ALP Energy policy failure

[IQS.RLOW]

Just look at these gutless parasites. Willing to sacrifice the energy security of all Australians while punishing the lowest income earners and all for some ideological Green dream that they havent even had a critical look at.

The rest of Australia will end up a 3rd world nation if these idiots are able to advocate this idiot idea that has been demonstrated by the SA ALP govt to be completely useless at keeping the lights on.

You would think that they would come out and announce something like "In light of the recent events in SA, we will be putting on hold our 50% thought bubble until energy security has been factored into our ideology" but they won't because they haven't even considered it.

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/opinion ... ea579172a0

ALP scuttles away from its RET standard

Labor is crab-walking, nay, crab-scuttling away from its proud environmental standard of a national 50 per cent target for renewable energy.

For almost 2½ years Labor has promoted, boasted about and flaunted its 50 per cent RET while accusing the Coalition of being “fossil fools” in supporting coal-fired power as part of Australia’s energy mix.

Labor has allowed Mark Butler’s upgrading of the 2015 ALP national conference agreement beyond a goal of a 50 per cent RET by 2030 to stand, and stand proud.

The impracticality, huge cost and unsustainability of the target have been largely ignored and the Coalition has been unable to make ground with its own energy policies.

But since last September, with the South Australian blackouts and, more dramatically, since Wednesday last week, Labor started to feel real pressure.

This week it wilted.

A cohesive, non-ideological policy aimed at supplying lower-cost, reliable electricity to industry and households has suddenly borne fruit for the Coalition and put Labor on the back foot politically.

Labor’s policy position has not changed for years. Its position is the same and its rhetoric has been consistent — 50 per cent renewables by 2030, backed by even higher state and territory targets — was not only achievable but anything less was failure.

Now Bill Shorten and the federal Labor Party are changing their rhetoric and sharply raising the emphasis on an emissions-intensity scheme and a carbon price.

In the past two days, in an atmosphere changed by Malcolm Turnbull’s attack on the Opposition Leader over electricity prices, Shorten, Chris Bowen as Treasury spokesman and Butler as climate change spokesman have all floundered or dissembled in interviews over the RET policy.

Shorten, who has admitted not having any economic modelling for the proposal, refused four times on the ABC to say what it was going to cost.

Three times on the ABC, Butler wouldn’t say if it was a goal, an aspiration, an ambition or a target. And Bowen was uncharacteristically incomprehensible on party policy.

Like West Australia Labor, which is mid-campaign and has abandoned a 50 per cent target, federal Labor is now trying to get everyone looking in the other direction and thinking about other solutions.

Afraid to commit a Kevin Ruddesque total backdown on cutting emissions, Butler is holding on to the claim that it is almost impossible to achieve Australia’s commitment to emissions reductions without a 50 per cent renewable target, but the cocksure attitude is gone.

Labor has been parading an unsustainable policy position as a political strength for more than two years and virtually got off scot-free. But, after just a little pressure and some drastic evidence of the danger of over-reliance on intermittent renewables sources, the crabs are coming back to claw them.

[IQS.RLOW]

Here' s Pilbeserk getting fact checked after dribbling shit on the Bolt report

Ms Plibersek,

Watched you on Bolt last night and have a couple of questions;

You referred to the Warburton Report (presumably from 2014) and claimed that it said we would save $15 billion with extra investment in renewables, but it actually says:

“The RET has … mobilised national and international investment and built a strong domestic renewable energy industry which will be important to Australia’s future economic prosperity. The renewable energy target has mobilised around $20 billion in investment to date and will generate nearly $15 billion more by 2020 under the current target. Reducing the RET would threaten these investments and harm Australia’s reputation as a reliable investment destination. (WWF Australia, submission to the Climate Change Authority, p. 2)”

How does it actually “save” us money?

You said to build another coal station would cost $28 billion but I can’t find anything on the internet that supports that claim. Latest CSIRO estimates for building a coal station is $3,100 per kW. Let’s look at replacement for the giant coal 1600MW Hazlewood station which is closing soon. So it’s $3100 x 1000000 x 1.6 = $4.96 billion. A far cry from $28 billion!

In comparison let’s look at a just released proposal for a 240 wind turbine windfarm at Rokewood in Victoria, the largest in the Southern Hemisphere.

The estimated cost is $1.5 billion dollars and the generation capacity is 800MW, exactly half of what Hazlewood produces. So at first glance it would appear that two of these windfarms would produce the same as Hazlewood at a cheaper cost.

However, windfarms only produce electricity when the wind is between certain limits, and [this] link shows an analysis of Australian windfarms in 2015 showed that on average, they only produce 29% of their rated capacity, this is known as their capacity factor.

So if you multiply 800 x 0.29 you get 230MW, so now it takes 7 Rokewood windfarms to equal Hazlewood which is 1.5 x 7 = $10.5 billion dollars, more than double the cost of a coal replacement. And remember that coal electricity is despatchable and valuable, wind electricity is intermittent and useless when it’s not required.

The Courier article says "If given the go-ahead the farm is expected to produce 800 megawatts of power, enough to power more than 450,000 homes.” Sounds impressive but it omits one tiny teensy weensy detail……only when the wind is blowing at optimum speed which is 29% of the time. The other 71% of the time they have to rely on dirty filthy stinking coal!

You said that renewables “push down” electricity prices and this was in the Warburton review released “late last year”. I think you are referring to the report released in late 2014... After skimming through it, I could find no statement saying that renewables “push down prices”, indeed it says the opposite, “The RET tends to raise the retail component of electricity prices—retailers have to purchase certificates to acquit their RET liabilities, the costs of which are passed on to customers.” However, if I have missed the statement, please show me the relevant statement and I will stand corrected.

You said in relation to the government’s plan to build a new coal power station, “Nobody thinks that will work”, but hundreds of new coal stations have been built around the world and there are at least 1500 in construction or in the pipeline, does “nobody” in these countries think it’s a good idea. And, of course, 99.9% of Australian engineers know that it would work. The only problem is whether the proposed coal station will be allowed to run at max capacity. If the insidious growth of renewables causes it to have to throttle back because of astronomical subsidies to wind, then of course, its viability comes into question.

I would appreciate an answer to these questions. Perhaps, I have totally misread everything.

Regards,

Peter Rees

[J o h n S m i t h]

what sort of fool thinks an opinion piece by a liberal party hack actually means anything ...

oh wait, don't asnwer that.

[IQS.RLOW]

what sort of fool thinks an opinion piece by a liberal party hack actually means anything ...

oh wait, don't asnwer that.

If this is the only level of engagement you are capable of, I suggest you crawl back over to the rest of the infants in the kindy you must be occupying.

The mantra of the Greens/ALP howling at the moon while trying to destroy Australia because they have no clue.

Islam is the most feminist religion.
Wind energy is reliable.
We don't need mining.
Border security is unnecessary.
The US alliance is inimical to our national interest.
The Australian is a race-baiting newspaper.

The Australian Greens have strayed so far from reality in their post-truth universe that they must have become confused between the real world and a flashback to some trip in the 70s.

They have become the lunatics at the bottom of the garden shouting at the moon.

[J o h n S m i t h]

If this is the only level of engagement you are capable of, I suggest you crawl back over to the rest of the infants in the kindy you must be occupying.

Please don't tell me you under under ANY sort of impression that the gibberish you put up you consider 'engagement' on the actual topic?





you really are a fuckwit

[IQS.RLOW]

If this is the only level of engagement you are capable of, I suggest you crawl back over to the rest of the infants in the kindy you must be occupying.

Please don't tell me you under under ANY sort of impression that the gibberish you put up you consider 'engagement' on the actual topic?





you really are a fuckwit

Yet another vacuous post in a thread without addressing the topic. Do you have to wait for Sussex Street to email you your spin and obfuscation talking points for idiot leftards before you can address or rebbut the OP?

[J o h n S m i t h]

Yet another vacuous post in a thread without addressing the topic.

I must have missed the bit where you addressed the topic ....

[IQS.RLOW]

Yet another vacuous post in a thread without addressing the topic.

I must have missed the bit where you addressed the topic ....

The topic is the ALP abandoning their renewballs idiocy because their renewballs idiocy has been exposed.

I'll give you a hint...Try commenting on whether this is a good thing or a bad thing in your opinion.

[J o h n S m i t h]

Yet another vacuous post in a thread without addressing the topic.

I must have missed the bit where you addressed the topic ....

The topic is the ALP abandoning their renewballs idiocy because their renewballs idiocy has been exposed.

I'll give you a hint...Try commenting on whether this is a good thing or a bad thing in your opinion.

I must have missed the bit where you addressed the topic .... :lol:

[IQS.RLOW]

Why does the left attract so many fuckwits without a clue like yourself who do nothing but dribble fucking bullshit and lie?

It's less you have the "Pillbeserk and Shorten little book of lies" on constant rotation in your empty fucking head.