Touted as the saviour for subsidised wind and solar, pumped hydro turns out to be a whole lot harder in practice. The Snowy 2.0 plan (see above) never stacked up economically – see our posts here and here – and never will. One of the tunnel boring machines (TBMs) critical to the project, Florence had barely struck … Continue reading Mega-Pumped Hydro Project Becomes Total Economic & Environmental Disaster
Tag: Snowy Hydro Scheme
Impossible Dream: Why Energy Storage Systems Can’t Solve Wind & Solar’s Intermittency
Renewable energy storage is literally setting the world on fire. When giant lithium-ion batteries aren’t exploding in toxic balls of flame, their limited capacity means that they add a trivial occasional trickle of electricity to the grid; and do so at an astronomical cost. The wind and solar acolyte would have us believe that if … Continue reading Impossible Dream: Why Energy Storage Systems Can’t Solve Wind & Solar’s Intermittency
All Uphill: Australia Squanders $10Billion on Giant Pumped Hydro Power White Elephant
Australia has its former PM, Malcolm Turnbull to thank for its largest and most expensive renewable energy boondoggle, the Snowy 2.0 pumped hydro project. Touted by the patrician and aloof Turnbull and his hapless sidekick, Josh Frydenberg as the Nation’s mega-battery, the heavily-hyped pumped hydro scheme (shelved in the 1970s because it was uneconomic then) … Continue reading All Uphill: Australia Squanders $10Billion on Giant Pumped Hydro Power White Elephant
Water Wise: Time To Kill Off Snowy 2.0 Pumped Hydro White Elephant
Wind and large-scale solar are doomed, but the saviour is said to be pumped hydro; paid for, of course, with other people’s money. Touted by ex-PM Malcom Turnbull and his hapless sidekick, Josh Frydenberg as the Nation’s mega-battery, the heavily-hyped Snowy 2.0 pumped hydro scheme (shelved in the 1970s because it was uneconomic then) has … Continue reading Water Wise: Time To Kill Off Snowy 2.0 Pumped Hydro White Elephant
Déjà vu All Over Again: Liberal PM Determined to Squander $10 Billion on Pumped Hydro White Elephant
Australia’s obsession with hopelessly intermittent wind and solar has rendered its power supply both unreliable and unaffordable: it’s time to stop digging. Except, on both sides of the political divide, it seems the obsession is one without reason or respite. Labor’s opposition leader, Bill Shorten is determined to destroy Australia’s economic prosperity - literally … Continue reading Déjà vu All Over Again: Liberal PM Determined to Squander $10 Billion on Pumped Hydro White Elephant
PSST! Want to Wreck Your Economy? Just Add Heavily Subsidised & Chaotically Intermittent Wind Power
You can wreck a first world economy in a heartbeat by relying on heavily subsidised and chaotically delivered wind and solar power. Australia is well on the way to doing just that, and South Australia managed to destroy all vestige of private enterprise (we don't count Commonwealth defence contracts, State make-work construction schemes and otherwise … Continue reading PSST! Want to Wreck Your Economy? Just Add Heavily Subsidised & Chaotically Intermittent Wind Power
Snowy Pumped Hydro Scheme Set to Drain ‘Green’ Slush Funds & Starve the Wind Industry of Finance
*** Malcolm Turnbull's Snowy 2.0 pumped hydro plan has set nerves on edge among the wind industry, its parasites and spruikers and ruffled feathers among Labor politicians and their mates who have wedded their own financial futures to wind. Likely to cost in the order of $7-8 billion, Snowy 2.0 is set to starve the … Continue reading Snowy Pumped Hydro Scheme Set to Drain ‘Green’ Slush Funds & Starve the Wind Industry of Finance
How Political Lunacy Sabotaged Australia’s Once Reliable & Affordable Power Suply
If what Australia's political brains trust has done to its once reliable and affordable power supply had been done by external agents, it would have been branded an act of terrorism. The so-called 'wind power capital' of Australia, South Australia has become an international laughing stock: statewide blackouts, routine load shedding and rocketing power prices … Continue reading How Political Lunacy Sabotaged Australia’s Once Reliable & Affordable Power Suply
Turnbull Plays ‘The Man from Snowy River’ in Uncosted Pumped Hydro Plan
Hardly renowned for his political masterstrokes, Malcolm Turnbull has just drenched the opposition with his Snowy 2.0 plan. The Snowy Hydro Scheme is – without doubt – the single greatest renewable energy project ever built in Australia – with a mammoth 3,950 MW of capacity, which is available on-demand (unlike the infantile nonsense that is wind … Continue reading Turnbull Plays ‘The Man from Snowy River’ in Uncosted Pumped Hydro Plan
The Snowy Scheme: Time to Do it Again
If Australia was serious about building a renewable energy future it certainly wouldn't be pouring $billions in REC Tax into the pockets of Union Superfund backed wind power outfits like Pac Hydro, or near bankrupt circuses like Infigen. If bang for renewable buck is what we're after then we ought to be pumping all of … Continue reading The Snowy Scheme: Time to Do it Again
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