The Australian Renewable Energy Agency (ARENA) and the Australian Energy Market Operator (AEMO) have announced that consumers will be paid to cut their power usage.

It's part of a plan to free up temporary supply during unplanned outages and extreme weather conditions — such as prolonged summer heatwaves.

So how will this impact you, and could you actually get a free day of electricity if you switch off your pool pump?

ARENA will fund 10 pilot projects to manage Australia's electricity supply during extreme peaks.

These "pilot projects" will be trialled in three states — Victoria, South Australia and New South Wales — over three years.

read more:

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-10-11/power-bills-would-you-switch-off-y...

"Abbott agreed to join the Paris international climate agreement when he was prime minister.?"

That might have been his way to get a free trip to see the Eiffel Tower.

The first of dozens of giant wind farm components have made their way to far north Queensland, forcing traffic to a standstill.

A special semi-trailer was sent to the region to transport the fan blades. Each one is 57 metres long — about the size of the Leaning Tower of Pisa. [Gus: or 7 metres longer than an Olympic swimming pool]

The blades were shipped in from the United States to Cairns last week and are now being driven up the steep and winding Palmerston Highway and onto the Atherton Tablelands, west of Cairns.

Construction has already started on the $380 million farm at the top of Mount Emerald.

Hundreds of residents and school children gathered to watch the first giant blade make its way through the tiny towns of Malanda and Walkamin on Monday.

Malanda resident Debbie Magnee was watching by the side of the road with her children.

"I think the wind farm is a good idea — anything to help with green energy, I support it — it's great," Ms Magnee said.

read more:

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-10-11/giant-wind-farm-components-far-nor...

2007  

making multi-coloured porkies .....

The shadow climate change minister Mark Butler says Labor won’t support the Turnbull government’s new energy policy if it dumps the clean energy targetrecommended by the chief scientist, Alan Finkel.

With the Turnbull government expected to press ahead with its new energy policy this week after consideration by the cabinet and the party room, Butler issued a clear public warning on Sunday that the loss of the clean energy target meant there was no prospect of bipartisan agreement between the major parties.

Butler said Labor had been prepared to keep an open mind on the clean energy target, even though it was not the opposition’s preferred policy option, because the model had been thought through by the chief scientist and endorsed uniformly by stakeholders across the community.

read more:

https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2017/oct/15/dumping-clean-ene...

A Clean Energy Target recommended by Australia's chief scientist will not be adopted, with the Federal Government instead proposing a new plan to bring down electricity prices.

• The plan will be put to the Coalition party room today
• It would require three years' notice of closing a power station
• Liberal backbencher Craig Kelly also suggested the Government delay action on reaching the Paris climate targets until closer to 2030

The details have not officially been released, but the ABC understands Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull will argue his policy will lower electricity bills more than a Clean Energy Target (CET), while meeting Australia's Paris climate change commitments.

It is understood Cabinet last night also agreed to force retailers to guarantee a certain amount of so-called dispatchable power that can be switched on and off on demand, to avoid outages.

The plan will be put to the Coalition party room today and is likely to appeal to a group of backbenchers who favour coal-fired power and had opposed a CET from the outset.

read more:

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-10-16/cabinet-dumps-clean-energy-target-...

This is one of the official website page for the Australian Bureau of Meteorology (BoM). In the botton right-hand corner is an advertisement for one of those awful "comparison" websites. This has to be illegal: the BoM is Commonwealth property and government department should not have advertising. Imagine Adani advertising on the BoM website! Imagine Coca-Cola advertising on the Heath Ministry website! May be they do... I have not check this one yet...

Environment and Energy Minister Josh Frydenberg concedes Australia's greenhouse gas pollution continued to soar last year, confirming that more than a decade of climate policy bickering has failed to curb harmful emissions.

Official data shows Australia's annual emissions have risen for the fourth year running. They were up by 0.7 per cent in the year to June 2017, to 550 million tonnes of carbon dioxide.

read more:

http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/climate-change-jos...

Frydenberg is an idiot... Read from top... Note: the report in the SMH is idiotic as well. It forgets that during the Gillard government, with the price on carbon (Turdy's hated "carbon tax"), the emissions FELL quite noticeably. But like all the idiot media de mierda of this country, the SMH supported Turdy, then Trumble, in the elections... The SMH can slash its wrists... or give itself a kick up the bum.

See also: 

The spokesman said Frydenberg and Freedman knew each other through the Australian-American Leadership Dialogue.

Roskam said Freedman, the US embassy in Canberra and the US consulate in Melbourne had approached the IPA about Pruitt’s potential visit. He said the organisation had welcomed the chance to “work closely with the world’s leading advocate for cutting environmental red tape”.

The emails released to the Sierra Club include tourist and dinner recommendations such as a trip to Uluru and breakfast at the Boathouse restaurant in Sydney, which Freedman said was owned by the former trade minister Andrew Robb, whom the ex-lobbyist described as “a good friend”.

Pruitt faces 11 federal investigations in the US, including into his spending on travel and his business relationships with lobbyists. Freedman worked on national security-related issues for Trump’s transition team but was removed after using a personal email address to conduct government business.

Read more:

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/may/04/climate-sceptic-grou...

Read from top...

Energy minister Josh Frydenberg has declared he would welcome the construction of a new coal-fired power plant in Australia ahead of meetings on Tuesday where internal critics of his electricity plan are expected to voice their objections.

Frydenberg used an interview with News Corp to send the positive signal about coal before Tuesday’s internal deliberations, with some Nationals still on the war path about the government either subsidising new coal plants or bankrolling the refurbishment of existing assets.

While economic modelling associated with the national energy guarantee assumes there will be no new coal built under the policy, Frydenberg said: “I would welcome a new coal-fired power station for our country because it supplies reliable baseload power and it has served us well in the past and will continue to serve us well in the future.”

Read more:

https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2018/jun/26/energy-minister-w...

Read from top...

Meanwhile:

Australia’s emissions over the past year were again the highest on record when unreliable data from land use and forestry sectors are excluded, according to new data from NDEVR Environmental.

If the country’s greenhouse gas emissions continue on their current trajectory, Australia will miss its Paris target by a billion tonnes of CO2, which is equal to about two years of Australia’s entire national emissions.

NDEVR replicates the federal government’s National Greenhouse Gas Inventory (NGGI) quarterly reports, but releases them months ahead of the official data. Previous NDEVR reports’ figures have been within 1% of the official figures when they are eventually released.

The latest figures include the first three months of 2018 and show Australia’s national emissions up to March were the highest since records began in 2002.

It projects that emissions for the year to March, excluding land use emissions, will be 556.9 m tonnes.

Read more:

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/jun/25/record-emissions-kee...

See also: http://www.yourdemocracy.net.au/drupal/node/34485

Tony Abbott has changed his mind and now says Australia should stay in the Paris climate agreement.

Abbott, who signed up to Paris when he was prime minister but then declared that Australia should pull out during the prime ministership of Malcolm Turnbull, confirmed he had changed his mind again during a debate on Friday morning with the independent challenger Zali Steggall and other federal election candidates in his seat of Warringah.

Asked by moderator David Speers if his change of heart was due to the ousting of Turnbull as prime minister, Abbott said it partly was.

“I certainly thought that the only way to break the emissions obsession was to pull out of Paris,” he said. “I think that the government has lost its emissions obsession now that Angus Taylor is the energy minister … Circumstances have changed. We have a new prime minister and a new energy minister.”

Read more:

https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2019/mar/08/tony-abbott-pull-...

Read from top... That's the spirit, Turdy. Keep the Paris agreement and let the new prime minister and the new energy minister burn more coal as if there was no tomorrow... This budgie-bloke is a clever con-artist. Don't vote for him.  

A coalmine in the Upper Hunter Valley has been given approval to expand by the New South Wales Independent Planning Commission.

Mangoola Coal Operations, a subsidiary of Glencore Coal, applied to extract an additional 52m tonnes of coal over eight years at the Mangoola mine near Muswellbrook.

The commission approved the project, which will create a new coal pit north of the current mine site and extend the company’s development consent by 13 months to 2030, on Monday afternoon.

The decision comes less than a month before a state byelection in the Upper Hunter in which the future of the coal industry in the region is expected to play a central role.

Margot White, who lives 5km from the current mine, said she was outraged by the decision.

White runs a small beef farm and sits on the Wybong Concerned Landholders group, which has about 64 members who are opposed to Glencore’s operations in the area.

She said the mine had also been opposed by the Muswellbrook Shire Council but the commission “had not listened to one single word we said”.

“They’re calling it an expansion. It’s a whole new pit over the road,” she said.

“I live 5km from the current mine. I’m now going to be 2.5km from it.

“This is going to leave a final void that is 86ha big – that is bigger than my entire property.”

White said residents were concerned about the mine’s effects on water and biodiversity in the region.

She said the NSW government also needed to recognise that the increasing effects of global heating meant coal mining “cannot go on forever”.

Read more:

https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2021/apr/26/nsw-planning-body-gives-green-light-to-hunter-valley-coalmine-expansion

Note: burning 52 million tons of coal will release about 200 million tons of CO2 into Scomo's arse... I mean accounting... See: under the aussie sun...

Read also:

https://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.php?id=82&t=11

Read from top.

assange2