Unbelievable; or is it?
Posted by whatyareckon on September 21, 2023
Coal
All posts tagged Coal
Net Zero and a rush into unreliable renewables is what got Australia into this mess. Next winter ought to be fun with these people running the show!!
‘Labor Cabinet ministers have slammed the gas companies for focusing on “maximising their profits” and halting major supply contracts following the government’s landmark response to soaring power prices.
The September Heads of Agreement deal which saw the gas companies commit to diverting all additional uncontracted LNG to the domestic market could be under threat.
In a shock response to the government’s $12/gigajoule cap on gas prices, Shell has paused its deal to sell 50 petajoules of LNG to energy providers as it “assesses the impact” of the proposed reforms.
The massive gas giant’s Queensland arm, QGC, was in the middle of an extensive tender process to contract the LNG for 2023/24.
“Pausing the EOI process was not an option we wanted to take, however, QGC needs to consider whether the design of the current EOI will meet the new regulatory requirements, including the 2023 price cap and the proposed mandatory Code,” a Shell spokesperson said.
Shell has paused its tender process to sell 50 petajoules of LNG to Australian domestic market. Picture: NCA
But the government has unleashed on Shell and other gas companies threatening to withhold supply to the system.
Energy Minister Chris Bowen said while the company was focused on boosting profits, the government would “protect the Australian people”.
“Gas companies want high profits at the expense of industries at the expense of workers and industries,” Mr Bowen said on Tuesday.
“Shell is one of the most profitable companies in Australia and we don’t mind them making profits in their … gas exports, they can make as much profit as they want doing that, but Australians have a right to this gas at a fair price.
“The government will be acting in the national interest not in the interest of Shell, not in the interest of any gas company, in the interest of every Australian.”
The cost of gas has soared since the war in Ukraine, with the spot price hitting as high as $27/gigajoule compared to typical pre-pandemic prices hovering around $6/gigajoule.
Energy Minister Chris Bowen accused the gas companies of receiving high profits at the “expense of workers and industries”. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Gary Ramage
As a result of the more than 140 per cent increase in the gas price year-on-year, industry giants Woodside has seen the share price jump by 57 per cent.
Fellow competitor Origin Energy has also seen its share price soar by more than 44 per cent this year and was another signatory to the September Heads of Agreement through its part ownership Queensland-based gas company APLNG.
Industry Minister Ed Husic warned the gas companies against pulling out of the landmark supply agreement as he questioned their claims over project sustainability.
“A lot of these players have made extraordinary profits, so, when these firms are making claims about the viability of projects, this is about them trying to maintain their profits in extraordinary times,” Mr Husic told ABC Radio National.
“For (energy companies) to claim this is a shock, or to threaten the nation, effectively, by saying they’ll walk away from a heads of agreement they walked into, I think they will need to consider their steps very carefully.”
Oil and gas company Woodside Energy joined Shell in warning the government its new caps on fossil fuels would create an “environment of uncertainty” which will see investment rapidly drop.
Industry Minister Ed Husic said the gas companies needed to “consider their steps very carefully” if the continued to threaten supply. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Martin Ollman
In a statement on Tuesday, Chief Executive Meg O’Neill said the industry’s ongoing investment was “crucial” to support the government’s renewable drive and added the government’s proposal failed to address falling supply.
“We need to unlock gas supply now. For example, Woodside has been looking at options to increase supply, including through new LNG import terminals, exploration spending and further development on the east coast,” Ms O’Neill said.
“Unfortunately, the proposed market intervention will make it very difficult for industry to economically invest to increase supply.
“No one wants to see energy shortages and gas rationing. We must develop a comprehensive, longer-term solution that addresses gas supply and reliability.”
The Albanese Government’s proposal to cap gas price, provide indirect energy bill relief and strengthen the consumer watchdog’s price monitoring capabilities will hit an emergency session of Parliament on Thursday.
In addition, Labor will also legislate a mandatory code of conduct for the gas industry which will strengthen the existing bargaining system between producers and buyers and establish a “reasonable pricing framework”.’https://www.skynews.com.au/australia-news/politics/industry-minister-ed-husic-accuses-gas-companies-of-threatening-the-nation-as-energy-minister-chris-bowen-slams-shell-for-pushing-huge-profits-at-australias-expense/news-story/559284e80da3cc4924125304bc284f17?net_sub_id=282058248&type=curated&position=1&overallPos=4
Australia is heading into winter and is shutting down their coal power stations to rely on wind and solar. It will be a long cold winter. Yet, the Australian Federal government has the audacity to tell its own citizens that it is sending coal to Ukraine for “their energy needs”! What have these politicians had to drink?
‘Today, the President of Ukraine, His Excellency Mr Volodymyr Zelenskyy, will address the Australian Parliament by video link at 5.30pm Canberra time.
Australians have been inspired by President Zelenskyy’s resilience and courage, as he, his Government and the people of Ukraine defend their homeland against Russia’s brutal, illegal and unjustified invasion.
Australia stands with Ukraine against Russia’s aggression.
We are providing $91 million in military assistance, $65 million in humanitarian assistance, 70,000 tonnes of thermal coal to meet Ukraine’s energy needs, as well as temporary protection visas and support for Ukrainian community groups in Australia.
We continue to work with partners to impose the maximum costs against Russia, through targeted sanctions on individuals and entities, the prohibition of energy, oil and gas products from Russia, and a ban on exports of alumina and bauxite to Russia.
This includes listing more than 500 individuals and entities to date. This is the largest ever imposition of sanctions by Australia against a single country.
Our sanctions target President Putin and his circle of oligarchs and propagandists, military commanders and members of Parliament, as well as those who facilitated the invasion from outside Russia, including the leadership of neighbouring Belarus.
Our listings include 80 percent of Russia’s banking sector and all government entities that handle Russia’s sovereign debt.
Our co-ordinated action with partners significantly undermines Russia’s ability to continue financing President Putin’s war.
Members of Parliament and Senators will be joined for the address in the Chamber by representatives from the Ukrainian Embassy, Ukrainian-Australian community, and Embassies from around the world.
I invite all Australians to watch President Zelenskyy’s remarks at 5.30pm AEDT, which will be livestreamed on APH’s website https://www.aph.gov.au/News_and_Events/LiveMediaPlayer?vID={25C0C2C3-347D-4818-AFAB-3F79D81937DC}‘https://www.pm.gov.au/media/president-zelenskyy-address-australian-parliament
With an Australian Federal election looming soon the choice of good leaders is very dim.
While Australia is closing down its coal fire powered stations for solar and wind Net Zero ‘Prime Minister Scott Morrison has announced Australia will provide further support for Ukraine as they continue to resist Russia’s invasion.
Speaking on Sunday the Prime Minister said Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky had asked for more Australian assistance.
“In our discussions of the last couple of weeks they have made requests for more arms, for more humanitarian support,” he said.
“They have also asked us for our coal to assist help power their resistance to help them to deal with the energy situation and needs in their own country, and so that is exactly what we are going to do.”
Mr Morrison announced Australia would answer Mr Zelensky’s calls by providing an additional $21 million in military assistance, an additional $30 million in urgent humanitarian assistance and 70,000 tonnes of thermal coal.
The military assistance will include ammunition, body armour and military equipment while the coal has been mined in Australia and will “help power up their resistance”.
“We understand that it (coal) can power up to about a million homes and this is incredibly important,” Mr Morrison said.”https://www.skynews.com.au/australia-news/australia-to-answer-ukraines-calls-for-assistance-by-sending-military-humanitarian-support-and-70000-tonnes-of-coal/news-story/ef1b3b9efca7fa205fa789bebd40a500?net_sub_id=282058248&type=curated&position=1&overallPos=1
HYPOCRISY AT ITS WORSE!!!
Now, more than ‘Two weeks ago, Energy Minister Angus Taylor announced he’ll subsidise our coal-fired power plants to offset the unreliability of our already subsidised wind turbines and solar panels – a policy “worthy of a Yes Minister show or Monty Python skit” as described by the National Civic Council.
Now, Minister Taylor has knocked back an Australian nuclear energy industry in favour of hydrogen fuel because “hydrogen can do things that nuclear could never do anyway. It’s not only a source of energy, it’s a feedstock”.
Really, Angus?
We’ll listen to the experts on this one, mate.
As one of Australia’s most renowned geologists Professor Ian Plimer said a few months ago:
“Here they come again for your money. Firstly, it was wind, then it was solar. Now they’ve put the two together and it’s hydrogen. And what they’re trying to do is to skin us alive forever.
“Let me say a few things for an illiterate politician. You need electricity to make hydrogen and you have losses when you do that. And then with the hydrogen, you need to make electricity, again you have losses. And so, you get about 30% of the energy by that process, the rest gets dispersed. Unless legislation can change the laws of thermodynamics, you are in a loss, loss, loss situation. Loss because we taxpayers get skinned alive, loss because we redistribute energy and loss because we cannot replace that energy.
“This madness was tried a hundred years ago. It didn’t work then, and it won’t work now. Now, if we look at planet earth from space, we can see a number of really interesting things. Firstly, if you squint and look very hard, you actually can’t see that the planet’s got a gender. Yet we call the planet a female. Her. The second thing is when you look and you’ve got spectroscopic eyes, you’ll actually see hydrogen is leaking out of the planet. You cannot hold hydrogen, it leaks from the core of the earth through the mantle, through the crust and into space. You cannot hold hydrogen in pipelines or in steel containers.”
“So, if you were to make hydrogen, you will lose a huge amount of energy doing it. Then you’ve got to compress it to only 700 times atmospheric pressure, and that requires a huge amount of energy. Then you’ve got to liquefy it down to minus 283 degrees Celsius. That requires a huge amount of energy. And then you’ve got to transport this hydrogen in a truck or a pipeline, and that is a mobile bomb. That hydrogen will leak out through the steel in pipelines or in a truck, just the same as it leaks out from the earth. That hydrogen weakens the steel and so what have you got? You have got a bomb waiting to go off. Hydrogen is well-known to be extremely explosive. And when it explodes, it puts the most powerful greenhouse gas back into the atmosphere. And that gas is water vapour.
“Yes, you can store hydrogen in fuel cells, incredibly expensive and incredibly dangerous. We have extremely good technology now where we can convert fossilised sunlight into energy. And that fossilised sunlight is called coal. We have extremely good technology to convert compressed energy in a big atom, like uranium into steam, which then goes into electricity. That’s been around for a long time. We’ve had hydrogen around for a long time, it still hasn’t worked. So, if you have massive subsidies and you have people that live in cities, then hydrogen is used by woke people. I’d much rather be living next door to a nuclear reactor than a hydrogen refuelling station. It’s far safer.
“The spruikers (of hydrogen) can see something that’s going to make them a lot of money. Firstly, it’s subsidised. Secondly, they’ve signed really long contracts, which they did for wind and solar. And thirdly, they know that politicians are absolutely totally scientifically illiterate. They know the bureaucrats are generally green and that they’ve barrows to push and are unelected and sending us broke and don’t have to worry about losing a job because they’ve got one forever. So they can see a big fish…This has got nothing to do with green energy. This has got nothing to do with the environment, it’s to do with the spruikers skinning us alive. They’ve done it with wind, they’ve done it with solar, and now they’re doing it again. And my view on this is: beware of people trying to sell us what they call new technology and saying ‘all of the old technology is hopeless.’”
“If we were to throw out old technology, we wouldn’t use the wheel. The best technology we’ve got for generating energy is where we use compressed energy in coal or in a heavy atom like uranium and convert that into steam, which then drives turbines, which then gives us electricity. That for more than a 100 years has been the most efficient form of energy, it still is. If we had no subsidies, we would be still running on coal, uranium and in peak times gas.
“Well, it’s even worse than that. We have our wind turbines made in China. We have our solar panels made in China. And by us having wind and solar electricity is sending us broke. So China doesn’t even need to invade us, we’re doing it to ourselves. Then if we have hydrogen, we do it again to ourselves. And by not using this concentrated energy in black coal and in uranium, we are again sending ourselves broke. We cannot, in a country where wages are high, where our industrial legislation makes it very difficult to do anything, where we have huge amounts of concentrated energy which we export.
“We cannot ignore using that energy. We are the only G20 country that doesn’t generate nuclear electricity. We could control the world’s uranium. The same as Saudi used to control oil. And that is: mine it. Make the yellow cake, make fuel rods, which we lease out, bring them back, clean them up, lease them out again, bring them back, clean them up.
“And then, we set up a high specialty industry whereby we employ engineers, scientists and very skilled tradespeople to run this industry. We don’t, therefore, try to compete with manufacturing industries in Asia, where people get paid $2 a day. We have a highly specialised industry. We are poised to do it. All it requires is regulatory and legislative changes; governments to sit back, get out of the way, get rid of the red tape and the green tape and just let business do what it’s good at. And that is helping build employment, helping build industry without government subsidies.
“That 20 megawatt reactor at Lucas Heights saves lives. Now, anyone who’s ever had cancer would have radionuclides generated from that reactor. You cannot object to nuclear energy if you’ve had cancer treatment, it’s just not possible to do it. That reactor was built in the bush. Now there’s a suburbia around it. It had to be built close to an airport so we can get these medical isotopes to nearby countries and to Western Australia and elsewhere in Australia.
“That reactor is extraordinarily safe. We already have the people and the technology to run reactors. So, if you want to object to nuclear energy, you have to say: “I am never, ever, ever going to accept treatment in a hospital for my cancer.” If you want green power, then if you are on a life support machine, that machine should be turned off when there’s green power coming down the line. And if there’s coal coming down the line, turn it back on again. That is the hypocrisy that we see from these Greens sitting in cities, trying to finger-wag at us and tell us how to live our lives, or how much meat to eat or what gender our pet budgerigar should be.”‘https://www.advanceaustralia.org.au/first_it_was_wind_then_it_was_solar
The following is from an email received from the left leaning https://theconversation.com/au telling a BIG Porkie concerning coal and the climate scam! The writer of the article states ‘Coal has been back in the news this week in major ways.
First, a senior UN official urged Australia and other OECD members to quit coal by 2030, or see climate change wreak havoc on our economy and, inevitably, life as we know it.
Next, UK scientists today say Australia must leave 95% of coal in the ground to have any hope of stopping the planet warming beyond 1.5℃.
And yet, quietly in the background, the coal market reached a record high. If you’re anything like me, you may have seen this news and wanted to pull your hair out.
But in today’s lead story John Quiggin, an economist from the University of Queensland, reassures us that placing too much weight on the fluctuations of the coal market would be a mistake.
He explains Australia is perfectly capable of phasing out coal-fired electricity by 2030 and replacing it with a combination of solar and wind, backed by storage.
It’d be easy and relatively cheap to do, too. All we need is “a modest amount of political will”.’
‘Yet another Australian activist judge, usurping the role of parliament in a democratic society, has given Lawfare’s economic saboteurs a new lease of life. If you thought that environmentalists’ abuse of the legal system in their mission to destroy fossil fuels, whatever the economic costs, was already excessive, you ain’t seen nothin’ yet. Federal Justice Mordecai Bromberg’s incredible 27 May determination that the Morrison government has a duty of care to protect Australian children from climate change devastation and death, requires that duty to be met before approving any further fossil fuel developments that add to CO2 emissions. It ushers in an unlimited round of legal battles aimed at destroying Australia’s biggest export earner (fossil fuels – coal, oil, LNG – together exceed iron ore) that are a key element in our post-Covid economic recovery. From now on, every governmental approval can be actionable under the common law for negligence on the basis that the ‘catastrophic climate change’ interests of children (unspecified as to age!) ‘have not been adequately taken into account’.’https://spectator.com.au/2021/06/business-robbery-etc-70/
Hey, Joe, ‘The CCP won’t let America’s climate industrial complex interfere with its economic ambitions, key to which is its burgeoning supply of reliable and affordable coal-fired power.
Whereas Australia’s suicidal renewable energy obsession has destroyed this country’s competitive advantage, the only interest China has in wind turbines and solar panels is making them and flogging them off ASAP. If the object was assisting virtue signalling Western nations to wreck once reliable power grids and undermine their energy security, the CCP’s approach is well on the way.
At the other end of the spectrum, a doddery and confused 78-year-old American gent – under direction from the climate carpetbaggers and renewable energy rent seekers – is attempting to bully Australia, among others, into accelerating the process that’s left Australians suffering among the world’s highest retail power prices, with a supply so erratic that energy hungry businesses are on life support and power rationing is the new normal.
Here’s Alan Moran taking a look at how we landed here and where we’re headed, if Australia keep following the path it’s on.
Joe Biden’s bid to enforce climate club
The Australian
Alan Moran
22 April 2021
The urgency of the Biden administration in pursuing green policies signifies the prominence of the issue in terms of world diplomacy and domestic policies in the US, Australia and elsewhere.
Even though the long-planned UN Climate Change Conference will take place later this year in Glasgow, the Biden administration determined that it would call a two-day online conference, scheduled to begin on Thursday US time, addressing the issue of energy, climate change and the actions it deems necessary.
The US administration now proposes to spend $US2.9 trillion ($3.76 trillion) on infrastructure, most of which is climate-related and which is before congress — this is almost as much as total annual revenue and comes on top of a $US2 trillion deficit.
This fusillade of policy measures and diplomatic pressures from the US has magnified enormously the same pressures that have been exerted by the EU. They include threats of trade discrimination — a carbon import tariff — on goods from nations not deemed to be doing sufficient to suppress their emissions.
Such threats even register with China (the emissions of which exceed those of the EU and US combined), which has assured the world that it will achieve “carbon neutrality” by 2060. China’s assurances are somewhat hollow in view of having one million megawatts of coal power capacity (Australia has 25,000MW) with a further 200,000MW planned.
In contrast to fast-growing economies, Australia’s reduction in coal generator capacity has been under way for years. It stems not from a lack of competitiveness on the part of coal but as a result of regulations and direct support that subsidises wind and solar. These subsidies affect the profitability of coal plants by forcing them to run below capacity and operate stop-start. Growing nations in our part of the world — India, China, Bangladesh, Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia — have recognised the road to prosperity is cheap, dependable electricity and all have rapidly expanding coal-generating capacity.
Australia wastefully has spent much more than most other nations on measures targeted at reducing greenhouse gas emissions. The ultimate test of this is per capita spending on wind and solar, where Australia has spent twice that of the next highest nations (US and Japan), three times as much as Germany and six times as much as China.
In discriminating against coal (where our domestic resources have no peers in quality and cost) Australian policy amounts to self-harm. It is actuated by a variety of factors. Originally the policies were to give a leg-up to renewables that were seen as potentially cost competitive. The lobbying power of renewable energy interests have augmented this. More recently we see added fear of being ostracised by the Western nations club as a result of the carbon emissions suppression orthodoxy.
Such dynamics strengthen the hand of domestic true believers in cataclysmic global warming. True believers and vested interests happily accept CSIRO fantasies that renewables are now cheaper than coal, while considering renewables subsidies to be essential.
The estimated cost of new actions announced by Scott Morrison this month comes on top of a plethora of support measures for renewables already in place. Such support costs $7bn a year in a wholesale electricity market worth under $12bn and a retail market worth only $30bn. On top of these costs is the $10bn Snowy 2.0 pump storage facility.
The Morrison government has not bought the fable of low-cost wind but, at least in part because of international pressure, it is doubling down on the penalties to coal that the renewable subsidies have brought. This includes the announcement of a further $1bn for the South Australian electricity grid, made unworkable by subsidised renewables, as well as additional support for the impossible economics of carbon capture and storage and hydrogen. The latest measures are icing a cake that government policies have already over-sugared.
For his part, Anthony Albanese has gone the full Sanjeev Gupta, chasing the mirage of green manufacturing. He has foreshadowed even greater subsidies for renewables, despite claiming them to be cheaper than coal, as a foundation for a resurrected manufacturing industry.
As a nation, we continue to sacrifice competitiveness and increased income levels to pursue wokeness. All this said, it has to be recognised that the outcome of a forced reduction in greenhouse gas emissions, if brought about, would have only a trivial effect on the climate. Global temperatures have been increasing for 150 years and it is only in the past 50 years that human emissions could have had any effect. Contrary to assertions, the deleterious effects sometimes mentioned have not taken place: there has been no increase in hurricanes, bushfires or other natural disasters, no rise in the oceans, the ice caps are not melting, polar bear communities are flourishing and, as all Australians will be aware, the dams are full when activists claimed this would never happen again.
We have a mix of genuine fears that mankind is irretrievably changing the world’s climate that no amount of evidence that this is not presenting serious threats will calm. We have businesses seeking to take advantage of this by seeking subsidies. And we have politics seeking to chisel out a prime role for itself in harnessing the world economy. These factors are a potent brew with drastic implications for a prosperous Australia. They also have wide-ranging geopolitical implications given the seemingly unstoppable growth of an aggressive China that, irrespective of its pledges, will not allow its wealth to be curtailed by adopting high-cost forms of energy.’https://stopthesethings.com/2021/04/26/last-man-standing-china-defies-bidens-climate-crusade-against-coal-fired-power/
whatyareckon 