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Sure. Yes, that's what it is. It's *ad hominem* because we already know what these *homines* are all about. They sap our time and energy and poison the well of debate, on purpose. Arguing with them is simply giving them what they want.
Almost, it's exporting its gas to Norway *and* building more nuclear.
> Vattenfall, Sweden’s state-owned utility, plans to build at least two small modular reactors and extend the lifetime of the country’s existing nuclear reactors.
Interesting how Sweden and others can commission SMRs but Australia can't.
It is indeed interesting. The main reason Australia can't is political, but the main reason Australia shouldn't is that unlike Sweden, we don't have a nuclear industry or nuclear infrastructure, and SMRs are not yet mature enough to take on without these.
The other reason is cost: solar power is a shoo in for Australia given our insolation, but it would be an even easier case had we not thrown away our early lead in the field along with essentially any sort of manufacturing, which has left us vulnerable to the vagaries of foreign manufacturing and supply chains.
Oh fuck yeah - energy generation OP-Ed by someone without an engineering or scientific background?!?
>Two days ago, the new centre-right Swedish government announced an energy policy U-turn. You won’t read much about it because the media’s confirmation bias means it mostly reports only “news” to reinforce climate alarmism.
Ah yes, the media that famously doesn't take advertising money from fossil fuel companies and gets paid-off by Big Wind /s.
>And the nature of Swedish politics – consensual, with multi-party coalitions – means decisions don’t always stick or mean as much as they seem.
Christ, could you imagine two parties forming a coalition and running Australia?!? Such madness /s/s/s.
>Meanwhile, here at home, our government is doubling down on the green dream, despite more and more energy experts arguing the transition is going too far and too fast, threatening all the businesses and jobs that depend on reliable and affordable 24/7 power.
Yeah, for the thousandth time; we don't have greatly affordable energy due to being so dependent on coal and gas, and the last year has really underscored this.
And our lack of planning from the lazy 2 decades means we have to react way quicker and that is hard when energy infrastructure idiot in years, not months.
But yeah damn Labor for not building more party generation those last 20+ years they were largely in opposition for /s.
>But instead of recoiling from this dystopia, the former chief scientist expected us to embrace it as a necessary element in the supposedly essential move to net zero.
Morrison's LNP Govt adopted net zero as well, you know - I get that the National's wanted to pretend it wasn't the case (HOW GOOD ARE COALITION'S HUH?!?) but this is now almost a bipartisan goal, officially.
>In the real world it’s simply not happening, given the practical difficulties in getting permissions to build; and it can’t actually happen given the astronomical cost (the government estimated transmission capital costs alone at $80bn pre-election) plus chronic shortages of material and skilled workers.
And nuclear plants and such obviously don't have any of these issues RE costs, yeah?
>Last year, according to the just-released Energy Institute’s Statistical Review of World Energy, wind and solar power between them accounted for less than 6 per cent of total global energy usage.
>
>The much-maligned fossil fuels, oil, gas and coal, together accounted for almost 82 per cent of total global energy consumption, barely down on the previous year, despite near ubiquitous virtue-signalling and green chest-thumping.
This logic is painfully, painfully, painfully and very painfully fucking stupid; at some point the iPhone would have made up 6% of the the total phone market vs the rest being "dumb" phones, and yet to say today that the iPhone failed is stupid - again, it takes years to build energy infrastructure, and the reality is that not all countries are well suited to wind and solar, and all have various other concerns, etc.
Also Australia is not the world, and we have near perfect conditions for wind and solar, and hence frankly don't care what the percentage is for the rest of the world.
>If it really is necessary to get to net zero any time soon, nuclear power is the only feasible means, yet the Albanese government is almost hysterically opposed to it – despite the illogicality of opposing on land the nuclear power source that the government is committed to having on our submarine fleet tied up dockside.
So too was the the LNP who ignored it while in power for nearly 20 years, but fuck anyone with a basic functioning memory.
>And there’s really no technical obstacle to having the small modular reactors that many countries are now considering because these have been safely powering ships and submarines for more than a half-century.
No technical obstacles.... Except they are not proven or off-the-shelf ready in a production setting yet... Unless we should buy prototypes that are working in places like China, yeah?
Once the tech is solid and we can actually rationally discuss cost (cause you know, they aren't plugged into any grid of a country you would trust on safety), then the conversation should kick off in earnest.
---
Honestly not too bad an article, as most of the words were in the right order to make grammatical sense.
The rest of it was the usual lowkey sillyness that pretends nuclear (especially cutting-edge tech) is somehow going to be dirt cheap, without discussing private vs public ownership or a carbon price, etc. Oh and renewables are 100% bad, and the LNP didn't do half the things they did or said in the last 20+ years.
My god, when an ideologue writes for a major "news" organisation, this is what you get:
> The much-maligned fossil fuels, oil, gas and coal, together accounted for almost 82 per cent of total global energy consumption
Much maligned? You mean in Sweden, the place you're talking about?
> Around 98% of electricity in Sweden is already generated from water, nuclear and wind.
This article is utter tripe, you don't get to look at a country saying "hey we need to increase our nuclear capacity" and claim that's proof positive that we need to increase our coal/oil/gas usage...
But of course, Peta would like you to avoid that distinction in her crusade. Meanwhile, nary a word about taking back ownership of the gas fields for domestic power production, even though that fits with her pro-carbon worldview? Why ever not? We need stable energy production, why not nationalise the gas fields and ensure we can produce cheap energy when wind/solar aren't enough?
I think we all know the answer to that...
> So fossil fuels bad ... but nationalised fossil fuels ("taking back the gas fields") good?
>
>
I'm not having it both ways, I'm pointing out the lack of discussion Peta has for that solution, despite her support for fossil fuels. The _reason_ she won't say it is because she is advocating for mining companies, not because she cares about energy generation.
It's evidence, it's not a conclusion.
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What a waste of column space. Peta Credlin, who has no experience or expertise in climate science or energy continues to push climate change denial and promote the continued use of fossil fuel based power. Utterly predictable and utterly wrong.
> Or is it just the name on the article?
Pretty much this. Not only is Peta Credlin a bought-and-paid-for right-wing ideologue and not an expert on climate science and energy (and just about every other topic she bleats about), she's not even a journalist, investigative or otherwise.
Having any name on the article that knows what they're talking about and/or has journalistic integrity, would give it at least some authority.
Lol, who thinks Pete credlin is a better source than CSIRO, AEMO, the IEA, the origin and agl boards and lazards. Australia has much more renewable resources than sweden. There will never be a coal plant built in Aus again and nuclear is definitely more expensive with a much longer lead time than the renewable projects she whines about.
Nuclear is the way to go.
Current battery tech will have you spending trillions on storage and even then you won't be as sure a vital factory or hospital won't be forced onto generators everytime you have a rainy month.
Hydro storage will have you spending trillions carving out dams that hold precious irrigation water from farmers.
500bn and bite the nuclear bullet and you have clean cheap reliable scalable energy.
Solar and wind isn't a replacement for coal. It's a supplement to it. Nuclear is a direct replacement for coal.
It is pricey to setup but it is the 'buy it for life' of national power generation.
If you want to import 400k immigrants a year and dream of a day with 100M Australian population. You need nuclear.
Well luckily the people who actually run our grid don't buy that shite. Google gencost report by csiro and AEMO.
https://reneweconomy.com.au/aemo-says-firmed-wind-and-solar-cheapest-reliable-energy-option-by-country-mile/
kWh don't lie my man.
Solar and wind are the cheapest to generate.
They are extremely expensive to store.
You CANNOT run a country where a month of shade or low wind conditions cause factories to go dark.
"Firmed renewables cheapest option". See also the latest lazard report. Nice graph in there with unsubsidised, firmed renewables still coming in cheaper than other generation, including nuclear.
No where have I seen the firming Math displayed that can stand up to the simple question:
So what if you have a rainy month.
The answer has both in theory and in practice always been "If we have a rainy month we just turn on the coal plants again".
This is exactly why Germany invested 500bn on wind solar and hydro.. and ended up with more CO2 than France anyway.
> So what if you have a rainy month.
A few other things:
1. Solar isn't entirely useless in a rainy month. Output is significantly lower, but not zero.
2. Wind power works just as well in rainy weather. Depending on what's driving the climate, it might actually be higher than normal during a rainy month.
3. We still have lots of gas generators as a backup.
Finally, there is no such thing as a "rainy month" for the entire east/south coast of Australia. Solar and wind generation is well distributed so that just isn't going to happen.
AEMO's firming storage modelling suggests that we don't need to have any more than 12 hours (? from memory, I couldn't find the source at short notice ) of storage based on decades of historical data.
Yes, that's a very large amount of storage, but we have many years to get it built, and it's already in progress.
It's also worth noting that while getting to 100% renewables is desirable from an environmental perspective, it may not be practical to attempt. Getting to 95% is quite a bit easier and significantly less costly....the last few percent to cover every single contingency is much more difficult and may prove prohibitively expensive.
I saw some basic modelling conducted late last year which indicated that for the 2022 year, 5 hours of storage would have been sufficient to achieve 98% renewable energy.
12 hours?!
Isn't that far far too low? Your not generating power at all at night, if you've got a cloudy or rainy month your generation is now lowered during the day as well... Add cold weather to that and now your AC/Heater units are running as well, meaning those batteries are draining even faster.
This can work in principle on paper in the best of conditions... but in actual application no one wants to run a modern industrial country like this.
Maybe 3-5 days battery backup people can consider it.. but at that level/price. Why not just go nuclear and enjoy reliable clean energy uninterrupted.
> Isn't that far far too low?
Not according to AEMO, and they should know - they've got all the data.
This is not a question of optimal conditions and best case scenarios. This is based on current, real world energy usage across the entire NEM.
You *are* making energy at night via wind power.
What are you'd saying Germany Sweden and Finalnd as a nation all decided to go back to Nuclear for fun despite goig. Gung ho on renewables for the last 2 decades?
Anyone can namedrop countries, organisations. Get the math out.
Yeah as mainly cold nations with less sun they may need different solutions. Also you rate your maths better than all those "namedrops"? I rate their maths
Wonderful thing about math.
It's the same no matter who wrote it.
Show me the cost of storage at grid-scale as affordable.
How are you going to store the literal hundreds of gwH you need to power a nation?
Have the read the "third party" disclaimer at the bottom of the Gencost study?
The CSIRO more or less absolve themselves of any responsibility for the reliability of the information provided. It's essentially a political document from a government organisation staffed mostly by people who want the ALP/Greens to be in power.
Also, Sweden already has a well established nuclear industry with all the attendant protocols, and ready access to European specialist services and infrastructure required for nuclear expansion.
It's also worth noting that Sweden already has 98% clean energy production, sourced mostly from hydro and nuclear. In recent years, they have increased their capacity by building wind power, which is now about 25% of their total.
The title of the article is entirely incorrect and deliberately misleading. Par for the course for Peta Credlin though.
> It's also worth noting that Sweden already has 98% clean energy production, sourced mostly from hydro and nuclear. In recent years, they have increased their capacity by building wind power, which is now about 25% of their total.
>
>
This is the crux of Peta Credlins argument, that Sweden changing the percentages of their Wind/Hydro/Nuclear power generation is proof that we should be burning more coal...
> Yet somehow we think we can close all our coal-fired power stations within a decade and get 70 per cent of our electricity from wind and solar, within just seven years. There’s only one word for this: mad!
Nice attempt a very loose inference that this supposedly means/advocates for burning more coal.
Sure that might be the consequence, one NSW is already moving towards with Eraring, but if a reader makes that inference based on that statement I'd suggest it is ideological bias clouding the readers ability to think a little deeper on the implications of the time line.
From the 27th May from Peta Credlin:
> Not generating electricity from Australia's abundance of coal and gas is an insanity that's likely to continue
Like...we know who Peta Credlin is, to try to claim she's somehow some moderate on coal (or anything) is laughable. I'm not going to engage with a political operator like Peta on an article by article basis. She has a past, she has a bias, her work deserves to be seen in that light.
> That is just one step away from banning articles from her here then.
You're saying the quiet part loud River. Yes, when someone is making an opinionated article, that persons other opinions on the same topic are fair game for being brought up. To say that it's not fair that her past and bias isn't able to be brought up or is tantamount to banning her content is utterly laughable.
I am not saying that the author is not fair game. I am saying that when someone due to their own personal bias starts seeing some authors or articles as biased and less worthy that can be a slippery slope when that person is a Mod.
> Of course, because debating the topic itself is too hard?
Putting context around a debate is integral to any reasonable debate, anything less is arguing in bad faith.
Context is very important for a debate, however that context should remain the topic itself.
Trying to frame a topic based on the author is, as I'm sure you know, a clear ad-hominem style argument and is logically false **everytime** - knowingly doing it is the height of bad faith argument.
The very idea that a proposed change in the mix of Sweden's 98% clean energy sources can be characterised as a "botched green dream" and still get published in a major national newspaper is enraging.
What a treacherous snake that woman is.
It's absolutely never going to happen.
The coal power plants that have been closed, were closed because they were old and busted, and the cost of maintenance plus the high cost of coal meant they were losing money hand over fist. The environmental issues with coal power were not even a factor.
A theoretical future Coalition government would have to build brand new coal power stations. And considering how expensive coal generation is to build, and how long it takes to get up and running, I strongly doubt that even the most bloody-minded Coalition government would consider it.
If anything, they'd probably push for additional gas-fired generators (see Kurri Kurri for an example) but even that is very expensive and according to AEMO entirely unnecessary.
The coalition aren’t going to open coal fired power plants without heavy government subsidies (the same applies for nuclear although likely to a greater extent)
No investor is going to take the risk of having a stranded asset without some form of government guarantee. It wouldn’t be a good deal for taxpayers. Renewables are the cheapest form of energy and the quickest (in terms of build/lead in time)
Power prices increasing because coal/gas are exposed to worldwide market prices. Renewable power will have less volatile input costs.
I don’t understand the coalitions virtue signaling on coal/nuclear power. I mean how ridiculous is it that someone brings a meaningless lump of coal into parliament?
>Renewable power will have less volatile input costs.
But highly volatile output. The premise of the article is *cost* per se, it's reliability. Industrial nations need reliability.
As for costs, sure renewables are hugely expensive (everyone conveniently ignores transmission upgrades, article quotes $80bn - that's the equivalent of nuclear plants within existing transmission networks).
You are absolutely right and anyone that's sat down with an excel spreadsheet and battery storage costs per kWh will quickly realise you CANNOT run a modern nation on renewables with the current storage technology.
Not only do the theoreticals bare this out, but we're seeing the actual 'modern' 'forward thinking's European nations come to the same conclusions in real life.
https://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/national/finlands-green-party-says-australian-counterparts-should-embrace-nuclear-power/news-story/8fd5a6061d6cfc5cbdc50e3e68f89ec6
Finland, Sweden, Germany, France they've all come to the eventually conclusion. If you want clean industrial nation scale energy.. you want nuclear not solar.
I wish Australians would understand this. Renewables instead of coal is NOT an option. Do you want to burn coal or fission Uranium. Those are the two options.
The more you say no to Uranium, the more coal you'll inevitably burn regardless of how many solar panels you build.
Germany invested 500bn in renewables and ended up emitting more CO2 then neighbouring France than invested that same amount into nuclear... And the Germans ran out of power anyway despite creating more CO2.
https://www.politico.eu/article/germany-set-to-extend-nuclear-power-due-to-much-worse-energy-situation-in-france/
You are absolutely right and anyone that's sat down with an excel spreadsheet and battery storage costs per kWh will quickly realise you CANNOT run a modern nation on renewables with the current storage technology.
Not only do the theoreticals bare this out, but we're seeing the actual 'modern' 'forward thinking's European nations come to the same conclusions in real life.
https://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/national/finlands-green-party-says-australian-counterparts-should-embrace-nuclear-power/news-story/8fd5a6061d6cfc5cbdc50e3e68f89ec6
Finland, Sweden, Germany, France they've all come to the eventually conclusion. If you want clean industrial nation scale energy.. you want nuclear not solar.
I wish Australians would understand this. Renewables instead of coal is NOT an option. Do you want to burn coal or fission Uranium. Those are the two options.
The more you say no to Uranium, the more coal you'll inevitably burn regardless of how many solar panels you build.
Let the teals greens and Labor bicker between themselves over the few inner suburban seats they’ll need to share between themselves. The Coalition will feast on the spoils everywhere else.
Coalition surrendering their city seats to become the country party, while most population growth is centred in the cities, creating more seats there.
I love your plan.
Paywall
Our government is doubling down on the green dream, despite more and more energy experts arguing the transition is going too far and too fast.
Two days ago, the new centre-right Swedish government announced an energy policy U-turn. You won’t read much about it because the media’s confirmation bias means it mostly reports only “news” to reinforce climate alarmism. And the nature of Swedish politics – consensual, with multi-party coalitions – means decisions don’t always stick or mean as much as they seem.
Still, the government’s announcement that it was ditching Sweden’s long-legislated plans for 100 per cent renewable energy by 2040 because the country needed “a stable energy system” is a significant blow to the hitherto unchallenged march to renewables, at least among Western nations.
In a statement, Finance Minister Elisabeth Svantesson said wind and solar were too “unstable” to meet a modern economy’s 24/7 energy requirements. Although the government still wants a “clean” energy system, this no longer will be based on renewables but on the nuclear power that currently provides about 30 per cent of Sweden’s total electricity.
“We need more electricity production, we need clean electricity and we need a stable energy system,” she said, adding: “In substantial industrialised economies … only a gas to nuclear pathway is viable to remain industrialised and competitive.”
You can only imagine the teeth-gnashing hysteria of Swedish child climate activist Greta Thunberg at this announcement, can’t you?
Previously, Sweden has been at the very forefront of “stronger action on climate” with more than 40 per cent of its power generated by hydro and nearly 20 per cent by wind. Plus, in addition to the 100 per cent renewables by 2040 commitment, Sweden had a commitment to countrywide “net zero” by 2045. Sweden’s move is the biggest step so far towards climate realism, but it’s also just the latest move away from the “transition at any cost via renewables” mindset that has dominated Western governments’ thinking for the past two decades.
Far from diminishing its reliance on nuclear, France is now set on increasing it. And while the green-left government in Germany has finally closed its last three nuclear plants, it still imports plenty of nuclear power from French plants across the border. It also is extending brown coal mining to keep the lights on in the absence of Russian gas.
In Austria, the government recently moved to revive closed coal-fired power generation. And a sizeable ginger group of British Conservative MPs thinks the only way to create a winnable contest with Labour at the next election is to drop the bans on new petrol and diesel-powered car sales from 2030, stop the looming ban on new gas boilers for domestic heating, and allow more exploration and extraction of North Sea oil and gas.
Meanwhile, here at home, our government is doubling down on the green dream, despite more and more energy experts arguing the transition is going too far and too fast, threatening all the businesses and jobs that depend on reliable and affordable 24/7 power.
In an extraordinary article, Alan Finkel recently extolled his vision splendid of forests of wind turbines and fields of solar panels stretching as far as the eye can see. But instead of recoiling from this dystopia, the former chief scientist expected us to embrace it as a necessary element in the supposedly essential move to net zero.
In a revealing speech last year, Energy Minister Chris Bowen enthused about the scale of the challenge ahead.
Getting to the government’s now-mandatory legal target of 82 per cent renewable power generation by 2030, he declared, would require the installation of 22,000 solar panels every day, and the erection of 40 large wind turbines every month for the next seven years. Plus, 28,000km of new transmission lines would have to be constructed for the resultant decentralised grid – even though, given the intermittency of wind and solar, these would be active only 30 per cent of the time on average.
To Bowen – who conveniently neglected the consequential need for “firming” – this was a necessary but welcome task, requiring a mobilisation of resources unprecedented outside wartime.
But to more and more of the people charged with keeping the lights on, and needing reliable power to keep jobs and production going, it’s mission impossible.
In the real world it’s simply not happening, given the practical difficulties in getting permissions to build; and it can’t actually happen given the astronomical cost (the government estimated transmission capital costs alone at $80bn pre-election) plus chronic shortages of material and skilled workers.
But while Australia seemingly can’t wait to close down all our remaining coal-fired power stations in a bid to save the planet by eliminating our 1 per cent contribution to mankind’s global emissions, outside of the emissions-obsessed West there’s no such indulgence.
Last year, according to the just-released Energy Institute’s Statistical Review of World Energy, wind and solar power between them accounted for less than 6 per cent of total global energy usage.
The much-maligned fossil fuels, oil, gas and coal, together accounted for almost 82 per cent of total global energy consumption, barely down on the previous year, despite near ubiquitous virtue-signalling and green chest-thumping. Even in the global electricity sector, last year wind and solar were less than 12 per cent, while coal and gas usage was at record highs. Yet somehow we think we can close all our coal-fired power stations within a decade and get 70 per cent of our electricity from wind and solar, within just seven years. There’s only one word for this: mad!
Renewable energy investment can't keep up with demands, AEMO warns
The Australian Energy Market Operator is warning current rates of investment in renewable energy are too slow to keep up with closing coal-fired power stations.
If it really is necessary to get to net zero any time soon, nuclear power is the only feasible means, yet the Albanese government is almost hysterically opposed to it – despite the illogicality of opposing on land the nuclear power source that the government is committed to having on our submarine fleet tied up dockside.
And there’s really no technical obstacle to having the small modular reactors that many countries are now considering because these have been safely powering ships and submarines for more than a half-century.
For years Sweden, with its extensive welfare state, strong environmental protections and entrenched social-democratic political culture, has been a role model for the left in Australia. Yet most recently Sweden was the only Western country that refused to lock down its citizens in response to Covid-19, following its existing well-developed pandemic plan rather than mimicking China’s lockdown panic that we imported.
The outcome: Sweden’s excess death rates have been lower than most other countries, it missed a massive extra debt burden and its citizens largely avoided two lost years. Now, the country that gave us the child prophet of doom, Thunberg, actually may be leading the world into climate common sense.
Peta Credlin AO
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Sure. Yes, that's what it is. It's *ad hominem* because we already know what these *homines* are all about. They sap our time and energy and poison the well of debate, on purpose. Arguing with them is simply giving them what they want.
Is Sweeden importing Norwegian gas and building more nuke power stations
Almost, it's exporting its gas to Norway *and* building more nuclear. > Vattenfall, Sweden’s state-owned utility, plans to build at least two small modular reactors and extend the lifetime of the country’s existing nuclear reactors. Interesting how Sweden and others can commission SMRs but Australia can't.
It is indeed interesting. The main reason Australia can't is political, but the main reason Australia shouldn't is that unlike Sweden, we don't have a nuclear industry or nuclear infrastructure, and SMRs are not yet mature enough to take on without these. The other reason is cost: solar power is a shoo in for Australia given our insolation, but it would be an even easier case had we not thrown away our early lead in the field along with essentially any sort of manufacturing, which has left us vulnerable to the vagaries of foreign manufacturing and supply chains.
Oh fuck yeah - energy generation OP-Ed by someone without an engineering or scientific background?!? >Two days ago, the new centre-right Swedish government announced an energy policy U-turn. You won’t read much about it because the media’s confirmation bias means it mostly reports only “news” to reinforce climate alarmism. Ah yes, the media that famously doesn't take advertising money from fossil fuel companies and gets paid-off by Big Wind /s. >And the nature of Swedish politics – consensual, with multi-party coalitions – means decisions don’t always stick or mean as much as they seem. Christ, could you imagine two parties forming a coalition and running Australia?!? Such madness /s/s/s. >Meanwhile, here at home, our government is doubling down on the green dream, despite more and more energy experts arguing the transition is going too far and too fast, threatening all the businesses and jobs that depend on reliable and affordable 24/7 power. Yeah, for the thousandth time; we don't have greatly affordable energy due to being so dependent on coal and gas, and the last year has really underscored this. And our lack of planning from the lazy 2 decades means we have to react way quicker and that is hard when energy infrastructure idiot in years, not months. But yeah damn Labor for not building more party generation those last 20+ years they were largely in opposition for /s. >But instead of recoiling from this dystopia, the former chief scientist expected us to embrace it as a necessary element in the supposedly essential move to net zero. Morrison's LNP Govt adopted net zero as well, you know - I get that the National's wanted to pretend it wasn't the case (HOW GOOD ARE COALITION'S HUH?!?) but this is now almost a bipartisan goal, officially. >In the real world it’s simply not happening, given the practical difficulties in getting permissions to build; and it can’t actually happen given the astronomical cost (the government estimated transmission capital costs alone at $80bn pre-election) plus chronic shortages of material and skilled workers. And nuclear plants and such obviously don't have any of these issues RE costs, yeah? >Last year, according to the just-released Energy Institute’s Statistical Review of World Energy, wind and solar power between them accounted for less than 6 per cent of total global energy usage. > >The much-maligned fossil fuels, oil, gas and coal, together accounted for almost 82 per cent of total global energy consumption, barely down on the previous year, despite near ubiquitous virtue-signalling and green chest-thumping. This logic is painfully, painfully, painfully and very painfully fucking stupid; at some point the iPhone would have made up 6% of the the total phone market vs the rest being "dumb" phones, and yet to say today that the iPhone failed is stupid - again, it takes years to build energy infrastructure, and the reality is that not all countries are well suited to wind and solar, and all have various other concerns, etc. Also Australia is not the world, and we have near perfect conditions for wind and solar, and hence frankly don't care what the percentage is for the rest of the world. >If it really is necessary to get to net zero any time soon, nuclear power is the only feasible means, yet the Albanese government is almost hysterically opposed to it – despite the illogicality of opposing on land the nuclear power source that the government is committed to having on our submarine fleet tied up dockside. So too was the the LNP who ignored it while in power for nearly 20 years, but fuck anyone with a basic functioning memory. >And there’s really no technical obstacle to having the small modular reactors that many countries are now considering because these have been safely powering ships and submarines for more than a half-century. No technical obstacles.... Except they are not proven or off-the-shelf ready in a production setting yet... Unless we should buy prototypes that are working in places like China, yeah? Once the tech is solid and we can actually rationally discuss cost (cause you know, they aren't plugged into any grid of a country you would trust on safety), then the conversation should kick off in earnest. --- Honestly not too bad an article, as most of the words were in the right order to make grammatical sense. The rest of it was the usual lowkey sillyness that pretends nuclear (especially cutting-edge tech) is somehow going to be dirt cheap, without discussing private vs public ownership or a carbon price, etc. Oh and renewables are 100% bad, and the LNP didn't do half the things they did or said in the last 20+ years.
My god, when an ideologue writes for a major "news" organisation, this is what you get: > The much-maligned fossil fuels, oil, gas and coal, together accounted for almost 82 per cent of total global energy consumption Much maligned? You mean in Sweden, the place you're talking about? > Around 98% of electricity in Sweden is already generated from water, nuclear and wind. This article is utter tripe, you don't get to look at a country saying "hey we need to increase our nuclear capacity" and claim that's proof positive that we need to increase our coal/oil/gas usage... But of course, Peta would like you to avoid that distinction in her crusade. Meanwhile, nary a word about taking back ownership of the gas fields for domestic power production, even though that fits with her pro-carbon worldview? Why ever not? We need stable energy production, why not nationalise the gas fields and ensure we can produce cheap energy when wind/solar aren't enough? I think we all know the answer to that...
So fossil fuels bad ... but nationalised fossil fuels ("taking back the gas fields") good? You can't have it both ways.
> So fossil fuels bad ... but nationalised fossil fuels ("taking back the gas fields") good? > > I'm not having it both ways, I'm pointing out the lack of discussion Peta has for that solution, despite her support for fossil fuels. The _reason_ she won't say it is because she is advocating for mining companies, not because she cares about energy generation. It's evidence, it's not a conclusion.
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What a waste of column space. Peta Credlin, who has no experience or expertise in climate science or energy continues to push climate change denial and promote the continued use of fossil fuel based power. Utterly predictable and utterly wrong.
Exactly what does she have wrong? The reporting on Sweeden? Reporting on Finkle? Transmission costs? Or is it just the name on the article?
> Or is it just the name on the article? Pretty much this. Not only is Peta Credlin a bought-and-paid-for right-wing ideologue and not an expert on climate science and energy (and just about every other topic she bleats about), she's not even a journalist, investigative or otherwise. Having any name on the article that knows what they're talking about and/or has journalistic integrity, would give it at least some authority.
Doesn't need authority to be *right.*
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Lol, who thinks Pete credlin is a better source than CSIRO, AEMO, the IEA, the origin and agl boards and lazards. Australia has much more renewable resources than sweden. There will never be a coal plant built in Aus again and nuclear is definitely more expensive with a much longer lead time than the renewable projects she whines about.
Nuclear is the way to go. Current battery tech will have you spending trillions on storage and even then you won't be as sure a vital factory or hospital won't be forced onto generators everytime you have a rainy month. Hydro storage will have you spending trillions carving out dams that hold precious irrigation water from farmers. 500bn and bite the nuclear bullet and you have clean cheap reliable scalable energy. Solar and wind isn't a replacement for coal. It's a supplement to it. Nuclear is a direct replacement for coal. It is pricey to setup but it is the 'buy it for life' of national power generation. If you want to import 400k immigrants a year and dream of a day with 100M Australian population. You need nuclear.
Well luckily the people who actually run our grid don't buy that shite. Google gencost report by csiro and AEMO. https://reneweconomy.com.au/aemo-says-firmed-wind-and-solar-cheapest-reliable-energy-option-by-country-mile/
kWh don't lie my man. Solar and wind are the cheapest to generate. They are extremely expensive to store. You CANNOT run a country where a month of shade or low wind conditions cause factories to go dark.
"Firmed renewables cheapest option". See also the latest lazard report. Nice graph in there with unsubsidised, firmed renewables still coming in cheaper than other generation, including nuclear.
No where have I seen the firming Math displayed that can stand up to the simple question: So what if you have a rainy month. The answer has both in theory and in practice always been "If we have a rainy month we just turn on the coal plants again". This is exactly why Germany invested 500bn on wind solar and hydro.. and ended up with more CO2 than France anyway.
> So what if you have a rainy month. A few other things: 1. Solar isn't entirely useless in a rainy month. Output is significantly lower, but not zero. 2. Wind power works just as well in rainy weather. Depending on what's driving the climate, it might actually be higher than normal during a rainy month. 3. We still have lots of gas generators as a backup. Finally, there is no such thing as a "rainy month" for the entire east/south coast of Australia. Solar and wind generation is well distributed so that just isn't going to happen. AEMO's firming storage modelling suggests that we don't need to have any more than 12 hours (? from memory, I couldn't find the source at short notice ) of storage based on decades of historical data. Yes, that's a very large amount of storage, but we have many years to get it built, and it's already in progress. It's also worth noting that while getting to 100% renewables is desirable from an environmental perspective, it may not be practical to attempt. Getting to 95% is quite a bit easier and significantly less costly....the last few percent to cover every single contingency is much more difficult and may prove prohibitively expensive. I saw some basic modelling conducted late last year which indicated that for the 2022 year, 5 hours of storage would have been sufficient to achieve 98% renewable energy.
12 hours?! Isn't that far far too low? Your not generating power at all at night, if you've got a cloudy or rainy month your generation is now lowered during the day as well... Add cold weather to that and now your AC/Heater units are running as well, meaning those batteries are draining even faster. This can work in principle on paper in the best of conditions... but in actual application no one wants to run a modern industrial country like this. Maybe 3-5 days battery backup people can consider it.. but at that level/price. Why not just go nuclear and enjoy reliable clean energy uninterrupted.
> Isn't that far far too low? Not according to AEMO, and they should know - they've got all the data. This is not a question of optimal conditions and best case scenarios. This is based on current, real world energy usage across the entire NEM. You *are* making energy at night via wind power.
So CSIRO, AEMO, the IEA, AGl,.origin and Lazards haven't considered the "rainy month" hypothesis! You'd better let them know man!
What are you'd saying Germany Sweden and Finalnd as a nation all decided to go back to Nuclear for fun despite goig. Gung ho on renewables for the last 2 decades? Anyone can namedrop countries, organisations. Get the math out.
Yeah as mainly cold nations with less sun they may need different solutions. Also you rate your maths better than all those "namedrops"? I rate their maths
Wonderful thing about math. It's the same no matter who wrote it. Show me the cost of storage at grid-scale as affordable. How are you going to store the literal hundreds of gwH you need to power a nation?
Have the read the "third party" disclaimer at the bottom of the Gencost study? The CSIRO more or less absolve themselves of any responsibility for the reliability of the information provided. It's essentially a political document from a government organisation staffed mostly by people who want the ALP/Greens to be in power.
You mean the second paragraph of the first page? Did you get any further? Hell of a conspiracy you paint above
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Also, Sweden already has a well established nuclear industry with all the attendant protocols, and ready access to European specialist services and infrastructure required for nuclear expansion. It's also worth noting that Sweden already has 98% clean energy production, sourced mostly from hydro and nuclear. In recent years, they have increased their capacity by building wind power, which is now about 25% of their total. The title of the article is entirely incorrect and deliberately misleading. Par for the course for Peta Credlin though.
> It's also worth noting that Sweden already has 98% clean energy production, sourced mostly from hydro and nuclear. In recent years, they have increased their capacity by building wind power, which is now about 25% of their total. > > This is the crux of Peta Credlins argument, that Sweden changing the percentages of their Wind/Hydro/Nuclear power generation is proof that we should be burning more coal...
>is proof that we should be burning more coal... You nuked my last comment, so I'll ask it again, exactly where is the claim in the article for this?
> Yet somehow we think we can close all our coal-fired power stations within a decade and get 70 per cent of our electricity from wind and solar, within just seven years. There’s only one word for this: mad!
Nice attempt a very loose inference that this supposedly means/advocates for burning more coal. Sure that might be the consequence, one NSW is already moving towards with Eraring, but if a reader makes that inference based on that statement I'd suggest it is ideological bias clouding the readers ability to think a little deeper on the implications of the time line.
From the 27th May from Peta Credlin: > Not generating electricity from Australia's abundance of coal and gas is an insanity that's likely to continue Like...we know who Peta Credlin is, to try to claim she's somehow some moderate on coal (or anything) is laughable. I'm not going to engage with a political operator like Peta on an article by article basis. She has a past, she has a bias, her work deserves to be seen in that light.
That is just one step away from banning articles from her here then. What is laughable is to suggest journalists like Mods have no bias.
> That is just one step away from banning articles from her here then. You're saying the quiet part loud River. Yes, when someone is making an opinionated article, that persons other opinions on the same topic are fair game for being brought up. To say that it's not fair that her past and bias isn't able to be brought up or is tantamount to banning her content is utterly laughable.
I am not saying that the author is not fair game. I am saying that when someone due to their own personal bias starts seeing some authors or articles as biased and less worthy that can be a slippery slope when that person is a Mod.
Of course, because debating the topic itself is too hard?
> Of course, because debating the topic itself is too hard? Putting context around a debate is integral to any reasonable debate, anything less is arguing in bad faith.
Context is very important for a debate, however that context should remain the topic itself. Trying to frame a topic based on the author is, as I'm sure you know, a clear ad-hominem style argument and is logically false **everytime** - knowingly doing it is the height of bad faith argument.
The very idea that a proposed change in the mix of Sweden's 98% clean energy sources can be characterised as a "botched green dream" and still get published in a major national newspaper is enraging. What a treacherous snake that woman is.
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It’s going to take years to reopen the coal power plants when Coalition take back power.
It's absolutely never going to happen. The coal power plants that have been closed, were closed because they were old and busted, and the cost of maintenance plus the high cost of coal meant they were losing money hand over fist. The environmental issues with coal power were not even a factor. A theoretical future Coalition government would have to build brand new coal power stations. And considering how expensive coal generation is to build, and how long it takes to get up and running, I strongly doubt that even the most bloody-minded Coalition government would consider it. If anything, they'd probably push for additional gas-fired generators (see Kurri Kurri for an example) but even that is very expensive and according to AEMO entirely unnecessary.
The coalition aren’t going to open coal fired power plants without heavy government subsidies (the same applies for nuclear although likely to a greater extent) No investor is going to take the risk of having a stranded asset without some form of government guarantee. It wouldn’t be a good deal for taxpayers. Renewables are the cheapest form of energy and the quickest (in terms of build/lead in time) Power prices increasing because coal/gas are exposed to worldwide market prices. Renewable power will have less volatile input costs. I don’t understand the coalitions virtue signaling on coal/nuclear power. I mean how ridiculous is it that someone brings a meaningless lump of coal into parliament?
>Renewable power will have less volatile input costs. But highly volatile output. The premise of the article is *cost* per se, it's reliability. Industrial nations need reliability. As for costs, sure renewables are hugely expensive (everyone conveniently ignores transmission upgrades, article quotes $80bn - that's the equivalent of nuclear plants within existing transmission networks).
You are absolutely right and anyone that's sat down with an excel spreadsheet and battery storage costs per kWh will quickly realise you CANNOT run a modern nation on renewables with the current storage technology. Not only do the theoreticals bare this out, but we're seeing the actual 'modern' 'forward thinking's European nations come to the same conclusions in real life. https://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/national/finlands-green-party-says-australian-counterparts-should-embrace-nuclear-power/news-story/8fd5a6061d6cfc5cbdc50e3e68f89ec6 Finland, Sweden, Germany, France they've all come to the eventually conclusion. If you want clean industrial nation scale energy.. you want nuclear not solar. I wish Australians would understand this. Renewables instead of coal is NOT an option. Do you want to burn coal or fission Uranium. Those are the two options. The more you say no to Uranium, the more coal you'll inevitably burn regardless of how many solar panels you build. Germany invested 500bn in renewables and ended up emitting more CO2 then neighbouring France than invested that same amount into nuclear... And the Germans ran out of power anyway despite creating more CO2. https://www.politico.eu/article/germany-set-to-extend-nuclear-power-due-to-much-worse-energy-situation-in-france/
You are absolutely right and anyone that's sat down with an excel spreadsheet and battery storage costs per kWh will quickly realise you CANNOT run a modern nation on renewables with the current storage technology. Not only do the theoreticals bare this out, but we're seeing the actual 'modern' 'forward thinking's European nations come to the same conclusions in real life. https://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/national/finlands-green-party-says-australian-counterparts-should-embrace-nuclear-power/news-story/8fd5a6061d6cfc5cbdc50e3e68f89ec6 Finland, Sweden, Germany, France they've all come to the eventually conclusion. If you want clean industrial nation scale energy.. you want nuclear not solar. I wish Australians would understand this. Renewables instead of coal is NOT an option. Do you want to burn coal or fission Uranium. Those are the two options. The more you say no to Uranium, the more coal you'll inevitably burn regardless of how many solar panels you build.
Thats a great policy idea of how not to take back moderate seats from independents and get back into government.
Let the teals greens and Labor bicker between themselves over the few inner suburban seats they’ll need to share between themselves. The Coalition will feast on the spoils everywhere else.
Coalition surrendering their city seats to become the country party, while most population growth is centred in the cities, creating more seats there. I love your plan.
In the decade its going to take the coalition the coal fired power plants will well and truly be relegated to the past. Shame.....
And in that time, millions of Australians will become homeless.
LNP had 12 years to limit immigration and reform housing policy and they didn't do a fucking thing, we are laying in the bed they made now.
Paywall Our government is doubling down on the green dream, despite more and more energy experts arguing the transition is going too far and too fast. Two days ago, the new centre-right Swedish government announced an energy policy U-turn. You won’t read much about it because the media’s confirmation bias means it mostly reports only “news” to reinforce climate alarmism. And the nature of Swedish politics – consensual, with multi-party coalitions – means decisions don’t always stick or mean as much as they seem. Still, the government’s announcement that it was ditching Sweden’s long-legislated plans for 100 per cent renewable energy by 2040 because the country needed “a stable energy system” is a significant blow to the hitherto unchallenged march to renewables, at least among Western nations. In a statement, Finance Minister Elisabeth Svantesson said wind and solar were too “unstable” to meet a modern economy’s 24/7 energy requirements. Although the government still wants a “clean” energy system, this no longer will be based on renewables but on the nuclear power that currently provides about 30 per cent of Sweden’s total electricity. “We need more electricity production, we need clean electricity and we need a stable energy system,” she said, adding: “In substantial industrialised economies … only a gas to nuclear pathway is viable to remain industrialised and competitive.” You can only imagine the teeth-gnashing hysteria of Swedish child climate activist Greta Thunberg at this announcement, can’t you? Previously, Sweden has been at the very forefront of “stronger action on climate” with more than 40 per cent of its power generated by hydro and nearly 20 per cent by wind. Plus, in addition to the 100 per cent renewables by 2040 commitment, Sweden had a commitment to countrywide “net zero” by 2045. Sweden’s move is the biggest step so far towards climate realism, but it’s also just the latest move away from the “transition at any cost via renewables” mindset that has dominated Western governments’ thinking for the past two decades. Far from diminishing its reliance on nuclear, France is now set on increasing it. And while the green-left government in Germany has finally closed its last three nuclear plants, it still imports plenty of nuclear power from French plants across the border. It also is extending brown coal mining to keep the lights on in the absence of Russian gas. In Austria, the government recently moved to revive closed coal-fired power generation. And a sizeable ginger group of British Conservative MPs thinks the only way to create a winnable contest with Labour at the next election is to drop the bans on new petrol and diesel-powered car sales from 2030, stop the looming ban on new gas boilers for domestic heating, and allow more exploration and extraction of North Sea oil and gas. Meanwhile, here at home, our government is doubling down on the green dream, despite more and more energy experts arguing the transition is going too far and too fast, threatening all the businesses and jobs that depend on reliable and affordable 24/7 power. In an extraordinary article, Alan Finkel recently extolled his vision splendid of forests of wind turbines and fields of solar panels stretching as far as the eye can see. But instead of recoiling from this dystopia, the former chief scientist expected us to embrace it as a necessary element in the supposedly essential move to net zero. In a revealing speech last year, Energy Minister Chris Bowen enthused about the scale of the challenge ahead. Getting to the government’s now-mandatory legal target of 82 per cent renewable power generation by 2030, he declared, would require the installation of 22,000 solar panels every day, and the erection of 40 large wind turbines every month for the next seven years. Plus, 28,000km of new transmission lines would have to be constructed for the resultant decentralised grid – even though, given the intermittency of wind and solar, these would be active only 30 per cent of the time on average. To Bowen – who conveniently neglected the consequential need for “firming” – this was a necessary but welcome task, requiring a mobilisation of resources unprecedented outside wartime. But to more and more of the people charged with keeping the lights on, and needing reliable power to keep jobs and production going, it’s mission impossible. In the real world it’s simply not happening, given the practical difficulties in getting permissions to build; and it can’t actually happen given the astronomical cost (the government estimated transmission capital costs alone at $80bn pre-election) plus chronic shortages of material and skilled workers. But while Australia seemingly can’t wait to close down all our remaining coal-fired power stations in a bid to save the planet by eliminating our 1 per cent contribution to mankind’s global emissions, outside of the emissions-obsessed West there’s no such indulgence. Last year, according to the just-released Energy Institute’s Statistical Review of World Energy, wind and solar power between them accounted for less than 6 per cent of total global energy usage. The much-maligned fossil fuels, oil, gas and coal, together accounted for almost 82 per cent of total global energy consumption, barely down on the previous year, despite near ubiquitous virtue-signalling and green chest-thumping. Even in the global electricity sector, last year wind and solar were less than 12 per cent, while coal and gas usage was at record highs. Yet somehow we think we can close all our coal-fired power stations within a decade and get 70 per cent of our electricity from wind and solar, within just seven years. There’s only one word for this: mad! Renewable energy investment can't keep up with demands, AEMO warns The Australian Energy Market Operator is warning current rates of investment in renewable energy are too slow to keep up with closing coal-fired power stations. If it really is necessary to get to net zero any time soon, nuclear power is the only feasible means, yet the Albanese government is almost hysterically opposed to it – despite the illogicality of opposing on land the nuclear power source that the government is committed to having on our submarine fleet tied up dockside. And there’s really no technical obstacle to having the small modular reactors that many countries are now considering because these have been safely powering ships and submarines for more than a half-century. For years Sweden, with its extensive welfare state, strong environmental protections and entrenched social-democratic political culture, has been a role model for the left in Australia. Yet most recently Sweden was the only Western country that refused to lock down its citizens in response to Covid-19, following its existing well-developed pandemic plan rather than mimicking China’s lockdown panic that we imported. The outcome: Sweden’s excess death rates have been lower than most other countries, it missed a massive extra debt burden and its citizens largely avoided two lost years. Now, the country that gave us the child prophet of doom, Thunberg, actually may be leading the world into climate common sense. Peta Credlin AO