Energy supply has to become 100 per cent renewable fast...

 

Australia’s eastern states face an energy shortfall three times higher than forecast, with gas supply predicted to fall well short of what is needed unless action is taken, potentially meaning further export controls.

The Australian Energy Market Operator has reported next year’s gas supply shortfall could be “higher than expected” which could lead to even higher energy prices for eastern and south-eastern Australia, particularly for industry, which accounts for almost 40% of gas usage.

The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission also warned of a coming shortfall.

The government has a mechanism which would keep more gas onshore for domestic use and earlier this year started the process to enact it.

Labor has been calling on the government to start it up, but although the prime minister, Malcolm Turnbull, said it was “ready to go”, the government needed to make sure it was “fit for purpose”.

read more:

https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2017/sep/25/energy-shortfall-...

 

Hello? Anyone home?... giving our resources FAR TOO CHEAPLY TO OVERSEAS MARKETS... Anyway, buy more windmills and solar panels instead... ah but the Malcolmbull government has mucked up this one as well...

 

While "solving" next year's (2108) gas crisis, Malcolm had the gall to say during a press conference that the gas exporter industry was "OPAQUE". What does this bullshit means? Does he mean that the Australian government has no way to trace how much gas is extracted from the Australian territory (including seas) and has no clue of how much royalties are being paid nor how much taxes these companies pay (whether it's minimum taxes or not)???? Do you fuckinmalcolm mean that these companies do not file ANNUAL REPORTS???? Bollocks. There is nothing opaque... Is's a fudge for Trumbullshit to pass the buck for his government's mega fucups about energy... While the Neo-Zealander, Barnaby Joyce, blames NSW for pinching Queensland's gas (Barnaby is elected in NSW but does work on behalf of Queenslanders as a Kiwi officer), ill-gotten by destroying the water tables through fracking...

Energy policy is the issue to trump them all. We have already lost several prime ministers in its cause and more will likely walk the plank before common sense prevails. But the last few weeks have set new standards for national stupidity.

The political rhetoric grows ever more florid, starting with Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull last October:

“Coal is going to be an important part of our energy mix, there is no question about that, for many, many, many decades to come, on any view.” 

Just as he launched an independent review into the future security of the national energy market by Chief Scientist Alan Finkel — no pre-conceived ideas here!

Then, at the National Press Club on 1 February 2017:

Old, high emissions coal-fired power plants are closing down, reducing baseload capacity. They cannot simply be replaced by gas – because it’s too expensive – or by wind and solar, because they are intermittent. 

Storage has a big role to play, but we will need more synchronous baseload power, and as the world’s largest coal exporter we have a vested interest in showing that we can provided both low emissions and reliable baseload power with state-of-the-art clean coal-fired technology.

The next incarnation of our energy policy should be technology agnostic. Policy should be "all of the above", working together to deliver the trifecta of secure and affordable power while meeting our emission reduction commitments.

Quote of the day from Malcolm Turnbull "We do not regard technology as an ideological issue. We are technologically agnostic." #NBN #FTTH

— Jeremy de Vries Turn (@jeremydvt) September 18, 2013

And to ram the point home:

”Those people who say coal and other fossil fuels have no future are delusional and they fly in the face of all of the economic forecasts.”

Simultaneously, former Resource Minister Matt Canavan was spruiking the benefits of Galilee Basin coal. Initially in the shape of the Adani Carmichael Mine, subsidised with a cheap loan from Northern Australian Infrastructure Facility (NAIF), then domestic High Efficiency Low Emissions(HELE) power stations and, finally, the full-blown development of five or six Galilee Basin mega-mines in addition to Adani. All very "technology agnostic".

Unfortunately, the independent reports commissioned by the Turnbull Government from Finkel and the Australian Energy Market Operator (AEMO) did not toe the party line. The experts set out sensible steps to solve the problems of our energy market, with the electricity system moving toward increased use of renewable energy and no need for additional investment in coal — the result being lower electricity prices and no energy crisis. The prerequisite is a sensible policy framework delivered by government — a big ask after two decades in which the abject failure of political leadership on these issues, from John Howard onwards, created the current mess.

read more:

https://independentaustralia.net/environment/environment-display/energy-...

 

The mess has been 100 per cent created by the CONSERVATIVE side of Australian politics, especially Tony Abbott. Full stop....

 

For months, the Trump administration has been quietly plotting how to repeal the Clean Power Plan, the Obama administration’s most ambitious effort to cut the nation’s carbon footprint. After the weeks of speculation, the announcement came Tuesday in an agency press release where EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt claimed to be “righting the wrongs of the Obama administration by cleaning the regulatory slate.”

Pruitt signed a proposal to repeal the Clean Power Plan, which provides the agency’s justification for rolling back the power plant rule. It is also issuing an Advanced Notice of Proposed Rulemaking, which former EPA staff say is a rare and unnecessary stalling tactic that solicits input from the public before the EPA even suggests its own proposal. Normally, the EPA will solicit feedback on a proposed draft, but with this, the administration provides no specific information about what it intends to do.

“It’s less than a proposal,” Natural Resources Defense Council Clean Energy and Climate Director David Doniger says. “It’s the beginning of a long, slow process as far as we can see.”

read more:

http://www.motherjones.com/environment/2017/10/theres-more-to-scott-prui...

 

We've got dozens of Trumps and Pruitts in Kanbra... from Turdy Abbott to Turdy Turnbull, via Frydenberg, there are a too many parliamentarians who try to pull stunts with "clean coal" and other rubbish.