“Renewable energy technologies simply won’t work; we need a fundamentally different approach.” – Top Google engineers
“We get a tax credit if we build a lot of wind farms. That’s the only reason to build them. They don’t make sense without the tax credit.” – Warren Buffett
“Suggesting that renewables will let us phase rapidly off fossil fuels in the United States, China, India, or the world as a whole is almost the equivalent of believing in the Easter Bunny and Tooth Fairy.” – James Hansen (The Godfather of global warming alarmism and former NASA climate chief)
***
WESTERN climate change-theory-obsessed politicians continue their ruinous and costly obsession with wind and solar ‘energy’. UNreliable ‘power’ that repeatedly fails the environment, communities and economies wherever installed.
ENERGY poverty, blackouts, skyrocketing power bills, business and heavy industry closures, grid instability and the destruction of pristine landscapes, among the many deleterious effects of the mad rush into low energy-density, weather and fossil-fuel dependent windmills and solar panels.
IN the latest round of insane proposals offered to hard-working taxpayers, in order to cover ‘renewable’ energy shortfalls, the Victorian State Government of Australia is offering cash payments to consumers to “switch off their AC’s to help prevent blackouts this summer”.
AND, you thought that you were living in the 21st Century? Wrong again…
Via 7 News Melbourne :
Households will be offered cash to switch off their air conditioners and help prevent blackouts this summer. @sarinanastasi #7NEWS pic.twitter.com/g7nphggRcA
— 7NEWS Melbourne (@7NewsMelbourne) August 21, 2019
*
CONCLUSION
THE twisted merry-go-round of ‘renewable’ energy payments to keep the lights on gives true meaning to the old adage, “robbing Peter to pay Paul”.
ENERGY poverty, rising insurance premiums, business closures, job losses and the highest electricity prices in the world is the grim reality of what life looks like under the totalitarian rule of the feel-good ‘Greens’. The zero-emissions zealots who want to force us backwards down the energy ladder to the days of human, animal and solar power.
JUST as socialist central planning failed miserably before it was replaced by free market economies, green central planning will have to be discarded before Australia and other Western nations, crippled by pseudoscientific climatology and the mad rush into costly and intermittent ‘green’ energy, will see a return to energy security, competitive pricing, business prosperity, job opportunities and a ‘liveable’ existence for our most vulnerable.
•••
“BLACKOUT” UPDATE AUGUST, 22
MORE than a million Victorian households are at risk of being without power this summer during extreme heat if coal and gas plants are not returned to service in time for peak periods, the energy market operator has warned…
NSW, Victoria warned of summer blackout risk if power supply doesn’t improve – ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)
“Renewable energy technologies simply won’t work; we need a fundamentally different approach.” – Top Google engineers
“We get a tax credit if we build a lot of wind farms. That’s the only reason to build them. They don’t make sense without the tax credit.” – Warren Buffett
“Suggesting that renewables will let us phase rapidly off fossil fuels in the United States, China, India, or the world as a whole is almost the equivalent of believing in the Easter Bunny and Tooth Fairy.” – James Hansen (The Godfather of global warming alarmism and former NASA climate chief)
***
VICTORIA and South Australia, the two southern Australian states who have taken the most ambitious reckless and ruinous position on UNreliables – wind and solar – were put to the test yesterday as temperatures soared into the 40’s. The result was a perfect failure on the two basic metrics of ‘1st-world’ energy supply – cost and reliability.
VICTORIAN wholesale prices surged to $14,500 per megawatt hour, where prices used to average less than $40 per megawatt hour…
— LaborFAILED (delcon) (@LaborFAIL) January 24, 2019
*
SOME 200,000 Victorian’s didn’t have the ‘pleasure’ of paying $14,500 / MWh, instead they were supplied blackouts, brownouts and load-shedding as the chronic undersupply of ‘real’ power – fossil fuels – was realised…
“More than 200,000 Victorian households had their power cut off yesterday in a bid to protect the state’s energy system from shutting down, as the Andrews government was forced to admit there was not enough power to keep up with soaring demand in sweltering summer heat.”
200,000 homes go dark as heat rises, electricity cut off | The Australian
*
AFTER tens of $BILLIONS spent on symbolic ‘green energy’ – wind only managed to supply a pathetic 4.2% and solar (on a hot, sunny day) 11.4% of demand at 1:30PM as temperatures peaked at 42.8C…
Melbourne power outages: Homes still without power after grid fails in record heat | Herald Sun
*
ANDREWS government was forced to admit there was not enough power to keep up with soaring demand…
1500 MW of vital coal-fired baseload power unable to be called upon when needed most after the energy-vandals of the current Labor (socialist) government forced the shut-down of the Hazlewood coal-fired power plant in 2017.
SEE : Victorian power bills soar after Hazelwood coal plant closure | SMH
*
“DIRTY” Fossil Fuels (Diesel And Gas) To The Rescue, Again!
ONE of the twisted ironies of the insane ‘green’ energy revolution is that it’s always “dirty” fossil fuels that come to the rescue of weather-dependent UNreliables.
MORE wind and solar doesn’t fix the fatal dependency on intermittent sunshine and breezes, rather the exact thing that they are designed to replace does – “dirty” coal and gas!
UNRELIABLES advocates bang-on on about “wind and solar now cheaper than fossil fuels”. This may be true when they are generating at full capacity, when the wind is blowing just right and the sun is shining. But, as the old sailors say “the wind is free, but everything else costs money.”
“EVERYTHING else” being the energy duplication and 24/7/365 backup costs associated with hydrocarbon energy – coal and gas. Dispatchable energy that is either supplying baseload or idling while wind and sun conditions are favourable for supply. And of course the massive cost to the consumer of green energy subsidies that are necessary to keep wind and solar competitive.
*
MOTHER NATURE To The Rescue!
Mother Nature stepped in where the UNreliables-obsessed Labor government’s failed ‘green’ energy could not…
“A cool change that swept across Melbourne about 2pm dropped the temperature 12C in 30 minutes, easing demand for power and bringing an end to load-shedding outages in the ensuing hour.”
200,000 homes go dark as heat rises, electricity cut off | The Australian
***
ANDREW BOLT on yesterdays green ‘energy’ fiasco – a taste of things to come as global warming theory-obsessed Australian governments pander the U.N. climate gods and install more economy, grid and job destroying UNreliables…
VICTORIANS SWEAT THROUGH A GREAT GREEN HOAX
Andrew Bolt, Herald Sun
Lily D’Ambrosio, Victoria’s warmist Minister for Energy, in 2017 claimed Labor was helping to “deliver affordable, sustainable and renewable energy”.
Launching Renewable Energy Action Plan with @algore. Helping us deliver affordable, sustainable & reliable energy https://t.co/91TIptroyB pic.twitter.com/I08372VFcx
— Lily D'Ambrosio MP (@LilyDAmbrosioMP) July 13, 2017
All three promises were broken yesterday.
Affordable? Victoria actually had wholesale power prices hit $14,500 per megawatt hour – when prices used to average less than $40.
Sustainable? Wind power generators on Thursday delivered a feeble 3.8 per cent of the state’s power, thanks to fickle winds. They could not deliver when needed most.
Reliable? Victoria – which helped drive the giant Hazelwood coal-fired generator out of business – ran short of electricity in the heat wave, and suffered blackouts that hit 200,000 homes and premises, even after it ordered big power users like the Portland smelter to shut down.
Why does Victoria, sitting on hundreds of years of supply of coal and big gas reserves, have an electricity system that can no longer deliver enough electricity?
Why? Because it bought the great global warming scare, and spent billions on unreliable green power instead of on a steady generator that would pump out all the power we need – and when we need it. It made coal-fired generators unprofitable, and told vast untruths about the great future of green power.
And for what? For pure symbolism. No cuts Australia makes to emissions will affect global warming, which has turned out to be nothing like the catastrophe that was predicted.
Global warming politicians are causing far more damage than global warming is every likely to. Yet who dares call them out?
VICTORIANS SWEAT THROUGH A GREAT GREEN HOAX | Herald Sun
***
“For forty years Australia had cheaper and more reliable energy than this, and it was powered by what four letter word?” –JoanneNova
BUT, here is the ultimate craziness – all the money, all the wrecking of views, all the lost jobs through higher electricity prices and all the blackouts – all the pain for nothing. The apparent effect on global temperatures so incredibly small, nobody would notice.
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Australian Power Project chief executive Nathan Vass said taxpayers would be forced to effectively “pay twice” for the program — once when they pay their electricity bill and again through government support of the companies running the solar and wind farms. “Australian industry won’t get much of a benefit from this deal,” Mr Vass told The Australian. “This will only help manufacturing jobs in China, Europe or the US where most wind turbine and solar panel manufacturers are based.”
Foreign Wind Companies Vs One Australian!
NOT only are jobs, industry and “emissions” going offshore thanks to skyrocketing ‘green’ energy bills, but now income from energy bills will be going to overseas multi-nationals who build and control Australia’s planned mega wind parks.
JUST when you thought things couldn’t possibly get any worse! Insanity on steroids….
STOP THESE THINGS
For Australian households and businesses being crushed by out-of-control power prices the Paris Climate Agreement is a maniac’s suicide note.
With nothing else to justify the $60 billion being thrown in subsidies at chaotically intermittent wind and solar, renewable energy rent seekers are clinging to the notion that the deal done in the City of Light will forever hold them harmless from both political and commercial reality.
The more insane aspects of the Paris agreement are yet to bite in Australia: agriculture and transport will eventually suffer the same self-inflicted destruction that has been meted out in the power generation sector.
Australia’s cattle and sheep herds currently number in the tens of millions: 26 million beef cattle and 2.8 million milkers; sheep number around 74 million. Under the Paris deal sheep and cattle numbers will need to be slashed by more than 26% to meet its target for…
WHEN will climate-theory-obsessed politicians and sycophant media finally call off their global warming climate change jihad that’s punishing the poor without helping the planet?
WE were told we’d have more cyclones, not less.
WE were promised “permanent” drought, not record rains.
DURING the height of the global warming scare around 2007, soon after Al Gore’s science fiction movie “An Inconvenient Truth” aired, (which was swiftly shot down as a “political fiction” by the British High Court’s, Judge Michael Burton who ruled that errors had arisen “in the context of alarmism and exaggeration”) Tim Flannery infamously claimed:
“SO, even the rain that falls isn’t actually going to fill our dams and our river systems…” – Tim Flannery 2007
“I think there is a fair chance Perth will be the 21st century’s first ghost metropolis. It’s whole primary production is in dire straits and the eastern states are only 30 years behind.”
We are “one of the most physically vulnerable people on the Earth,” and “southern Australia is going to be impacted very severely and very detrimentally by global climate change.” We are going to experience “conditions not seen in 40 million years.”
In 2007 he said:
“…That’s because the soil is warmer because of global warming and the plants are under more stress and therefore using more moisture. So even the rain that falls isn’t actually going to fill our dams and our river systems, and that’s a real worry for the people in the bush. If that trend continues then I think we’re going to have serious problems, particularly for irrigation.”
“The one-in-1000-years drought is, in fact, Australia’s manifestation of the global fingerprint of drought caused by climate change.”
In May 2007 he warned that:
“Brisbane and Adelaide – home to a combined total of three million people – could run out of water by year’s end;”
and that the country was facing
“the most extreme and the most dangerous situation arising from climate change facing any country in the world right now.”
In June 2007 he said:
“Over the past 50 years southern Australia has lost about 20 per cent of its rainfall, and one cause is almost certainly global warming. Similar losses have been experienced in eastern Australia, and although the science is less certain it is probable that global warming is behind these losses too. But by far the most dangerous trend is the decline in the flow of Australian rivers: it has fallen by around 70 per cent in recent decades, so dams no longer fill even when it does rain …
In Adelaide, Sydney and Brisbane, water supplies are so low they need desalinated water urgently, possibly in as little as 18 months.”
In 2008 he warned again that:
“The water problem is so severe for Adelaide that it may run out of water by early 2009.”
AND then the rains came, as they always do in the land of “droughts and flooding rains“…
BY December 2008 Adelaide’s reservoirs were 75% full, Perth’s 40%, Sydney’s 63%, and Brisbane’s reservoir’s were 46% full.
BY 2009 dams for Brisbane, Canberra and Sydney were filled to overflowing.
PRESENTLY Adelaide’s reservoirs are 57%, Perth’s 39%, Melbourne’s 59%, Sydney’s 77%, and Brisbane’s reservoir’s are 83% full.
*
MOTHBALLED DESALINISATION PLANTS
In 2005 Flannery wrote in “The Weather Makers“:
Australia’s east coast is no stranger to drought, but the dry spell that began in 1998 is different from anything that has gone before….The cause of the decline of rainfall on Australia’s east coast is thought to be a climate-change double whammy – the loss of winter rainfall and the prolongation of El Nino-like conditions.
The resulting water crisis here is potentially even more damaging than the one in the west … As of mid 2005 the situation remains critical… very little time to arrange alternative water sources such as large-scale desalination plants.
The result:
$12 BILLION worth of desalination plants built in South Australia, Queensland, NSW and Victoria have all been mothballed without producing a drop of water. All were built in preference to much cheaper dams, because of green bans and because warming alarmists claimed the rains would not return.
FIVE desal plants have been built in Australia. Only Perth’s is used.
COSTS to run each mothballed deal plant are estimated at between $500,000 to $1,000,000 per day, every day until contracts run out around 2030.
THIS is what Victoria’s mothballed desal plant is costing the taxpayer each and every year until, at least, 2030…Read the rest of this entry »
WELCOME to the Australia! The lucky country with the world’s cheapest energy sources that now boasts the world’s highest electricity prices!
ENERGY rationing has always been a key feature of the Left’s misanthropic agenda of depopulation deindustrialisation, enforced through punitive emissions controls, protected under the guise of anthropogenic ‘climate change’ – the emotionally driven eco-cause engineered by the environmental movement in the 1970’s who realised that doing something about supposed catastrophic man-made global warming would play to quite a number of the Left’s social agendas.
STANFORD University and Royal Society’s resident global warming alarmist and population freak Paul R. Ehrlich spelled out the deindustrialisation objective with this attack on energy in 1976:
“Giving society cheap, abundant energy would be the
equivalent of giving an idiot child a machine gun.”
– Prof Paul Ehrlich, Stanford University/Royal Society
EHRLICH also wanted to poison black African’s in order to fight climate change. But, we’ll leave that conversation for another day. Ahem.
Paul R. Ehrlich | Center for Conservation Biology | Stanford
*
FORMER Australian PM Julia Gillard, who implemented Australia’s ill-fated 2011 carbon tax, was open in expressing its core function to ‘drive substantial changes in patterns of energy production and energy use.’
Barry girl (aka PM of Australia Julia Gillard) kisses Obama – Wales Online
GILLARD’S ideology synonymous with another well known eco-doomsayer and the creator, fabricator and proponent of global warming – UNEP’s founding father Maurice Strong:
“Isn’t the only hope for the planet that the industrialized civilizations collapse? Isn’t it our responsibility to bring that about?” – Maurice Strong, founder of the UN Environment Programme (UNEP)
“Current lifestyles and consumption patterns of the affluent middle class – involving high meat intake, use of fossil fuels, appliances, air-conditioning, and suburban housing – are not sustainable.” – Maurice Strong, Secretary General of the UN’s Earth Summit, 1992.
The Creator, Fabricator And Proponent Of Global Warming – Maurice Strong | Climatism
*
IN 2016, Victoria’s premier Dan Andrews took his State one step closer to Ehrlich and U.N. Strong’s energy-free utopia, with the closure of Hazelwood coal-fired power station, culling 22% of Victoria’s cheap, reliable energy supply and flipping the state from a power exporter to an importer.
COAL-fired power plant closures have become the order of the day for Australia’s virtue-signalling and global warming theory-obsessed political class who think that destroying the country’s industrial heartland, and imposing crippling energy-poverty on its citizens is a worthwhile price to pay for “saving the planet”.
BACK in my hometown of Melbourne, it is abundantly clear and the evidence “unequivocal” that fossil fuels have devastated this once beautiful city. The “carbon pollution” and rampant environmental devastation is visible in everything you see, smell and touch.
CAPITALISM and the advent of cheap, abundant and reliable fossil fuel power has created a city of filth, poverty and squalor. It must be stopped.
DRACONIAN climate policy and a state of totalitarianism is the only way to convert Melbourne back into a “sustainable”, “smart city” of tranquil caves and caverns once again.
ENDING capitalism and yielding to the UN’s multi-trillion dollar Paris climate con deal is the only way Melbourne will ever become clean and green again.
IN the meantime, Victoria’s Premier, Chairman Dan Andrews’ plan to make ‘energy’ 40% renewable unreliable by 2025 is guaranteed to put downward pressure on already skyrocketing power prices and ensure jobs and industry remain in Victoria…
State of Victoria Targets 40% Renewables by 2025 | UNFCCC
THINK of the children.
#ActOnClimate
•••
Related :
ENERGY Prices Double In A Year In Victoria And South Australia! | Climatism
TENS Of Thousands Of Homes Across Victoria Without Power As System Buckles Under Heat – Welcome To Your Wind Powered Future! | Climatism
WESTERN Nations, Driven By A Global Agenda Of Climate Alarmism, Are Destroying Their Industries With Carbon Taxes And Promotion Of Expensive, Intermittent Green Energy | Climatism
WITHOUT Access To Massive Taxpayer Subsidies There Would Be No “Green Energy Revolution” | Climatism
Australia Unreliable-Energy Fiasco related :
THE Insane Result Of The Mad Switch To Costly, Symbolic, Unreliable Energy – Wind and Solar | Climatism
CHEAP ENERGY – Australia’s Greatest Economic Advantage Sacrificed At The Altar Of Climate Change | Climatism
A Totally Idiot Made Electricity Disaster | Climatism
Australian Summer Forecast: More Blackouts & Rocketing Power Prices | Climatism
IT’S OFFICIAL : South Australia Has The World’s Highest Power Prices! | Climatism
POLITICIANS Mad With Global Warming Theory Are Destroying The Economy And Hurting The Poor | Climatism
DIESEL – Keeping South Australia’s Lights On Til The Next Election! | Climatism
LIFE In A Fossil-Fuel-Free Utopia | Climatism
THE Twisted Irony of Deep-Green Energy Policy (RET) | Climatism
Simon Holmes à Court – Wind Weasel | Climatism
Survey: South Australians Fed Up with Unreliable Expensive Green Power | Climatism
STABLE and Reliable Coal-Fired Power Still the Cheapest By a Country Mile | Climatism
Elon’ll Fix It! | NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT
•••
PLEASE Tip The Climatism Jar To Help Keep The Good Fight Alive!
(Still waiting for that “big oil” cheque to arrive in the mail!)
“A generation system that throws 2,000 MW into the grid over the space of minutes, without warning, and collapses by the same margin over the same time-frame, again without warning, and irrespective of the demands of users, is not a system, at all. It’s chaos.
Now that that chaos is repaying wind and sun worshippers with mass blackouts and forced load shedding across two States, slowly but surely the proletariat is reaching the same conclusion.”
SPOT-on STT.
“Never before in our recent history have we seen on this scale governmental incompetence and arrogant disregard for the well being of communities in the quest for green votes.”
YES Robert Gottliebsen.
STOP THESE THINGS
Alcoholics call it a ‘moment of clarity’. In wind powered South Australia and Victoria, hitherto fans of renewables call it a ‘mass blackout’.
In 1919, after Engineer/Soldier, Sir John Monash returned to his home town of Melbourne from the Western Front, to a hero’s welcome, he set about establishing an electricity grid that would serve his home State, and the coal-fired power plants located in the Latrobe Valley that would power it.
Immediately after the Armistice was struck with the Germans on 11 November 1918, Monash sent officers to infiltrate German coalmines near Cologne and elsewhere to get an understanding of how the Germans managed to achieve the successful use of their brown coal reserves, similar to those found in the Latrobe Valley. Armed with knowledge of the German’s techniques and engineering, Monash drove the development of those reserves and their exploitation, and Melbourne and Victoria never looked back: the…
“Even the most virulent supporter of renewable energy can, after enough waterboarding, admit the link between more renewables and increased power prices.
“…and bring in diesel-powered generators to stop the lights turning off. It is surely the biggest admission that our renewables experiment has been a failure when you have to call in generators to burn pure fossil fuels.”
EXCELLENT read on the unreliable-energy fiasco that is wreaking havoc on the livelihoods of Victoria and South Australian taxpayers…
STOP THESE THINGS
Comparing 2016 (red) and 2017 (blue) average
wholesale prices of electricity by state
South Australians have a Labor government and its deranged, ideological obsession with wind and solar power to thank for their status as an international joke.
Paying the highest retail power prices in the world (with much worse to come – see above), routine load shedding and statewide blackouts, and a grid on the brink of collapse, is all the inevitable consequence of attempting to run an economy on sunshine and breezes.
One of the reasons things got this way (and it happened in a bit over 16 years) is the manner in which the useful idiots in the mainstream press pumped wind power, as if it was a sacred gift delivered by some magical and benevolent deity.
In South Australia, the wind cult kicked off around 2002 when its then Premier, Mike Rann started tilting at…
WELCOME to Chairman Dan’s unreliable-energy ‘devolution’! Expect more skyrocketing electricity prices, blackouts and load-shedding as Australia’s virtue-signalling, climate theory-obsessed politicians continue their jihad against what was Australia’s once proud boast – cheap, reliable, efficient baseload power.
LATEST shock report on Australia’s southern states skyrocketing power prices via The Australian (Climatism bolds and links added):
***
AVERAGE wholesale energy prices in Victoria and South Australia have more than doubled since this time last year, as experts warn that blackouts and supply issues are likely to increase as state governments chase aggressive renewable energy targets.
More than 2000 Victorian households remained without power yesterday after two days of heat triggered equipment failures and blackouts, opening up distributors to compensation claims.
The mass outages affected more than 60,000 residents, some of whom were cut off for more than 28 hours.
The outages struck as new data showed the average wholesale energy price in Victoria climbed to $139 this month, up from $62 in January last year. In South Australia, the wholesale average price for January climbed to almost $170, up from $84 a year ago, whereas prices fell in NSW and Queensland to about $75.
The pricing data has angered energy experts, who say blackouts and supply issues are likely to increase and prices are likely to rise as the Victorian and South Australian governments pursue renewable energy targets without prioritising power sources that can supply baseload power.
Grattan Institute energy director Tony Wood said Sunday’s and Monday’s blackouts and high pricing showed that the state had botched its energy transition program by allowing baseload power sources — such as the Hazelwood power station — to be replaced by renewables, which delivered intermittent power.
“We’re dealing with a complex transition and it hasn’t been managed very well so far,” Mr Wood said. “That’s why we’ve seen local outages and high prices on the weekend, and that’s the reason why wholesale prices are substantially higher this year than last year.
“It’s a reflection of a failed policy. We’re transitioning away from centralised, cheap but dirty power stations, but we’re not replacing these stations with sources that are just as stable.”
The Andrews government last year broke away from other states and territories by instituting its own Victorian Renewable Energy Target, with a plan for renewables to power 40 per cent of the state’s energy needs by 2025.
Mr Wood said the energy supply could get patchier and the state could emerge as a net importer of electricity as the government replaced coal-fired power stations with solar and wind and other intermittent power sources, which did not fire 24 hours a day.
Federal Energy Minister Josh Frydenberg confirmed that the weekend power outages were the result of distribution rather than supply issues, but said the state government needed to do more to boost reliability.
He urged Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews to rethink the renewable energy target while branding South Australia’s renewables plan an experiment gone “horribly wrong”.
“Reliability standards for networks are set by state governments,” Mr Frydenberg said. “AEMO (Australian Energy Market Operator) have highlighted that supply in Victoria is tight and that is why we have called upon the Andrews government to drop its reckless state-based renewable energy targets and mindless bans on gas.
“Jay Weatherill’s ‘big experiment’ has gone horribly wrong. South Australia has the highest prices and the least stable energy system in the country and, despite the bravado in the lead-up to summer, their energy problems remain. Just a couple of weeks ago, South Australia’s prices reached $14,200 a megawatt hour, while at the same time they were $89 a MWh in NSW and $85 MWh in Queensland.
“The wind turbines, which can produce 100 per cent of energy on one day and zero on another, were not blowing when needed most, providing less than 5 per cent of power and Jay Weatherill’s big battery less than 1 per cent.”
Australian Power Project chief executive Nathan Vass warned that Victoria’s energy supply with a larger proportion of renewables likely would have buckled under conditions such as those of Sunday night.
“Batteries and solar would not have saved Victoria as over 17,000 Victorians had no power throughout the night, when the sun isn’t shining,” Mr Vass said.
“Pairing renewables with battery storage wouldn’t have done much to alleviate the blackout. By way of example, the Tesla battery facility in South Australia only provides power for an hour to 30,000 homes.”
Release of the wholesale pricing data in South Australia — and data showing South Australia still has the highest prices in the National Electricity Market — prompted state opposition energy spokesman Dan van Holst Pellekaan to savage a claim by Mr Weatherill that his $550 million “self-sufficient” energy plan was producing the lowest power prices in the national market.
“South Australians are furious about the outrageous price of electricity they pay and tired of the Weatherill government’s refusal to accept responsibility,” Mr van Holst Pellekaan said.
SA Energy Minister Tom Koutsantonis said wholesale power prices were “notoriously volatile”. “Since August, wholesale power prices in South Australia have been consistently cheaper than Victoria, and in September and October, SA had the cheapest wholesale prices of mainland states in the National Electricity Market,” he said.
In Victoria, Mr Andrews blamed the outages on the Coalition’s decision to privatise the state’s energy assets in the 1990s. “Fact is, there was more than enough power being generated to meet the demand yesterday — but the private companies and their distribution systems failed yet again,” he said on Twitter.
Mr Andrews said he would push for distributors to pay compensation to households that were left for long periods without power.
Wholesale energy prices double in a year in Victoria and South Australia | The Australian
•••
TELLING observations of VIC / SA demand during the peak of the energy meltdown on Sunday 28th at 15:30…
I captured the generation chart at at 15.30 Sunday.
Victoria not meeting demand…
Note: SA pumping out 199MW of Diesel Gen, Battery useless at 1MW…! pic.twitter.com/rEvwE1R8uQ
— tomfoolery2007 (@climatecancel) January 28, 2018
Tomfoolery2007 :
I captured the generation chart at at 15.30 Sunday. Victoria not meeting demand… Note: SA pumping out 199MW of Diesel Gen, Battery useless at 1MW…!
NOTE “Liquid Fuel”. This relates to the $360 million worth of “green” diesel generators imported by Jay Weatherill’s SA government to cover up its renewables debacle…
DIESEL – Keeping South Australia’s Lights On Til The Next Election!
AS for Elon Musk’s giant toxic battery pack boondoggle…the numbers don’t lie (1MW for another ~$200 million of taxpayer hard-earned!).
MY sympathies to all the South Australians and Victorian’s who didn’t vote for this energy insanity.
•••
VIC Blackout Related :
TENS Of Thousands Of Homes Across Victoria Without Power As System Buckles Under Heat – Welcome To Your Wind Powered Future! | Climatism
Australia Unreliable-Energy Debacle Related :
THE Insane Result Of The Mad Switch To Costly, Symbolic, Unreliable Energy – Wind and Solar | Climatism
CHEAP ENERGY – Australia’s Greatest Economic Advantage Sacrificed At The Altar Of Climate Change | Climatism
A Totally Idiot Made Electricity Disaster | Climatism
Australian Summer Forecast: More Blackouts & Rocketing Power Prices | Climatism
IT’S OFFICIAL : South Australia Has The World’s Highest Power Prices! | Climatism
POLITICIANS Mad With Global Warming Theory Are Destroying The Economy And Hurting The Poor | Climatism
DIESEL – Keeping South Australia’s Lights On Til The Next Election! | Climatism
LIFE In A Fossil-Fuel-Free Utopia | Climatism
THE Twisted Irony of Deep-Green Energy Policy (RET) | Climatism
Simon Holmes à Court – Wind Weasel | Climatism
Survey: South Australians Fed Up with Unreliable Expensive Green Power | Climatism
STABLE and Reliable Coal-Fired Power Still the Cheapest By a Country Mile | Climatism
Elon’ll Fix It! | NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT
Unreliables Related :
UNRELIABLE Energy – Wind and Solar – A Climate Of Communism | Climatism
TRULY GREEN? How Germany’s #Energiewende Is Destroying Nature | Climatism
German Pols Now Demanding Energy Welfare For Its Citizens – 800,000 Have Had Their Electricity Cut Off!
WIND TURBINES Are Neither Clean Nor Green And They Provide Zero Global Energy | Climatism
Adding More Solar And Wind Power ‘Doubles’ CO2 Emissions | Climatism
THE $Trillion Windmill Industry Is The Greatest Scam Of Our Age | Climatism
Over 100,000 People in Green Energy South Australia Now Receive Food Donations | Climatism
Green Power is Part Time Power | Climatism
America’s Top Green – Michael Shellenberger – Pushes Nuclear Future & Calls Wind & Solar ‘The Worst for the Enviroment’ | Climatism
Back In The Real World…
World Coal-Fired Power Surge Related :
GREEN ENERGY FAIL – World Coal Power Development Up 43% | Climatism
Japan Infuriating Enviros By Building 45 New Coal Power Plants | Climatism
$7.5bn worth of coal-fired power plants planned for Vietnam | Climatism
Coal To Remain India’s Main Energy Source For At Least 30 Years, Govt Confirms | Climatism
China’s Production Of Electricity From Coal Surges To Record Levels | Climatism
Power outages across Victoria have left tens of thousands in the dark. Picture: Powercor
Via Herald Sun :
MORE than 437,000[Climatism correction. See below ‘Update’] homes across Victoria are without power.
The number has skyrocketed since about 6.15pm amid oppressive heat and humidity.
The tally just before 9pm stood at 37,585, which included Citipower, Powercor and United customers, plus figures from AusNet.
Melbourne’s west has been hit hard, with homes in Sunshine, Seddon, St Albans and Altona North affected.
The outages stretch from Truganina and Hoppers Crossing down to the suburbs surrounding inner Geelong.
The Bellarine Peninsula is one of the hardest hit by outages, with more than 15,000 households in the beachside towns of Ocean Grove, St Leonards, Indented Head, Point Lonsdale and Queenscliff left sweating in the heat.
A Citipower spokeswoman said 35,000 customers across the supplier’s three networks were without power as of 8pm.
It’s sparked outcry among customers, who have taken to social media to vent frustrations…
Memo to government. It’s your responsibility to provide basic services like energy to households who pay heavily for it. On days like today pedal power ain’t going to cut it.
— Stephen Quartermain (@Quartermain10) January 28, 2018
Quite right-Power came back on for 1.5hrs in Bellarine last night. Bet that was just enough to boost fridges to avoid food spoilage claims.
Power companies & Govt blaming everything else but themselves for failing to provide an essential service when it’s needed the most @#auspol https://t.co/NyA5k5Ivac
— Greg Smith (@Ausmentor) January 28, 2018
The power has gone out in our suburb, one of a few across the inner west. I’m melting. pic.twitter.com/Ykx2G3byhw
— Michelle Ainsworth (@mlainsworth) January 28, 2018
Estimated time to power restore has gone up to four fricken AM
— Tiger Bailey, Werewolf Boy (@HyperTigerXT) January 28, 2018
“Most of the problems today have been fuses blowing basically because of hot weather and very high demand,” the spokesman said.
“In many places, people may have put air-conditioners in that we’re not aware of, so it’s higher demand than we expect in a few areas.”
Melbourne weather: Power out at thousands of homes as heatwave continues | Herald Sun
*
OUR friends over at Stop These Things (STT) analyse the dire power issues faced by Victoria and South Australia whose socialist state governments have embraced the unreliable-energy ‘de-evolution’ with predictably devastating results…
Tom Koutsantonis reckons his state’s wind farms were delivering the goods for South Australians and Victorians, as well.
So, always ready to rain on Kouta’s parade, let’s drill down a little closer to see what SA’s whirling wonders were actually doing on 18 and 19 January (when South Australians needed power most).
Looking more like the profile of a terrifying Swiss ski run, that’s the entire output from SA’s wind farms on 18 January.
With a promising start, delivering almost 1,100 MW for a brief spurt, the team determined to down tools after breakfast, with a precipitous 500 MW collapse in less than 90 minutes. (To put that in perspective, Weatherill, Koutsantonis & Co have been cheering about the demolition of SA’s last coal-fired plant, which had a solid and reliably delivered capacity of 520 MW.)
Thereafter, output collapses 650 MW – from 700MW to 50 MW – over the course of the afternoon; precisely as demand for power peaked.
Weatherill, Koutsantonis and their wind worshipping cronies keep pointing to his $150 million mega-battery as some kind of miraculous saviour. Maths is clearly not among their strongest points. 100 MW (the notional capacity of the battery) fits five times into the margin of the first collapse, and 6½ times into the final post-lunch collapse on 18 January.
Here’s their combined effort on the following day, 19 January:
Having put in an almost respectable effort before morning tea – topping out at 1,000 MW – again, as the day warmed up and power demand surged, output plummets: a full 700 MW – from 1,000 MW to 300 MW – by mid-afternoon, where it bobbed along until 6pm.
At $150 million to get 100 MW worth of Tesla’s battery storage (said by its boosters to deliver 129 MWh), the cost of tooling up to accommodate 700-1,000 MW wind power output collapses every other day would pretty soon add up to $billions.
As pointed out by The Australian, the yawning gaps in SA’s wind power output weren’t back-filled by wind power lovingly stored in Musk’s Marvel, but by the trusty and reliable coal-fired plants still merrily chugging away in Victoria’s Latrobe Valley. But that fact wouldn’t fit their narrative now, would it?
With a deranged and delusional leadership in charge, South Australians can look forward to rocketing power prices and rolling blackouts for years to come.
Welcome to your wind powered future!
Pointless & Pathetic: South Australia’s Wind Power Output Repeatedly Plummets During Summer Heatwave (Again) – STOP THESE THINGS
EXPECT more skyrocketing electricity prices, blackouts and load-shedding as Australia’s virtue-signalling, climate theory-obsessed politicians continue their jihad against what was Australia’s once proud boast – cheap, reliable, efficient baseload power.
THE latest attack on Australia’s energy security as noted on my twitter feed…
THE destruction of South Australia’s last coal-fired power station today. The world now has the message: #SouthAustralia is closed for investment in heavy industry, and so, soon, will be the rest of Australia if we don’t learn from the new era of #EnergyPoverty insanity! #Auspol pic.twitter.com/BhU7pybXkB
— JWSpry (@JWSpry) January 25, 2018
Jo Nova with more…
South Australia blows up cheap electricity, jobs, wealth, in ideological anti-coal quest
Today the South Australian government destroyed the smoke stack of the Playford B Plant, one more part of what’s left of the cheapest base-load electricity generators in the state.
For about $8 million a year over three years, they could have kept some coal power going and wouldn’t have needed to spend $400 million on emergency diesel generators they don’t want to use, and over $100 million on a battery that can supply 4% of the state for one hour. They also would’ve paid less than $120 million for two days of electricity last week.
On the upside, they can feel good and pretend to be “world leaders”. Virtue signalling is expensive, eh?
….
The plant employed 185 people, the coal mine 200. Other businesses in the town, who knows? People are leaving.
SA, a star in the race away from being a competitive, powerhouse rich state. Creating wealth and jobs in China.
Last South Australian coal-fired power station demolition nears completion
The Australian, Luke Griffiths:
The concrete and brick structure at the 240MW Playford B power station, named after long-serving South Australian premier Sir Thomas Playford and mothballed in 2012, leaves only the 200-metre high stack at the nearby Northern power station standing in Port Augusta, 280km north of Adelaide.
That is expected to be demolished in April or May as part of a decommissioning process undertaken by Flinders Power, an offshoot of former power station operator Alinta Energy.
Before announcing the closure of Northern in mid-2015, Alinta unsuccessfully sought $25 million in subsidies over three years from the South Australian Labor government to keep it operating until this year, to ensure an effective transition occurred, after a rapid rise in renewable energy made it unviable.
However, the Weatherill government, which is ideologically opposed to coal, rejected the offer.
It’s wrecking the town too:
Locals in Port Augusta this week expressed frustration…
Deirdre McKerlie, who works at KD’s Hair Flair, told The Australian that not having a transition plan was “just stupid”. She said Port Augusta hit “rock bottom”, with many businesses unviable and residents moving away.
Premier Jay Weatherill said “Port Augusta is a symbol of South Australia’s transition from old to new…”
Exactly our point.
The boilers were blown up in November.
The rest will be demolished in April or May. SA, living standards thereafter.
SA had two coal power plants: Playford B, built in 1963, 240MW and newer Northern Power Station (1985) and 520MW.
Comment from RB555 2018/01/22 at 12:22 pm
This ETSA PR film from 1954 may be of interest.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tMKPz-kVgcc
Shows the opening of Playford A power station, the first of three powered by Lee Creek coal.
Tom Playford himself appears briefly in the film.
A brief history of the complex is here.
South Australia blows up cheap electricity, jobs, wealth, in ideological anti-coal quest « JoNova
“Sooner or later everyone sits down to a banquet of consequences” – Robert Louis Stevenson
•••
UPDATE
Jo Nova on the “secret” air conditioners that one power company (Ausnet) is blaming for Melbourne’s blackout…
Melbourne: 42,000 homes in dark, no fans left at Kmart. Power outages due to “secret” air conditioners?
Melbourne Skyline at night…Image: Alfred Glickman
The temperature reached 38C in Melbourne (100F) on Sunday — something it has probably done most summers since 10,000BC.
CitiPower, Powercor and the United Energy spokeswoman Emma Tyner said that as of 9.25pm, about 41,190 homes were without power across those three networks. – Sydney Morning Herald
Now why would that be? Ms Tyner puts a lack of supply in the nicest possible way:
“The extreme heat has significantly increased electricity use and this has resulted in localised power outages,” Ms Tyner said.
It’s not that governments didn’t plan energy policy — it’s the users who wanted too much (i.e your fault.) Though Victorians used to use more power than this. On Sunday, peak electricity demand was 9,124MW, about 13% less than the all time peak of 10,496MW in 2009. (In case you are wondering, Hazelwood (now closed) produced 1600MW or about 25% of Victorian baseload power.)
Mr Armstrong from Ausnet Services (another power company) blamed unreported air conditioners:
“There are a lot fuses blowing in the hot weather and a significant power pull with people having put in air-conditioners they didn’t tell us about,” Mr Armstrong said. — The Age
Who knew you needed to tell your power company when you put in an air conditioner?
Gone are the days when people could willy-nilly run down to Retrovision and just buy an air con.
Ms Tyner and Mr Armstrong may have inadvertently let the cat out of the bag. Perhaps they will get quiet reeducation tomorrow on how to phrase the cause of blackouts. (Aren’t they due to old coal turbines breaking?)
Next, expect people to start saying how normal it is to have blackouts on hot days. “It’s just a part of life.”
If only the same people would say that about hot days.
You know things are serious when Kmart runs out of fans.
A Kmart in Northcote on Sunday was completely sold out of all cooling devices, from fans to air-conditioning units, its duty manager said.
So no willy-nilly fan buying either.
Tonight some people have fans, but no electricity. Others have electricity but no fans.
Others have electricity and fans, but no money. Luckily electricity “only” reached a peak of $3,125 per MWh briefly in Victoria. (Only a few million extra).
Pollies play blackout roulette
Robert Gottleibsen, a week ago:
Welcome to Australia’s deadly game of Melbourne and Sydney blackout roulette. The stakes involve hundreds of millions of dollars of refrigerated food and the operations of thousands of factories and offices who don’t have emergency power contingencies in place.
…Victoria took longer than NSW to wake up but it too has been working hard to reduce the risk of blackouts. For the most part, both states are borrowing ideas from third world countries by getting industry and consumers to cut back on power usage when days are hot. In addition, those organisations with back up power (like phone companies) are being asked to use it so as to cut demand and, if possible, put power back into the grid. Accordingly, highly polluting diesel becomes the saviour.
Could someone teach editors what “record-breaking” means?
Last night the minimum was 22.8C in Melbourne. Tonight was forecast to be 28C. If the Bureau are right, it won’t be close to breaking the record.
–The Sydney Morning Herald
Close to record-breaking heat
While it is not quite a record, Melbourne has come close to the hottest-ever January overnight temperature of 30.6 degrees.
Melbourne has reached that record twice since records began, once in 1902 and again in 2010.
The good news is that the other 1.5 million homes still have electricity. Though the United Energy Outage Map keeps going out itself.
The Ausnet Outage Map has a popup note: due to the large number of outages power may not get restored til Monday morning.
Melbourne: 42,000 homes in dark, no fans left at Kmart. Power outages due to “secret” air conditioners? « JoNova
•••
UPDATE
THE amount of homes affected by the latest Victorian blackouts varies wildly from news org to news org. The original Herald Sun article which this post is based reported “MORE than 437,000 homes across Victoria are without power.” The article has been updated and overwritten.
Via sister paper Daily Telegraph:
HERE are a few other agencies reporting housing numbers affected:
Melbourne weather: Power cuts in Victoria as heatwave hits | Daily Mail Online
Tens of thousands of Victorian homes affected by widespread power outages | 3AW
Thousands still without power after blackout cripples Victoria | 9 NEWS
•••
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