Yes, they’re 100% renewable: how many would you like?
The ACT government did something that every bunch of green-left ideologically driven lunatics are programmed to do: it set a 90% Renewable Energy Target.
The ACT government is in a joint venture power retailing business with Australia’s ‘Enron’ aka AGL, ActewAGL; and, in an effort to satisfy its costly vanity project, went far and wide to sign up new wind power projects in NSW, South Australia and Victoria.
Back in April 2014, Liberal Member for Hume, Angus Taylor called the plan, ‘corporate welfare on steroids’ and predicted rocketing power prices for the ACT (see our post here).
Residents of the nation’s capital, Canberra have just been hit by ActewAGL with a 20%, year-on-year increase in their retail power bills (so much for AGL’s guff about its push to carpet Australia in subsidised wind turbines having “no compromises to you”).
Instead of unwinding the disastrous policies that are putting their constituents into penury, and leaving them freezing in the dark (unable to pay power bills rocketing at 12 times the rate of inflation), these heartless cynics have simply told householders to stock up on rugs and electric blankets.
Rather than reserving their (unfashionable) beanies (knitted woollen ski hats) for High Country ski runs, Canberra’s residents have been directed to wear them inside their homes, to prevent them from catching a chill in a government report that STT had a hard time taking seriously (this not being the USSR).
Here’s The Australian’s Angela Shanahan detailing Canberra’s self-inflicted drift back to the Dark Ages.
Canberra offers tips on snuggling up for a clean, green winter
The Australian
Angela Shanahan
17 June 2017
Everyone is talking about the price of energy. A few weeks ago I received a pamphlet from the ACT government on energy-saving tips. For winter it featured a picture of a family all in overcoats and beanies, huddled under an electric blanket. For summer it had helpful advice like open a window at night. If you want to see the clean, green energy future, there is no need to travel to South Australia. Come to the nation’s capital.
Not only does the ACT have the highest rates and taxes in the country but it also has the highest energy prices. Next month the price of electricity for the average Canberra household is to go up by more than $300 a year.
This is a glimpse of an Australia-wide future. Nevertheless, our Greens-Labor left ACT government, which owns energy supplier ACTEW, continues to spruik its 100 per cent renewable target for 2020. Of course the ACT doesn’t produce much electricity, unless you count the eyesore wind farms near Bungendore, a solar farm that provides convenient photographic backdrops for progressive politicians or the vast number of solar panels festooning household roofs that operate on exceptionally generous subsidies.
The citizens of Canberra console themselves that they live in Australia’s cleanest, greenest, least-polluting city, although common sense is in as much short supply as the electricity.
The average Australian consumer is confused. The wholesale price of electricity has doubled in the past 12 months. Yet a year ago the Australian Energy Market Operator was predicting a fall in electricity prices. This was based on the expectation of maintaining baseload coal fire-generated electricity, increasing renewable energy output and abundant cheap gas — exactly as predicted for the ACT with its abundant rooftop solar, cheap gas for heating that households are encouraged to use and coal-fired power imported from NSW and Victoria.
The ACT is essentially a microcosm of the national market and expectations. Now its power authorities are handing out pamphlets encouraging people to wear coats and hats inside while huddled under electric blankets in one of the nation’s coldest capitals.
The ACT’s encouragement to use more gas includes offers of further rebates and subsidies to upgrade and switch to gas heating to cut emissions and boost heating efficiency. It is also designed to take some of the strain off the electricity demand. However, the price of gas has gone through the roof.
Winter heating bills of between $1100 and $1500 are not unusual and families are reduced to installing wood-burning heaters, before the government disallows their use (as they have open fires) because of emission fears and smog. Again, this is exactly what is happening nationally, although the winter demand is not as great in most other places.
The rapid urban infill of massive apartment blocks in low-level and spacious Canberra is also aimed at offsetting energy infrastructure costs. Single people and couples in apartments subsidise power delivery to the vast majority of households that are single-family houses.
Adding to the costs, the ACT has even invented its own unique tax that some say is unconstitutional, just for the delivery of services. So the “progressive” ACT government offers the biggest subsidies for rooftop solar, bans new open fires, encourages use of gas and is faced with residents in revolt over rising costs of rates, insurance, housing and power, while householders huddle under blankets and wear beanies to bed.
All of this has come about because of some macro events having an impact on the micro lives of people, not just in the ACT but nationally. It has contributed to rising retail prices and threatens business and industry. This crisis has started to bite in Europe. In Germany it is a direct result of the renewable energy subsidies combined with the unreliability of renewables. In Australia it is a political issue for now, not for ideological targets 20 or 30 years down the track. No wonder the government’s backbench is in revolt.
Just three years ago the Australian Energy Market Commission predicted that scrapping the carbon tax, falling electricity demand and increased capacity would cause retail electricity prices to fall.
Now electricity prices have doubled because the AEMC had not anticipated the sharp rise in the price of gas as supplies for domestic use dried up because of moratoriums on exploration as the bad name of coal-seam gas spread to conventional gas exploration. Fundamentally, the green arguments have moved from using gas as a “transition” fuel between coal and renewables to leapfrogging gas completely and lumping it in with coal and demanding power generation go straight to renewables.
The Finkel report aims to provide incentives for all energy sources that produce electricity with lower greenhouse gas emissions, but the suggested benchmark means a high-efficiency, low-emissions power plant with carbon capture and storage would not qualify. That is why plenty of people think this is a backdoor attempt to block coal and even gas with an effective “tax on coal”.
The crisis has arisen because of the over-reliance on wind and solar power. In South Australia, combined with the closure of two coal-fired power plants, one in SA and one in Victoria, it has destabilised the whole grid. Added to that is the shortage of gas and the lack of storage for renewables.
Meanwhile, despite the domestic opposition to coal, we send our coal to Japan and China to be used in high-efficiency, low-emissions coal-fired generators to produce cleaner and cheaper power where people don’t have to sit inside wearing beanies under an electric blanket.
The Australian
Canberra’s renewable energy targets, rug up, as directed.
About stopthesethings
STOP THESE THINGS 
After going through the internet with a fine tooth comb, looking at ways to reduce my electricity bill , I had to replace my thirty year old refrigerator in January. Vacant space in the new refrigerator is filled with ice and water which acts as a coldness reservoir preventing coldness escaping when you open the doors …….. And when there is a blackout the food stays cold and fresh for longer.
If our Federal and State Governments cannot see the danger of going down this path as the consequences are now being felt around the world and reported on around the world they cannot claim to be working for their communities or even the world environment>
They are only concerned with seeing an industry which provides VERY FEW jobs, and causes so much pain both physical and financial, an industry which pays very little in taxes – if any – and receives massive subsidies from stocks on money that is mean to to be spent on the needs of the people of this Nation.
They ARE FAILING TO DO THEIR JOB, they have to be continually reminded they are there to work for us NOT these companies that are in the main owned by overseas concerns who have no interest in the welfare of Australians, all they are interested in is raping us at every opportunity.
The UN who started this nightmare around the world has failed us and every other country that is now suffering the result of the actions promoted by their band of idiots.
Our Government representatives who attended the meetings and did not recognize the danger or even question what they were signing up to are as complicit.
The continuation of these failings within countries is nothing more than our interests being left in the hands of those who are so ideologically challenged they cannot function in the best interests of the people of this nation.
Until this is rectified from the top of our political structure to the bottom we will continue to go down the path of national destruction.
I so desperately want to laugh, but the personal impacts on people is really starting to bite in a very nasty way. News of ridiculous, Keystone Cop-like repercussions from brain dead Green group-think policies are coming monthly now. I expect in the very near future, it will be weekly.
Nothing will happen to reverse these Green policies until governments remove ALL subsidies from rooftop solar, effectively pulling back the curtain from around the Emperor and his make-believe wardrobe.
Invested homeowners, media reporters and politicians have skin in the game. A lot of skin! They desperately want their investments in renewables to pay off and they’ll put up with beanies and blankets and a lot worse in winter to justify their investments even if it means a “few” have to be sacrificed in the process. Homeowners have been conned by net metering and other policies and propaganda into expecting way, way more than Mother Nature can supply.
ACTEW and the ACT government want solar and wind to be economically viable to justify their spending and unlike the Federal Liberal government, they can’t blame their predecessors.
I’m waiting for the realization of a renewable boondoggle to become evident in several of my Canberra and Australian friends who are staunch climate catastrophe supporters. There’s a long way to go yet and I fear that it’s going to take more than just a couple of deaths for reality to hit home. I wonder how many more tragedies in the vein of the Pink Batt fires, Grenfells Towers and lesser newsworthy stories it will take before a few even start to peek behind the Emperor’s dressing room curtain.
Tony Z,
The wind and sun worshippers don’t rug up in blankets or beanies: that’s for ordinary people, these heartless cynics will always have power, and when it isn’t delivered will be the first to howl. Renewables are an obsession for Champagne socialists, not the working class and in places like SA, the growing body of permanently unemployed.
The Green is a human hating hypocrite. They couldn’t care less if you couldn’t afford power, in fact they rebadged that as ‘demand management’ a long time ago, and ‘smart meters’ are the weapon of their choice: when demand spikes on a hot day, charge granny the spot price equivalent of $14,000 per MWh. That way she’ll soon stop her selfish desire to run her AC and stay alive.
We can’t wait for next summer, with big numbers unable to afford power and load-shedding and blackouts: that’s why we say this unsustainable – it’s a matter of when, not if.
What’s the point of huddling under an electric blanket? If its night, then solar isn’t powering it. If the wind aint blowing, then windfarms aren’t powering it either. With those two options being your primary utopian focus, then I guess you’re in for an uncomfortable night. As for me, I’m just sharpening my chainsaw. I’ll be warm tonight.
Congratulations to you Australians!
I was convinced that we Germans are the conscience of the world. Now I realize. You overtake us. Congratulations, we meet in a world taken over by green spinners called the Stone Age Paradise.
Idiot braindead government libtards at their finest! Australia you get what you voted for!
In the case of the ACT it is the Labtards and the greentards. Libtards preside over us Federally.
Take a look at what happened here in Ontario at Queen’s Park recently:
http://ontla.on.ca/lao/en/debates-and-proceedings/video/#question-period
This took place a month ago and still the turbines that were declared ‘out of compliance’ after two years of residents telling the MOECC that they were, are running full tilt.
Pay close attention to how Minister Glen Murray and Premier Kathleen Wynne responded…absolutely shameful.
To Lloyde, I would agree with those sentiments normally but in this case we didn’t. We didn’t vote for any of this shit. Two elections ago Tony Abbott won a landslide victory promising border control against a horde of Islamic Immigrants and also against the Labor Party’s carbon tax in the form of an emissions trading scheme.
Later Abbott was stabbed in the back by his socialist (RINO-like) colleagues who have since weakened border security and the New PM is an Ex Goldman Sachs CEO…and I reckon you know what that means…agreed to the U.N Global Warming insanity…without the permission of the people.
It was stupidly assumed by the media that Turnbull was going to follow certain policies of the previous gov as that was the impression he put about, and so sought no promises about a carbon tax and although Turnbull lost the huge majority Abbott left him, because of our vile preferential voting system where you have to vote for at least 6 different candidates in order of preference…this often has peoples’ votes winding up with a candidate they would sooner choke to death than vote for…and the upshot is we have a socialist for a conservative leader and we sure as hell didn’t vote for him, and in the next ballot the conservative party will be destroyed. But believe me when I say the Labor Party will be infinitely worse, full of insane Union folk and Commos.
However, all the real conservative voters will vote for the conservative independents and go for the controlling numbers in both houses as neither side will have the numbers to pass anything without the conservative independents say so.
What a mess, our media and politicians are quite similar to yours. Vermin, by and large. We don’t have a Trump but do have Cory Bernadi. Look him up on-line, interesting guy. I’m voting for him.
I made a comment in the comments section of Angela’s article when it was first published in The Australian but it was very swiftly deleted – I said it is the what the voters in the ACT wanted so “freeze you mongrels freeze” . Apparently my remark was a little insensitive but it is also true that that voters have not bothered to even attempt to determine the reality of a wind powered future, so in this sense they get what they deserve. Nevertheless, responsible leaders should know better and should not be allowing the destruction of a nation or diminishing the wellbeing of its citizens simply because of their ignorance.
Today I visited my aunt who at 94 is in a seaside nursing home here in SA. While physically she is by no means a spring chicken, mentally she retains all her faculties and a sharp sense of wit.
Whilst generally being of a happy disposition she stated ” the trouble with this place it’s hard to remain sane when everybody around you is losing their marbles, there are days when I feel like walking out that gate and walking over to the cliff top and jumping.”
It’s a bit like that living with the green movement and politicians, regarding their rabid push for more renewables.
As I said my goodbyes to my aunt and went back to my car, I checked my phone for messages and up on my twitter feed came this tweet from Victoria’s premier Daniel Andrews who had just announced a new 56 turbine wind farm was coming to regional Victoria;
“Wind turbines aren’t eyesores.”
“They’re job creating, bill-reducing, energy generating machines-and they’re beautiful.”
I moved a step closer to the cliff top.
Son of a Goat, we’re all standing alongside with you, like lemmings, being forcibly pushed over the edge unless the renewables rush is altered or stopped.
The energy Minister for Victoria believes wind turbines reduce the environmental impact. It’s enough to make anyone jump off a cliff. If she had seen the amount of concrete poured into the turbine bases on the fragile Cape Bridgewater, if she could see the pollution in China in order to construct turbines, if she could feel the impacts of sonic pulses and unwanted turbine sounds in our houses, in our bodies and collectively into our environment, if she could see a corridor of turbines possibly affecting aircraft, radars and communication devices across Australia, like rural neighbours of turbines, she’d be having trouble too. Dogmatic support of renewables equals a long walk off a short plank which is leading us to bouts of no electricity, woollen hats, mittens and open windows. Hats and open windows are normal climate controls, wind turbines on the other hand change cloud formation and impact on ground temperatures. There’s nothing beautiful about them and they don’t save the planet. We wouldn’t have them if they weren’t about making money above all else.
It’s not very wise to huddle under an electric blanket while it is switched on, but governments do put their intermittent energy obsession ahead of peoples health.
http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2009/02/24/is-your-electric-blanket-safe.aspx
Reblogged this on Climatism and commented:
“received a pamphlet from the ACT government on energy-saving tips. For winter it featured a picture of a family all in overcoats and beanies, huddled under an electric blanket.”
ELITE green, climate eco-loons, taking you back to the stone-age, one windmill at a time. Literally!
Btw, what’s with the “electric” blanket?! A bit much?
I always find it fascinating when I hear the lauding for moving towards electric cars, buses and trains, are we meant to be reducing our need for electricity or not?????