The very smart Jo Nova - who doesn't rely on AI to guide her - writes that the NSW government is hiding the cost of renewables by keeping Eraring open until a couple of months after the next election.

“Presumably his reelection chances would be worse if (he) “saved the planet”, and shut the coal plant a few months before the election instead.”

They obviously know that voters don't want the “transition” to very expensive power, because “coal power is cheap and renewables are hideous(ly) (expensive)”.

ttbn,

It is possible that the wholesale price of wind and solar will drop substantially, and I'd guess that this might get some promotion. Unfortunately, this won't be due to them being intrinsically low cost. Rather, it will reflect their coming online over a similar time frame and flooding the market, as happens in South Australia. That might explain why investors aren't as keen build to new generating capacity as they were, even with the multi billion dollar subsidies.

Power [solar] into the grid today in SA is generating for .018 cents / kwh. any lower and it will slip inti negative costings. Iit went to minus 35 c / KwH in qld. Good for the grid but will not do anything for you blokes as you criticise govt; instead of attacking retailers, that is where the blockage is. wholesale price is only for block buying of electricity bundles. not for general public as it is volatile costings. Retailers buy from spot pricing only.
Next year is the year for power drops that we have not seen for a few decades. Retailers are going to be eliminated. Albo always said it would happen in 2025.

doog,

The more wind and solar capacity you have installed, the lower the wholesale price will be for wind and solar generators. That won't encourage investment, at least not before a massive amount of storage is built and the grid gets upgraded. Guess who pays for that, and everything else for that matter? And prices will go down? Yeah, like they always have as surely as the koalas are being clubbed and the GDR is getting smashed up.

Oh, and here's a fun Fukushima fact for you. There was a nuclear power station on the coast closer to the quake epicentre that stayed operational. Why? Because Onagawa implemented the safety advice that Tepco ignored for Fukushima.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Onagawa_Nuclear_Power_Plant

How do you think a wind or solar installation might have fared?

Someone said on this thread that governments have always funded large scale infrastructure projects. When I read this I though- hang on- both the initial rollout of electricity/ cars privately driven through visionaries Edison, Tesla, Ford.

Roman rulers funded large scale infrastructure in the form of aqueducts and roads. Others funded projects- Hoover Dam.

I believe that as far as "tested technology" is concerned aqueducts, roads, dams are different than solar/wind/battery electrical and transport systems.

The wind/solar isn't the only factor in question but the energy storage that these systems rely on- a factor conveniently ignored in discussions.

Marxism wants to create a world where the people can't escape from Marxism- because no one wants to live in a Marxist country. The same is true that no one wants to live in a country that has an enforced policy of "renewables". The cost of electricity is growing seemingly exponentially. But seemingly those pushing "unsustainables" don't feel the pain of the people over the ecstasy of their visionary Woke Marxist utopia. The Woke Marxists are winding back history to a time before electricity and mechanization in the name of progress.

The biggest sustainability problem in the world seems to be the unsustainable populations of people in India, China, Africa all at 1.4 billion. India and China have a larger aggregate population than the aggregation of the next 18 nations combined.

Also from memory both China and India have large investments in nuclear energy, but sell solar panels to Western nations. The Woke Marxist Green campaign seems to be a function of the well known envy principle "Marxists don't love the poor but hate the rich". Some say that the academics are the vanguard of Woke Marxism in the West. As we can see the universities have gathered authoritarian hegemonic power within western nations over the last one hundred years. At least Western capitalist power was based on productivity, despite some faults, where the people benefited from cheaper prices.

Maybe this is part of the economic war of Woke Marxism against "The Great Capitalist Satan" of the West.

Yes Fester. After three mile island from memory General Electric implemented safety systems that some of the Japanese companies didn't want to pay for. The Japanese companies/government/society had the right to decide for themselves the cost/benefit/risk equation that worked for them. It's hard to learn from other peoples mistakes.