Finally, the rebellion begins in the business sector
After years of silence, the first large industry body has broken the Climate Stupid Spell and said the obvious. There is a “national energy emergency” pushing up the price of food, and the cause of high energy prices is Labor’s 82% renewables target.
The Independent Food Distributors Australia (IDFA) which supplies food to 60,000 shops and markets in Australia has broken with other large industry bodies and said the government should drop the “ideological” renewables target and upgrade our coal power plants and install new gas plants.
For years, only schoolgirls were allowed to dictate national energy policy, now adults in business can too!
The food industry lives and breathes on fossil fuels for their fridges, freezers and trucks, and electricity costs have gone up 50% since Labor came into office. So two weeks after King Trump takes office, and with only weeks or months until our own election, finally they brave up enough to say the Renewables Emperor has no clothes. Give Richard Forbes (the CEO) a medal — he is blistering and blunt. He didn’t just ask the Labor Party to slow the rush, but to “drop it” because of the “damage being done”. He said the Labor Party must take responsibility for the cost of living crisis.
Calling climate change targets ideological is a blasphemy like burning the climate bible. There’s no pandering in that word. Forbes could have said the Labor Party target is too ambitious, or unrealistic. But instead he used the word ideological — thus declaring the net zero push it’s irrational, and driven by religious zeal.
The managing director of Godden Food Group went even further, calling on the Opposition leader in Australia to “join Donald Trump in leaving the Paris Agreement”. Some of his four year electricity contracts have been renewed in NSW at 238% higher cost.
This is dynamite in an election year:
Food firms revolt over Labor’s energy plan
Employers supplying food to major supermarkets and thousands of cafes, restaurants and pubs have launched a revolt against Anthony Albanese’s energy policies, urging Labor to dump its 82 per cent renewables target and focus on ramping up more gas and coal production to bring electricity prices down in the short term.
Business owners in the sector have told The Australian they want the government to drop its “ideological” approach to energy and instead support upgrades of existing coal-fired power stations while bringing on new gas peaking plants.
Employers also want the government to fast track the approvals of new coal mines and gas fields to lower the price of baseload power, disagreeing with Energy Minister Chris Bowen’s claim that new renewables projects are the answer to lower prices.
IFDA chief executive Richard Forbes said there was a “national energy emergency”, arguing the government’s policies were driving up the price of food for consumers.
“Food businesses are sick and tired of hearing the government saying they are doing something about the cost of living, when their costs, particularly energy costs, are soaring.
“The government must take responsibility for a portion of the cost-of-living crisis, which is the cost of doing business, which is energy.
In reply, the Minister Chris “Blackout” Bowen sticks with the ideological fairy tale, blaming failing coal plants for high prices:
Rejecting the push from food distributors, a spokesman for Mr Bowen said experts had found that “unreliable coal generators are driving price spikes”. “Extending them further would be a recipe for disaster,” the spokesman said.
He speaks as though aiming for “no coal plants”will fix a problem caused by a lack of coal plants. The argument is so self-evidently stupid, as long as it is played out in public to its obvious end, the Labor Party will be fried on screen.
This is the dead-end electricity hole the innumerate dullard left have galloped into. They think that magically generating a $650 electricity rebate is the same thing as generating electricity. One method makes us stronger and richer while the other just steals tax or purchasing power from average Australians to hide the real cost.
The Labor tools of oligarchs, renewable investors and foreign powers couldn’t see past the namecalling and word-games, and fell for every kindergarten trick in the Book of Woke. If the conservatives (which fell for most of the same tricks) can get their acts together and copy Trump, there could be a bloodbath.
‘$658 energy rebate’, what’s that.
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Richard Forbes is going to get flogged by the MSM and the Climate Cult as an apostate for speaking out, I suggest we tell him we support him and applaud his speaking out on the reality of this Net Zero bullshit and Labors green nightmares!
Contacts:
[email protected]
or
linkedin.com/in/richard-forbes-77685830
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Done.
30
Done
00
Our local Coles (in Grafton) had a compressor fail overnight in their freezer section, and had to throw out $200,000 worth of spoiled food. Having the threat of regular power failures giving the same result seems to have concentrated the minds of our huge frozen and refrigerated food sector. This is a survival issue.
570
(238% increase), and it’s still early days for the CO2 tax, yet to really ramp up, more electricity increases coming.
440
“Rejecting the push from food distributors, a spokesman for Mr Bowen said experts had found that “unreliable coal generators are driving price spikes”. “Extending them further would be a recipe for disaster,” the spokesman said.”
I wonder where these fools think cheap reliable power came from for the 50 years prior to “renewables”?
670
Exactly, you only need to go look at recent history (50 years is a short time), to know he’s speaking bulltish. But is the average punter capable of doing that, especially the ones that run on “feelings”?
350
They can’t and don’t think, except the Elites at the top who know exactly what they’re doing.
Bowen himself is a simpleton.
350
I don’t really think he qualifies for that….
50
The frightening thing about Blackout Bowen is that he’s a radical True Believer in renewables.
He ignores observable truths and will find ANY excuse to defend his position, to the extent of citing unnamed ‘experts’.
Worse, his Party encourages him with their aggressive ‘price gouging’ explanation of high grocery prices rather than blaming the real culprits, high energy and high transport costs.
260
I rather doubt that Bowen believes what he says.
He belongs to the part of our society that believes that Lenin and Stalin were benevolent uncles.
He and his team are working flat out to abolish private management of industry. No matter the cost!
230
Bowen is fluent in gibberish. He doesn’t know sh*t from clay.
70
Im wondering why the Libs keep getting a free pass on this. They have a nett zero policy and wont openly support coal or cut subsidies. Just sayin
50
Bowen is living proof that you can’t argue with stupid.
630
His body language is amusing, his word salads are not so amusing.
120
Living proof that stupid has no limits.
90
.. and fasttrack coal! Great.
We have 300 years of coal. And in Victoria we are not allowed use it or sell it, but it powers the state and many others.
It’s not about CO2. A new HELE station would halve CO2 and double the amount of coal.
Are we just keeping it in the ground for China?
560
Nature solved our electricity generation problem millions of years ago. It developed a system to capture solar energy and store it underground for future use in gaseous, liquid or solid form — to be used any time or anywhere we want, in rain or shine or in windy or calm conditions. We call this energy capture system, “photosynthesis”, and the associated storage system, “fossil or hydrocarbon fuels”. It’s not perfect but it’s superior to solar and/or wind, given today’s technology and economics. Humankind has now managed to stuff up this great system in the space of 30 years.
170
The fact that HELE stations are not part of the conversation leading up to the election demonstrates how backward Australia is when it comes to energy. It is likely to remain a renewables vs nuclear debate when we should be considering other viable options.
140
And if you want to halve electricity prices, I can give you a list of Federal Acts to repeal which would do it overnight.
Australia would have no debts if we did not send all our electricity money overseas and to buy windmills and solar panels and save the Great Barrier Reef and build Snowy II and invest in Quantum Computing. The last three are courtesy of two prime ministers.
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And stopped restricting with regulations exploitation of natural resources of minerals and energy, opening identified new irrigation farmland with dams to harvest wet season rains in Northern Australia.
190
“Calling climate change targets ideological is a blasphemy like burning the climate bible.”
In view of the recent murder of a Koran burner in Sweden and the very swift arrest of a man who burned a Koran in Manchester in England by members of a police force that turned a blind eye to the so-called “grooming gangs” Jo shouldn’t you have compared climate change blasphemy to burning a Koran, not a Bible?
380
Thanks Jo and nobody seems to understand that Labor, Greens, Teals want to destroy thousands of klms of our environments and WASTE TRILLIONs of $ for nothing for just 15 years and tear the toxic mess down and repeat again and again.
And they want to risk our security forever and China, Iran, Russia, Nth Korea etc will relish our weakness and just wait for their chance to make their move.
450
Neville,
Thanks, you are right.
I find it useful to talk of Millions, or thousands of Millions or even (many) hundreds of thousands of Millions – dollars, pounds, Euros.
I fear that the similarity between ‘millions’ and ‘billions’ and even ‘trillions’ may not make sufficiently clear the magnitude of the numbers – and the scale of the waste – to many of the public, who must be our target.
Those regulars here, I am sure, know and appreciate the distinctions.
Many years ago, in another life, I had occasion to remark that $2,500 million was a truly astronomical sum – as that amount of dollar bills would – literally – reach the Moon.
Auto
160
Resulting in Australia a vassal state
90
The environmental movement allowed itself to be overtaken by hysterics.
There are intrinsic hysterics in the subject, but hysterics raise money.
The NGO, advocacy industry complex, is an interesting (in a car crash way) phenomenon that has developed in modern Western ‘democracies’ and the Climate issue may be fast tracking the inevitable clash of this advocacy industrial complex and representative political structures.
This invasion of hysterics has manifested Trump.
It has destroyed Europe, maybe Canada and Oz.
And Trump is facing a Sisyphian task.
Here is a vid of the recent US Democrat confab to elect a new party chair.
‘A woke civil WAR inside the Democratic Party! (cringe vs cringe)’
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o6Du-gZ9Frk
Climate hysterics crashed the meeting and turned it into a farce.
Progressive adults are being humiliated by their Adderall addled children.
The profitability and utility of political hysteria has created an existential crisis in the Western world.
240
Would like to add …
The NGO, advocacy industry complex mostly had spooky origins (USAID) and has been utilized for spooky and obscure intentions, which may be simply to maintain constant political turmoil.
Because some people like torturing small animals and those types often seek key leadership positions as to gain more access to the tools of small animal torture.
160
Why do you imagine Putin funded green groups pushing Net Zero?
Who needs WWIII … when Net Zero Nutters are destroying the west from inside at a fraction of the cost?
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Self-hating cognitive anorexia of the Western managerial intelligentsia.
I don’t think we can fix it.
They’ve shed all the adipose tissue of racism, but look in the mirror and see nothing but racism.
They will blame the peasants.
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Why would he need to? funding was and is flowing like water anyway
20
There seems to be an absence of dissent on the JoNova site.
Maybe Gee Aye, Peter Fitzroy and Simon have lost their, his or her funding.
70
Gee Ayes last comment was Dec 4th. He/she remains free to comment. Perhaps they are on holiday, or just incapacitated by the Trump win? Don’t know. Hope they’re ok.
Simon has only put in three comments in the last 3 weeks. Perhaps he’s depressed that Trump is defeating The Blob so effectively.
Fitzroy tried a one liner yesterday on an unthreaded which appeared to be tritely obvious insincere question to bait and fish for angry responses. I blocked that.
We’re always keen to find the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, but a smart polite commenter who can defend the left remains elusive. Please send them over if you find one.
Jo
120
You probably deprived many here of some sport.
We are on our third consecutive day of 30+C here in Melbourne and I have not been outside doing the Englishman thing – just doing a bit of watering in mornings and evenings. So lots of time at computer but not doing much other than enjoying the Trump shenanigans. I think this is our 7th day of summer already. From memory, there were only two days last year.
Lots of water over Australia at the moment:
https://earth.nullschool.net/#current/wind/surface/level/overlay=total_precipitable_water/orthographic=-224.33,-21.99,1003/loc=142.305,-24.541
Not much here so far this month but maybe a little in storms. WA might get something from Taliah if it eventually turns east as it tracks along the coast, The weather systems seem to be later this year than last year.
20
If one turns 180 degrees the left becomes what was the right.
A bit like the winners writing most of recorded history.
10
https://www.orcuttchristian.org/Lewis%20CS%20-%20God_in_the_Dock.pdf
My contention is that good men (not bad men) consistently acting upon that position would act as cruelly and unjustly as the greatest tyrants. They might in some respects act even worse.
Of all tyrannies a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron’s cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience. They may be more likely to go to Heaven yet at the same time likelier to make a Hell of earth.
Their very kindness stings with intolerable insult. To be ‘cured’ against one’s will and cured of states which we may not regard as disease is to be put on a level with those who have not yet reached the age of reason or those who never will; to be classed with infants, imbeciles, and domestic animals. But to be punished, however severely, because we have deserved it, because we ‘ought to have known better’, is to be treated as a human person made in God’s image.
In reality, however, we must face the possibility of bad rulers armed with a Humanitarian theory of punishment. A great many popular blue prints for a Christian society are merely what the Elizabethans called ‘eggs in moonshine’ because they assume that the whole society is Christian or that the Christians are in control. This is not so in most contemporary States. Even if it were, our rulers would still be fallen men, and, therefore, neither very wise nor very good.
As it is, they will usually be unbelievers. And since wisdom and virtue are not the only or the commonest qualifications for a place in the government, they will not often be even the best unbelievers.
The practical problem of Christian politics is not that of drawing up schemes for a Christian society, but that of living as innocently as we can with unbelieving fellow-subjects under unbelieving rulers who will never be perfectly wise and good
201
Similar to most developed countries, the UK is going through ‘peak green’ nonsense.
Like Australia we had a well developed electrical generation and supply system. It had developed of many decades to provide reliable electricity that we used to take for granted.
Just think, our electrical supply is bought and paid for. Now, the mad politicians and activists want us to pay to duplicate an existing and working electrical supply system!!
Our Mad Ed Millipede even announced that our electrical bills were going to be reduced by £300pa!!! Even after duplicating a country sized, working system.
I think the media are as complicit as the politicians.
380
I think the media is the problem. Just imagine if a proper journalist asked Michael Mann some questions or if they had challenged Al Gore. Maybe newspapers and TV could tell the truth about polar bear population increase and the rebirth of the GBR. Ignorance is the fault of poor education including that by the media. To make matters much worse our own ABC is all in promoting lies and half truths.
100
I believe that the Australians will wake up only when they can not anymore afford to cool the amber nectar.
190
We can’t afford the amber nectar, let alone to cool it!
171
Beer drinkers have been on the decline since 1975. Beer consumption per capita is now down to 35% of what it was in 1975.
https://www.aihw.gov.au/reports/alcohol/alcohol-available-for-consumption-in-australia/contents/trends-in-alcohol-available-for-consumption
If China gets into a trade war with the USA and Australia, we could see another fire sale in wine in Australia. Wine has higher alcohol content so lower cost to chill and reds usually not chilled.
Ice cream is being hit hard by energy costs. The ice cream index is probably more important to most families than beer:
https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/the-ice-cream-index-how-dairy-is-licking-inflation-20241127-p5ktxt.html
Ice cream is only possible if constantly chilled so very high energy component. And it is comfort food that is often the only indulgence for struggling families.
Very steep increase through 2023 into 2024 but now tempering a little. I have not seen any price reductions in supermarkets but “sales” are a bit more frequent.
30
Australia has some of the highest alcohol excise tax rates in the world and they increase twice a year. This is going to put a lot of pressure on hospitality and vendors the way things are trending. There could be a lot of jobs at stake.
This article also mentions prices may encourage bootlegging. Everyone has probably seen how black market tobacco trading has lead to a lot of firebombing around Melbourne in recent years. Maybe the city will be more like Chicago or New York in the 1930s before too long…
https://drinksdigest.com/2025/02/03/outrage-over-spirits-tax-rise/
00
I often wonder at the Laundry that is operating for our
National grid control.
Remember when each State ran their own power Systems and
competed for manufacturing businesses to move to their state.
I had thought that the “National Grid Control” had the makings
of a Ponzi, but I have moved slightly.
Things changed when our manufacturing moved overseas, probably
due to the higher power prices that came with the sell off of
the people owned power stations and the building of inter-connectors
to cater for the states that couldn’t be bothered in maintaining
cheap and reliable col fired power stations. Some states even
blowing up perfectly good power stations.
Yeah, that’ll learn ’em!
To sort these states out we need to lock open the inter-connectors
so they can chug away on their available power sources of choice.
This should bring back stability to power prices and sort out the men from the boys.
Failure of “ruinables” should not be a cause to unlock and close on the inter-connectors.
Australia has lots and lots of coal. Let’s use it.
Oh yes, we’ll need some more, modern coal fired power stations for when
we bring manufacturing back to Australia when we bring back our own Tariffs like we used to
have.
There are a lot of politicians, and their advisors, that have LOTS to answer for.
Rant over.
420
No. the prices came down for the first decade of the national market while it was being formed and after NEMMCO was established. The Industry Commission enquiry into the Australia energy market commenced in 1990 and the report came out in 1991. That was the basis for the so-called national market:
https://www.pc.gov.au/inquiries/completed/energy-generation/11energyv3.pdf
The price increase is very well correlated with the RET and the incrementall increase in weather dependent generation. This chart ends in 2017 but you can see that the price fell for the decade after Keating’s enquiry:
https://electricitywizard.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/consumer-retail-price-changes.png
Howard introduced the RET in 2001 and prices have been on a bender since apart from a slight Abbott inspired dip when he reduced the RET.
Electricity prices could be slashed tomorrow by eliminating the RET theft and removing the “semi-scheduled” category of generation. No weather dependent generation would be scheduled beyond its ability to dispatch up to its rated power for any or all interval over say a monthly pricing cycle. Stability services would be an inherent feature rather than something that needed to be priced at 5 minute iuntervals.
20
They make coal unreliable deliberately to accomodate coal yet we had very reliable coal fired energy for decades. The reality is renewables cant survive without baseload/coal but coal/baseload can survive without renewables. We can see which energy source is the parasite in this relationship. Coal does all the heavy lifts and when renewables dont have the right weather happening coal gets blamed
330
There is no longer any need for baseload generators according to the la la land renewables propaganda, most recent example a Climate 200 renewables investor club financing candidates for election to Parliament masquerading as Independent.
But they never explain how power is available constantly at all power points supplied by the electricity grid.
150
I’m not sure those people actually understand what electricity is, let alone how it is generated or how it gets to the power points in their houses.
110
I’m now pissed off. My latest energy bill was for 750 bucks, our shopping was 400 and I still saw a shit load of space in my trolley. I’m just done with this bullshit from albanese and his crony’s and I have written to Dutton, begging him to be trump 2.0, just campaign to raze this fiasco to the ground and bring in nuclear. My friends are getting pumped, my neighbours are getting pumped and Im sick of hearing strangers around me complain about the high cost of living in Australia. My spine is stiff but my will is breaking and it’s really starting to bite……I can only hope that we can find a leader at the next election who really wants to change things up…I hope.
331
$750 doesnt mean much with a period. Hope its not a month.
10
The purpose is not to get to “green nirvana”: it is to crash Western economies and bring on the Glorious Revolution.
240
Dutton (alternative PM) potentially has a huge opportunity here but he himself is committed to the Paris Accords. He even reiterated his commitment after TRUMP dumped them.
Both factions of the Uniparty are committed to Australia’s destruction via shut-down of the energy supply.
Destroying a country’s energy supply is a powerful weapon for destroying a country and the Left/Elites know it.
220
June 8, 2024 via SBS
160
Prime Minister Morrison never did sign the Glasgow 2021 COP Agreement on net zero emissions as I have previously posted.
Opposition Leader Dutton and Deputy Leader Littleproud are not willing to state when Paris Agreement would be cancelled and both have pointed out the potential trade problems, examples for farmers and miners exporting, via other UN member nations in retaliation that must be taken into account.
11
That’s the problem with the LNP they’re always trying to have a bet both ways. What PD is doing is being very clever with the language surrounding Paris and emissions targets. Maybe too clever Dennis. In a doorstop type presser last week he declared Australia under his potential government would stick with Paris. So, as an average punter what are you to believe? At best right now , my hope is that Dutton is just lying. Once in government it will be all different. But I’m still not confident. Been fooled before with the LNP. Voted for Abbott got Turnbull. Voted for Morrison , got Net Zero. Not going to be fooled a 3rd time.
110
As far as I am aware the LNP is all in on net zero. Even if they said they were not – could you believe them?
Dutton wants a mix of unreliables, nuclear, gas etc.
As you say he is sitting on the fence.
He won’t get my vote doing that.
If we had nuclear/gas/coal unreliables not needed and never have been..
Unreliables are a parasite.They are a cosmetic item that give the climate hysterics a warm feeling all over. Nothing more.
120
Oh well, I guess there may be a candidate out there that will do 100% of what you want , but its unlikely voting for them will move the dial at all.
20
I think he is being duplicitous, in a nice way! He is not “against” wind and solar being part of the energy mix, that is because they are already there and won’t be coming down, until they fall down. But I would suggest it will be his aim to make approvals for new wind/solar factories so onerous that they will wither on the vine.
40
31
Another huge cost of “renewables” is the likelihood of supply failure. If power fails, all the supermarket food in freezers and fridges has to be removed and disposed of, even if it hasn’t thawed out.
160
And if the supermarket food is regularly thrown out the answer from the Labor, Greens, Teals would be to build more clueless toxic W & S, so they could really destroy our country at a much faster rate.
Yet people vote for these treasonous parties and then howl about the cost of living?
180
Just tack a little on each power bill to subsidize supermarket generators
10
Mike Reed
This energy dystopia we are now living in comes from both sides of the Uniparties.There is no science in Global warming /Climate change but there is a lot of “computer generated” rubbish data
just like the same modelled rubbish during Covid that told everyone that 20 million lives were saved by the gene therapy that really maimed and killed people (which virtually had nil Trials).
So today we are told that useless power generating systems called Renewables needs euphemisms like Semi Dispatchable and Firming to produce power and politicians and lobbying Charlatans
spruik this BS all the time.
No other country with the wealth of energy resources like Australia is going to destroy their economy for the sake of saving the world -while at the same time sending buckets of our money overseas
to China that takes our coal to make these engineering junk systems.
Our fearless Climate an Energy minister said when he was elected that the Climate Wars were now over and I new at that time he really meant that he would now begin the battle to just destroy our economy. And so with all of his environment destroying vision (bird and bat kilingng machines has come to pass oh and I left out the destruction of native forests where Koalas used to live) Mr Chrissy Bowen
still can manage to tell lies about how cheap our electricity is now with a silly smile. on his face.
Cheers Mike Reed
220
Base load supply?
We no longer have a base of reliable generators that run 24×7, with peak demand covered by hydro and gas turbines that can ramp up and down quickly.
What we now have is unreliable, intermittent solar and wind supplying over 50% of demand when the conditions are right, and less than 10% at other times.
That forces coal generators in particular to ramp up and down every day which has destroyed the concept of base load supply and their economics.
To meet the NEM demand that averages about 24 GW and peaks at about 32 GW, we now have:
– 15 GW of rooftop solar (in summer at midday)
– 10 GW of solar “farms”
– 13 GW of wind
– 8 GW of hydro
– 21 GW of coal
– 11 GW of gas
Over the last 12 months, coal has supplied 13 GW on average equals 55% of demand.
What a stupid and uneconomic way to run an essential service.
200
It’s frightening that the ‘conservative’ coalition is so full of wets (Turnbull types). They can’t bring themselves to commit to leaving Paris. They won’t kill net zero. They will pander to the woke but a little less so and they will continue Muslim immigration.
The USA has the benefit (& risk) of a single executive head of state (King replacement) whilst we have a PM beholden to a party room.
190
Willis Eschenbach has been using his maths skills to try and understand their California disasters over a long period of time. He calculates the size of a trillion $ and how long it would take to WASTE it on their so called CC and if you wasted a million dollars a day and it would take 27 centuries. Of course SFA change to their CC for the trillion $ wastage. Here’s his quote……..
“PS—Most folks have no idea how huge a trillion dollars is”.
“Suppose we had a trillion dollars and we wasted a million dollars a day on climate starting today. In that case, we’d waste the last million around October 30th of the year 4762AD … surely we have better things on which to spend a million dollars a day for the next 27 centuries. For that amount, we could turn the world into paradise” …
California Blows It Again – Watts Up With That?
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Here’s the link to Willis’ article.
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2025/02/03/california-blows-it-again/
50
Long before the world went completely MAD, lil ol New Zealand ran on 82% clean green concrete and steel, ie. hydro & geothermal, lately referred to as ‘renewables’ but for us a simple decision due to the huge amounts of rain plus straddling fault lines with the associated volcanic activity.
Even so, Gang-Green demanded that wasn’t good enough: it’s 100% or nothing! Though how our 0.17% contribution to a minuscule minor trace gas would, or could, affect the rest of the planet is never explained. Besides, she who identified as our PM denied the existence of a ‘cost of living crisis’ to the day she quit and flew off overseas to greener ($$$) pastures.
To top that off, we now have a new C.C. Commission chair, another so-called ‘Dame’ Patsy Reddy. Her expertise in meteorology or physics you ask? A lawyer; a chair of numerous corporations; a reviewer of our GCSB spooks who recommended expanding monitoring of NZ citizens; Governor General for 5 years; chair of NZ Rugby; and she’s a lifelong vegan. SNAFU.
180
An appropriate quotation from many years ago:
“What historians will definitely wonder about in future centuries is how deeply flawed logic, obscured by shrewd and unrelenting propaganda, actually enabled a coalition of powerful special interests to convince nearly everyone in the world that carbon dioxide was a dangerous, planet-destroying toxin.
It will be remembered as the greatest mass delusion in the history of the world – that carbon dioxide, the life of plants, was considered for a time to be a deadly poison.”
Professor Richard Lindzen
200
So shoot the ageing Horse, don’t replace the Horse and then claim that a sail on a cart will do the job.
60
Does make you wonder where all these business representative groups have been for the last 20 years? It’s great that the IDFA have spoken up but power prices have been artificially climbing for years. Well before that cretin Bowen became energy minister. The Minerals Council once did ads featuring Japanese HELE coal plants, not anymore, it’s all about the transition to renewables. We’ve had farmer groups here in Victoria fighting those RE transmission lines for years with virtually no help from either the state (VFGA) or National Farmers Federation. Bovaer has been introduced into the dairy industry to reduce cow burps and not a peep of protest from Dairy Australia. Similar Beef Australia. All you hear about is some weird group claiming to be Farmers for Climate Change action or something. The RAC in every state are all for EV’s without a shred of doubt. But I suppose there’s one thing about this IDFA protest. Maybe if you’re the first group to loudly whinge and you have enough clout you’re more likely to receive some government handout or subsidy. So, similar to the oil refinery businesses (eg VIVA energy) who very quietly got paid some handout to keep their plants operating.
140
The purpose of those groups is to shut up dissent from those industries and feed power to their politician mates . They are doing their jobs perfectly .
00
70
Toxic , unreliable, super expensive W & S is an unscientific sick joke that destroys our land and sea environments and has to be replaced every 15 to 20 years.
But every year W & S are only working for 3.6 months for wind and 1.8 months for solar , or CFs of just 30% and 15%. That’s the average Aussie CFs for these toxic disasters.
Again Bloomberg’s estimate for global changeover is about 275 trillion $ and Aussies’ cost would be
2.75 trillion $ and replacements every 15 to 20 years. Of course our environmental costs would be horrendous for our land and in the sea.
70
Zealots of net zero steer us ever closer to energy disaster
The air is going out of the net-zero tyres across the world. To be sure, they are not completely flat, but broadbased government and corporate support for achieving net-zero emissions by 2050 or some other date is fading.
JUDITH SLOAN
While Climate Change and Energy Minister Chris Bowen was inspecting Mrs Dan’s new subsidised electric cooktop stove, he may have missed some important news related to his portfolio. The fact is the air is going out of the net zero tyres across the world.
To be sure, they are not completely flat, but broadbased government and corporate support for achieving net-zero emissions by 2050 or some other date is fading.
This trend has been brought into sharp relief by the inauguration of President Donald Trump in the US.
But the reality is that active backing for net zero was on the wane before Trump’s re-election. Of course, there are still some true believers who are happy to deny what is obvious to others.
In a similar vein, Bowen has flatly dismissed the idea Australia should leave Paris: “We are building Australia’s future, not taking Australia backwards. The world is shifting to net zero. That means there are big opportunities and big benefits for Australia, so long as it acts now to make the most of demand for clean energy and inputs globally.”
Let’s not forget that at a global level, Paris has been a flop, with emissions increasing by 20 per cent over the period since its signing.
One of the first acts of Trump was to pull his country out of Paris . (The US is the second-largest emitter in the world.) There is now a ban on new offshore wind installations, with Trump describing turbines as “inefficient, ugly and a threat to wildlife”. He has reneged on a treaty to restrict methane emissions as well as abolishing various federal government programs and regulations favouring electric vehicles. His clarion call to “drill, baby, drill” has been accompanied by an opening up of new fields for oil exploration.
We are now facing the disaster of an electricity grid overloaded with subsidised renewable energy and insufficient firming backup.
It’s up there with the madness of the policy-induced importation of LNG.
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To help the CSIRO, AEMO and Blackout understand why electricity in Australia is so expensive, I used wind generation data from Open NEM to phrase the following question for DEEPSEEK:
Can you provide the LCOE in AUD/MWh for battery firmed wind over 25 year life for 23GW of average demand with peak of 35GW given average wind capacity factor of 16%, two consecutive weeks at 8% capacity factor; 15 year battery life, including O&M and at 10% discount rate. Costs to be based on Golden Plains wind farm and Riverina BESS. Include capital and maintenance for 10,000km of 1GW rated transmission line.
The answer it got was AUD846/MWh.
ChatGPT did not give an answer. Perplexity made silly simplifying assumptions to produce a lower cost.
I then asked DEEPSEEK this question:
Can you provide the LCOE for lignite fired USC steam generators located adjacent the coal resource producing average of 23GW and peak of 35GW over a 50 year life at 10% discount rate.
Answer is AUD18.30/MWh.
These are quite different to the figures given previously and I have not worked out why. Irrespective it is quite clear why Australia is on a high cost path to economic destruction.
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Not sure if this is true (but annoyed if it is) –
from Youtube video by ‘Punters Politics’
Why Qatar Earns $76 Billion from Gas While Aussies Get Scammed | Punter’s Politics
Australians are getting scammed by the gas industry! Despite exporting more gas than Qatar, Australia earns just $2 billion while Qatar rakes in $76 billion. Who can we blame?!
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Voter Stockholm Syndrome: Most of us are suffering under the destructive Socialist policies of Albanese’s Labour government who, for reasons beyond common sense, keep Bowen on as Energy Minister. Clearly this Labour team of elites is out to destroy Australia by cripling our energy generating capabilities. Yet, despite our suffering, some of those among us will blithely vote for Labour, Greens or Teal candidates at the imminent Federal election.
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I blame our mandatory preferential voting system in the House of Reps, as we can’t leave out more than one candidate (and I suspect few know you can leave one box blank – just one). I usually find I want to leave off about 3.
I would like to see the system changed to allow a valid vote with as few as just one box numbered.
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I note that coal fired plants are often criticised for breaking down and themselves become unreliable. But you have to consider what the managers of those plant are tasked with doing – make electricity and make a profit (unlike government subsidised industries that only make subsidies – not profits). So if your profit making plant is going to shut down – next year – next decade or even in 20 years time – why would you spend all that money maintaining it – except for when it actually breaks down? I thought we lived in a free market economy – not a communist style command economy where you get what the government says you need rather than your actual needs or wants. And all of that is before considering whether CO2 is harmful (which it isnt – even to the climate)
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Quoted from an article on the defunct Ivanpah solar plant in California: Giant Solar Plant Funded by $1.6B Shut Down After Only 10 Years. Go Green, go broke. . https://www.frontpagemag.com/obama-giant-solar-plant-funded-by-1-6b-shut-down-after-only-10-years/
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Not a huge market for 15sq.m mirrors.
The amortised cost of the capital spent on this tax payer funded mess was $400/MWh. The only you could spend more is to do what Australia is doing with battery firmed wind. It works out just over twice the unit cost of Ivanpah.
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It’s a puzzle to me why nobody bothers to look up co2 emissions data since Dr Hanson and Gore pulled their BS and fra-d stunt in Washington DC in 1988.
In 1988 all countries Human co2 emissions were 22.09 billion tons per year and OECD was 11.52 bn tons and NON OECD was 10.02 bn tons.
So over the last 35 years ( 1988 to 2023) the OECD countries have dropped slightly to 11.23 bn tons per year, but the NON OECD countries have SOARED to 25.44 billion tons per year.
This only takes a few minutes to find on the OWI Data site and this is very easy to check the data every year, so what’s their problem?
In 2023 NON OECD countries alone now exceed TOTAL world’s Human co2 emissions per year in 1988.
That’s 22.09 bn tons per year for all Human co2 emissions in 1988, but today the NON OECD co2 emissions alone total 25.44 bn tons per year.
I’ve tried to explain the data to so called educated people but most don’t understand at all and some get hostile and some just yell BS.
None of this is very difficult to look up and understand, but our so called Scientists, pollies and con merchants etc couldn’t care less.
Why is it so? Anyway we know that BO Bowen’s so called ruinables transition is fra-dulent nonsense and yet nobody bothers to check their claims.
Do we really have to wait another 35 years before govts spend a few minutes online to look up the data and then tell the voters the truth?
https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/annual-co2-emissions-per-country?country=OWID_WRL~Non-OECD+%28GCP%29~OECD+%28GCP%29
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Regarding so called renewable energy transition to wind, solar and batteries, and now after RET 32% Rudd-Gillard governments Albanese increased to RET 82% in 2022, there are many projects already installed and with contracts including subsidies guaranteed. Those installations will have on average 20-25 years from commissioning date before needing replacement, if the shareholders are willing to pay for removal and replacement, and the concern is that most will end up owned by shell companies with no assets leaving no funding for removal.
There are also installations being installed and contracts signed, but the Coalition has already confirmed they will not be supporting offshore installations and will not allow onshore installations without meaningful community consultation.
Obviously, therefore, the Dutton Plan for the future includes seven nuclear power stations to replace and increase lost capacity from already shut down coal fired power stations.
The Plan does include wind and solar, but renewables are also the hydro electricity power stations existing and Snowy 2.0 under construction. Also new gas turbine generators. And existing coal fired power stations with schedules for replacement spanning up to 30 years into the future.
The point is a change of direction long overdue as Labor’s transition flaws become even more obvious.
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The so-called “Renewable Energy Target” ends in 2030. The RET was updated in 2022 to 43% because the 2030 target of 33TWh was met by 2020.
There is no new investment just based on the RET. The new scheme has Federal Government funding guarantees. This link has all the AEMO tenders.
https://aemoservices.com.au/tenders
The terms of the contracts based on the tenders are not public information but it could cost the Dutton government decent money to back out of the resulting contracts.
This link has the list of the 19 successful tenderers to CIS 1, which closed December last year:
https://wattclarity.com.au/articles/2024/12/standalone-solar-and-wind-dominate-list-of-19-successful-projects-from-latest-cis-tender/
I cannot imagine Diutton backing away from this lot.
There is no place on a grid for intermittent generation. Unless it can be dispatched when needed it is a waste of money.
A simple AEMC rule change that removes the semi-scheduled classification and only take monthly bids at rated capacity would fix the mess that is the wholesale market. I can tell you that when the market was conceived it only envisaged merit order bidding based on being able to deliver power up to scheduled output. The semi-scheduled category has created a dog’s breakfast that opens the system to gaming and profit maximising rather than a fair return.
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Dutton Plan extract, does this look like support for renewables?
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So , all you unbelievers in the wisdom of Bowen, I hope you have done something real to protect yourselves in case Bowen actually gets his way and collapses good chunks of the grid.
We have slowly improved our capacity so that we could comfortably be out for a week and maybe less comfortably out for two weeks (comfort depending on the season) If there was retail fuel available this could be extended greatly.
We’ve settled on a mix of a generator and a power station with a small solar charging capability. So far so good with testing.
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Being in a bushfire area I have had a diesel generator since I rebuilt my house (after it burned down in 2009) so that when the outages come I have back up. speaking of which we have a planned outage next Wednesday. There have been many recently to allow for “upgrading” or “maintenance” – including some unplanned outages which were probably a mix of storm damage and load shedding.
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NBN seems to be doing a lot of that lately also, long outages for upgrades and such
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They don’t have to make coal unreliable. Simple reality tells managers not to waste money on capital improvement or expensive repairs if the facility is facing closure in a few years. So everything in a coal fired power station is functioning on Band-aids. Give notice of another 20 or 30 years of operation and the purse strings will loosen again.
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State governments have been compensating businesses that they order to shut down electricity usage when the grid supply is likely to disrupt households and smaller businesses, meaning most voters.
I would like to know how much this compensation has cost taxpayers to date, the practise started in Victoria after closure of Hazlewood Power Station and loss of 25% of state generator capacity.
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and when I commented to one of my “peers” a couple of years ago that there were three possible explanations for climate change with increasing world temperatures (assuming for a moment that they are increasing) that it could be CO2 drives temperature; temperature changes drive CO2 – or a third possibility that something else drives both, he called me and Antivaxer! – then for good measure a conspiracy theorist and finally – the clincher – a climate denier! Thats the level of response you get when trying to tell people the truth and that was an intelligent person in a responsible technical job similar to mine.
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The basis of this is Bowen and Albanese’s scientism (an IPA term) where they have an ideological requirement to foster the AGW tale to support their reconstruction of Australia to poverty status.
Today the PM, in Question Time, reiterated the story that storms are known to be increasing (with AGW) in strength and frequency. No doubt this comes not from the scientific reports of the IPCC which still sees mostly climate variation falling within the standard natural variability of these matters. The story the politicians and public rely on, The Summary for Policy Makers interpretations.
What is remarkable is the media owners via their ‘journalists’ don’t call out what amounts to lying propaganda prepared by activists with government oversight to produce such summaries to fit a policy of destruction for Western democracies. We have seen the destruction of our energy system, and now we see the practical outcome of that on the supply of food and other necessities of life. For this to stop, the democratic world is totally reliant on ethical journalism which is no longer in broad supply. Don’t journalists live in the same world as the rest of us? It’s not as though evidence to the contrary of the politically forced story that impregnates every minute of our day, is difficult to come by.
Lomberg has been telling his story of adjusting for years but was more or less drummed out of this country by activists. Where are those ten honourable men films are madeabout who are needed to save the world. They may very well appear behind Trump!
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Dear Mr Dutton, I have quickly copied Jo Nova’s site today “Bang! Food industry says there’s a national energy emergency and calls for Labor to drop the ideology, and fast-track coal”
Please-please-please do a TRUMP instead of playing safe and ineffectual. TRUMP has got rid of the LIE “Climate Change” and everything connected to it. For Australia’s sake, it is imperative that you loudly proclaim it is hurting our country. Immediately, the money spent on the “Climate Change” Scam will be available to the REAL purposeful needs of Australians. Please make this vow to the Australian citizens during this year’s Liberal/National Coalition election campaign… You will WIN! The world is changing BIGTIME, don’t miss the boat.
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Marxist arrogance dictates that if you have individuals and business under the cosh, you can do what you want with impunity.
They have never understood that revolt is inevitable, especially when opponents see wins against the same totalitarianism in other jurisdictions, because they live in echo chambers.
The flood gates will open, Dutton must push hard, without publicly fleshing out their plans. he’s intimated the campaign parameters and just needs to stay the course refusing to play by propaganda media rules.
Dutton simply needs to ask the left wing attack media, what the government has planned in light of no forward estimates even coming close in either monetary terms or timeframes.
The Trump appointees and media liaison have been absolutely professional in questioning the narrative of the propaganda media and had facts of the mismanagement they intend on reversing. The Lib/Nats have a template there and need to be researched and above all, have the guts to treat the media as the opponents they always have been.
The tide has turned, business knows whatever stance they have with the Marxists, they will continue to squeeze middle Australia to death, destroy small business, agriculture and manufacturing to setup their approved suppliers, which makes them more easily controllable and turn 15 minute city inhabitants into dependents of their patrician largesse.
Let’s go Dutton, 97% of Australia don’t believe the ‘green world leader’ rhetoric, so start with the plain language, get Tony Seabrook beside you and start dispensing facts.
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