Our overseas followers must regard Australia with complete bewilderment.
Here’s a Country renowned for being among the world’s largest coal, gas and uranium exporters and, yet, it is in the midst of a self-inflicted power pricing and supply calamity.
Throwing $60 billion in subsidies at intermittent wind and solar power has all but destroyed the Eastern Grid’s, once gold standard, reliability and sent power prices from the bottom of the league table, all the way to the very top (see above).
Australia’s wind power capital, South Australia might revel in that tag, but its long-suffering constituents pay the highest power prices in the world, face inevitable blackouts this summer and can only expect power prices to double again in the next two or three years.
By this point, STT’s international followers will be thinking that Australia’s political masters will have jumped into action, and appointed engineers and energy market economists with the skills necessary to undo the damage, before it’s all too late.
But, oh no.
Australia’s Federal Liberal/National Coalition government is currently slugging it out with one American import, Andrew Vesey the CEO of AGL – a company which is Australia’s largest coal-fired power generator and which, hypocritically, asserts that it’s “getting out of coal”.
AGL might have substantial wind and solar power generation assets, but it has them for one reason, and one reason only: to wallow in the lion’s share of the $3 billion a year in subsidies thrown to the wind and sun. AGL is taunting the government by threatening to close its coal-fired Liddell the plant in NSW, removing 2,000 MW of base-load generation at a time when Australia’s reserve capacity is already below what’s required to keep the grid from collapsing, this summer and beyond.
The head of the Australian Energy Market Operator (AEMO), Audrey Zibelman is also part of a Yankee invasion. Zibelman drank the Kool-Aid years ago, when she joined the wind cult in New York State, and did her best to destroy its electricity supply. Now she’s running propaganda for the wind industry, Downunder; and is, quite apparently, intent on destroying the competitive advantage Australia’s once cheap and reliable electricity supply provided.
Last week AEMO put out a report attempting to varnish over the fact that subsidised wind and solar has destroyed Australia’s electricity supply and is all set to destroy every last energy hungry industry and business in this Country.
Here’s a few extracts from its report, which reads more like something from Lewis Carroll’s Through the Looking Glass. And confirms that the Federal government has put lunatics in charge of the asylum.
ADVICE TO COMMONWEALTH GOVERNMENT ON DISPATCHABLE CAPABILITY
The NEM is not delivering enough investment in flexible dispatchable resources to maintain the defined target level of supply reliability, as the transition from traditional generation to variable energy resources proceeds. This was vividly illustrated by the load-shedding events of February 2017 and by the Finkel Review analysis. Most stakeholders see changes to market rules as the most economically efficient way to remedy this deficiency. AEMO forecasts of NEM demand and published investment plans confirm the urgency of this task and short-term measures will be necessary until a long-term solution is agreed and becomes fully effective.
AEMO’s recommendations:
Prior to summer 2017-18: A strategic reserve of around 1,000 megawatts (MW) of flexible dispatchable energy resources is required to maintain supply reliability in South Australia and Victoria over next summer. AEMO is already acting to deliver this under our summer readiness plan.
Up to 2021-22: Progressively decreasing levels of strategic reserve will be required over the next four summers, provided there is no unforeseen major loss of existing resources. New mechanisms to deliver these reserves must be identified and in place in time for 2018-19.
Liddell Power Station retirement: Prior to the retirement of Liddell (announced by AGL to occur in 2022), around 1,000 MW of new investment is expected to be required to preserve reliability of supply in New South Wales (NSW) and Victoria at the NEM standard. Mechanisms should be established in the NEM design to address this, and similar requirements, for the long term.
Stakeholder consultation: Action on each of the above should include much broader and deeper stakeholder consultation than has been possible in the preparation of this initial advice.
AEMO caveats on this advice:
Uncertainty in all NEM forecasts remains extremely high, so all estimates of dispatchability must be regarded as subject to progressive refinement.
AEMO, like every system operator in the world, targets a defined market reliability standard (NEM: 99.998%) and cannot promise or deliver 100% supply reliability. There are a number of variable factors that can, at one time or simultaneously, have an adverse impact on the power system and are outside AEMO’s control, such as major environmental events, bushfires or floods, and/or unplanned asset faults and failures.”
[The full report is available here: Advice To Commonwealth Government On Dispatchable Capability]
Clear as mud.
The caveats pitched up by AEMO are, no doubt, the product of sensible legal advice. When the whole system goes down, industries and businesses will be looking to recover hundreds of millions of dollars in losses on their insurance policies (South Australia’s wind power induced statewide blackout on 28 September last year cost businesses over $360 million).
The insurers that payout on those policies for the incidental losses caused by similar blackouts will be looking to sheet home blame to anybody even vaguely responsible, which includes the AEMO.
So its ‘belt and braces’ disclaimer is perfectly understandable. However, attempting to absolve oneself of legal liability sits rather uncomfortably with a statutory responsibility to ensure that a country’s power supply is reliable, secure and affordable, all at once.
And, it’s that aspect of the AEMO’s fence sitting that has riled Dr Michael Crawford.
In this thumping open letter, Dr Crawford draws attention to the fact that our American import has completely lost touch with reality, and what’s required of an energy market operator.
Hon. Josh Frydenberg MP 28th September 2017
Minister for the Environment & Energy
PO Box 6022 House of Representatives
Parliament House
Canberra ACT 2600
Minister
Open letter re recent dishonest and misleading advice from AEMO
You recently received a report from AEMO (Advice to Commonwealth Government on Dispatchable Capacity) which rivals the earlier report by Dr Finkel in its total aversion to explaining what lies behind the electricity security and price calamity being inflicted on the Australian people.
However, the AEMO report differs from Dr Finkel’s in a couple of significant aspects.
- It takes steps to put itself beyond even theoretical exposure to the Criminal Code, though in reality it is nearly as dishonest and misleading as Dr Finkel’s; and
- Unlike Dr Finkel, who has no operational responsibility for our electricity supply and is never going to be called to account for its continuing failure, the AEMO officials know that when the power goes off, many people will be pointing the finger at them. So, in self protection, they have been forced to be a bit more honest about the nature of the immediate threat – though they refuse to discuss what is causing that threat.
Dishonest and misleading – and no warranties
In a detailed letter to Dr Finkel in June, none of which he has repudiated, I pointed out that his document appeared to breach section 137.1(1) of the Criminal Code Act 1995, in relation to giving false or misleading information to someone exercising powers of the Commonwealth Government.
AEMO and its American CEO have avoided this risk, not by being markedly less misleading than Dr Finkel, but rather by covering the report with caveats. The very first page has a disclaimer telling you that:
“AEMO and its officers, employees and consultants involved in the preparation of this document:
- make no representation or warranty, express or implied, as to the currency, accuracy, reliability or completeness of the information in this document; and
- are not liable (whether by reason of negligence or otherwise) for any statements or representations in this document, or any omissions from it, or for any use or reliance on the information in it.”
In multiple places throughout the document there are repeated statements about the uncertainties.
So you have a report that AEMO is willing for you to rely on but AEMO will not guarantee its accuracy and will take no responsibility if it turns out to be wrong and you waste a few billion dollars more, or the power goes out more often or earlier than they suggest at various points.
As you read the document you were probably impressed to see many figures with an appearance of great accuracy, frequently with 3, 4, or even 5 significant digits. I hope when you read them you kept remembering that caveat up front, that AEMO makes no warranty “as to the currency, accuracy, reliability or completeness” of that information.
Hopefully you know the Australian vernacular phrase for such statements, so I won’t spell it out here.
Given the inaccuracy of some of AEMO’s past predictions, it certainly would be unwise of you to rely on any now presented. After all, if they really understood the NEM and were honest about it, they would have forecast the current problems years ago.
The self-serving AEMO report:
- fails to mention actual electricity prices for users and what has caused the doubling of real consumer electricity prices and the continuing increase;
- fails to mention that AEMO’s proposed solution will increase system costs and thus prices to end users;
- ignores the absolutely central past and continuing role of federal and state government policies, including the LRET, in creating the havoc that has destroyed our once affordable and secure electricity;
- refuses to mention that the NEM over which AEMO presides has been a total dud and has become a paradise for rorters, many of them foreigners;
- while it cannot completely hide the electricity security consequences of what it calls variable generators (wind and solar), promotes the dishonest impression that those generators provide lower cost electricity despite their existence being wholly dependent on subsidies and them being allowed to externalise numerous costs onto the rest of the system.
The purpose of the report is to protect the jobs of the bureaucrats who run this shonky system and the profiteers who exploit it, while destroying the lifestyles of Australians and their jobs. It presents the bare minimum of reality necessary in order to provide a rationale for adding some high cost fiddles to the NEM to reduce the likelihood of imminent blackouts and mass sackings of high-priced AEMO management. It conceals most of the facts and understanding necessary to re-establish an electricity system whose purpose is to serve electricity users and our society as a whole rather than a plague of profiteers.
That is totally consistent with AEMO’s statement that it makes:
“no representation or warranty, express or implied, as to the currency, accuracy, reliability or completeness of the information in this document”
Climate
I notice that the letter to you by the American lady you imported to run the Australian national energy market (you apparently having concluded no Australian was up to it) is garnished with the requisite PC phrases about weather and climate.
She notes the electricity system is “at risk from increased vulnerability to climatic events, such as extended periods of high temperatures” and she is concerned about having to “manage the potential impacts of severe weather on the power system” (emphases mine).
Perhaps you might send her one of Dorothea Mackellar’s poems. Hopefully you know the one that includes:
I love a sunburnt country,
A land of sweeping plains,
Of ragged mountain ranges,
Of droughts and flooding rains.
and point out to her that it was written more than 100 years ago, by an Australian lady who knew tough “climatic events”, such as “extended periods of high temperatures”, are just part of Australia’s normal climate, well before today’s global warming hysteria.
The state governments which built Australia’s power generation and distribution system, before the NEM, were likewise familiar with our climate, which they took for granted, and they created systems which operated reliably, efficiently and at low cost in that environment – before the federal government got involved in turning one of the world’s best and cheapest electricity systems into a basket case presided over by multiple unaccountable, expensive and incompetent bureaucracies.
Market Nonsense
In one very self-serving paragraph, your American correspondent claims:
“AEMO’s view is that optimal approaches towards ensuring an efficient balanced system must target mechanisms that allow the greatest practical level of competition and innovation. This will allow AEMO to operate a NEM, which along with the external financial markets, produces the most economically efficient results for consumers.”
I suggest you share the following graph with your adviser and ask her to present her realworld evidence (not theories) to support her claim that the NEM, over which AEMO is presiding, “produces the most economically efficient results for consumers”, or will do so.
The graph shows that real consumer electricity prices (i.e. inflation adjusted) have actually doubled since the NEM was formed. I suggest you take a few moments to think about that absolutely central piece of information and its consequences for all Australians. For all the families in Australia taking power from the grid, the inflation-adjusted rate per KWH is now basically twice as high as a decade ago, and it seriously affects their lives.
What does that mean in dollars?
Excess household expenditure on electricity (compared to holding real energy prices at 2000 rates) by Australian consumers is approx $12.7Bn in 2017 and will be $14.4Bn in 2018.
The additional $12.7Bn which consumers have to spend on electricity, due entirely to real electricity price increases, is removed from expenditure on other goods and services. That has eliminated about 44,000 jobs elsewhere in Australia and it will be about 49,000 by end of 2018 (Australian businesses, on average, employ one person for just under each $300,000 of income (extrapolated from ABS 81550DO001_201314), so $12.7Bn diverted from other expenditure destroys 44,000 jobs.)
This is without including jobs lost because businesses also have faced massive increases in wholesale electricity prices, which has caused many to cease operating in Australia and others to cut back employment to offset the increased electricity costs. AEMO data shows business uses about 73% of total Australian electricity production, with 27% going to household use. Thus business uses almost three times as much electricity as do households. The excess cost to Australian households is now about $12.7Bn p.a. In addition, a larger electricity cost burden is falling directly on Australian businesses, which also destroys jobs.
Perhaps you can get one of your advisors to do the sums on the total Australian excess electricity expenditure (at current real prices compared to 2000 real prices). Adding the excess expenditure for business to the excess expenditure for consumers, the total must be somewhere between $30Bn and $50Bn per year.
Despite that reality, your American correspondent has the gall to claim that this AEMO controlled market “produces the most economically efficient results for consumers”. The historical evidence shows the statement is a massive falsehood.
Your American correspondent also claims in that paragraph that:
“an efficient balanced system must target mechanisms that allow the greatest practical level of competition and innovation”
That is another self-serving statement by AEMO which is repudiated by reality. From 1955 until the formation of the National Energy Market, real electricity prices in Australia fell by about 45%, particularly until the early 1980s. Throughout that period generation and distribution were in the hands of state governments.
Low cost, reliable, electricity was provided without the benefit of the markets your American correspondent thinks we need and without innovation away from coal-fired power stations which provided electricity that was dispatchable, cheap and reliable.
Has your American correspondent provided any credible plan to halve the real cost of our electricity supply so it equates with what state governments provided before the formation of the NEM and indeed achieved four decades ago? If not, why not, and why are you taking advice from someone who fails to recognise that the current system is a disaster for all Australians except those who like you and her are cushioned by hefty salaries.
The Nonsense of “The transformation challenge”
Your American correspondent tells you that “Australia’s energy system is undergoing unprecedented transformation” which is “radically changing the dynamics of the power system”. That is certainly true – which is why real consumer electricity prices have doubled and we are now having a national conversation about electricity security which was previously unheard of in this country.
She unfortunately neglects to tell you that this has been, and continues to be, entirely driven by federal and state government policies, especially the massive subsidies they have forced electricity consumers to pay to the rorters who provide intermittent and unpredictable energy supplies.
She assures you this is happening in other countries, as indeed it is – but only in those countries whose governments have stupidly decided to mandate intermittent electricity supplies which are having precisely the same effect for them as for Australia. Any rational person not blinded by ideology would find a lesson in that commonality worth mentioning – but it is a lesson your American correspondent is either blind to or wishes not to draw to your attention.
This misinformation by your correspondent is compounded by the statement:
“older baseload units find it increasingly difficult to compete in this environment. These units have historically relied on relatively constant high production levels and stable revenues. In general, they are not well suited to respond to rapidly varying energy system needs. Their business model will be further challenged by the increasing variability in the system and falling costs of competitive sources of energy.”
The first sentence in that paragraph is true. The rest is dishonest misinformation.
She says “These units have historically relied on relatively constant high production levels and stable revenues”, as if that is a defect. Anyone with a modicum of knowledge of economics and business understands that achieving high capacity utilisation of productive assets of all kinds is the way to get low production costs, which is exactly what those baseload units gave, and will continue to give if run to match actual demand.
Is your American correspondent ignorant of this aspect of production economics – or is she just trying to mislead you?
She goes on to say “they are not well suited to respond to rapidly varying energy system needs”. That is probably true, but the country does not have “rapidly varying energy system needs”. It did not have it in the past and it does not have it now.
What Australia now has, is rapidly varying electricity supply from the intermittent power generators which, because federal government policy gives them pre-emptive access to the grid when they do generate power, forces rapid and large amplitude variations in the residual demand for power from baseload plants.
And the more of those unpredictable intermittent generators you add to the grid, to satisfy Finkel and other ideologues, the stronger will be the fluctuations in demand for electricity to be supplied by dispatchable sources and thus the less economic will those sources be unless electricity prices rise further to cover the inefficient way in which they are used. AEMO has not bothered to tell you this.
Incidentally, you might think from the words of your American correspondent that wind and solar farms are, unlike coal-fired plant, “well suited to respond to rapidly varying energy system needs”. That is a reasonable inference from her words. Unfortunately, like much of what you might understand from her letter and the AEMO report, it is totally false.
In order to be “well suited to respond to rapidly varying energy system needs”, a plant must be able to provide power that matches those supposed “rapidly varying energy system needs”. Of course, neither wind nor solar can do that. They can provide power only when the wind is blowing and the sun is shining – irrespective of what electricity consumers want. Surely even your American correspondent understands the sun does not shine at night and wind farm output is sporadic and unpredictable and overall averages about one third of rated capacity.
The business model of baseload, coal-fired power stations is “challenged”, as she quaintly puts it, because the federal government has mandated a massive subsidy and preferential grid access for intermittent electricity generators – at the expense of efficient forms of electricity generation and Australian electricity users.
Their business model would not be “challenged” were they being run to provide continuous power output as was the case when owned by state governments, at which time they provided us with reliable electricity at half the current real price.
And her statement about “falling costs of competitive sources of energy” is just pathetic propaganda for intermittent power sources and shows the gross biases of the people you have running AEMO. If the cost of electricity from those sources was falling in any way material to Australian consumers, those sources would not need enforced subsidies and real electricity prices would be going down, not up.
The solution to actually provide affordable, reliable electricity
There is only one way to restore affordable, secure electricity to Australia and its citizens. It has two parts:
- Abolish all subsidies for particular forms of electricity supply. That means the RET based subsidies for wind and solar in particular but also the various other forms like preferential funding for intermittent power generators.
- Offer long-term government contracts for low cost dispatchable electricity supply which is also able to provide the other characteristics needed for stable supply (e.g. frequency control) sufficient to meet Australia’s electricity requirements with the safety margin we once enjoyed.
If wind and solar operators, who claim to be innovators, can figure out some way to provide competitive, low cost, unsubsidised dispatchable power on that basis, fine. In reality, they, AEMO, you and I know they can’t – but the two-pronged approach does not discriminate against them. Physics and reality do.
The main sources likely to meet the dispatchable provision are, as AEMO itself notes, coal, gas, liquid fuel, hydro and biomass, and of course nuclear, which AEMO fails to mention despite being used successfully in most of the developed world.
Of course the rorters will squeal like stuck pigs. But Australian governments totally ignored the effect of current energy policies on Australian companies forced out of business and the loss of value in their investments, and on the Australian citizens forced to go without power and those who were forced to cut back consumption of food and other goods and services to pay for vastly inflated electricity prices.
Nothing in the Australian Constitution or even the bible says we have to keep fleecing our population to benefit rorters – though your reticence to do something about it suggests you feel some imperative to protect the latter.
And let’s not have the red herring about “sovereign risk”. Through the “renewable energy” fantasy, Australian governments have destroyed the value of a massive amount of pre-existing industrial production, which was there in accordance with previous government policies, without anyone suggesting that created a “sovereign risk” problem. There is no “sovereign risk” problem from treating the intermittent electricity rorters in the same way. In fact there is a true “sovereign risk” if by persisting with this stupidity we continue to destroy our economy and thus Australia’s future capacity to pay its debts.
Politicians of all parties have totally destroyed any rational market for investment in electricity generators. It doesn’t matter what you or the PM or the leader of the Opposition says, no one will now make an investment that depends on continuous rational behaviour by Australian governments, which have shown themselves too often driven by clueless irrationality and fantasy.
All generator investment is now dependent on an expectation of massive subsidies (RET) or on having long-term, take or pay, contracts with government which cannot be set aside.
AEMO recommends you enter supply contracts – but not in a form that would reduce electricity costs and prices. Rather its recommendation is for some contracted “backup” provision which must inevitably be a cost on top of the subsidy-based, high cost system currently driven by destructive government policies.
In other words, having failed to see the problem coming and done anything about it, AEMO proposes to add further costs to our electricity system and further real prices increases to electricity consumers.
That might be a “solution” good for AEMO. It is not a solution good for Australia and its people.
The simple fact is you have received from AEMO advice which is self-serving and grossly dishonest and misleading. At least they have told you in their caveats that they don’t claim the advice is accurate, reliable or complete.
You can follow their advice and go down in Australia’s history as being even more destructive for our country than the Rudd/Gillard governments. In so doing, you will continue to impose on the people and businesses of Australia a massive and wholly wasteful cost currently somewhere between $30Bn and $50Bn p.a.
Or you can just do the job the people of Australia are paying you for, and take the steps necessary to restore to our country a genuinely affordable and reliable electricity supply, as once we had.
Dr Michael Crawford
mcrawford.boro@gmail.com
cc: Members of Australian Parliament and other interested parties
[Dr Crawford’s letter is available here in PDF: Letter to Minister Frydenberg re AEMO Advice 20170928]
STOP THESE THINGS 
Audrey Zibelman I’m disgusted in how you’re doing your job.
What a bloody let down to the people of Australia you have been. Also heard you had the same approach in the US.
Don’t bullshit us. You shouldnt be in charge of anything. You are a muppet. Looking after your self interest and your other mates. You know what’s going on but play the game that suits your interests… shame on you and the people you work for.
You should be held responsible for the blackouts in Victoria.
You say the extreme weather and break downs was a suprise.
I call bullshit when I hear it.
The message that slowly seems to be spreading is that if climate warming and ocean acidification are the problems, the primary, indeed only objective is reduction of CO2e emissions. That is where this charade started and it is where it will end up.
The current focus on “Green” or “Renewables” (which are nothing of the kind) will eventually give way to consideration of:
1. Reduction/avoidance of CO2 emissions.
2. Cost of energy to consumers, especially electricity.
3. Why wind and sun have not delivered on either score.
That leaves nuclear power + hydro (pumped or otherwise). All else is window-dressing and scams.
I don’t necessarily agree with every person who posts here regarding climate damage, sea levels rising or ocean acidification. I’m with the majority of scientists, but that is virtually irrelevant. What matters is that the stated objectives of those who are trying to make the energy change do not match their actions. In other words, the whole Green movement has been hijacked, at great monetary and social cost, by vested interests.
“I’m with the majority of scientists”
Then perhaps consider applying greater precision, ie. “IPCC scientivists”
0.3% consensus, not 97.1%
‘Quantifying the consensus on global warming in the literature’: a comment. Christopher Monckton of Brenchley
Abstract
Cook et al. (2013) stated that abstracts of nearly all papers expressing an opinion on climate change endorsed consensus, which, however, traditionally has no scientific role; used three imprecise definitions of consensus interchangeably; analyzed abstracts only; excluded 67% expressing no opinion; omitted key results; and thus concluded that 97.1% endorsed the hypothesis as defined in their introduction, namely that the “scientific consensus that human activity is very likely causing most of the current GW (anthropogenic global warming, or AGW)”. The authors’ own data file categorized 64 abstracts, or only 0.5% of the sample, as endorsing the consensus hypothesis as thus defined. Inspection shows only 41 of the 64, or 0.3% of the entire sample, actually endorsed their hypothesis. Criteria for peer review of papers quantifying scientific consensus are discussed.
Click to access monckton-cook-97-cm13.pdf
The Turnbull government’s scamming Australians at the behest of the global scammers for whom the climate scam is just cover for their main scam which is the biggest money and power shift of all time…from the rich democracies to the Socialist dictatorships.
UN IPCC official Ottmar Edenhofer spelt it out before Cancun :
[ “… we redistribute de facto the world’s wealth by climate policy. Obviously, the owners of coal and oil will not be enthusiastic about this. One has to free oneself from the illusion that international climate policy is environmental policy. This has almost nothing to do with environmental policy anymore…”
and…‘most of the fossil reserves must remain in the soil. It means an expropriation of the countries with natural resources.’ ]
…and UN IPCC’s Christiana Figueres…on dismantling capitalism , national sovereignty and free enterprise to replace it with UN-administered global wealth redistribution under the pretext of CAGW….
She says…..
[ “This is the first time in the history of mankind that we are setting ourselves the task of intentionally, within a defined period of time, to change the economic development model that has been reigning for at least 150 years, since the Industrial Revolution.
“This is probably the most difficult task we have ever given ourselves, which is to intentionally transform the economic development model for the first time in human history.”]
Another powerful internationalist Hans-Werner Sinn ….described in his essay The Green Paradox how things would go for us if as resource countries we refused to comply- how a UN-controlled ‘seamless consumer cartel’ where ‘suppliers will find no takers’ might be formed to force resource countries to leave their resources in the ground, their value at the mercy of, mandated by and virtually ‘owned’ by the UN.
It would amount to ,.. he said…..[ ‘ a partial expropriation of the resource owners and a partial substitute of the market mechanism by a centrally-planned control of quantities.’
‘the UN will become, in economic terms albeit not legally, the joint owner of the fossil fuel.’
Hans Werner Sinn says ‘only taking resource owners by surprise—can get the desired effects’, and even then he concedes military conflict could result.]
We may have dodged that so far for the reason that almost all countries …even those with nuclear and/or hydro power as well as wind and solar…have found they can’t survive without coal ….and so hundreds of HELE plants are being built.
The Turnbull government is the very willing dupe of the UN and the GLOBAL uber-rich who make their squillions across borders of course…and the LW MSM is the enabler of it all by keeping all but the very curious and suspicious locals in the dark…and by getting rid of inconvenient leaders like Tony Abbott who won’t bow to the globalists but will instead always put Australia’s interests first.
Looking after Australia…keeping it strong and sovereign…which Tony Abbott is hard-wired to do…was never in the plan of the global Socialists.
The Turnbull government is IMO a danger to all but uber-rich Australians in almost every way.
They’re the enemy of low to middle income taxpayers because they’re shifting our money to the rentseekers and carpetbaggers of the world who are joining AGL etal in the frenzied rush for REC subsidies to make a motza out of the Australian collective brain-snap while it lasts .
Someone said it’s not TPM …but what is it then-there IS NO OTHER. The RECS are created by the government as a commodity to be turned into money when they’re sold to retailers [ mostly gentailers like AGL] by the carpetbagger wind and solar generators-and the retailers then pass the cost of them on to us. So who if not we taxpayers are the milch cows?
The Turnbull government’s a danger to Australia’s survival as a modern first world country with our prized safety nets and services
Contemplate Australia without border security…..military security…..urban security…without safety nets like pensions…Medicare. NDIS…welfare…with our super decimated….jobs gone.
Worst of all imagine your child or other loved ones in need of hugely expensive lifesaving drugs, but unable to get them because the PBS is depleted …our country reduced to subsistence level and without the export income to provide such ‘luxuries’.
All of these safety nets are the fruits of great prosperity…not comforts 3rd world status can provide…and 3rd world status will be our fate if the government continues its relentless attack on the only competitive energy source that can power industry and everything that generates jobs and wealth.
All of that great stuff we enjoy costs massive amounts of TPM…for which of course you first must have enough employed taxpayers.
The very rich like Turnbull can always head overseas to save their families’ lives if the worst befalls them…but not the rest of us.
IMO the Turnbull faction of the LNP government are forcing Australia onto this suicide path for vested interest –both personal family enrichment and the vested interest in the rewards in the form of big international jobs that come from ‘going along’ with the global order….offering up their country’s sovereignty and wealth as a sacrifice in return for their personal global status.
The Turnbull government’s too dangerous for Australia and likewise a Labor government.
Only Tony Abbott has had the consistent good judgment on almost every issue …that’s required to maintain Australia’s security and prosperity.
He’s shown infinitely better judgment and prescience than any other leader in the world…even while he’s ostracized as now.
He must be reinstated before it’s too late….for Australia’s sake.
What a farce AEMO putting in caveats to try and shield them from the coming onslaught of complaints and even perhaps court cases. AEMO and its hierarchy were appointed to operate AEMO to ensure we have electricity when and where we need it at a price that is affordable to us the end user NOT to the
producers shareholders. AEMO are responsible for providing ACCURATE information to the Government and people of Australia, they are not a private organisation they are a Government body and as such should be above reproach in their accuracy of a situation, they should have no other ‘boss’ to please but the Government and therefor the people of Australia. They should have no other concern but to ensure what they produce in the way of data and information to the Government is beyond reproach.
As this is not how they are performing their duties then they need to be replaced by people who will.
Until the it would be prudent of the Government and ourPrime Minister to ignore the warbling’s of the current hierarchy of AEMO and read and listen to those who know what is happening and are willing to speak out about the situation with no other reason but to ensure the people of this Nation return to a secure reliable and cost effective energy supply.
They have been given information on how this can be achieved by many people, many of whom have contributed to this site.
PM stop going around in circles, it gets you no where and leaves the country floundering.
Stop the RET effective immediately and you will see the beginning of the end of the certain demise of this Nation. You may even see AGL start change its attitude and stop trying to blackmail this nation.
If you cannot do this for personal and ideological reasons – stand down and let someone who is not compromised and has the country and its people front and centre.
Jackie…this whole CAGW scam is protected by just such caveats and cover notes.
Everything CSIRO puts out on climate is accompanied by a comprehensive disclaimer that leaves the reader wondering what the point is in even bothering to read their stuff.
BoM has shown itself to be absolutely impervious to criticisms and questioning …and able to block even PM Abbott’s attempts to have an audit done.
The world’s MSM could have blown the whole CAGW hoax out of the water when the Climategate emails surfaced ..and on many other occasions too….could have exposed the phony inquiries and the corruption of peer review…all the dodgy science being used to turn the world inside out… destroy economies…bring down governments.
But the LW MSM is totally complicit in the hoax.
The MSM has had the power right from the start to prevent this Socialist grab for Global control but they don’t because they’re almost ALL of the Left.
They’ll let Australia go down and sheet home no blame to Turnbull or Labor …or to the science institutions and BoM…and take none themselves…but will try to find ways to blame Tony Abbott…one of a tiny handful of leaders who’ve tried to stop it.…and the most prescient of them all…in the whole world.
It’s why he had to be politically assassinated.
IMO the LWMSM is the key …they have much more power than the politicians ….they hold the whip hand over them all and can make or break them in a heartbeat.
They choose which ‘experts’ to interview …which big business people to puff and promote according to which will convey THEIR LW message or damage the politicians THEY want to destroy.
But we are the MSM’s weapon…those of us that is, who allow them to peddle their lies and propaganda without challenge ..who don’t bother to question and check…who turn against and destroy a politician or PM at their behest.
The LWMSM are powerless if voters are sceptical and dismissive of THEM …if WE hold THEM to account en masse…and recognise and OUT THEM for the dangerous demagogues they are.
Any such caveats should have no place in a Government Department or organisation. These Departments and organisations are there to provide truthful accurate information, not to serve their own wishes or those of any other than the Government and therefor the people of this Nation.
Unfortunately we have people in Government who do not have the countries security and prosperity as their first concern but their own security and prosperity.
Such people have ingratiated themselves into every political party in this nation, as well as in our education system from Primary to Higher Education and research, and all media outlets.
These people are not socialist but greedy self serving renewable energy industrialist promoters.
Not all industrialists are greedy or perverted and willing to see the people they provide for destroyed, many are pragmatists and understand wealth can only beget wealth if there are those there able to purchase what they have to sell.
You quote from Christiana Figueres about how they are intentionally going to change the economic development model for the first time since the Industrial Revolution. Actually what she is proposing is not to change the economic development model but to create a larger one, one which is controlled not by individual nations for their own peoples benefit but by a group run by the UN who we accept is nothing more than a large group of self serving wannabe’s.
Unfortunately she and her believers have been gazumped by people cleverer than they are. These people are the new wannabe industrialists, the fast talk salesman who own and run the renewable industries which is in the main the wind Industry, and the fast tracking battery salesman. They have smooched their way into the very fabric of our lives, our Governments and yes even the UN.
To counter this attack we the people are the only ones who can bring about a change by using out vote with caution and understanding of the things that matter to ensure our future.
We cannot continue down the path of having a Leadership that does not put the people first, that is happier to waffle and ramble than to make what they truly know is the right decision for the Nation.
We need a Leader who will cancel the RET immediately and ensure it can never be resurrected in any form by any future Government without at least a 90% vote of agreement from the people of the Nation.
In relation to energy supply the provision of a system of subsidies which is counter to the process of freedom of choice and discriminates against some forms of production, especially when they can provide a secure, cost effective and environmentally acceptable energy source is outstandingly stupid by anyone’s standards.
Australia also needs to be more circumspect when dealing with or attending UN meetings, we need to ensure any suggested courses of action is not detrimental to our Nations sovereignty and welfare, and we need to ensure any we may be considering signing up to have been thoroughly evaluated as to their implementation, reliability and usefulness. We should NEVER commit to anything that is so wish washy as the one so many have signed up to with respect to energy supply. It was the most foolish and ill advised process and one even a child could have seen would bring about destruction of economies and large scale harm to people from all nations in a variety of ways.
That one about SA being the crash test dummy of renewable energy is looking truer than ever. We Brits seem to be heading the same way but meanwhile – so sorry SA citizens.
It just doesn’t need to happen.
Thanks for publishing Dr Crawford’s letter, which is a fine blend of justifiable emotion and firm advice, a pleasure to read after wading through year after year of spin and fluff from those who favour unreliable energy sources.
On a parallel path, I note that photos of fields of destroyed solar power glassware and of wind turbines with their blades torn off are emerging from Costa Rica post-cyclone. The nuclear power stations in Florida and Texas weathered the storms without missing a beat, although a couple in Florida were shuttered for 2 days to ensure maximise their security and to avoid relying on workers who may not have been able to get to work. Do we really need avoidable additional exposure to essential services such as electricity and thus to water, sewer and fuel supply systems?
The chickens are coming home to roost.
We have a story on Peurto Rico coming up soon. The one you won’t read in the mainstream press.
Thankyou so much for continuing to expose this massive fiasco being wrought on the Australian power supply industry. As a one time long term employee in this industry, I fret about the lack of understanding by the various politicians and governments. The vagaries of intermittent power supply by renewables on what was a stable, well run and reliable power supply are causing huge disruption to stability, and worsening by the day as more renewables are connected.
We despair too, but we haven’t given up. Blackouts across SA, VIC and NSW this summer will bring the fiasco to a head.
I would like to agree, but I can’t get over my pessimism. The renewable energy movement has taken on a religious fervour. It doesn’t seem to matter what information is presented. The green movement has the bit between its teeth and is pushing the total elimination of CO2 emissions at all costs. It’s a suicide mission but they see it as suicide if they don’t succeed.
I’m writing from the USA and I’m glad that Australia is leading the way, but whether that makes any difference to the green movement over here is doubtful.
You can’t debate global warming with them. You can’t debate the economic impacts of prematurely closing coal power stations with them. They have no concept of the repercussions of closing coal power plants. They seem to figure that the world will suddenly become cleaner, greener and simpler. They have an established belief that I envy to a degree, but none the less, marvel at it’s naivety.
We the average Australian citizen are in serious trouble. As far as the energy debate goes we seem to be jumping from the frying pan into the fire. AEMO has put out an audio broadcast from Melbourne University featuring none other than the Lovely Audrey.
First of all we hear from some pompous arse facilitator who acknowledges whose tribal land they are on and their people past and present.
Then we have Ross Garnaut have a babble on how he is the worlds Grand Pooh-Bah of climate change.
Then came the piece de résistance in the form of the Lovely Audrey. She begins her delusional rant by acknowledging fellow bed wetters and then begins her speech suggesting the audience would already know that wind and solar are now the cheapest form of power generation.
Yes Audrey we know you come from New York and yes its the epicentre of the universe …blah blah blah…. and kiss my arse as well.
The point is how are these deluded nut jobs getting appointed so such important roles as the head of AEMO where they surround themselves with like minded people.
God help when they are pushing this ideology at our universities.
Wind , solar and battery storage will never win the war but the collateral damage in the meantime is enormous.
https://archive.org/details/SecuringAustraliasEnergyFutureSeptember202017
On a side note I see Hepburn springs King Swarmy is trying to engage STT on twitter.
Dear Swarmy over the years I’ve seen a few like minded rent seekers and delusionals have a crack at the title, ill list a few for you;
1. J Edgar Hoover of Crystal Brook
2. The infamous “Franky Bestic.”
3.THe ol’ Rusty Marsh .( I kind of miss Rusty.)
4. Boy George
5. Spring St Kenny
Get the Picture?
Not sure why you think your a cut above the rest.
I don’t remember Garnaut ever telling us that he himself would be positioning himself and HIS family to scoop up the subsidies and riches from the renewable energy he was so earnestly flogging to us.
I wonder why he didn’t tell us about the HEIST….biggest money shift from poor to uber-rich in Australian history…the gravy train at which he was preparing to sup….once his propaganda worked…government swallowed the lure…and the rest of us became the milch cows.
And if Australia had real journalists, we would have been told that Zebilman…who must surely have been approved by Turnbull and his lapdog Frydenberg…had well and truly expressed her intention to operate our energy system in accordance not with LNP’s policy but in total sync with Labor’s.
We would have been told that she was bent on killing coal…that all RE and an emphasis on ‘demand management’ was her schtick…that she was said to be Hillary Clinton’s pick for US Energy Czar…that there was great controversy over her undisclosed vested interests in RE projects and those of her husband….that she left New York State telling residents worried about energy insecurity due to her policies there…. that they could run a lead to Canada if necessary.
She said right from the start that Australia’s energy ‘transformation’ would be a great experiment not undertaken elsewhere…but it’s not yet known whether she knows we have nowhere to run a lead to.
Perhaps the University boffins and the AEMO before each love-in instead of acknowledging whose tribal land they are on and their peoples past and present it would be of more benefit to society if they acknowledged which company boards they sit on and/or own shares in.
The PM must have appointed Finkel and the Lovely Audrey to their positions knowing full well they would push his agenda.
I think he might have mis-read the tea leaves if he thought this would secure his and the Govt’s popularity
Turnbull really surprises me, in entering politics he had almost legendary status across the divide as a prominent lawyer with some big name cases and as a merchant banker for Goldman-Sachs.
If you sit in the middle in regards to an issue such as the energy crisis they throw stones at you from both sides of the fence.