Australian power prices go insane

[markslawson + 1,057]

17 hours ago, footeab@yahoo.com said:

Poor baby, you had to put socks, pants, and a sweatshirt on.  Its 15C... Brrrrr.  I feel for you!

15C - sounds warm. I dunno what forecast you're reading but its COLD down under.. 

[markslawson + 1,057]

5 hours ago, specinho said:

old enough house.............. means.... the wood structure is nearly past shelf life? '-'

A fire place ........ how timely......... '~'

have a spoon full of wine or liquor for the warming effect??

I'm in a brick house.. why wood? But never mind.. 

[footeab@yahoo.com + 2,187]

26 minutes ago, markslawson said:

15C - sounds warm. I dunno what forecast you're reading but its COLD down under.. 

What?  10C cold snap?  Have to put on a long sleeved T shirt instead? 🔥

[Michael Sanches + 187]

During this heat wave in Texas, Texas windmills are only producing 8% of capacity due to lack of wind. 

[Michael Sanches + 187]

The problem with solar is that solar customers have to pay higher fees to protect the unions. In Nevada, the monthly fee for solar users is $40/month, while the monthly fee for non solar users is $12/month. So, saving $20/month with solar panels is a losing deal. Hence, the solar industry in sunny Nevada has collapsed.

[SUZNV + 1,197]

Here are a few facts many climate changes activists not aware of, even with their claim of follow the science or history:

1967, US Army operated operation Popeye in Vietnam war to change the climate to prevent to logistics of North Vietnam logistics to the VC in the south.

1976, United Nations, including The Soviet Union, passed  international agreement that bans weather modification from being used in warfare. Nowadays, countless applications from both public, private sectors  in weather modifications around the world to suit human needs and we blame CO2 for climate change? Messed up butterfly effect with people taxes and charge them fees now and in the future for "clean" energy.

By the way about putting ethanol in fuel, imagine how much CO2 release  for agriculture, logistics to manufacturing these ethanol compares to just dig up the oil in the first place? 

Just admitting it is for green stocks , profits for investors and more fees, higher taxes now and the future for the working class is much more honest than pretending having some morale to save the human kind.. Imagine how many CO2  release we could have saved from Hollywood, Media, Entertainment, Marketing, Arts (and their useless education degrees), Propaganda/Activists, Beverages/Drugs, political campaigns , Fashions and cheap not durable manufacturing Industries?

Any Climate change activists should have these traits: independent, minimalist, stay stoic, own nothing, be happy not hateful, rational rather than emotional and consider it is a hobby, not a career or investment because it will be conflicts of interest otherwise. Lead by examples. Sorry I don't know how to say things that both honest and logical  yet not hurt anyone's feelings. Same words will have different perceives on different people.

Edited July 18, 2022 by SUZNV

[Jay McKinsey + 1,490]

11 hours ago, Michael Sanches said:

The problem with solar is that solar customers have to pay higher fees to protect the unions. In Nevada, the monthly fee for solar users is $40/month, while the monthly fee for non solar users is $12/month. So, saving $20/month with solar panels is a losing deal. Hence, the solar industry in sunny Nevada has collapsed.

Most solar is at utility scale and not every state has extra costs for home solar.

[Jay McKinsey + 1,490]

12 hours ago, Michael Sanches said:

During this heat wave in Texas, Texas windmills are only producing 8% of capacity due to lack of wind. 

That only lasted for a day or two and solar helped fill in. When they get all the solar+storage built that is in the pipeline they won't have problems.

Here is today's wind and solar output in Texas. Note how perfect a compliment they are to each other.

https://www.ercot.com/gridmktinfo/dashboards/combinedwindandsolar

Edited July 18, 2022 by Jay McKinsey

[Eyes Wide Open + 3,552]

On 7/15/2022 at 3:20 PM, Jay McKinsey said:

You are so utterly clueless. 

Have a read Einstein, Green Energy has destabilized there Grid. Just as every country on earth has experienced.

Let the Aussie' s pay the price, it is of their own doing, perhaps a bit of reality aka tough love is in order. Unicorns and Fairytales belong in print not in functioning grids. I will leave you with spinning such matters.

https://theconversation.com/4-ways-to-stop-australias-surge-in-rooftop-solar-from-destabilising-electricity-prices-173592

Wind farm's connection to power grid causes lights to flicker across South Australia

Posted Wed 22 Jun 2022 at 10:51pmWednesday 22 Jun 2022 at 10:51pm, updated Thu 23

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-06-23/connection-issue-causes-lights-to-flicker-across-sa/101176004

 

We’ve got to build 1.6 times the existing generation fleet between now and 2050,” Dooley said. “In terms of volume of investment, you can see [in the chart below] it’s $US10.3 trillion needs to happen through these next three decades.”

https://reneweconomy.com.au/grid-problems-now-the-biggest-turnoff-for-renewable-energy-investment-in-australia-73144/

Edited July 18, 2022 by Eyes Wide Open

[Eyes Wide Open + 3,552]

14 minutes ago, Jay McKinsey said:

That only lasted for a day or two and solar helped fill in. When they get all the solar+storage built that is in the pipeline they won't have problems.

Here is today's wind and solar output in Texas. Note how perfect a compliment they are to each other.

https://www.ercot.com/gridmktinfo/dashboards/combinedwindandsolar

Again failure...this Green plague has reached US shores.

[Jay McKinsey + 1,490]

13 minutes ago, Eyes Wide Open said:

Have a read Einstein, Green Energy has destabilized there Grid. Just as every country on earth has experienced.

Let the Aussie' s pay the price, it is of their own doing, perhaps a bit of reality aka tough love is in order. Unicorns and Fairytales belong in print not in functioning grids. I will leave you with spinning such matters.

https://theconversation.com/4-ways-to-stop-australias-surge-in-rooftop-solar-from-destabilising-electricity-prices-173592

They've destabilized fossil fuel. The solution is more renewables and storage which is what you are going to see happen.

[Jay McKinsey + 1,490]

29 minutes ago, Eyes Wide Open said:

Again failure...this Green plague has reached US shores.

Ha, Ha, that is a graph of success. Texas, the reddest state, is going green in a big way! Wind, solar and EVs are taking over. So far this year solar and wind have provided 36% of Texas electricity. That's more than in Australia.

Edited July 18, 2022 by Jay McKinsey

[Eyes Wide Open + 3,552]

57 minutes ago, Jay McKinsey said:

They've destabilized fossil fuel. The solution is more renewables and storage which is what you are going to see happen.

As above...Unicorns and Fairy tales dreams.

[Jay McKinsey + 1,490]

5 minutes ago, Eyes Wide Open said:

As above...Unicorns and Fairy tales dreams.

Except that it is really happening. Australia is going green fast and it is driving a fossil fuel death spiral.

[markslawson + 1,057]

5 hours ago, Jay McKinsey said:

Except that it is really happening. Australia is going green fast and it is driving a fossil fuel death spiral.

Jay - Australia is one of the world's largest exporter of coal, and those exports are set to increase - so much for your fossil fuel death spiral. However, domestically, as we discussed before, no one is building new coal plants and renewables simply cannot substitute on reliable power so the Aus grids have been chaotic of late. Major users are being asked to stop using power. There have been huge price spikes. It is the power grid that is going into a death spiral thanks to bad management forced by green propaganda.   

[Jay McKinsey + 1,490]

25 minutes ago, markslawson said:

Jay - Australia is one of the world's largest exporter of coal, and those exports are set to increase - so much for your fossil fuel death spiral. However, domestically, as we discussed before, no one is building new coal plants and renewables simply cannot substitute on reliable power so the Aus grids have been chaotic of late. Major users are being asked to stop using power. There have been huge price spikes. It is the power grid that is going into a death spiral thanks to bad management forced by green propaganda.   

Oh fossil fuels are in a death spiral alright. Domestically in Australia you are seeing it happen and globally it will just take a little longer. Whether or not your coal exports continue to increase remains to be seen. 

The Aus grid has been chaotic because of export demand for coal and gas. Western Australia and their 15% gas reserve law are proof of that. They aren't subject to the chaos.

 

Edited July 19, 2022 by Jay McKinsey

[Piotr Berman + 82]

Export demand does not make chaotic grid.  There are two possible reasons:

a. lack of export taxes makes Australian coal expensive in Australia when export prices are high. Russian system of taxing "extra income" when export prices are high reduces inflation would help, or a similar solution.

b. reduction of reserve coal power generation and or insufficient stockpiles for emergency.  Anti-coal regulations of payments to owners of the thermal power stations can be at fault.

In other words, proper regulations would assure reserve capacity at reasonable cost.

[Jay McKinsey + 1,490]

2 hours ago, Piotr Berman said:

Export demand does not make chaotic grid.  There are two possible reasons:

a. lack of export taxes makes Australian coal expensive in Australia when export prices are high. Russian system of taxing "extra income" when export prices are high reduces inflation would help, or a similar solution.

b. reduction of reserve coal power generation and or insufficient stockpiles for emergency.  Anti-coal regulations of payments to owners of the thermal power stations can be at fault.

In other words, proper regulations would assure reserve capacity at reasonable cost.

 

Of course export demand can make the grid chaotic when it causes shortages and extreme prices. Those regulations exist in Western Australia which is not suffering from the crisis. That proves that fossil exports are causing the chaos. 

'Stupid' gas policies led to energy crisis in eastern states, say former premiers

To former Western Australian premier Colin Barnett, the reaction at international meetings first came as something of a surprise.

But pretty soon he began to expect it.

After a while, he could even see the dark humour involved.

"During my travels as premier I had governments internationally — and I'm talking about national governments — just basically laughing … that Australia is crazy not preserving some of its gas," Mr Barnett said.

"They weren't laughing at me," he said of WA's quite singular Australian state policy of quarantining 15 per cent of gas for its own market.

Colin Barnett, who was WA premier from 2008 to 2017, says Australia is alone in its gas insecurity.(AAP: Richard Wainwright)

It is a stance that saw WA labelled hillbilly by the east coast press, and saw another WA premier labelled "a wrecker" by former Liberal minister Ian Macfarlane — now chief executive of the Queensland Resources Council — at energy forums.

Mr Barnett, who served as a Liberal premier between 2008 and 2017, cast his mind back to the discussions with global leaders as debate raged this week about Australia's lack of gas security.

He was joined by the architect of WA's domestic gas reservation policy, former Labor premier Alan Carpenter, in a display of political unity between the two former rivals.

Amid warnings that spiralling gas prices on Australia's east coast could send some manufacturers broke and spur an outbreak of food price inflation, Mr Carpenter and Mr Barnett decried what they labelled the "stupid" decisions of successive governments.

Consumers paying the price

In a rare interview since leaving politics in 2008, Mr Carpenter said it defied belief that Australia had allowed itself to run short of gas supplies when it was the world's equal-largest producer.

He said a succession of political leaders had been persuaded by false arguments against domestic obligations, lamenting that it was ordinary consumers who were paying the price. 

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-06-11/gas-belongs-to-us-say-former-western-australian-premiers/101143558

 

Putting the interests of citizens first requires state leadership over market rule. We saw this clearly yesterday when Australia's national electricity market operator, AEMO, moved to suspend the wholesale electricity market. This radical move allowed the government entity to manage pricing and control of power plants and prevent rolling blackouts.

To see the truth of this, look west. While energy on Australia's east coast has been in the hands of the market for decades, Western Australia has learned from previous crises. In the 1980s, the isolated state — which is not part of the national electricity market or the eastern gas region — decided to reserve 15 per cent of all gas produced from the North West Shelf for domestic use. Since then, WA has championed state intervention through its DomGas policy to ensure continuous supply of gas for its gas power stations and industry. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-06-17/energy-crisis-gripping-australia-east-solution-western-australia/101159102

 

[Ron Wagner + 702]

On 7/13/2022 at 1:37 AM, markslawson said:

It's taken me a few days to get around to posting this. Unfortunately, the article is behind a pay wall, but the excerpts should give you an idea of the lunacy. All prices are in $A but one $A is about $US68 cents, so to convert to USD reduce all amounts by one third. Also bear in mind that before green lunacy took hold, average wholesale prices used to be around $40 MWh and until a couple of years ago were still about $80 MWh.

From Australian Financial Review on Monday

"Prices for wholesale power more than doubled to an unheard-of average of $323 a megawatt-hour in Queensland in the June quarter, easily the highest of any state in the past two decades, according to adviser Energy Edge. 

“And the quarter was so high that it nearly lifted the average price for the entire financial year above the previous highest quarter in Q1 2017,” Mr Stabler said.

"Price increases were even higher in other states, rising 293 per cent from the March quarter to $$224/MWh, of 247 per cent in NSW to $302/MWh; and of 260.5 per cent in South Australia to $256/MWh, according to the Energy Edge data."

Of course not all of this is due to green lunacy. The problem is that continued green activism has demonised coal so much that no-one is building new conventional plants (there is one gas plant in the pipeline which the government is building, that's it) and the aging plants still in service cannot cope. The part below is a fair summary of what's happening. Remember its winter in Australia.

"The elevated prices have been driven by record prices for coal and gas, exacerbated by the war in Ukraine which has caused international buyers to turn away from Russia, a major supplier of global energy. At the same time, several coal-fired power stations have been shut for maintenance work, suffered breakdowns or have had coal supplies constrained, tightening up the balance between supply and demand during the peak winter months." 

 

From my point of view it is Australia's overdependence on wind and solar and not developing their natural gas pipelines to their own population. Australia is an exporter of coal and natural gas but has not prioritzed its own people. Am I wrong?

[Ron Wagner + 702]

On 7/13/2022 at 6:46 PM, Eyes Wide Open said:

Energy Crises In Germany and Texas Are Exposing The Folly of Renewable Energy | Opinion

over the world, consumers are being slammed by soaring energy prices. In Australia, the wholesale cost of electricity jumped by 141 percent in the first three months of 2022. In Britain, residential customers are paying about 43 percent more for their household energy than they were last year, and prices are expected to jump another 65 percent in October. And here in the U.S., we're paying close to $5 a gallon—for the first time in generations. That's thanks in no small part to the Biden administration, which has restricted oil and gas drilling while continually promoting renewable energy. Among the most recent moves: a pledge to deploy 30,000 megawatts of offshore wind by 2030.

Pushing for offshore wind—one of the most expensive forms of electricity production—may please some of Biden's supporters, but the latest evidence shows that investing too much in wind energy is terrible for grid reliability, as well as bad for consumers.

How many people will die because of expensive energy? Probably hundreds of thousands over a few years. National leaders are too ignorant to be in their positions. Fortunately some are beginning to rethink their mistakes. 

[Ron Wagner + 702]

On 7/13/2022 at 7:40 PM, markslawson said:

Jay - go back and read the post .. the article I cite notes that its mainly due to high prices of coal and gas but one big part of the problem is that coal plants are now becoming old and unreliable and falling out of service because nobody dares build new ones. The sudden losses of capacity at crucial times due to this demonisation of coal is now really hurting.. rather than renewables themselves. They are no solution, as we can all agree, but they are not directly the problem. I hope that clarifies your thoughts on this matter.   

Jay doesn't care if Asia burns coal, just if the West does. He loves to say how cheap it is in China but not that coal is their main fuel. 

[Eyes Wide Open + 3,552]

On 7/12/2022 at 11:37 PM, markslawson said:

It's taken me a few days to get around to posting this. Unfortunately, the article is behind a pay wall, but the excerpts should give you an idea of the lunacy. All prices are in $A but one $A is about $US68 cents, so to convert to USD reduce all amounts by one third. Also bear in mind that before green lunacy took hold, average wholesale prices used to be around $40 MWh and until a couple of years ago were still about $80 MWh.

From Australian Financial Review on Monday

"Prices for wholesale power more than doubled to an unheard-of average of $323 a megawatt-hour in Queensland in the June quarter, easily the highest of any state in the past two decades, according to adviser Energy Edge. 

“And the quarter was so high that it nearly lifted the average price for the entire financial year above the previous highest quarter in Q1 2017,” Mr Stabler said.

"Price increases were even higher in other states, rising 293 per cent from the March quarter to $$224/MWh, of 247 per cent in NSW to $302/MWh; and of 260.5 per cent in South Australia to $256/MWh, according to the Energy Edge data."

Of course not all of this is due to green lunacy. The problem is that continued green activism has demonised coal so much that no-one is building new conventional plants (there is one gas plant in the pipeline which the government is building, that's it) and the aging plants still in service cannot cope. The part below is a fair summary of what's happening. Remember its winter in Australia.

"The elevated prices have been driven by record prices for coal and gas, exacerbated by the war in Ukraine which has caused international buyers to turn away from Russia, a major supplier of global energy. At the same time, several coal-fired power stations have been shut for maintenance work, suffered breakdowns or have had coal supplies constrained, tightening up the balance between supply and demand during the peak winter months." 

 

Mr.Lawson your posting demonstrates well reasoned thought processes. Reactionary responses is not who you are. Reasoning rules the day, a very effective discipline

I give you Australia is under attack by the Chinese government. What better way to cripple a nation..energy. The art of Bushido the silent asasgign, clean no war yet devastating. Use your skill set's, what is possible/probable.  In your own words..I will leave it with you

 

[Jay McKinsey + 1,490]

4 hours ago, Ron Wagner said:

Jay doesn't care if Asia burns coal, just if the West does. He loves to say how cheap it is in China but not that coal is their main fuel. 

No I point out that the low cost of renewables is leading to them gaining electricity share at a fairly rapid rate:

And that with their low cost that rate is only going to increase:

China Built More Offshore Wind In 2021 Than Every Other Country Built In 5 Years

https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidrvetter/2022/01/26/china-built-more-offshore-wind-in-2021-than-every-other-country-built-in-5-years/?sh=227c0fc54634

The difference between me and you Ron is that you look backwards and I look forwards.

Edited July 20, 2022 by Jay McKinsey

[markslawson + 1,057]

On 7/19/2022 at 11:13 AM, Jay McKinsey said:

Oh fossil fuels are in a death spiral alright. Domestically in Australia you are seeing it happen and globally it will just take a little longer. Whether or not your coal exports continue to increase remains to be seen. 

The Aus grid has been chaotic because of export demand for coal and gas. Western Australia and their 15% gas reserve law are proof of that. They aren't subject to the chaos.

Jay - I think you need to broaden your reading. Coal, gas and oil are now being re-evaluated in the rest thanks to the energy crisis. I invite you to read some of the media coming out of Europe. But even before that China and India and others were increasing their consumption. That increase plus super high prices for coal and LNG (Aus is a major exporter) means Australia is sitting pretty right now. As for the gas reservation in WA excuse you are clutching at straws. The WA grid is a different matter altogether with no connection to the East at all (too far), and a different set of generators. anyway, enough of this, if you refuse to accept reality and must defend renewables no matter how silly the arguments you put forward then I'll leave you to it.   

[markslawson + 1,057]

5 hours ago, Ron Wagner said:

Australia is an exporter of coal and natural gas but has not prioritzed its own people. Am I wrong?

Yep - or close enough - coal and coal plants have been demonised so no-one is building them in Aus. The plants we have are aging, so they tend to be offline a lot. Everyone's talking about renewables but, of course, they are simply no substitute. The Aus grid use to be dominated by big brown-coal plants with major brown coal deposits right next to the generator. the resulting power was cheap. No longer. Sigh!