More ABC lies

[Tiger650]

Paragraph three "unreliable coal fired power stations" spare me the bulls**t.
As far as Canberra avoiding the pain, we must all realise that the "Vlasti" are to be cosseted.
Just like the '80's when my wife and I got to pay 17.6% mortgage interest whilst anyone who borrowed from a Govt related entity paid 6%.
A bloke who used to work for me borrowed from the Telstra Credit Union skated by on 6% max.
Special folk who must be protected.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-06-06/ ... /101126274

[str8shutr]

If you follow one of the links in the article to a piece published by The Conversation, authored by Tony Wood of the Grattan Institute (check the guy's bio and publications in the area of energy and related economics - he's got a solid background to pass comment), an explanation is provided regarding the basis of the statement you take exception to.

I disagree that the ABC is lying. There has been a protracted reduction of investment in coal fired generators for some time now in the Australian market. Reduced maintenance expenditure for aging plant ultimately results in poor operating uptime. Check with Tony Wood for more info.

[womble]

The Victorian ones are old as. They break down all the time.

[bigrich]

Efficient, clean, unlimited power. Nuclear power station. Many countries around the world use them reliably. Just don’t build one next to the ocean in a earthquake zone like Japan did. The only problem is what to do with the spent fuel rods. As Australia already accepts and stores other countries nuclear waste, I don’t see why building new state of the art power stations is a bad thing. Especially seeing as how we have lots of uranium ore in this country . All the solar farms and wind turbines are all well and good, but it’s hypocrisy to try to stop emissions by manufacturing more stuff creating more emissions in the process.

[Billo]

Looks like the ACT planned ahead and are now reaping the benefits, shame the Feds didnt

[str8shutr]

bigrich, you're not wrong. For me the key challenges are the time frame (getting to go --> go --> build/operate) and public acceptance (refer time frame comment).

Maybe the previous decade of market uncertainty promoted by a lack of political alignment and disregard for the electorate, resulting in the current acute situation might give cause for some lateral thinking .. but I'm not holding my breath.

[str8shutr]

Tiger650, if you want a comprehensive assessment of power delivery reliability with commentary around the role of coal power production, then check out:
https://grattan.edu.au/report/keep-calm-and-carry-on/
Admittedly the report dates back to 2019 but I'd suggest it still has relevance given its coverage of the key issues. Notably, I can spot recommendations that haven't been adopted and, well, here we are in 2022.

You also might find this report worth a read because it suggests a transition plan for the coal power production and related industries:
https://grattan.edu.au/report/start-with-steel/

[straightshooter]

And like the Grattan Institute was hatched into existence by K. Rudd without an agenda.
Spare me days.
The freshly minted Laber government knows which side it's bread is buttered on and the ABC is their mouthpiece. They know any extensive and prolonged power outages will lead them into being a one term (or less) government so the 'true believers' need to be softened up. They have a clear understanding of what happens when a politician's snout is thrown out of the trough.
I have difficulty in comprehending what level of credulity is required to believe that the world as we know it can continue by being powered by so called renewables alone.

[Oldbloke]

Efficient, clean, unlimited power. Nuclear power station. Many countries around the world use them reliably. Just don’t build one next to the ocean in a earthquake zone like Japan did. The only problem is what to do with the spent fuel rods. As Australia already accepts and stores other countries nuclear waste, I don’t see why building new state of the art power stations is a bad thing. Especially seeing as how we have lots of uranium ore in this country . All the solar farms and wind turbines are all well and good, but it’s hypocrisy to try to stop emissions by manufacturing more stuff creating more emissions in the process.

Agree, a small one for each capital. Provides back ground power and smaller one are less risky if it goes pair shaped.

[str8shutr]

And like the Grattan Institute was hatched into existence by K. Rudd without an agenda.
Spare me days.
The freshly minted Laber government knows which side it's bread is buttered on and the ABC is their mouthpiece. They know any extensive and prolonged power outages will lead them into being a one term (or less) government so the 'true believers' need to be softened up. They have a clear understanding of what happens when a politician's snout is thrown out of the trough.
I have difficulty in comprehending what level of credulity is required to believe that the world as we know it can continue by being powered by so called renewables alone.

The Grattan Institute's agenda is stated on the About section of their website.

You could add the piece put out by Alan Finkel, Australia's chief scientist during the Abbot-Turnbull-Morrison governments, in Quarterly Essay 81 Getting to Zero to your reading list. Here's an excerpt to illustrate some of the financial challenges for coal fired power:

Even with costs of storage included, new solar outcompetes new fossil-fuel generation. For example, the Reserve Bank of Australia estimates that new solar in 2020 with six hours of pumped hydro storage would produce electricity for approximately $100 per megawatt-hour. And it will get cheaper every year. By contrast, because of higher performance expectations and the higher cost of finance, the price of new black coal-fired electricity has risen to an uncompetitive price of approximately $150 per megawatt-hour. If a new coal-fired electricity generator were fitted with carbon capture and storage (CCS) to qualify as a high-efficiency, low-emissions (HELE) generator, the price has been estimated at more than $200 per megawatt-hour.

The financial risk of investing in a new coal-fired electricity plant is mirrored by the low valuation of current assets. For example, in December 2020, the two Japanese co-owners of the Bluewaters coal-fired electricity plant in Western Australia completely wrote off their $1.2 billion investment, despite it being the newest coal-fired electricity plant in Australia, built in 2009.

[bigrich]

bigrich, you're not wrong. For me the key challenges are the time frame (getting to go --> go --> build/operate) and public acceptance (refer time frame comment).

Maybe the previous decade of market uncertainty promoted by a lack of political alignment and disregard for the electorate, resulting in the current acute situation might give cause for some lateral thinking .. but I'm not holding my breath.

Yeah, public acceptance is the issue. People have been influenced into a particular mindset. A bit like the subject of firearms ownership

[Oldbloke]

Plenty are happy to have nuclear plants

https://youtu.be/IwJdigo3xQ8

25 years ago I recommended to the government they should build a few. But they didn't listen. Would have been set if they had.

[str8shutr]

Plenty are happy to have nuclear plants

https://youtu.be/IwJdigo3xQ8

25 years ago I recommended to the government they should build a few. But they didn't listen. Would have been set if they had.

Nice one. Pity the ears of government hadn't had a good clean at the time.

Taking a look at the poll's questions:
https://ipa.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/IPA-Poll-Nuclear-Power-June-2022.pdf
I suspect that response negativity would have been greater if questions had been asked with regard to residential proximity of the respondent to a nuclear power generator. The NIMBY effect will probably sway a lot of people's thinking (unless of course they live close to Lucas Heights, maybe?).

We'll probably see what the public thinks with greater focus when the nuclear sub base location is fixed. I know that's decades away but unless there's some real motivation, that will probably be where this kind of question gets a good airing.

The poll's numbers were limited to 1000 and it wasn't clear what localities were targeted other than a rather broad Metro / Regional.

If picked up by any of the more mainstream parties, it will be interesting to see how they present a platform. I'd expect that the Libs/Nats and Labor would be rather wary of embracing this plan with open arms.

[womble]

[Oldbloke]

Good one Womble.. lol

[bigrich]

doh ! mmmmm, beer

[cz515]

What all these people do not talk about the current costs of running and maintaining a coal powered power station without price heading and carbon tax.

They dig out brown coal from Latrobe. This coal is basically worthless as its got to high a moisture content. So the running cost is basically maintenance, wages for less than 200ish employees. And with life of 15 years. I don't it will be more expensive then buying a big arse battery and solar panels that don't ruin at night time.

I do wonder what they do a night time.... run gas power generators

[str8shutr]

cz515, I'd agree from the position of it just coming down to the $+¢ numbers. Although I wouldn't underestimate the maintenance costs for a brown coal unit, they do operate at a premium (vs black coal) because of the coal quality.

For those interested, this segment on the ABC interviewing Alinta Energy CEO, Jeff Dimery offers a "straight from the horse's mouth" perspective:
https://www.abc.net.au/radio/programs/am/energy-company-boss-warns-no-easy-fix/13919832
If the ABC is not to be believed (a view I don't hold) then maybe some of the people they engage with can be relied on with greater confidence.

[mickb]

The worlds richest just doubled their net worth in the last two years, billionaires with wealth now into the hundreds of billions a common sight. That money came from somewhere and it was our pockets. 2 years of boondoggles and the next one is inflation and it looks like a re-visit to climate change. The media is already plugging the new stories 24/7 and blaming inflation on a war between russia and some tiny dump. I guess Putin was over here stealing cows to cause meat inflation back in 2020? And he must have bombed all the shipping fleets when freight costs went 8 times higher in 2021? Very versatile dictator, even has a time travel machine apparently.

[MtnMan]

Someone with more talent than me needs to make a parody of the south park 'blame Canada' song. Blame Russia! Blame Russia!

[on_one_wheel]

The worlds richest just doubled their net worth in the last two years, billionaires with wealth now into the hundreds of billions a common sight. That money came from somewhere and it was our pockets. 2 years of boondoggles and the next one is inflation and it looks like a re-visit to climate change. The media is already plugging the new stories 24/7 and blaming inflation on a war between russia and some tiny dump. I guess Putin was over here stealing cows to cause meat inflation back in 2020? And he must have bombed all the shipping fleets when freight costs went 8 times higher in 2021? Very versatile dictator, even has a time travel machine apparently.

It's all nuts, I'm not buying into the BS excuses given to us on inflation, gas prices blowing out, petrol at a record high, and all the other rubbish we're being feed. There's simply no valid excuse other than greed covered with the BS Covid excuse.
It's been nothing but a massive scare campaign targeting governments who were too scared not to act on what turned out to be little more than the common cold and nowhere near as bad as good old influenza-A
... yes I can vouch for that, just as many other people I know can.

It seems we're spending WAY MORE than the 6.5% inflation they're banging on about and add to that the stagnant wages... we are being screwed hardcore.

I believe it's turning into a cover-up of the fact our Fiat Dollar system has crashed which fast tracked thanks to the covid hype.
What we are experiencing (paying for) is a great financial reset, I'm predicting 10 to15 years of financial pain before we find a new balance.

[MtnMan]

Agree with all of the above.

Only thing missing is large scale conflict

[on_one_wheel]

Agree with all of the above.

Only thing missing is large scale conflict

We're definitely staring that right in the face, one wrong move and it's on.

[MtnMan]

Yep

[mickb]

And look at all the money that is getting handed out. Big business who were allowed to keep all their shops open during the boondoggle( for example EB games, a bloody billion dollar computer game chain stays open, while 100 types of mum and dad businesses were deemed non essential and went down the tube) now got their noses even further in the trough.

All these road works and road upgrades for example. Not sure if its the same for all states, but here every country town, and I am talking dots on the map get ridiculously large town name signs in safety blue color with 12ft double pillars and extra red paint sections on the road( no one can still work out what the red colour is for) and solar powered speed checkers with inane digital smilie/frown faces.

How many billion just on that pile of crap? They call it a stimulus pack but the only thing stimulated is business loading up a scope of works with every thing they can think of and tax payers footing the bill.

[cz515]

The worlds richest just doubled their net worth in the last two years, billionaires with wealth now into the hundreds of billions a common sight. That money came from somewhere and it was our pockets. 2 years of boondoggles and the next one is inflation and it looks like a re-visit to climate change. The media is already plugging the new stories 24/7 and blaming inflation on a war between russia and some tiny dump. I guess Putin was over here stealing cows to cause meat inflation back in 2020? And he must have bombed all the shipping fleets when freight costs went 8 times higher in 2021? Very versatile dictator, even has a time travel machine apparently.

Mate if you look at it closely the answers are there and make sense. You may choose to wear your tin foil hat.

Russia is the 2nd largest producer of oil after Saudi Arabia. They are the biggest supplier of gas into europe. And Ukraine experts 10% of the wheat consumed in the world.

You take then out of the equation, decreases supply, then basic supply and demand principle applies.

I been saying for a while, the sanctions that are put on Russia mainly benefit Western (USA) companies. Also extending the war by supplying military equipment to Ukraine results in more Ukrainian deaths. And extension of the war.

Which results in higher prices, for longer. So in other words inflation. This results in federal banks raising interest rates, banks generally make more money.

The common man like you and i get fkd by everyone.

So stop supplying arms to Ukraine and let Russia do what it wants quickly and start buying Russian oil and gas. That's your solution to normalisation of prices.

[cz515]

Or better yet, go talk to Russia, they are willing to sell oil and gas for 30-40% cheaper then market price. Just imagine that and fuel will be back well under $1.50/litre.

Saying that if albo did that he would be very quickly out of a job..or dead like a few other prime ministers

[Peterwho]

Someone with more talent than me needs to make a parody of the south park 'blame Canada' song. Blame Russia! Blame Russia!

Look up Clarke and Dawes utube parody of AEMO. The extraordinary thing is how old it actually is and how current it is,

But to put my 2cents worth forward, this cluster f is unbelievable on one level but preordained on another. So many ill informed, illiterate and uninformed people making decisions and “policy” to create this crap. Add some vested interests to scare, cajole or whatever so called decision making public servants and politicians and you couldn’t design a worse outcome. Then the selective quoting of facts and positions makes it even more challenging to have a sensible outcome or even conversation.

From one of the posts above it is well documented that a number of renewal senarios have lower costs but it is selective and deceptive. You only get 5-6 hours a day out of solar and the price is f/g academic if there is no electricity. The overall wind generation efficiency is still only around 25-27%. You need despatchable supply. And that it is, in order of decreasing capability, black coal, brown coal, gas and hydro. I leave off the trivial of batteries and bio fuels. Batteries are at this stage of their technological life are primarily for grid stabilisation.

I could go on and on …

[Peterwho]

But one more point

the number of ABC commentators, handwringers and presenters who are so farking dumb it sends me spare. A case in point, pre elections, they were all rabbiting on about renewals and how bad “gas mines” are. I did endeavor to speak to a couple and ask what is a gas mine. Silence. And now they are all hand wringing about the lack of supply and selecting worrying about the costs of this cluster fark. They need to go into a room full of mirrors - they added to the problem

[on_one_wheel]

On bio fuel...
They've already shown that bio fuel isn't an option without starving millions of people or turning the world's population vegan to gain the non recoverable calories lost in livestock food production to utilise that portion for bio fuel... I'd rather walk than eat tofu and beans.

It's all a right mess because for too long the primary focus has been on population growth to keep the Fiat currency afloat with ZERO regard for the consequences of population growth and those who have been tasked with the job of maintaining society's balance aren't held accountable for poor decisions, most of them don't hold their jobs for long enough to even see a change. It's a sure recipe for poor results.

This is probably why the Chairman of the World Economic Forum made the statement 'you'll own nothing and be happy about it"... because he and many others don't have the imagination to reverse the mess that's been created.
They know we're overpopulated but would rather we simply stop consuming ... it's the kind of economic approach you'd take if you don't have the economic answers.

If only we'd stuck to trading cowry shells as a monetary system, we would be in this mess.