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By Jo Nova
Following the footsteps of Cuba
It’s not even summer and the Australian grid is having heart palpitations.
The Blob are in concert — blackouts might be at hand, and they want us to blame the heat (it’s code for climate change). Let’s get a grip, we’re only talking about a Sydney forecast of 33°C (all of 91F).
The ABC calls this “sweltering” and files it under “extreme weather events”. Channel Nine call it a “major heatwave”, which it might be if it were London.
For most of the last week, the AEMO (Australia Energy Market Operator) has been flashing red lights and ringing the LOR3 bell. That means they’ve been forecasting a full Level 3 Lack of Reserve, which means they can see blackouts coming. A level 3 is the most serious warning alarm. Not only is there no reserve power available if something goes wrong, there’s not even enough power for normal operations.
A week ago the AEMO saw blackouts coming for Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday — but by hook or by crook with finagling, they’ve got enough promised power now to turn off the sirens, though the lights are still flashing. Think of […]
By Jo Nova
In the annual tournament for cash handouts, the UN now enables charity for space-faring nations with slaves. Somehow, the demands for climate reparations were led by the nation burning more coal than the rest of the world combined, and no one laughed, or wondered whether they should mention it.
… a group of 77 developing countries, led by China, called for $US1.3 trillion a year in new, additional, adequate and affordable finance to address mitigation, adaptation and loss and damage.
–-Graham Lloyd, The Australian
It’s almost as if the CCP invented the UN definition of “developing” as an industrial weapon.
….OWID
Like most developing nations, two weeks ago China launched a manned spacecraft with propellants made from natural gas, and coal because it could not afford to use solar panels and windmills.
Oct 30: China puts astronauts in space aboard Shenzhou 19.
For the moment, the world’s poor have to settle for using unsymmetrical dimethylhydrazine (UDMH) and nitrogen tetroxide (N2O4) to get their citizens in orbit.
China’s space exploration plans include bringing back the first samples from Mars, and from the near-Earth asteroid Kamo’oalewa, and to look […]
By Jo Nova
It’s a 6pm bonfire on the Australian grid
Over at WattClarity on Monday when every state had prices over $3,000 per MWh simultaneously, Dan Lee noted that this was extremely rare. Since 2008, there have only been 32 intervals when prices were above $1,000 in all five states at once and nine of the 32 occurred on Monday.
Then Tuesday was so much worse:
Record high electricity prices across the NEM. July 2024
Naturally the Sydney Morning Herald is blaming “aging coal plants”
Because we can’t get rid of coal fast enough, right? Somehow it’s a “harbinger of the price hikes” we’re facing “if aging fossil fuel generators are forced to stay open longer”. So geniuses, if prices hit $17,000 a megawatt-hour when some coal power is down for a day, what happens when we get rid of coal entirely? Is that when Tinkerbell saves the day by turning Sydney Harbor into a giant battery, or when $17,000 prices become the “new norm”?
Somehow the unplanned outages of reliable coal plants create sky high prices, whereas the unplanned outages of wind and solar power create Utopia.
Not so coincidentally, the price spikes on July […]
By Jo Nova
Brown coal is the best kept secret in Australia
Imagine, in this cost-of-living crisis, if the nation discovered a 430 billion ton deposit that could produce electricity at a tenth the cost of gas and hydroelectricity? What a bonanza — the people could live like kings with heated pools, large homes, indoor spas and businesses would flock to the state to set up production lines. The state would become a trade giant and a mecca for tech.
Then imagine they let themselves be spooked into not using it for fear it would cause bad storms in a hundred years? Like the country is run by teenage girls…
Source: AER
Despite the costs of everything rising in 2024, the brown coal plants in Victoria are still offering to supply wholesale electricity at $8 per megawatt hour (which is 0.8c per kilowatt hour). That’s the average winning bid from brown coal plants across Quarter 1, 2024.
In the chart below of the last five years of quarterly prices, we can see that every single quarter brown coal power is the cheapest source of electricity there is bar none. (Wind and solar power, with their crazy negative […]
By Jo Nova
Even though India now consumes more than Europe and the US combined, there is really only one coal consumer. Just to update those figures…
Remember you are a planet-wrecker, but China just has growing pains
China burns four times as much coal as the second largest coal burner in the world. Everyone else is an also-ran in the coal stakes. For every ton the US consumes, China fries 12 times as much. And poor patsy Australia, for every ton we apologetically ignite, China burns 50. More coal was burned on Earth in 2023 than ever before in human history, and more than half of it was burned in China. Moreover, despite all the Sino nodding to sacred targets, China shows no intention of putting the brakes on the coal train. Around the world, 95% of all new coal power plants built in 2023 were built in China.
Where is the apoplexy?
The UN has met every year for twenty-eight years to badger everyone to stop using coal to appease the Goddess of Trace Gases and Weird Weather — all while China became the coal furnace of the world.
Or perhaps The UN met every year, […]
Coal trains in Bihar, India November 2023. by Salil Kumar Mukherjee
By Jo Nova
India is going gangbusters building coal
The need for energy in India is so dire, the Modi government just leaned on the power companies to get their act together. Instead of adding the usual 1 – 2 gigawatts of new coal power, which they have for a lot of the last decade, last year they ordered enough gear to build 10 gigawatts. And this year Modi wants them to aim for 31 gigawatts. Which is about the same capacity as the entire coal generation of the Australian National Grid (and our gas plants too).
Somewhat miraculously, they are talking of building them “in the next 5 or 6 years”:
India ‘Asks Utilities to Order $33bn in Gear to Lift Coal Output’ Rush to add more coal plants
India is rushing to add fresh coal-fired plants as it is barely able to meet power demand with the existing fleet in non-solar hours.
Post pandemic, the country’s power demand scaled new records on the back of the fastest rate of economic growth among major economies and increased instances of heatwaves.
July 5th, 2024 | Tags: Coal, Fossil Fuel, India | Category: Fossil Fuels, Global Warming, India, Uncategorized |  Print This Post | |
By Jo Nova
By golly. 1948. Some will remember a time when smart people got things done.
The three minute piece describes the awesome value of Yallourn Coal Power Plant — “converting brown coal to light and power”. This one plant supplied two-thirds of all the electricity the state of Victoria needed at the time.
Most of those turbines built from 1928 to 1961 have since been shut down, but the last one, built in the 1970s, keeps on running today. Yallourn W is rated at 1,450 MW and supplies one fifth of Victoria’s energy still.
H/t to David Maddison who says: “Sir John Monash (d. 1931) who built Victoria’s electricity supply back in the day would be appalled at what the Unipary has done to his creation.”
9.9 out of 10 based on 112 ratings
By Jo Nova
If coal is a planet wrecking problem, if it really mattered, about 30 countries are beating themselves up in acts of grandiose public flagellation, while one country is wrecking the planet and nobody cares. The truth is that no one is behaving like they think CO2 is causing a crisis. All over the West everyone wears the hippie-care coat while buying the cheapest fridges, phones and fashion they can get from the global coal furnace. And China nods the nod then keeps on adding coal power plants.
Climate change: China at risk of missing its goals unless it takes drastic action to rein in coal expansion, new research finds
Eric Ng, South China Morning Post
Last year, the Chinese energy sector’s carbon dioxide emissions increased 5.2 per cent, the same as gross domestic product, highlighting a failure to rein in energy-intensive growth, they estimated.
According to the Global Coal Plant Tracker 70 gigawatts of new coal power was built around the world in 2023. Of the 107 countries they tracked, one country built 47 gigawatts. The other 106 countries combined built 22 gigawatts. The distribution of new coal plants is thus:
By Jo Nova
The best kept secret in the world is that humans are using more coal than ever
So much for the “stranded dead asset”. In 2022 the world set a new all-time record for coal use — reaching 8.4 billion tons. In 2023, despite all the Net Zero billions in spending, despite the boom in windmills and solar panels, global demand for coal will top 8.54 billion tons.
The IEA is the “International Energy Agency” — supposedly, the impartial servant of 31 nations worth of taxpayers. Yet they decided to ignore the world record and instead tell us how coal is set to decline. It’s what they think the taxpayers need to hear. Their press release:
It’s almost as if the IEA works for the renewables industry and their banker investors? Mr Vestas himself could hardly have written a more successful headline to hide the truth and gaslight the taxpayers.
The IEA has been predicting the end of coal for years. Back in 2017 the IEA was telling us China would move away from coal, because by 2025-2030 “solar would be cheaper than coal”. Instead, China’s burning more coal than ever before and the quarterly reporting season […]
By Jo Nova
Two and a half years ago President Xi promised to “strictly control coal-fired power generation projects” in China. Before this solemn pledge the CCP had approved a blockbuster 54 gigawatts of coal fired power plants in just two years. Afterwards, to show how committed they were to Net Zero principles and international agreements, they *only* approved 131 GW. As President Xi promised — he’s “strictly in control” (of a massive increase). He’s also strictly in control of the world’s manufacturing.
After being deceived, the UN, Greenpeace, and Joe Biden promptly did nothing at all — it’s not like the future of life on Earth is at stake. And John Kerry somehow saw only “agreement” and “hope”.
When faced with this environmental catastrophe, the BBC told the world about China’s green power surge instead, and only mentioned the coal in passing as an aside. China had spawned a world record in coal plant construction, but apparently these coal plants are not so bad because many are built on renewable parks, “partly as backup for all the new wind and solar farms”. As if CO2 emissions are neutralized just by the presence of the sacred talisman of “renewables”. It’s […]
By Jo Nova
Top 20 Energy mining nations are planning to increase production, not decrease it.
Despite 151 nations signing the Paris Agreement, the UNEP has all but admitted that most of the world is not even pretending to meet their emissions promises. As is obvious in the graph below, governments of the top 20 producers of the evil coal, oil and gas are planning to dig up even more of it by 2030 than they do now. These 20 nations produce 80% of the world’s fossil fuels and somewhere out there are lots of customers.
The report appears to be a scorecard to guilt-trip the 20 naughty nations into giving up warmth, food or billions of dollars in exports, but it reads like the Paris Agreement is pure charade.
Governments plan to produce double the fossil fuels in 2030 than the 1.5°C warming limit allows
Stockholm, 8 November 2023 – A major new report published today finds that governments plan to produce around 110% more fossil fuels in 2030 than would be consistent with limiting warming to 1.5°C, and 69% more than would be consistent with 2°C.
Who are we kidding?
The Production Gap really means “The […]
Image by Vicente Godoy from Pixabay
By Jo Nova
We can’t even run a cement factory all day anymore
Get your candles for summer! Unlike the last three years the Australian national grid won’t be rescued by another cooler La Nina this year. Fears of rolling blackouts are fraying nerves at The Australian Financial Review Energy & Climate Summit. The transition is described as stuttering, gridlocked, faltering, and the government as “desperate”.
Things are so bad, former CEO’s of major generators are warning that “the lights are going to go out” and accusing one Energy Minister of speaking “complete and utter horseshit” because they don’t think we need reliable peaking gas plants to replace coal power. Said Energy Minister has responded by refusing to even take his calls. That’s really going to work. Meanwhile Japan is getting nervous just watching us, afraid we have screwed things up so badly we can’t be relied on to keep sending them gas.
Not only is summer nerve-wracking, but things are already so bad, one of our largest cement producers is shutting down nearly every day because it can’t afford to pay for the peak electricity spikes even in springtime. Here in […]
By Jo Nova
For some reason wind and solar power will not be powering a new EV battery factory in Kansas. Instead the sudden extra demand for electricity will be met by keeping an old coal-fired plant running.
Environmentalists are not happy. Wait ’til they realize no one even knows if EV’s will reduce carbon dioxide at all.
EV Battery Factory Will Require So Much Energy It Needs A Coal Plant To Power It
Kevon Killough, Cowboy State Daily
A $4 billion Panasonic electric vehicle battery factory in De Soto, Kansas, will help satisfy the Biden administration’s efforts to get everyone into an EV. It also will help extend the life of a coal-fired power plant.
The Kansas City Star reports that the factory will require between 200 and 250 megawatts of electricity to operate. That’s roughly the amount of power needed for a small city.
Naturally, to make something utterly pointless takes a lot of taxpayer money and Panasonic will receive $6.8 billion from the Inflation Reduction Act, which will, quite possibly, increase emissions and create inflation too.
As Mark Mills said it takes 250 tons of material to make […]
By Jo Nova
Don’t mention brown coal?
Last quarter I reported that the Australian Energy Market Operators (AEMO) had strangely “forgotten” to list the brown coal prices in its quarterly report, despite it being the second largest energy source in our national electricity market.
Other quarters, often they would include a graph comparing the average winning bids of all the major fuel types — a graph that surely is essential in these inflationary times where our electricity prices are setting record highs, rising by 25% this month, and we have a national debate on our energy crisis.
In the next quarterly report the AEMO did list the average “winning bids” of brown coal but didn’t do the comparison graph, so I’ve done it for them. If only they had room in their 68 page report and $450 million dollar budget so Australians can see, at a glance, which fuel source provides the cheapest wholesale generation by far, every quarter, all the time?
Despite all the inflation, the war, and the pandemic, brown coal generators are still making electricity for 3c a KWh. Shouldn’t Australians know that?
Click to enlarge (Or download the larger JPG file)
Compare that to […]
Image by David Mark from Pixabay
By Jo Nova
We are a fossil fueled world. Solar & wind power make up just 7.5% 6% of our energy needs.*
The world has set a new record for energy use in the last year. And even though renewables are being installed at the fastest rate they ever have been, it isn’t enough to keep up with the growing demand for energy let alone to “convert” the world to Net Zero.
Overall, despite our best efforts to wean ourselves off fossil fuels, the world remains “stuck” getting 82% of its energy from them.
The Energy Institute has released the Statistical Review of World Energy, and it shows global energy use has not only recovered from the pandemic, it is now 3% higher than it was pre-Covid in 2019. The relentless human desire for energy continues. In 2022, humans used 1% more energy than they did the year before and 70% of that growth was from China.
To put the historic size of the “Renewable Energy Transition” into focus, here’s the last century of energy transformation. The Energy Institute did not seem to want to highlight the insignificance of renewable energy, so […]
By Jo Nova
A “win” for predatory capitalism and government mis-interference
Liddell power station (foreground). Bayswater power station (rear).Photo NSW DPI
Yesterday, for the last time the final turbine was switched off at Liddell Coal plant after 52 years of operation. The NSW government gave it away for free in 2014 — bundled like a McHappy Meal in with the sale of Bayswater Coal, valued at $0. Governments saw old coal as worthless, at least until 2017 when everyone saw the bloodbath when the Hazelwood coal plant suddenly closed and electricity prices suddenly rose 85%. Then they started to panic a little — even Malcolm Turnbull (our Renewables lovin’ PM) started openly pressuring AGL to sell Liddell so it could keep running until his pet project the Snowy Hydro 2.0 could start. Chinese owned Alinta turned up with $250 million dollars and was willing to put in a billion to repair the station and extend its life up to 2030. Despite that bonanza, AGL refused to take the money. It was determined to run it into the ground and shut it down instead. Now it’s determined to blow it up as well. The Demolition crew is already appointed […]
By Jo Nova
Many Australians face a 20% rise in their electricity bill this coming winter, so it seems odd that the AEMO* forgot to put the price of the cheapest source of electricity in their last quarterly report. The bid-setting prices for brown coal have been some of my favourite graphs, but this quarter, for the first time a whole energy source disappeared. It would only be another 2 digit number in a 69 page report, yet the average winning bid of brown coal generators on our national grid last quarter is not even mentioned?
The nation faces major decisions about whether to continue to try changing global weather with our power plants. You would think Australians would like to know which fuel produces the cheapest electricity and by exactly how much? I mean, what’s the true cost of cooling Australia by a thousandth of a degree in 2100?
Perhaps the AEMO didn’t like that skeptics spread the message that brown coal could still generate electricity for less than 4c/KWh, or that hydro and gas were seven times more expensive? After all, the head of the AEMO — Daniel Westerman — says we must ramp up renewables to […]
OWID
By Jo Nova
It’s the sixth mass extinction of life on Earth and one country is building six times as much new coal power as the rest of the world combined. But no one cares.
Sinful Australia hasn’t even built a coal plant in 12 long years, but Saint China is approving a new one every three and a half days. One nation is theoretically destroying the world’s corals, creating droughts, floods and bad storms, and making reef fish reckless but no one is gluing themselves to the Chinese Embassy. The same universities who lecture us on carbon pollution are not even boycotting Chinese students. We have to ask — do reef fish matter? Are floods a bad thing?
Either CO2 is just a shiny amulet or everyone who cares about it is functionally innumerate. It could be both.
CREA
Meanwhile on the cat-walks of intellectual fashion shows the Western world’s elite competes to be more concerned than the next guy about the dire problems of CO2. President Xi cheers them on, promises to act, then builds another coal plant.
Constructing 106 Gigawatts of coal power in 2023 doesn’t exactly sit well with President […]
By Jo Nova
Hands up who wants to lose money?
These numbers that Rupert Darwall has put together in Real Clear Energy are extraordinary:
2022: The Year ESG Fell to Earth
The year 2022 brings an end to an era of illusions: … [it] brought environmental, social, and governance (ESG) investing down to earth with a thump—for the year to date, BlackRock’s ESG Screened S&P 500 ETF lost 22.2% of its value, and the S&P 500 Energy Sector Index rose 54.0%.
Ponder how savagely poignant these losses are for the ESG doe-eyed investors. In their wildest wet dreams ten years ago they would have crawled over shards of glass naked to get coal prices up to $400USD a ton. In a year when coal and gas were obscenely expensive, the glorious cheap efficiency of solar and wind power could shine like never before.
Instead demand for fashionable random green electrons vanished. There was never a need for “random” power, and the energy crisis just peeled back the onion to reveal the true demand. Wind and solar power were just the fashion accessories that no one had to have. Coal, oil and gas were essential.
Not only did demand […]
By Jo Nova
We’ve never had another third quarter this expensive
Despite setting price records — averaging $200/MWh across the whole quarter for the whole five-state National Energy Market, there’s like a cone of silence around the price of brown coal. The ABC is happy to evangelize about 30 minute “renewable energy records”, but they don’t mention that the three-month total system costs went off like a bomb.
Somehow Australia has all that free cheap green power and yet the wholesale costs exploded. The system broke:
No other Q3 has ever been this expensive.
But one unmentionable fuel type was still cheap
The average wholesale price for all generators last quarter was 20 cents a kilowatt hour (or $200 per megawatt hour), but brown coal generators were still able to supply during that same incendiary quarter for just at 4c a KWh. That was the average “winning bid”. So last quarter brown coal was one fifth the price of black coal, and one sixth the price of gas or hydro, and no one is talking about it.
The cheapest prices were from brown coal. (Far right)
Imagine if Australia had a free market in electricity? […]
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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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