"Reality bites, eventually. On Tuesday, 500,000 Victorians were without power after a storm (not unusual this time of year) triggered cascading failures first of transmission lines and then its largest generator, Loy Yang A.

This is the same Loy Yang A that the State Government is determined to see closed by 2035, with the acquiescence of its owner, AGL, egged on by minority shareholder and climate activist, Mike Cannon-Brookes. Victorians thus got a taste of life without Loy Yang A, and they did not like it."

Australia has been pursuing renewable energy for the past fifteen years. By some estimates it will take nearly seventy years to get to 100% renewable energy. Some five decades ago France started building nuclear power stations. Some fifteen years later the program concluded with a capacity 50% greater than required. Today, French nuclear power costs about a third as much as renewable energy and is a major export earner for the French economy. Similarly, Dubai completed a 5.6 GW nuclear power plant in a little over 10 years at a cost of 24 billion USD. On this basis Australia could supply its total electrical demand for a cost of under 400 billion AUD.

Renewable energy is being pursued and nuclear energy is being ignored in Australia purely for ideological reasons. Renewable energy scammers are being paid several billion dollars annually for expensive and unreliable energy that will destroy Australia's economy.

Definition: Renewable; Renewed every 25 years.
From the photos looks like some engineer underestimated the wind speed
when designing the towers, or they just kept putting more cab,es on them.
They would have a lot of wind resistance.
They might have to replace them all !

Even "basket case" South Africa is planning for a low carbon energy supply with much more thought than cult leader Albo and his cabinet of morons.

https://www.france24.com/en/live-news/20240218-could-mini-nuclear-stations-plug-south-africa-s-power-gaps

2nd thoughts;
Why not put them underground ? Might be cheaper than
replacing all the towers of that design.
After all they run under Bass Straight !

3rd Thoughts; Why not install guy wires, probably cheapest,

Of course Victoria's blackouts had everything to do with
renewables. So say some commentators and politicians
so eager to score political points.

They want you to believe that it had nothing to do with the
storms sweeping across the state downing power lines and
transmission towers or the high damage done to high
voltage transmission lines and low voltage distribution
system.

They argue that it had nothing to do with the six transmission
towers (and counting) that were affected including two that
buckled and twisted and at the same time the fact that the
Loy Yang power station tripped.

The strong winds had no effect?

The fact that they had taken down some major power
infrastructure - does not speak to some people. They would have
us believe that we don't need to harden the network against
future weather events. Let's just score political points and
blame renewables. Improvement in resilience to the entire system
really doesn't matter.

Foxy,

I have zero interest in the politics of energy. I just want to see a viable option being pursued. What upsets me greatly is seeing cult leader Albo continue with the ideological renewable energy odyssey, following in the footsteps of fellow morons Scomo and Turnbull.

After about fifteen years of this stupidity renewables have knocked off less than one percent of Australia's power demand per year.

https://aemo.com.au/en/energy-systems/electricity/national-electricity-market-nem/data-nem/data-dashboard-nem

Note that traditional power still does over 85% of the job in Australia, which is why the loss of Loy Yang was a disaster. Note that in fifteen years from the mid 1970s the French supplied 150% of their electricity demand with low carbon nuclear.

"After about fifteen years of this stupidity renewables have knocked off less than one percent of Australia's power demand per year."

That's because our leaders are unlikeable losers who will lay on the ground in the fetal position and wet themselves at any sign of pressure instead of tell the idiots to p*ss off lead the country properly.

To put it in perspective, the Barakah nuclear power plant in the UAE will produce over 40 terawatt hours of dispatchable power per year. All four 1400 mwe each took under ten years to build at a total cost of less than 40 billion AUD. If the government were to spend its 25 billion renewable energy budget on nuclear energy instead, we could see Australia producing 500 terawatt hours of dispatchable low carbon energy annually in twenty years for a total cost of 500 billion in today's dollars. Total electricity production in Australia in 2022 was 273 terawatt hours. There would be additional cost to upgrade the transmission grid.

https://www.energy.gov.au/energy-data/australian-energy-statistics/data-charts/australian-electricity-generation

Quite correct Foxy, it was the wind and poor tower design, or
overloading the towers. The latter might well be the cause if they put
extra cables on the towers to cope with solar or wind farms.
You and I have no way of knowing if that was the case.
It needs an enquiry to ask those questions.
If they did overload the towers the very big bill for the extra
10,000 Kms of transmission lines is going to get a lot bigger.

Foxy,

So much for your supercilious tone, of course, the winds that felled the towers had something to do with it. However, when did Victoria's power supply become so fragile that the failure of one power supplier could lead to blackouts and load shedding?

The answer is to have backup generation which Liebor has been happily shutting down. If this storm had happened 30 years ago there would not be the blackouts of today.

Gentlemen,

My apologies for attempting sarcasm in my first post.
The point that I was trying to make was that we do
need to harden the network against future weather
events and improve the system's resilience.

Shadow Minister,

I appreciate your seeing my tone as sanctimonious.
That I appreciate. You could have said it was
erronious, or felonious and lets not mention
acrimonious or parsimonious.

I like sanctimonious.

Victorians thus got a taste of life without Loy Yang A, and they did not like it." What about Loy yang B wasn't that one shut down for maintenance.
A lot of people here are against any thing that that isn't against climate change.
Power supply is progressing magnificently against the will of ex poms and dual citizens.

Hi Riely,

I will explain the main problem of wind and solar which is very well understood by its critics. It is intermittency, which means that you need a grid capable of carrying several times as much power as a grid powered by dispatchable energy sources. This is the case because intermittent sources may be producing power for just a few hours a day, yet they must provide enough energy for 24/7 power.

A grid large enough to carry this extra power is far more expensive: It would be good to see an estimate from the government or AEMO, but they are very opaque about such things. I have heard cost estimates suggesting that the cost of a grid to carry wind and solar alone would be several times the cost of powering Australia with nuclear. So my objection to wind and solar is not political as you suggest, but simple economics. Conversely, given the anti-nuclear sentiment of Labor and the Greens, I would suggest that support for wind and solar is purely political. It is an economic disaster unfolding.

Foxy,

First I used the word supercilious not sanctimonious, but I am glad to help you improve your vocabulary. Perhaps I should use current lingo and call you Mrs Bleeding Obvious.

Firstly the lines were installed for the 3 power stations incl Hazelwood in the 70s so have stood for 5 decades against all the storms. But no design is invulnerable or everlasting. You are suggesting replacing the lines for many $bns which does not protect the network which needs to be able to loose a generator without collapsing.

The real cause of the Victorian power problem is that they shut down
all the coal generators before they had installed their replacement equipment.
If Hazlewood had still been operating the blackout would probably
been smaller and shorter.

You just have to wonder about their sanity !