Another card in the pack may be compensated demand reduction but that too is expensive. An Adelaide foundry will be paid $350,000 to forgo 10 MW X 4 hours in heatwaves. That's a whopping $8,750 per Mwh we'll all pay in our bills if that becomes the new normal.

It must be an eery sensation walking from the 100% renewable ACT across the road to the benighted dirty energy cursed Queanbeyan. I presume ACT lights go out in wind lulls, overcast weather, hydro droughts and broken interstate connectors. Or somehow they suck up all of the renewable energy otherwise used by the rest of Australia.

My prediction is that most of the predicted energy storage by 2030 won't materialise and we'll further restrict gas exports. It would be good if SMRs are on sale by then.

Talk, talk and graphs - boring as bat shite. We are paying too much for power. We are no longer competetive. No amount of jawing can hide the fact that we have been conned by shonky scientists, rent-seekers, the United Nations and domestic politicians. The only way left is to follow the U.S out of the Paris con, let the climate look after itself, and start bring the liars and crooks to justice. We might still be able the to avoid poverty and Third World status.

I see that in an apparent effort to prevent his critics from exposing his errors, Geoff Carmody has now resorted to failing to explain how his ridiculous figures were obtained!

more and more studies while the facts mock the warmist at every term. Anyone been to Canberra lately?

All charts and graphs to tell just one story, Just coal and then renewables.

Nothing else on the table, because that's where our alleged representatives have sunk their personal fortunes? You'd think!?

I mean, you'd be forgiven for believing these alleged representatives had never ever read a science book, never ever learned that thorium is the most ENERGY DENSE material on earth and so abundant and long-lived we can never ever RUN OUT off the stuff.

And promises power SO CHEAP that both coal and renewables could never ever get a look in!

And why our alleged leaders refuse to even mention the word thorium unless it is to, show me a current thorium reactor.

Knowing even as they pose the question, there are a few probably in Russia, China and India to mention places where this carbon-free, RELIABLE, DISPATCHABLE clean cheap and WALK AWAY SAFE energy is probably being deployed?

And with it, for as little as 2 cents per KwH!?

And the very reason these alleged representatives will NEVER EVER allow this vile name, to ever pass their lips, unless to denigrate or spuriously mock it!?

Look. The only source of U233 is thorium and U233 is the only source of cancer miracle cure, bismuth 213.

And without it, HUNDREDS will die ANNUALLY, entirely unnecessarily, at greater annual numbers than the annual road toll!

Our alleged representatives are surely putting vested or self-interest before that of the nation or those who elect them to SERVE!

How many more decades are we expected to tolerate this endless pretence to serve and or put the national interest ahead of all other vested or personal considerations? HOW LONG!
Alan B

Geoff Carmody correctly highlights the twin impediments of reduced energy supply reliability arising from increasing levels of renewable energy and the rapidly escalating costs of attempting to minimise the resulting uncertainty risk, concluding that the costs of maintaining the present standards becomes effectively impossible as we approach the 100% renewables target.

This surely raises the fundamental question: is the underlying assumption that we need to reduce carbon dioxide emissions, soundly based?

It is certainly worth the time and effort to at least check the underlying hypothesis that man’s emissions of carbon dioxide are now the principle cause of the current warming period as claimed.

If such a study was undertaken it would be found that in fact there is no empirical evidence available to substantiate the hypothesis, which it why it remains just a hypothesis. This can be verified by noting the fact that if any evidence had been identified, it would be prominently highlighted by the IPCC in its Reports. Its absence there is compelling.

The basis for their assumptions is founded on circumstantial evidence and unverified computer models that do not include, (or may guess at), many factors that influence climate, because there is insufficient knowledge and confidence to include in the models.

There is much empirical evidence, observation, logic and science that disagrees with the hypothesis, which normally using the scientific method, would mean that the hypothesis needs to be amended to account for the discrepancies, or withdrawn.

To make matters worse, no attempt has been made to quantify the known substantial benefits to all plant life and biota, including mankind, from increasing levels of carbon dioxide.

A failure here to do our ‘due-diligence’ in this matter will continue to result in a litany of adverse unintended consequences.