P,

Please tell me what the consumer confidence index has to do with Abbott's diplomatic efforts or your further comments had with either the index or the diplomacy.

No, it was just a pretext for another unrelated irrelevant whinge.

SM,

Sorry for deviating - but there's so much scope.

I can't find anything to laud about Abbott's diplomacy. He comes across to me as a laughable embarrassing goon on the international front...totally out of step with the rest of the industrially developed world. Germany, for instance,is 50% powered by renewable energy.

We're likely to get left behind thanks to "Abbott's diplomatic triumphs" (aka crawling around Harper trying to be a bestie)

I'll leave you to your topic and its fiction.

P,

"Germany, for instance,is 50% powered by renewable energy."

Really? I read that it is closer to 25%, and has electricity prices far higher than even Australia.

Germany set a new record on Sunday, May 11, by getting nearly three quarters of its electricity from renewable sources during a midday peak. Nonetheless, Craig Morris says the resulting negative prices are both good news and bad news.
On May 11th, power prices were negative for several hours in Germany.

On May 11th, power prices were negative for several hours in Germany.

Wind power peaked at around 21.3 GW at 1 PM on Sunday, with solar simultaneously coming in at 15.2 GW. Add in the roughly 3.1 GW of hydropower and 3.7 GW of electricity from biomass that Germany usually has, and the output of conventional power plants was pushed down to 26 GW at 1 PM on Sunday.

Power demand, however, was only at 59.2 GW, meaning that only 15.9 GW of conventional power was needed to serve domestic demand. The remaining more than 10 GW was for export – a clear indication of how foreign demand for German power is rescuing the conventional sector.

579,

http://www.nature.com/news/renewable-power-germany-s-energy-gamble-1.12755

"For German consumers, the costs of that shift are apparent in their monthly electricity bills. The statements include a litany of 'shared costs' that are split by all households to fund the Energiewende — and result in some of the highest electricity prices in Europe. "

"The rapid rise in wind and solar power has created a nightmare scenario for grid operators, who face power surges when the wind blows and the Sun shines, and shortages when they don't. In 2011, more than 200,000 blackouts exceeding three minutes were reported — and experts warn of a growing risk of major power failures."

So the result of a rapid push to renewable power generation is high cost power with frequent blackouts.

SM what a heap of Frog shyy.
You would be a climate denier also i suppose as in crap.