For the umpteenth time, but not always directed to the same naysayer, coal is NOT as reliable as imagined. Renewables are NOT entirely reliable either, but they are entirely PREDICTABLE; coal is NOT.

Everything I've read says that we can't operate a modern industrial economy on more than 50% renewables - even with larger and more numerous battery installations - in fact we will have blackouts and brown-outs galore. The head of Tomago Aluminium certainly seems to think the same thing.

As for the weak "Other countries burn it anyway" argument, how about Australians create the right to bear arms so that we can shoot each other, or deny girls the right to go to school or women from driving or voting, or carry out female circumcision, or invade other countries and wipe out the indigenous population (oh wait...)...as stated, the argument is weak. If we send a lump of coal overseas to be burnt to provide electricity for a region in a developing country that doesn't already have it, the benefit will be far greater to the people over there than if it was burnt here. Far greater. On the other hand we are decades ahead and are at the other end of the coal fired generation spectrum. So, if they are going to burn it, we have to make bloody sure that we don't so as well. We're smarter than that.

What about Australians that can't afford electricity now? Is it any coincidence that my own state of South Australia has the highest uptake of "renewables" and also the highest domestic electricity charges in the world? There is actually large social cost; we do actually have poverty in this country you know and not all of us take comfort in knowing we're pretend banishing the imaginary carbon fairy. Not all of us can afford the middle-class boondoggle of a roof-top solar system and a battery - some of us (especially those who rent) are completely captive to the grid. You're saying it's okay to help people in India get out of poverty by burning our coal but we have a moral obligation NOT to access cheap power? Sorry, that just doesn't make any sense.

We are only responsible for 1.5% of global emissions, even if we stopped tomorrow it would have no difference to the outcome.

As I write, South Aus is currently at 80% renewables and the wholesale price of electricity there is MINUS $51.22 per MW/h.

They are exporting 650MW to Vic, who in turn are passing on a total of 1415MW to NSW and Tas. There's so much surplus on the grid right now that the coalies don't know where to hide.

DYOR on electricitymap.org

Blame your retailer. The source of electrons is irrelevant.

The source of electrons is irrelevant.

This is the complete opposite of what you were saying earlier up the page.

As I write, South Aus is currently at 80% renewables and the wholesale price of electricity there is MINUS $51.22 per MW/h.

They are exporting 650MW to Vic, who in turn are passing on a total of 1415MW to NSW and Tas. There's so much surplus on the grid right now that the coalies don't know where to hide.

Global poverty is something that we can actually do something about: Not carbon dioxide emissions. There is absolutely nothing we can do in this country that will have a meaningful impact on that outcome. Most of the high quality black coal we're presently exporting to continue to make China rich - and it gets burnt - and it ends up in the exact same atmosphere that you and I are currently breathing right now.

Like I said, there's nothing we can do to stop rising carbon emissions.

In the meantime it's the poorest Australians who have to pay for this folly, the ones who can't afford the government's green-tinged middle class welfare. That's not something you generally hear any concern about but yeah, it's the people who are captive to the grid who are paying for all this. To try and influence an outcome that we have zero impact on.

As I write, South Aus is currently at 80% renewables and the wholesale price of electricity there is MINUS $51.22 per MW/h.

They are exporting 650MW to Vic, who in turn are passing on a total of 1415MW to NSW and Tas. There's so much surplus on the grid right now that the coalies don't know where to hide.

Global poverty is something that we can actually do something about: Not carbon dioxide emissions. There is absolutely nothing we can do in this country that will have a meaningful impact on that outcome. Most of the high quality black coal we're presently exporting to continue to make China rich - and it gets burnt - and it ends up in the exact same atmosphere that you and I are currently breathing right now.

Like I said, there's nothing we can do to stop rising carbon emissions.

In the meantime it's the poorest Australians who have to pay for this folly, the ones who can't afford the government's green-tinged middle class welfare. That's not something you generally hear any concern about but yeah, it's the people who are captive to the grid who are paying for all this. To try and influence an outcome that we have zero impact on.

And as more people get solar panels on their roof, the more the poor and/or renters etc have to pay for their electricity so the retail companies can keep their profits rising.

The source of electrons is irrelevant.

This is the complete opposite of what you were saying earlier up the page.

Show me.

The source of electrons is irrelevant.

This is the complete opposite of what you were saying earlier up the page.

Show me.

On "the source of the electrons"; you were saying that it's important for us to not burn coal to generate those electrons because somehow it's a moral issue.

I want cheap electricity but I'm not allowed to have it. China and India are allowed to have it but not me. It's a moral issue. Why?

And as more people get solar panels on their roof, the more the poor and/or renters etc have to pay for their electricity so the retail companies can keep their profits rising.

This is the most outrageous part of the gouge - people with roof-top panels paid over-tote odds for their electricity produced at times of day that the grid doesn't need it, subsidised by the people who can least afford to pay for it - the people who are completely captive to the grid.

Punish the poor, reward the middle class with welfare.

Just when you thought things couldn't get any stupider, Morrison has convened an urgent meeting of his party tonight, to try to make it harder to dislodge the PM, he is holding a presser now to outline his plan - https://www.msn.com/en-au/news/australia/scott-morrison-summons-liberal-mps-to-after-hours-meeting-to-discuss-changes-to-leadership-spill-rules/ar-BBQpvDi?ocid=spartanntp

Kind Regards

Did you see Malcolm "I'm not going to comment" Turnbull giving his two cents about this Liberal Party pre-selection battle and MP Craig Kelly? Its got to the ridiculous point now where Scott Morrison has to reward people for not leaving the Liberal Party... and Malcolm says that they should go earlier than May to try and help the hopeless Gladys Berejiklian win her election - since when did Malcolm care about anyone other than himself?

The source of electrons is irrelevant.

This is the complete opposite of what you were saying earlier up the page.

Show me.

On "the source of the electrons"; you were saying that it's important for us to not burn coal to generate those electrons because somehow it's a moral issue.

I want cheap electricity but I'm not allowed to have it. China and India are allowed to have it but not me. It's a moral issue. Why?

Ahh, ok.

Australia is smart enough to get into renewables, and when they work effectively, the wholesale price crashes, since a lot of it automatically forces its way onto the grid. We often don't need much coal. In the interim, let's allow India to burn it to lift regions of their population out of poverty. But, let's not BOTH burn it, because there's simply no need. You stated that we are only responsible for 1.5% of global emissions, and you bang on about carbon fairies, so what would be the line in the sand for you? 3%? 15%? 30%? What???

If you think that an Indian slum dweller will be advantaged more than you if he is finally going to be provided with electricity that just happens to be produced from Australian coal, then by all means, off you go. In the meantime, you need to accept the fact that since 2017 India has invested more in renewables than coal.

In a twisted sort of way I'm actually FOR the Adani Carmichael mine. Notwithstanding that my biggest concern is for the potential further environmental damage to the Great Barrier Reef (it's probably stuffed anyway due to the lack of care to date), the reason I'm not against it is that the mine will be large enough to actually affect the price of coal on a global scale, rendering multiple pits particularly in the Hunter unprofitable. This will force far more people out of a job compared to those created, and act as a wake up call.

Ahh, ok.

Australia is smart enough to get into renewables, and when they work effectively, the wholesale price crashes, since a lot of it automatically forces its way onto the grid. We often don't need much coal. In the interim, let's allow India to burn it to lift regions of their population out of poverty. But, let's not BOTH burn it, because there's simply no need. You stated that we are only responsible for 1.5% of global emissions, and you bang on about carbon fairies, so what would be the line in the sand for you? 3%? 15%? 30%? What???

If you think that an Indian slum dweller will be advantaged more than you if he is finally going to be provided with electricity that just happens to be produced from Australian coal, then by all means, off you go. In the meantime, you need to accept the fact that since 2017 India has invested more in renewables than coal.

In a twisted sort of way I'm actually FOR the Adani Carmichael mine. Notwithstanding that my biggest concern is for the potential further environmental damage to the Great Barrier Reef (it's probably stuffed anyway due to the lack of care to date), the reason I'm not against it is that the mine will be large enough to actually affect the price of coal on a global scale, rendering multiple pits particularly in the Hunter unprofitable. This will force far more people out of a job compared to those created, and act as a wake up call.

I completely understand where you are coming from and that you believe in the cause - good that you believe in something. But the assumption that we continue to absorb the cost of converting to "green" sources of energy presumes that we all are equally capable of paying for that transition - and we're not. In fact as I was just discussing with Donald, it's an interesting fact that the people who are least able to afford electricity are the ones being expected to pay for the extremely generous solar feed-in tariffs and the 7% "green energy" transition levy on top of their power bill as they're usually the ones who are completely captive to the grid. Wealthier people on the other hand can capture all sorts of perversely generous programs to lower their electricity bills including aforementioned heavily subsidised feed-in tariffs, up to $6,000 for a potentially explosive lithium home battery, and so on.

Coal fired energy in Australia will always be cheaper than renewables if all subsidies, penalties and taxes are controlled for - as discussed here. The decision to penalise the poorest Australians by forcing them to use expensive green energy is truly perplexing - or do you think that poor people in this country should be deprived of cheap electricity on the basis of the fact that Indian people need that cheap power more than they do? Why are Australians living in poverty less deserving of affordable electricity than Indians?

Coal fired energy in Australia will always be cheaper than renewables if all subsidies, penalties and taxes are controlled for - as discussed here. The decision to penalise the poorest Australians by forcing them to use expensive green energy is truly perplexing -

With "green" energy the fuel is free, you don't have to dig it out of the ground, you don't have to transport it to a power station (sometimes over a long and expensive railway), and above all you don't have to burn it in an expensive facility, causing emissions and pollution which can have unfortunate consequences, and which eventually have to be cleaned up and paid for.  So why is it more expensive, more so now that battery storage is becoming more effective?  "Always" is a long time.

Green energy is very diffuse. If it wasn't we could not live on the planet, we'd all be dead of skin cancer from too much sunlight or blown away by continuous 200kph winds. This is the fundamental attraction of fossil fuels (and even more so with nuclear power) - they are very concentrated energy sources. The best battery has less than one tenth the energy density of the same volume of petrol and it's very hard to see how that's ever going to get much better (sure, a little bit, but not ten times better, battery electro-chemistry has been studied for well over a century). So we can take green energy and even concentrate it for our convenience, it certainly has its uses, but eventually you reach a tradeoff where it cannot compete with the traditional industrial energy sources.

Just when you thought things couldn't get any stupider, Morrison has convened an urgent meeting of his party tonight, to try to make it harder to dislodge the PM, he is holding a presser now to outline his plan - https://www.msn.com/en-au/news/australia/scott-morrison-summons-liberal-mps-to-after-hours-meeting-to-discuss-changes-to-leadership-spill-rules/ar-BBQpvDi?ocid=spartanntp

Kind Regards

The two major parties now have policies to protect themselves from themselves.
And little all else to offer.

Anyone noticed the changes to the ASIS act being pushed by the libs which allow ASIS to carry guns and use them against all citizens of Australia not just as they current can against only operatives?

The LIBS are trying to create African death squads.

Am I right in the federal coalition are now a minority government?

Ahh, ok.

Australia is smart enough to get into renewables, and when they work effectively, the wholesale price crashes, since a lot of it automatically forces its way onto the grid. We often don't need much coal. In the interim, let's allow India to burn it to lift regions of their population out of poverty. But, let's not BOTH burn it, because there's simply no need. You stated that we are only responsible for 1.5% of global emissions, and you bang on about carbon fairies, so what would be the line in the sand for you? 3%? 15%? 30%? What???

If you think that an Indian slum dweller will be advantaged more than you if he is finally going to be provided with electricity that just happens to be produced from Australian coal, then by all means, off you go. In the meantime, you need to accept the fact that since 2017 India has invested more in renewables than coal.

In a twisted sort of way I'm actually FOR the Adani Carmichael mine. Notwithstanding that my biggest concern is for the potential further environmental damage to the Great Barrier Reef (it's probably stuffed anyway due to the lack of care to date), the reason I'm not against it is that the mine will be large enough to actually affect the price of coal on a global scale, rendering multiple pits particularly in the Hunter unprofitable. This will force far more people out of a job compared to those created, and act as a wake up call.

I completely understand where you are coming from and that you believe in the cause - good that you believe in something. But the assumption that we continue to absorb the cost of converting to "green" sources of energy presumes that we all are equally capable of paying for that transition - and we're not. In fact as I was just discussing with Donald, it's an interesting fact that the people who are least able to afford electricity are the ones being expected to pay for the extremely generous solar feed-in tariffs and the 7% "green energy" transition levy on top of their power bill as they're usually the ones who are completely captive to the grid. Wealthier people on the other hand can capture all sorts of perversely generous programs to lower their electricity bills including aforementioned heavily subsidised feed-in tariffs, up to $6,000 for a potentially explosive lithium home battery, and so on.

Coal fired energy in Australia will always be cheaper than renewables if all subsidies, penalties and taxes are controlled for - as discussed here. The decision to penalise the poorest Australians by forcing them to use expensive green energy is truly perplexing - or do you think that poor people in this country should be deprived of cheap electricity on the basis of the fact that Indian people need that cheap power more than they do? Why are Australians living in poverty less deserving of affordable electricity than Indians?

Don. Australians are now the richest people on the earth on average. The poor you speak of always seem to have enough cash to purchase ciggies, grog, tattoos, pokies etc and piercings. It is more a matter of they do not know how to budget, preferring the aforementioned items rather than feeding their children properly or educating them. A meal at Maccas costs around $50 for a couple of adults and several children. If they knew how to budget they could live on $50 for a week purchasing good quality mince and vegetable. But they are too stupid or lazy to cook. I know there are unfortunate exceptions but the world aint perfect.

The coal fired power stations in Australia are stuffed and no one in their right mind is going to stump for new ones when coal is on its way out.

You are like all conservatives are still living in the 1950's and causing a great deal of damage to Australia by sticking to your outdated idiotic views. Don you can try and continue to bully your views onto others but in the end you are still an idiot. As The Bard said: 'Take him away, the man grows madder by the hour.'

Ahh, ok.

Australia is smart enough to get into renewables, and when they work effectively, the wholesale price crashes, since a lot of it automatically forces its way onto the grid. We often don't need much coal. In the interim, let's allow India to burn it to lift regions of their population out of poverty. But, let's not BOTH burn it, because there's simply no need. You stated that we are only responsible for 1.5% of global emissions, and you bang on about carbon fairies, so what would be the line in the sand for you? 3%? 15%? 30%? What???

If you think that an Indian slum dweller will be advantaged more than you if he is finally going to be provided with electricity that just happens to be produced from Australian coal, then by all means, off you go. In the meantime, you need to accept the fact that since 2017 India has invested more in renewables than coal.

In a twisted sort of way I'm actually FOR the Adani Carmichael mine. Notwithstanding that my biggest concern is for the potential further environmental damage to the Great Barrier Reef (it's probably stuffed anyway due to the lack of care to date), the reason I'm not against it is that the mine will be large enough to actually affect the price of coal on a global scale, rendering multiple pits particularly in the Hunter unprofitable. This will force far more people out of a job compared to those created, and act as a wake up call.

I completely understand where you are coming from and that you believe in the cause - good that you believe in something. But the assumption that we continue to absorb the cost of converting to "green" sources of energy presumes that we all are equally capable of paying for that transition - and we're not. In fact as I was just discussing with Donald, it's an interesting fact that the people who are least able to afford electricity are the ones being expected to pay for the extremely generous solar feed-in tariffs and the 7% "green energy" transition levy on top of their power bill as they're usually the ones who are completely captive to the grid. Wealthier people on the other hand can capture all sorts of perversely generous programs to lower their electricity bills including aforementioned heavily subsidised feed-in tariffs, up to $6,000 for a potentially explosive lithium home battery, and so on.

Coal fired energy in Australia will always be cheaper than renewables if all subsidies, penalties and taxes are controlled for - as discussed here. The decision to penalise the poorest Australians by forcing them to use expensive green energy is truly perplexing - or do you think that poor people in this country should be deprived of cheap electricity on the basis of the fact that Indian people need that cheap power more than they do? Why are Australians living in poverty less deserving of affordable electricity than Indians?

Don. Australians are now the richest people on the earth on average. The poor you speak of always seem to have enough cash to purchase ciggies, grog, tattoos, pokies etc and piercings. It is more a matter of they do not know how to budget, preferring the aforementioned items rather than feeding their children properly or educating them. A meal at Maccas costs around $50 for a couple of adults and several children. If they knew how to budget they could live on $50 for a week purchasing good quality mince and vegetable. But they are too stupid or lazy to cook. I know there are unfortunate exceptions but the world aint perfect.

The coal fired power stations in Australia are stuffed and no one in their right mind is going to stump for new ones when coal is on its way out.

You are like all conservatives are still living in the 1950's and causing a great deal of damage to Australia by sticking to your outdated idiotic views. Don you can try and continue to bully your views onto others but in the end you are still wrong.'

NSWtrains wrote; Don. Australians are now the richest people on the earth on average. The poor you speak of always seem to have enough cash to purchase ciggies, grog, tattoos, pokies etc and piercings. It is more a matter of they do not know how to budget, preferring the aforementioned items rather than feeding their children properly or educating them. A meal at Maccas costs around $50 for a couple of adults and several children. If they knew how to budget they could live on $50 for a week purchasing good quality mince and vegetable. But they are too stupid or lazy to cook. I know there are unfortunate exceptions but the world aint perfect.

Peter Cokley (Petan) replied; NSWtrains, you just used a simplistic stereotype also used by some politicians and media type with their own selfish agendas. You really need to do your own checking about the normal weekly housekeeping budget using places such as Woolies, Coles and Aldi. Try shopping like many of us older folk must do, due to tight household budget resources, for the specials each week, including the meat price reduction stickers on the almost out of date meats including the mince you mentioned. Also, do the shopping from the shopping list of essentials that you wrote at home and ignore the traps in the grocery shops.

Don. Australians are now the richest people on the earth on average. The poor you speak of always seem to have enough cash to purchase ciggies, grog, tattoos, pokies etc and piercings. It is more a matter of they do not know how to budget, preferring the aforementioned items rather than feeding their children properly or educating them. A meal at Maccas costs around $50 for a couple of adults and several children. If they knew how to budget they could live on $50 for a week purchasing good quality mince and vegetable. But they are too stupid or lazy to cook. I know there are unfortunate exceptions but the world aint perfect.

You're as out of touch with the world as Don is with that tabloid BS.

C'mon nswtrains you can do better than that

Don. Australians are now the richest people on the earth on average. The poor you speak of always seem to have enough cash to purchase ciggies, grog, tattoos, pokies etc and piercings. It is more a matter of they do not know how to budget, preferring the aforementioned items rather than feeding their children properly or educating them. A meal at Maccas costs around $50 for a couple of adults and several children. If they knew how to budget they could live on $50 for a week purchasing good quality mince and vegetable. But they are too stupid or lazy to cook. I know there are unfortunate exceptions but the world aint perfect.

The coal fired power stations in Australia are stuffed and no one in their right mind is going to stump for new ones when coal is on its way out.

You are like all conservatives are still living in the 1950's and causing a great deal of damage to Australia by sticking to your outdated idiotic views. Don you can try and continue to bully your views onto others but in the end you are still wrong.'

Part of me agrees with you.  But why would some be too lazy to budget properly or cook?  They were probably never taught how to in the first place!  And another thing - 2 decent large pizzas cost around $20 which isn't too bad.

There is also a significant 'trade' in many of the vices like ciggies, grog, and so forth.  You see it everyday in the tough places.

An interesting story here which indicates that all is not well, but look where the big increases in spending are (it's food and hotels/restaurants):
https://www.smh.com.au/national/rising-inequality-is-hollowing-out-the-australian-middle-class-20181120-p50h2o.html

And we are terrible at saving money:

To me that's as much the fault of neo-liberal economics and general societal breakdown which carries through generations in many cases.  i.e. A local primary school near here has only 10 students out of 200 who live in a home where a parent actually works.

As for coal - it's going away and will be replaced with cheaper alternatives.

Green energy is very diffuse. If it wasn't we could not live on the planet, we'd all be dead of skin cancer from too much sunlight or blown away by continuous 200kph winds. This is the fundamental attraction of fossil fuels (and even more so with nuclear power) - they are very concentrated energy sources. The best battery has less than one tenth the energy density of the same volume of petrol and it's very hard to see how that's ever going to get much better (sure, a little bit, but not ten times better, battery electro-chemistry has been studied for well over a century). So we can take green energy and even concentrate it for our convenience, it certainly has its uses, but eventually you reach a tradeoff where it cannot compete with the traditional industrial energy sources.

Exactly, green energy has its uses in remote places where it isn't technically feasible to connect to the grid etc. but in general coal-fired electricity generation will always be cheaper than any "green" alternative. It comes down to the fact that there's an incredible amount of energy that can be released from coal and oil and alternative energy is capital intensive and doesn't have anywhere near the same return.

It can't be done.

Part of me agrees with you.  But why would some be too lazy to budget properly or cook?  They were probably never taught how to in the first place!  And another thing - 2 decent large pizzas cost around $20 which isn't too bad.

There is also a significant 'trade' in many of the vices like ciggies, grog, and so forth.  You see it everyday in the tough places.

An interesting story here which indicates that all is not well, but look where the big increases in spending are (it's food and hotels/restaurants):
https://www.smh.com.au/national/rising-inequality-is-hollowing-out-the-australian-middle-class-20181120-p50h2o.html

And we are terrible at saving money:

To me that's as much the fault of neo-liberal economics and general societal breakdown which carries through generations in many cases.  i.e. A local primary school near here has only 10 students out of 200 who live in a home where a parent actually works.

NSW trains doesn't appear to have any sympathy for the poor - and that's fine, he's entitled to his opinion.

The lack of any viable work alternatives (the kind that can actually get you completely off Centrelink) is a growing problem that is completely ignored by both sides of politics. But the unfair imposition of high electricity prices onto the very poorest of Australians is obscene.

I have pensioner friends in Victoria whose power bill in the winter quarter was $1,000 and they're really pretty frugal with power - to me that's obscene. But they're typical - they're not exceptional. People seem resigned to the fact that they'll get four-figure power bills that they have to pay off in instalments.

As for coal - it's going away and will be replaced with cheaper alternatives.

We will never replace carbon fuels with "green" energy sources, it's impossible. I expect at some stage in the future we'll realise that - but in the meantime I just have to put up with being pilloried and accused of "bullying" just because I don't agree with the invisible carbon fairy rubbish.

Has anyone else been repulsed and embarrassed by the behaviour of our leadership (and former leadership) today? Now Malcolm Turnbull is whacking Scott Morrison over the head with his failed National Energy Guarantee and also talking about the pre-selection of Craig Kelly to his seat. For God's sake, Malcolm, the National Energy Guarantee killed YOUR Prime Minister-ship and you want ScoMo do to exactly the same form of suicide mission? Stop hawking your money-making climate change junk science and just go away like you promised you would.

AND the change in the way that the Liberal Party ballots the leadership; the fact that we've had six Prime Ministers in seven years is nothing to do with the fact that they're too easily changed and EVERYTHING to do with the fact that ordinary Australians have had their living standards slip backwards since 2012. Do something about it instead of looking at yourselves for a change.

Coal fired energy in Australia will always be cheaper than renewables if all subsidies, penalties and taxes are controlled for - as discussed here.

You have defended your position grandly, and also shot yourself in the foot, in one go. Impressive!

I totally accept that running an existing 'coalie' may be cheaper than installing large scale renewables today, but I also totally accept that installing wind + storage even without subsidies is cheaper than installing new coalies. Refer to the link I posted on page 22.

In light of that, please tell me what would be more beneficial to replace the existing coalies when they expire?