Milo
The Prime Minister of Australia is twisting and turning to appease the extreme right in fighting against renewable energy. One climate change sceptic, Mr Morrison, even took a piece of coal to parliament. He wanted Australia and the Government to acknowledge that coal will remain our prime ingredient for affordable energy. “This is coal, don’t let it frighten you,” he said. “The more coal the better.”
It was well received. Lots of fun by the right. Our PM. Malcolm Turnbull, a previous fervent believer in climate change, guffawed with the rest of them. His vanity politics now running supreme. He wants to remain PM and so does his wife, Lucy. Through hook and by crook. The crook getting stronger as time goes by.
But, it will all be to no avail. The renewable energy is running at full steam. Nothing will stop it. It is the money that will finally overcome all the objection to change from coal to sun, wind and whatever else. You can’t stop it.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-02-14/solar-batteries-like-tesla-exploding-in-popularity/8259830
Australia is notoriously reluctant to change. We still have a foreign Queen as head of state and love the status quo. Taking it easy is still one of our most revered ambition. But no amount of taking it easy or hugging pieces of coal in parliament will stop this revolution of change into renewables. The sun shines for free and the winds will keep blowing
The next wave of change will come in the form of electric cars. Anyone who has been to Hong Kong would know that the Tesla all electric car is hugely popular. Holland is planning the ban on sales of petrol and diesel cars within a few years. Last year the new Tesla, Model 3, took 10bn in orders in just 2 days.
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/apr/04/tesla-motors-sells-10bn-model-3-two-days
You can see why both oil and coal prices have dropped worldwide. Can you imagine the problems facing resource rich countries? Many including Australia are getting a bit nervous. Perhaps, that’s why our government is so defiant? We could have picked up the cudgel years ago and be the worlds biggest and best producer of solar equipment and technology. We did produce some of the best brains working on it. But unappreciated, many left to greener pastures.
Even a large coal lover and producer is now saying that the only way forward is to embrace the new renewables. With the recent heat waves people will receive enormous power bills.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-02-14/energy-australia-boss-worried-about-power-bills/8267070
The cost of coal fired electricity will be going up as the solar and wind generated households and industries are disconnecting from the grid. There will be fewer and fewer people left to carry the cost of maintaining the coal fired energy infrastructures. ( Poles and wires)
I do hope I will live to see all the faces of coal lovers drop as the tsunami of renewables will overrun everything in its way.
Last year I (oops…more to come, gone for a walk with Milo, he is being difficult.)
Tags: Australia, Battery, Coal, Hong-Kong, Lucy, Morrison, Oil, PM, Solar, Tesla, Turnbull
Oosterman Treats Blog 
February 14, 2017 at 4:19 am |
Good dog, Milo, you get him out there in the fresh air.
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February 14, 2017 at 9:16 pm |
Yes,, Peggy. Very perceptive of you. Milo does take us for walk now, but I am yet to get as many pats as he does.
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February 14, 2017 at 7:01 pm |
I recently read an excellent analysis of the fossil fuel economy which explained quite elegantly why coal is doomed. This apparently relates to the immense amount of capital required to build a coal-fired power plant. In general, it takes 20-30 years of operation to pay this debt off. In contrast, distributed renewal energy systems are far less capital intensive – a bank manager would have to be an idiot to fund a new coal-fired power plant.
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February 14, 2017 at 9:19 pm |
The fossil fuel industry is doomed alright. It’s over for the horse and buggy days of the energy industry. Coal will soon be able to sleep in peace.
Now for a turn around in the food industry, especially sugar, salt and fat.
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February 15, 2017 at 5:22 am |
Hi Gez. Our house was built in 1890 – and we have a lovely, almost flat room atop the upstairs rooms. On top of that is a 5KW solar array. It cost us $6.500 after the government coughed up their $3,500 subsidy. 5 KW is about 1.5KW above what a family of four needs on average – but you cannot count on it producing that all the time – a cloudy day could see the peak production at 1.5 KW/h.
While the savings vary according to things like how much we’re at home, and how sunny it is. The first power bill came in with a 40% reduction.
Now this is in an environment where off peak power (10:00pm to 07:00 am) costs about 9 cents a KW hour; Shoulder (07:00-12:00) costs 29 cents per KWh and peak – like when everyone is home and the sun is down costs a whopping 43 cents per KWh. When we are out, most of our best production times get fed into the grid and we get paid 6 cents per KWh.
Nice business if you can get it – charge your producers 43 cents for their consumption and pay them 6 cents for their production.
But……. there are over 1.3 million households with producer capacity on their roof. And when the cost of a Tesla or any other lithium ion battery comes down a little bit, not only will we produce excess power, but we will buy precisely zero power from the grid.
Now… if I could legally sell my power to my neighbours ……
That means the decreasing number of folks who lack solar – will have to share the cost of coal production – and their prices (sadly including those who cannot afford solar) are going to rise – and they will face an out of control spiral. And … rising coal-fired costs will push more of us into solar – or maybe also domestic turbine wind.
So – cop the political fallout from that Scotty Boy !
Gez – do you know what most influenced our decision to increase our mortgage to install solar power ? It was a deep and abiding distrust of big corporates who run the energy world – and an equal amount of contempt for our politicians – who seem totally incapable of doing the right thing. Let them eat their effing coal !
And smell the fresh air, Gez !
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February 15, 2017 at 9:51 am |
The solar/wind power train is well on its way, TToff.
In fact Dutch trains already run on wind power. It is strange how Hockey disliked wind-power when the Australian outback icon of a windmill pumping water up from a well or dam is ‘n Australian invention.
We are ready for air conditioning, hardly a friendly ecological move, but also contemplating solar but… we would have to cut trees and cope with a bunch of hostile strata owners who love standing behind the blinds nodding disapprovingly while thinking of the Queen or lamingtons.
The battle will indeed be between those unable or unwilling to take up the alternative energy having to bear the costs of ever increasing power bills. I suppose it might include forming whole communities having to support all in the transformation to cut the umbilical cord to the coal fired industry. The political opposition to all this will be swamped by those that seek change.
We are in for a very interesting time.
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February 15, 2017 at 10:45 pm
I think you raise an important point here, Gez. Not everybody has a place a) that they own or b) that can prop up a solar collector of a viable size (the lovely folks who have half a dozen panels are only just tinkering … we have 21 fairly new and comparatively higher efficiency panels and on a cloudy day we produce only a third of the average requirements. – unit dwellers might be another group that will need different renewable solutions for example.
It’s a crappy topic – but methane digesters for a large block of units running gas turbines might be workable.
And importantly rural folks, where land is less of an limited quantity, can be organised to build a community solar array and in effect run a local grid. One large installation, one battery array and one set of controlling electronics has got to be more economical and efficient to run. Maybe supplement that with medium capacity wind.
But the batteries now are the key.
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February 15, 2017 at 11:11 pm
A big problem at present is the disparity between feed-in and feed-out price, as you pointed out, TTzoff.
It is sheer bastardy from the energy companies to keep lowering the feed back into the grid price. But… here is where the battery come in. Finally it doesn’t matter.
I was told that no matter what, the energy companies will only ever give credit on your electricity bill and never pay for excess power produced. They try and put as many obstacles as possible under the guise that somehow they are pro solar.
As for collecting methane gas in town-house/unit complexes, I believe enough gas gets produced during a single AGM to light up an entire block of a retirement village.
In town houses or communal properties large unused parks or surplus open space could be used to change to renewables. I am sure entire suburbs could be made solar by using open space.
I believe in Holland some roads are now being experimented with in producing power.
Have you seen the Tesla car, Trouserzoff?
Something for retirement.
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February 16, 2017 at 9:32 am
I think Mr Trousers has done the solar thing quite well with, fortunately, a mainly north facing roof. I just read something about Australian researchers designing whole house batteries for a fifth of the cost of Tesla.
What about national companies who generate a few megawatts a day in, say, Albury, and have headquarters in Sydney. Why can’t they send power via the grid from one to the other? No, they buy for pounds and sell for pennies. As Gez says, the power producers act pro solar, but don’t reall y give a continental about us consumers and oir solar panels.
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February 16, 2017 at 8:28 pm
It must be such a nice feeling living under a roof that produces power.
Trouserzoff must be lying in bed looking up to the ceiling, satisfied he is not polluting the world.
We just had a power bill from AGL and it is $ 195.- for the quarter. It is very low but we run most of our things on gas s a cooking, hot water, heating
.
We cook a lot outside, take short showers, and don’t overheat.
If we go ahead with ducted air-con. bills might become a bit bigger. But, that’s when we might put on the solar panels. We shall see.
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February 15, 2017 at 10:13 am |
What a cheering report!
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February 15, 2017 at 9:37 pm |
Yes, Hilary. It is all moving so fast now.
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February 15, 2017 at 6:38 pm |
Any step away from coal pollution is a good step. More folks here are using solar panels but it is not cheap. I think one can get some government help if you go to solar but that will cease when Trump learns the government is encouraging non-polluting energy sources. He wants to bring back the coal industry so folks in West Virginia, Kentucky and other mining states will have jobs Yes that is good for a few but what about the environment and folks that have health problems. It is a quandary for sure.
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February 15, 2017 at 9:44 pm |
Yes, the jobs will be lost in the mining industry but with automation many jobs are lost anyway, even in the mining industry.
An income for everyone irrespective of having jobs or not is being contemplated and trials are on the way.
All businesses now are working on the minimum employment of people. I don’t know what people will end up doing. Perhaps artistry and crafts?
I don’t know what will happen to Trump. I think the Russians have something on him that we don’t know about…yet.
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February 16, 2017 at 3:39 am
I agree with your assessment of Trump. My hope is that the GOP will not try to sweep the Russian connection under the rug.
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February 15, 2017 at 10:18 pm |
https://brightside.me/wonder-curiosities/finland-will-become-the-first-country-in-the-world-to-get-rid-of-all-school-subjects-259910/
So, apart from solar and alternative energy rolling out, we have Finland trying out a new way of improving education.
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February 16, 2017 at 12:28 am |
Gerard, is it true that students (young ones, I guess) in Finland are not given homework, yet do extremely well in their studies?
What a burden off the shoulders it would have been to go home from school, without homework each night and an essay to write every weekend.
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February 16, 2017 at 1:09 am
Yes, that is so, Christine. Being a teacher in Finland is a highly regarded and respected profession. A Masters degree a minimum requirement.
Students also start one year later than most other countries and are given school lunches.
Students are also outside in nature after each hour of learning.
There are no private schools and no uniforms. No Duxes or Masters lording/abusing other students. They feel free.
Helvi is a high school teacher from Finland.
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February 16, 2017 at 12:35 am |
We were well on our way to renewable energy when Reagan became President and pushed us back a couple of decades. Now Trump is trying to do the same thing. But I am with you Gerard. Ultimately renewable energy will win out. I need a dog to distract me… –Curt
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February 16, 2017 at 8:21 pm |
You are right. It will finally be the money that drives the energy into renewables. Trump will try and stop it but I have yet to see him driving a horse and buggy.
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February 16, 2017 at 10:17 pm |
I wholeheartedly agree with you, Gerard.It is exactly how I feel. We installed solar 5 years ago and haven’t looked back. We also have aircon, (a must here), and try to limit its use. Many don’t and also don’t have solar power. The solar power juggernaut will prevail over idiots waving lumps of coal. What a fool Morrison is going to regarded as, in years to come, if now already! The coal lobby has built their influence on our vast and cheap coal reserves, but now their era is coming to an end, no matter how many lies they tell, no matter how much power they yield. I see and imagine there will be much more propaganda to come out as renewables become cheaper and innovative. I see some very dirty politics on the conservative government and Coal lobby side in coming times, dirtier than the lump of coal, Scott wielded! If only they had more forward thinking visionaries in their ranks, not executives bent on short term profits. We could well have been the world leaders in solar energy, and it won’t ever run out!
Finland has been the world leader in the PISA test results for at least 12 years! There is a lesson there too….
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