Interesting revelations from the Mother Country....

"Net zero could CRASH Britain's economy with poorest in society hit hardest, leaked document admits".... https://www.gbnews.com/news/net-zero-crash-britain-economy-government-document-leaked

The funniest part of this is that the UK government is promising that prices will in fact fall once their fevered dreams become a reality.

Some of us remember that the Albanese then-opposition prior to the last election were promising that power prices would fall when their plans were installed, and would come down by $300 or so before 2026. Instead prices have skyrocketed and they are trying to dampen anger and dull memories by throwing taxpayer money at it.

Now we find AEMO agreeing to allow an up-to 9% increase in electricity prices starting later this year. In the fine print of the announcement was the advice that one of the main reasons for the increase was the cost of poles and wires to carry the power from where the renewables make it to where the public use it.

Its long been recognised that this is one of the major cost factors involved in the rush to renewables. But in the anxiety to pretend renewables are cheap, these add-on costs are ignored or at least not included in the overall cost of the 'clean' farms.

Yet we know that as a matter of simple statistics, the more renewables a country has the higher the power costs.....

http://tiny.cc/zu6e001 (watch the following two minutes of the video).

This is an incredibly important data point - the more renewables a nation has, the higher the nation's power costs.

The US is no longer playing that game and is aiming for power supremacy. China, India, Russia etc were never in that game. Its only a matter of time before Australia wakes up to reality. Whichever party first goes down that track will have a massive political advantage

Only an idiotic mind would believe that Zero emission is a possibility ! It's like saying there's no reaction to an action !

mhaze,

You’re drawing a straight line between renewables and rising power prices, but that leaves out a whole lot of context.

A major part of the reason for rising of electricity prices has been fossil fuel chaos, not renewables. Gas and coal prices spiked thanks to global events like the Ukraine war, and that flowed straight through to our power bills. That happened before most of the current renewable projects had even started delivering serious supply.

And sure, upgrading the grid costs money. But saying that’s somehow a unique downside of renewables ignores the fact that any serious energy transition would need grid upgrades. Our current system is old and wasn’t built for modern energy use - whether that’s rooftop solar or a big coal station in a different location. It’s not some sneaky hidden cost - it’s infrastructure finally catching up.

The idea that more renewables = higher prices is one of those things that sounds right until you look closer. A lot of the higher prices in countries like Denmark and Germany come from energy taxes and early investments when renewables were far more expensive. Meanwhile, places like Spain, Portugal, and even parts of the U.S. are now seeing prices come down because renewables are cheaper to build and run.

That UK leak? Governments write worst-case memos all the time. It doesn’t mean those outcomes are locked in. The UK is still pressing ahead, because doing nothing comes with its own massive costs.

And despite the politics, clean energy investment in the U.S. hasn’t stopped - it’s just shifting to states and the private sector. Australia pulling back now wouldn’t be bold. It’d just be late.

John,

The only net zero being demonstrated is your appreciation of logical argument. You present one comically absurd argument after another (e.g. <wind and solar are the cheapest energy sources, yet no one would rely solely on wind and solar because it would be too expensive>, and <wind and solar are cost competitive because they would be if the cost of storage dropped by 95%>), yet, as far as I can make out, you seem to think that you can make your arguments valid by fluffing them up and throwing in words like "nuanced". You cannot.

Note the recent story of wind farms in the UK being paid 180k pounds an hour for being switched off. The same thing happens in Australia, but it is kept secret. Not for much longer.

Fester,

If you think pointing out the limits of a system is the same as contradicting myself, you might want to slow down and read more carefully.

Saying "wind and solar are the cheapest" and "you wouldn’t rely on them alone" isn’t a contradiction - it’s just reality. They’re cheap to produce per MWh, but they’re also variable, which means they need support from storage, transmission, or dispatchable generation. That doesn’t make them bad - it means they’re part of a broader system, not a magic bullet. Nobody credible is arguing for a grid made of nothing but solar panels and wind turbines with no backup or planning. That’s a straw man.

As for the storage point, again - you’re twisting it. I never said renewables are currently cost-competitive under full-grid replacement models. I said that even under Idel’s extremely conservative LFSCOE model, once you ease the assumptions (like allowing 95% instead of 100% supply, and reducing storage costs), renewables start to look competitive even in that rigid scenario. That doesn’t make them a silver bullet today - but it shows they’re not inherently doomed, which was your claim.

Now about the UK wind curtailment - yes, it happens. Sometimes wind generation outpaces demand or transmission capacity, and operators are paid to curtail production. It’s not a secret, and it’s not some dark conspiracy - it’s a known side effect of a transitioning grid. The same kind of inefficiencies exist in fossil systems too - like keeping expensive gas plants online for rare peaks. Grid management has always involved trade-offs and occasional waste.

If you want to argue that renewables need planning, infrastructure, and good policy to work, we agree. But if you’re saying they’re inherently flawed because they don’t work like baseload coal, you’re not making a logical point - you’re just demanding perfection from one side while ignoring the mess of the other.

"You’re drawing a straight line between renewables and rising power prices, but that leaves out a whole lot of context."

Well no. The data is doing that. Did you check the Lomborg data I posted? This isn't a one-off thing. This isn't just a phenomena restricted to Australia or a particular time. This is data from all over the world.

The relationship isn't one-to-one but it is clear. No matter where you are in place or time, the higher the percentage of power generated by solar/wind, the higher the electricity costs. Sure there are all sorts of particular reasons in particular places, but the relationship remains the same.

Most nations are now seeing the truth of that. We will eventually catch on as well.