) and calls the episode a “Wild Attack”, possibly because he can see how the whole renewables cartel will collapse in a hole if there are a few more shows like this one. Parkinson complains that Bartlett is hopelessly wrong because cobalt is not in “every battery” now. But even Reneweconomy admitted in 2022 that child labor and slavery were a problem in the industry.
So they knew it was happening and kept promoting the panels and batteries anyway? How does that that moral equation pan out — we worry more about the children born in a hundred years time suffering through one extra hot day than we worry about the living children of Africa dying right now in a primitive mine? And cobalt is still used in NMC batteries (the C stands for Cobalt) and magnets for wind turbines, and all the mobile phones, and lap tops. –hat tip Paul Michael, Another Delcon and Jim Simpson. Thank you!
 Facebook “Crap Home Battery Installs Australia”. It seems the inverter fell off the wall, but luckily missed the gas bottles. By Jo Nova It’s like the “Pink Batts” debacle but this time with potentially explosive electrochemical gearThe costs have blown out in the subsidized home battery scheme– and now so have the safety standards. Costs of the Cheaper Home Batteries Program were supposed to be $2.3 billion but when homeowners realized they got huge subsidies for installing bigger batteries than they needed, they … installed bigger batteries than they needed. Thus and verily the Cheaper Home Batteries Program blew out to $7.2 billion. And since most of the lucky homeowners won’t be sharing their battery with the voracious energy cartels, their batteries will sit at home barely used. The government only woke up to their own inept scheme after 160,000 home units had been installed. Then they suddenly had to slap an end point on the scheme in order to stem the bleeding. So just as night follows day — that created a rush to install as many batteries as possible before the deadline, eventually reaching 250,000. Ponder that a 25kWh battery (the average size in Australia) is around 200 to 300 kg. It’s a big piece of equipment. But a new survey of 1,250 installations shows that 1.2% were actually unsafe. Over 60 per cent of popular Cheaper Home Batteries Program installations ‘substandard’By Rusty Landon, The Conversation, via SBS  Hope no one turns the hose on! Between July 2025 and April 2026, the Clean Energy Regulator carried out 1,278 compliance inspections on battery systems installed under the program. Some 60.8 per cent of inspected system installations were found to be “substandard” and 1.2 per cent of installs were found to be “unsafe”. The problems weren’t about the batteries themselves, but the way they had been installed. The sample size in the regulator’s report is small — 0.5 per cent of the total number of systems installed. With such a small sample size, it is hard to extrapolate the level of installation non-compliance across all systems in Australia. But if similar trends continue in inspections over a larger sample size, there could be approximately 3,000 battery installs that are unsafe and a further 152,000 that are non-compliant. Exposed wiring is also a common issue that needs to be addressed as a priority. If wiring is not enclosed, it can be damaged and increase the risk of a severe electric shock if touched. The independent solar energy website, SolarQuotes, highlights the exposed wiring issue well, showcasing several installations with non-compliant wiring. For batteries, no amount of exposed cable is compliant. Cables need to be protected from mechanical damage for the full cable run, using electrical conduit or metal ducting. Alarmingly, reports from experts in the field indicate that only 10 peer cent of installers are following these wiring practices correctly. A quick scroll of social media groups that rate battery installation jobs visually confirms the issues. Posts of substandard installations show exposed cables, batteries placed in full sun, delicately anchored to a wall with standard masonry wall plugs or supported with loose bits of timber and pavers.
After creating all the right conditions for dangerous rushed boom the government is talking tough about “ramping up inspections” and identifying the poor performers. More money on this bonfire! The regulator is even talking about limiting the number of installations that each installer can do in one day. Many of the non-compliant issues relate to the sticker forest that has grown on most batteries. And while a misplaced sticker won’t set the battery on fire, if a battery is deemed non-compliant, it may void the insurance. Wouldn’t that be a nasty surprise? There’s even a Facebook group called Crap Home Battery Installs Australia. There are a lot of jokes about stickers, like “A few more stickers would’ve fixed that”. The Solar Quotes article on “cheap batteries” has plenty of photos. An advert for “Cheap Home Batteries” in Qld shows that customers only needed to pay a few hundred dollars more to drain the public purse by $4,000 extra and get a battery three times larger than they will probably ever use.  ….
Sadly we lost Tom Quirk a week ago, and his funeral is in Melbourne today at 11am. Tom Quirk Some readers may remember his great contributions at this blog. He trained as a Nuclear Physicist, attended Harvard Business School and was a Fellow at Oxford. Not exactly the stereotypical knucklehead climate denier, he worked at Fermilab and CERN, and was once Deputy of VENCorp — managing the gas and electricity market in Victoria, which made him very well qualified to point out how subsidized wind power would drive out reliable baseload generators that keep the system running (and cheap). Tom Quirk was one of the first to show one of the biggest flaws with the Australian wind turbine fleet, was that rather than randomly not working, they will all stop working together across several states of Australia. Tom did some very original work showing that phytoplankton are a much bigger source and sink of CO2 than most people realize. He also showed that temperatures in Melbourne were largely flat for 150 years from 1855 to 1995 before the BOM changed the site. He queried Bureau of Meteorology adjustments with criticism that is still relevant today. And demonstrated that most of the methane surges don’t correlate with cows and camels but with the rise and fall with El Nino’s and leaky Russian gas pipes. When others might have retired to play golf, Tom was indefatigable, volunteering to warn us of the expensive mistakes the nation was making. His work with Paul Miskelly was years ahead of anyone else. If only the nation had listened more carefully to Tom and Paul, we could have saved a few hundred billion dollars or more. We don’t appreciate our star science talent… There is a tribute page here. We sceptical scientists will miss Tom. He was the quintessentially great Australian. A true gentleman, and a rare mind. If there were more Tom Quirks the world would be a much better place By Jo Nova Iran says the Strait of Hormuz is open, but Donald Trump says “wait”.In other words, the Iranians have blinked first, but the US Navy will stick around until the deal is done properly. Iran has agreed to give up the enriched uranium. It was a “GREAT AND BRILLIANT DAY FOR THE WORLD!” Donald Trump wrote on TruthSocial. Ships apparently are waiting for insurance calls and confirmation. Like a comedy team, France and the UK hosted a multinational teleconference call and bravely offered to lead a mission to protect freedom of navigation in the Strait, which they’ve now realized is important to “the whole world”. Trump wryly remarked that: “Now that the Hormuz Strait situation is over, I received a call from NATO asking if we would need some help”. He told them to stay home, “UNLESS THEY WANT TO LOAD UP THEIR SHIPS WITH OIL“. Adding that “They were useless when needed, a Paper Tiger!” The Australian Prime Minister must be thrilled that he might be spared from further ignominy, as Australia’s pathetic state of energy vulnerability is obvious to everyone, and, if the Strait isn’t opened, we may be mere weeks away from running out of fuel, despite having oil deposits waiting for years to get approval to use. Trump said he was not happy with Australia, and the PM and Treasurer protest on a weaselly technicality, that they weren’t asked for anything. All they had to do, and for free, was just endorse what Trump was doing. When Trump says Australia wasn’t there when we needed them, he is almost certainly talking about moral support, and not our thirty year old frigates. We did send one plane, but when the key moment came, the PM called for a de-escalation which was exactly the opposite of what Trump was doing. Anthony Albanese could have said: “We must stop Iran getting a nuclear weapon.” That would have been enough Australia’s national security swamp means we have diesel subs, but almost no diesel. As Leith van Onselen wrote “Due to its immense size, isolation, and industry composition (i.e., heavy mining and agriculture), Australia is literally one of the most diesel-dependent economies in the world.” And the least prepared. Albanese must have been sweating when the news came in that the refinery was on fire. He talks down the risks, but cut his fuel hunting trip short and flew straight there. And this political mistake is so obvious — the smoke has barely cleared and there is already talk of building another oil refinery in Australia. It would have been a blasphemy two months ago. But times have changed. The PM’s big strategic trip to South East Asia is best described as theatre. He was pleased to tell the world he got 100 million litres of fuel. But the Russians mocked the size: “Daily usage is 92 million liters (sic),” [they] wrote. “Saving Australia 1 day at a time.” A laughing stock…
Left rely on bullying: One in five British teens hide their political views out of fear of ostracism Image by AI_EmeraldApple from Pixabay By Jo Nova Oops the cult programming is showing…One in five British teens hide their political views out of fear of ostracism (and half the rest probably don’t know they agree with them because they’ve never heard them speak.) We all know which side of politics has to hide their views and it’s not the trans-activist communists who believe in using power plants and plastic bags to change the weather. They’re treated like heroes and given a keynote at the UN. But what does someone do when they believe something crazy, counterproductive and resembling witchcraft? — They call it science, and prey upon the young and impressionable. But this approach is vulnerable to people who speak the truth. One little wicked joke about the cult programming can spread like wildfire and undo years of work. The only way to stop the truth going viral spread is a wall of mockery, ridicule and good old social ostracism. The people speaking truth don’t need to shut down opponents with namecalling and social manipulation, but the people pushing a fantasy do — you climate denying, oil shill, racist, conspiracy theorist. This is how the Left control the weak and vulnerable — through coercion and fear. This study was done on 4,000 students, some as young as ten years. No wonder The Blob wants to give 16 year olds the vote. No one is easier to bully. Teens staying silent on politics for fear of being ‘cancelled’Sky News One in five teenagers in the UK do not share their political views due to a fear of being “cancelled”, according to a new report. A survey by the Economist Educational Foundation found that 22% of 15 to 17-year-olds had stopped themselves sharing political opinions because they were worried about criticism, along with 20% of 10 to 14-year-olds. Nearly one in four of the 4,000 students aged between 10 and 17 who took part in the survey said they have been asked to stop voicing their political views at school. The results also showed that 44% of 15 to 17-year-olds said they would not feel ready to vote in the next election. And the big fear of course, is that children might find “online ‘fringe’ communities” where their views might become more right wing…. The Economist Educational Foundation’s chief growth officer, Tiffany Smyly, said the fear of being cancelled could push teenagers to online “fringe” communities where their views could become more extreme. And the solution, of course, is free speech. Let the kids hear both sides free of judgmental coercion and trust that they will figure it out for themselves. Give them the tools to recognise namecalling and bullying, and teach them that Democracy means people are supposed to disagree and open debate is essential. The more crazy the cult, the more extreme the censorship has to be. Last year 12,000 Brits were arrested for tweets they wrote. Starmer and the British Labour Party wouldn’t have to shut down discussion if they could defend their actions. PS: We know this is happening in Australian schools. I know of one situation where girl A has used the threat of ostracism on girl B for just being the friend of Girl C . Girl C’s crime was that she doesn’t openly scorn Donald Trump and is therefore described as “A Trump supporter”. So Girl B (who is actually fairly center left) was subject to the campaign, possibly because she is the softer target. “How can you be friends with her?” The only socially acceptable response is outspoken Trump-hate. April 17th, 2026 | Tags: Coercion, Polls, Survey, YouTube | Category: Global Warming |  Print This Post | | By Jo Nova Well, that can’t be goodDetails are sketchy, but the Viva refinery in Corio, Geelong Victoria is reportedly on fire in a big way. This is (or was) one of Australia’s last two remaining oil refineries supplying 10% of domestic needs. Reports on X and Reddit claim the fire started with an explosion at about 11pm in Victoria, with “flames 100ft high”. The glow is visible from Melbourne. Others report the fire started in the “gas separator unit”. with some saying they heard, as many as 7 or 8 explosions. The Victorian Fire Dept has issued a watch and act and stay indoors for people in Geelong. As many as 16 fire units are attending a “Building Fire” on Refinery Rd, Corio which (at this time) is not yet under control. What are the odds? Speculation is rife: “I’m sure it’s just a coincidence” says every second person. We’re praying the staff are somehow OK, and someone has sent the SAS to guard our other refinery.  Corio Refinery Fire Reddit But we’ll be fine, right? As our energy Minister Chris Blackout Bowen says: “No war can impede the flow of sun to Australia” (only nighttime and clouds can do that…). We’re living in a bubble downunder, and it may have just popped. The ships that have been bringing our oil are mostly ones that were already on the water before the war in Iran broke out. No one is 100% sure what happens next. We are cruising barely a few weeks from potential disaster. This is not a loss of 10% in normal times, it’s potentially a loss of 10% on top of a crisis. It may mean some of the ships we are counting on will not be able to unload and get processed anywhere in Australia. The other refinery, Lytton in Queensland, may be booked at full capacity and it’s not clear whether there will still be storage available in Geelong.
Australians were frustrated that three overseas newspapers appear to have reported on this before the local press. The Mirror. The Express. The Daily Mail. The ABC have now sent a reporter. The billion dollar question is whether the refinery was pushing the safety bounds at a facility presumably being run at full speed under immense pressure, or whether this is no accident. With Australia being a star player in the “Miss Unprepared Nation” stakes, there are few better candidates where one little domestic terror incident could bring us to our knees, begging for oil, and an end to the war. Construction is slowing, petrol stations are running out of fuel and businesses are already talking of shutting down. Flights are being cancelled. Things are so dire, it’s possible we might actually run out of diesel and jet fuel in… three or four weeks. To solve this the Labor government spent $20 million running adverts telling Australians how to improve the fuel economy of their family car. On social media Victorians have been heard saying, Dang, now they’ll have to take the roof rack and the tow ball off the car… How’s that ban on fracking looking now? Victoria not only banned it permanently but enshrined it in the constitution just in case the voters changed their minds. Who exactly are the politicians serving…? It’s 4:30am in Victoria and the extent of the damage to the plant is unknown. I’ll have to leave it to commenters and moderators to update the situation below. Let’s hope the damage is not as bad as it seems. — update: by Raquel (9am local). All refinery staff and emergency workers have been accounted for and there are no reports of injury.At 5.27am (local time), the Country Fire Authority (CFA) said the threat had reduced and people in surrounding suburbs could resume normal activities. Earlier advice had been for residents to remain indoors with windows closed, and to turn off heating / cooling that would draw air in. Viva Energy is one of two oil refineries in the country and supplies half of Victoria’s fuel and 10 per cent of the nation’s. Viva refinery advise there has been no immediate impact on fuel supplies. Federal Energy Minister Chris Bowen says “It will impact on production, and at this point, petrol rather than diesel and jet fuel”. A state govt spokesperson says it is not impacting production or storage. — update: by Raquel (11:30am local) Viva Energy CEO Scott Wyatt says two production units have been damaged, used for petrol production and some other products. While reducing production broadly at the refinery while the situation is handled, Wyatt is confident overall supplies will not be affected and shortfalls will be covered by imports.
UPDATE: Refinery operations face months of disruptionsLuckily Viva Energy can arrange some extra ships of petrol to cover the losses: A fire at Viva Energy’s Geelong refinery is expected to disrupt operations for anywhere between three weeks and three months, threatening a hit to earnings and tightening petrol supply at a critical time for the domestic market, Macquarie has estimated. While Viva Energy has indicated it can offset lost petrol output through imports… If finding extra ships of petrol so easy, why didn’t they do it a few weeks ago? It would have been handy. UPDATE: Labor to stop war in IranWhat is our Defence Minister smoking? Defence Minister Richard Marles has vowed the government would do “all within our power” to turn a temporary two-week ceasefire between the US, Israel and Iran into a permanent peace. Apparently we will use our fuel deficiency, our diesel subs, our non-existent merchant navy and achieve exactly what? What leverage do we have? We’ll stop sending iron ore and gold to China unless Iran plays nice?
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