Australia facing energy reliability challenges says report

Power lines in Victoria, Australia [credit: Wikipedia]

The long-term consequences of exchanging on-demand for unpredictable power generation are not hard to figure out. But political leaders in some countries prefer to ignore such issues, in favour of a questionable ideology that guarantees problems in their increasingly unreliable electricity systems.

A report from the Australian Energy Market Operator (AEMO) is a stark reminder of the reliability challenges facing the country’s National Electricity Market (NEM), says PEI.

The Andrews Labour government has been accused of failing to properly replace ageing infrastructure which has created unnecessary risk to the affordability and reliability of the NEM.

Former National Grid director says Britain should impose limits on new wind and solar farms to avoid blackouts

Image credit: thecount.com

H/T The GWPF / The Sunday Telegraph

Is this really the main problem? On a windless or low-wind winter evening shortly after dark, little output can be expected from wind – and none from solar – sources. This is where the power cuts seem most likely to happen due to demand exceeding supply, if too much ‘traditional’ power generation (coal, gas, nuclear) is closed down in favour of so-called renewables, which may need renewing every 15-20 years or so. Blind pursuit of misguided climate-related ideologies ignores, or tries to play down, these issues.

Ministers should impose limits on the construction of new wind and solar farms to help avoid a nationwide blackout, according to a former director of National Grid.

Colin Gibson, who was power network director of Britain’s electricity system, claimed that some existing turbines and solar panels may have to be disconnected, and new developments restricted, to “secure” the system after major power cuts earlier this month.

In an analysis co-written by Dr Capell Aris, a former grid engineer, Mr Gibson states that the system failure revealed several “serious problems” with the operation of the national electricity network, which require an “immediate, independent, expert review”.

Their intervention comes amid a government inquiry into the outage, which occurred after the Little Barford gas-fired power station in Cambridgeshire and a major wind farm off the Yorkshire coast both temporarily stopped producing electricity.

According to the Financial Times, a provisional report by National Grid suggested that the wind farm may have tripped offline seconds before the Little Barford power station.

The blackout affected a million people in London and the South East, the Midlands, the South West, Yorkshire, the North East, Cornwall and Wales.

National Grid, the firm that operates the country’s power network, has insisted that unpredictable wind power generation was not to blame.

Full article here.

Green Germany risks running out of power

Residential solar panels in Germany.
Credit: Wikimedia Commons/ Sideka Solartechnik

The German energy crunch looms in the next few years, not unlike some other over-committed renewables enthusiasts, for example Britain. European countries don’t seem to see or admit the potential problem of relying on each other for imports. Somebody has to have an excess of power for that to work, but as more countries favour renewables over power stations the availability of on-demand electricity must inevitably decline.

H/T The Global Warming Policy Forum (GWPF)

FRANKFURT (Reuters) – Germany, a poster child for renewable energy, is renouncing nuclear and coal.

The problem is, say many power producers and grid operators, it may struggle to keep the lights on.

The country, the biggest electricity market in the European Union, is abandoning nuclear power by 2022 due to safety concerns compounded by the Fukushima disaster and phasing out coal plants over the next 19 years to combat climate change.

In the next three years alone conventional energy capacity is expected to fall by a fifth, leaving it short of the country’s peak power demand.

UK commits to ‘net zero’ emissions by 2050

Spurious virtue signalling trumps economics and even sanity in UK politics it seems. Belief in the empty box that is man-made climate change will be a massive and futile financial burden to the public. Our leaders are so confused, or keen to confuse everyone else, that they even equate the vital trace gas carbon dioxide with pollution.

Greenhouse gas emissions in the UK will be cut to almost zero by 2050, under the terms of a new government plan to tackle climate change, reports BBC News.

Prime Minister Theresa May said reducing pollution would also benefit public health and cut NHS costs.

Britain is the first major nation to propose this target – and it has been widely praised by green groups.

But some say the phase-out is too late to protect the climate, and others fear that the task is impossible.

UK Says 100% Renewables Won’t Work

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We already knew this, but UK public policy in energy matters tends to prefer ideology to reality.

PA Pundits - International

By David Wojick, Ph.D. ~

A lot of countries (as well as many U.S. states and utilities) are announcing so-called zero-carbon plans, typically with a target year around 2050. These are often reported as calling for 100% renewable energy, which is wrong.

There is a difference between zero-carbon and 100% renewables, but this is often hidden and unclear. In the new UK plan it is still hidden, but once found it is very clear. Renewables provide just 57% of the energy, which is a lot less than 100%. Perhaps most surprising is that nuclear might provide as much as 38% of the energy!

By way of introduction, the plan comes from the government’s own Committee on Climate Change (CCC), in a report titled “Net-Zero: The UK’s contribution to stopping global warming.” The CCC is the UK’s top climate action planning group.

The surprising numbers occur in…

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Climate change ‘may curb growth in UK flying’

Choking off demand by restricting supply of flights would not be exactly popular with either airlines or would-be passengers. So who is it supposed to be popular with, other than the usual climate-obsessed minority who gladly swallow all the propaganda fed to them? People who want to travel will probably find a way, whether the government or anyone else likes it or not.

Concerns over climate change might restrict the growth of flying in the UK, the government has admitted.

The advisory Committee on Climate Change (CCC) recently said the UK’s planned increase in aviation would need to be curbed to restrict CO2, says BBC News.

Now a senior civil servant has told a green group that means ministers may have to review aviation strategy.

The Cult of Greta Thunberg

Image Credit: Anon twitter account

Partial reblog as Brendan O’Neill at Spiked Online gets stuck into the enviro-mentalists.

It actually makes sense that Ms Thunberg – a wildly celebrated 16-year-old Swede who founded the climate-strike movement for schoolkids – should sound cultish. Because climate-change alarmism is becoming ever stranger, borderline religious, obsessed with doomsday prophecies. Consider Extinction Rebellion, the latest manifestation of the upper-middle classes’ contempt for industrialisation and progress. It is at times indistinguishable from old fundamentalist movements that warned mankind of the coming End of Days. I followed Extinction Rebellion from Parliament Square to Marble Arch yesterday and what I witnessed was a public display of millenarian fear and bourgeois depression. People did dances of death and waved placards warning of the heat-death of the planet. It felt deeply unnerving.

Burning Trees Is a Multi-Billion £ Industry

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No let-up in sight in the ongoing biomass disaster.

sunshine hours

Burning trees produces more CO2 than coal. So if you are in the UK and your energy bill makes you want to cry, just remember it’s green!

A surcharge on UK energy bills is funding subsidies for biomass electricity generation that is making climate change worse, polluting communities, destroying forests and harming wildlife.

In 2017, the UK Government granted around £1 billion in renewable subsidies to power stations – including Drax Power Station in Yorkshire – to burn millions of tonnes of wood for electricity.

Drax alone received £729 million – around £2 million per day – in subsidies to burn wood pellets and is now the world’s largest biomass burner.

Biodiversity hotspots

Despite claims by the biomass industry that they mostly burn “low-grade wood residues”, US conservation NGOs have proven that a significant proportion of wood pellets for Drax and other UK power stations comes from the clearcutting of whole trees…

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Climate alarm bombs in elections Down Under

Sydney, Australia

Alarmists may love their own climate scare fantasies about trace gases, but the majority of Aussie voters in its most populous state are unimpressed. Realities like economics count for far more it seems.

Climate change played no role in determining the NSW election outcome. The Greens, the Coalition and Labor all of which had climate policies – all lost ground, reports The GWPF.

It was utter bunkum; but typical self-delusion by those ideological crusaders determined to do whatever it takes ‘to save the planet’ – at whatever the cost.

Scottish Parliament rejects call to treat climate change as an emergency

Image credit: holyrood.com

Far-out ideology, loosely based on failing climate models, gets a reality check. So-called ‘virtue’ signalling at the expense of voters’ jobs and general economic well-being is a no-no.

Nearly all Members of the Scottish Parliament (MSPs) have voted down a call for the urgency of climate change to addressed by stopping the extraction of fossil fuels.

There were six votes for and 111 votes against, reports The GWPF.

All other parties rejected a Scottish Green motion to recognise a climate emergency by ceasing investment in oil and gas and banning fracking.

No deal: Senate blocks Green New Deal

[image credit: beforeitsnews.com]

Giving up primary energy sources in favour of vast expense on inferior alternatives is ‘progressive’? Not in the real world. We’re not trying to be experts on American politics here, but any outbreak of sanity on (supposedly) climate-related matters must rate as progress, even if not deemed ‘progressive’.

The Senate on Tuesday blocked the Green New Deal, a progressive climate change resolution that Republicans view as prime fodder heading into the 2020 presidential election, reports The Hill.

The Senate voted 0-57 on taking up the resolution, with 43 Democrats voting present.

Energy giants spent $1bn on climate lobbying, PR since Paris: watchdog

Oil extraction [image credit: ewg.org]

It would be optimistic to expect any business to willingly cave in to pressure to become less successful, or let attempts to demonize it go unchallenged, especially for the sake of shaky climate theories. As long as the demand for their products is there, so will they be. World demand for oil is on the rise, regardless of those who wish otherwise.

The five largest publicly listed oil and gas majors have spent $1 billion since the 2015 Paris climate deal on public relations or lobbying that is “overwhelmingly in conflict” with the landmark accord’s goals, a watchdog said Friday.

Despite outwardly committing to support the Paris agreement and its aim to limit global temperature rises, ExxonMobil, Shell, Chevron, BP and Total spend a total of $200 million a year on efforts “to operate and expand fossil fuel operations,” according to InfluenceMap, a pro-transparency monitor.

Two of the companies—Shell and Chevron—said they rejected the watchdog’s findings, reports Phys.org.

100% Lunacy: Australia’s Power Policy Becomes Playground for Deranged Virtue Signallers

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The delusional in pursuit of the impossible. Entertaining for outsiders perhaps, but bad news for residents picking up the tab and wondering where their reliable electricity went.

STOP THESE THINGS

Michael Daley: says, when the wind blows, my RET will be THIS big!

Australia’s energy policy crisis is like Game of Thrones starring complete idiots – every crazy plot twist is matched by something crazier still. The latest comes from New South Wales.

NSW Labor opposition leader, Michael Daley isn’t the first, and he won’t be the last, maniac to suggest the world can be powered entirely by sunshine and breezes.

Where the current Liberal Energy (and Arts) Minister, Don Harwin reckons his (secretly hoped-for) 50% Renewable Energy Target is big, Michael Daley’s goes all the way to 11.

Should Harwin get his 50% RET, NSW will find itself in the same category as that international laughingstock, South Australia. But if Michael Daley gets his way, it’ll be a case of the last man out, turning out all the lights.

Coal dead under Labor’s dramatic renewables plan
The…

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Green New Deal Reveals Green Left’s True Colors

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Presumably the idea is to start off by proposing the completely ridiculous, and then see what can be got away with before finally being rumbled.

PA Pundits - International

By Larry Bell ~

Over the next 10 years, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., supported by at least eight prospective 2020 presidential Democratic-Socialist candidates and 40 acolyte lawmakers, plans to eliminate fossil fuels; make air travel obsolete using bullet trains; upgrade or replace every building in America to ensure energy efficiency; and ensure “economic security for all who are unable or unwilling to work.”

Oh yes — and apparently for those who are dumb enough to turn away free money for doing nothing — this New Green Deal will also guarantee “A [government] job with a family-sustaining wage, family and medical leave, vacations, and retirement security.”

An original summary fact sheet posted on Rep. Ocasio-Cortez’s official congressional website (then rapidly removed), stated, “The Green New Deal resolution [is] a 10-year plan to mobilize every aspect of American society at a scale not seen since World War II to achieve net-zero greenhouse gas…

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Bill Gates Slams Unreliable Wind & Solar: ‘Let’s Quit Jerking Around With Renewables & Batteries’

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Quite right, but not what climate-obsessed politicians and the ‘Greenblob’ crowd want to hear.

STOP THESE THINGS

Bill says it’s time to stop jerking around with wind & solar.

When the world’s richest entrepreneur says wind and solar will never work, it’s probably time to listen.

Bill Gates made a fortune applying common sense to the untapped market of home computing. The meme has it that IBM’s CEO believed there was only a market for five computers in the entire world. Gates thought otherwise. Building a better system than any of his rivals and shrewdly working the marketplace, resulted in hundreds of millions hooked on PCs, Windows and Office. This is a man that knows a thing or two about systems and a lot about what it takes to satisfy the market.

For almost a century, electricity generation and distribution were treated as a tightly integrated system: it was designed and built as one, and is meant to operate as designed. However, the chaotic delivery of wind…

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UK gas ‘must completely decarbonize’ to hit climate goals

As if current UK energy policy wasn’t already full of subsidies, more are now demanded to play around with the gas supply, in pursuit of deluded climate policies.

Total decarbonisation of UK gas is vital in the next three decades if the country is to meet its emissions reduction targets.

That’s the conclusion of a report published today by independent, liberal conservative think-tank Bright Blue, reports PEI.

Australian Met Office accused of man-made climate change (again)

This approach to data seems par for the course in climatology, as they strive ever more to make the world look warmer than before, in order to prop up the failing theory of human-caused trace gases ruining the world.

Source: The Global Warming Policy Forum (GWPF)

The Bureau of Meteorology has rewritten Australia’s temperature records for the second time in six years, greatly increasing the rate of warming since 1910 in its controversial homogenised data set, writes Graham Lloyd in The Australian.

Rather than the nation’s temperature having increased by 1C over the past century, the ­bureau’s updated homogenised data set, known as ACORN-SAT, now shows mean temperatures have risen by 1.23C.

Spain, Europe’s second largest carmaker, plans combustion engine ban

The craze for national economic self-harm in the name of supposed climate virtue-signalling seems to be spreading, among politicians at least.

Proposal put forward for country’s first climate law takes swipe at auto-industry, scraps fossil fuel subsidies and sets 2050 goal for 100% renewable power, reports Climate Home News.

Spain is proposing to ban fossil fuel subsidies, dump investments that encourage dirty energy use and drive lighter diesel and petrol vehicles off the road.

Grid-scale electricity storage can’t save renewables

Image credit: energy-storage.news

No surprise there, but the points made deserve emphasis. No amount of ideology can defeat the realities of engineering and economics.

Engineer pours cold water on battery and hydrogen technologies – GWPF press release.
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A new briefing paper from the Global Warming Policy Foundation (GWPF) dismisses the idea that grid-scale electricity storage can help bring about a UK renewables revolution.

National Suicide: Australia’s Self-Inflicted Energy Crisis Driven by Wind & Solar Obsession

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The renewables malaise is spreading round the world like a cancer. The symptoms can be painful but are easily recognised, as Australians are finding out.

STOP THESE THINGS

Australia’s energy policy reads like a National suicide note: power prices went from the lowest in the world to the highest, in little over a decade.

Plotting the path to destruction is pretty easy: start by throwing $60 billion in subsidies at wind and large-scale solar, demonise cheap and reliable coal-fired power and put lunatics in charge of the whole operation.

Here’s Alan Moran, once again, detailing the source of Australia’s self-inflicted misery.

Reaping the fruits of political sabotage of the electricity industry
Catallaxy Files
Alan Moran
25 January 2019

The third world nature of Australia’s electricity industry was revealed this week with wholesale prices in Victoria and South Australia at the maximum $14,500 for lengthy periods in spite of thousands of customers being cut-off, major users agreeing to shut down demand in return for compensation paid by consumers, and even some oil plants being called in.

The…

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