The Australian political class is following Germany on the transition to green energy. The Germans have spent half a trillion euros over 20 years to achieve what? They have doubled the price of domestic power. They have seriously destabilized the grid. They have not reduced CO2 emissions since 2009. The grid staggers on the brink of collapse, and intervention is necessary over 100 times a year: turning off wind farms, and bribing other countries to take excess power when the wind is strong. The owners of the windmills are still paid when they are not producing, putting up the prices to consumers and taxpayers even more.

Germany is failing to reduce emissions, which is supposed to be the reason for having unreliables. There has been no reduction in emissions since the year 2009, despite their ridiculous claims of a 40% reduction by 2020.

We cannot expect a different result when we are doing the same thing.

We are not doing the same thing at all. Germany is replacing nuclear with renewables; Australia is replacing coal with renewables. The economics are also very different, as Australia is a much sunnier country than Germany.

Germany's grid is hardly "on the brink of collapse" - they've upgraded it (as we have ours) so it is now very reliable - but it looks like they need to follow our lead and build some big batteries.

And can you please dispense with that idiotic notion that renewables are synonymous with unreliables? Victoria's blackouts were the result of a coal fired power station breaking down!

I have come to the conclusion Aidan that you are not the most stupid person ever to debate renewables, you are someone defending your stupid investment in them, & your seat ion the gravy train.

No one could talk so much crap without having a financial interest in the subject.

Looks like it may have come from here.

Australia on the German green energy road – triple failure

A draft of a script for a video to follow Wind Wont Work that is being revised for recording with a teleprompter and some other improvements.

Australia is following Germany on the transition to green energy.

What have the Germans achieved in twenty years, spending half a trillion euros or more?

They have doubled the price of domestic power.
They have seriously destabilized the grid.
At last report they have not reduced CO2 emissions since 2009.

We are clearly determined to go down the same road although we still have a long way to go. On a good day their windmills and solar farms can produce most of power they use.

But still they have failed on the three sides of the energy policy triangle. Price, Energy Security and CO2 emission reduction
.
That is the official word from 6th report on the progress of the energy transition.

That is the German Trifecta of Failure.

The picture tells the story. CHART TO BE DISPLAYED. They claim significant progress on CO2 emission reduction since 1991 but the gains came first from cleaning up the rundown socialist infrastructure in East Germany after the Fall of the Wall.

And then from reduced industrial activity during the Global Financial Crisis.

Nothing to do with the green energy transition. No change since 2009.

The story began in the 1980s when the German Greens became a political power and climate change became an issue.
In the 1990s the Greens had enough influence in the coalition government to achieve a comprehensive Renewable Energy Act in 2000.

REST OF ARTICLE see link

http://catallaxyfiles.com/2019/01/29/australia-on-the-german-green-energy-road-triple-failure/comment-page-1/

Dear Hasbeen,

How is it going old cock? Good?

I see you are up to your old form. Attacking a bloke and impugning his motives because there was not a single bloody thing he said that you could challenge like a normal person.

For all you bluff and bluster you really are a pretty unsubstantial fellow aren't you.

Look, all you have to do is show a modicum of effort in addressing any of the points he made. Give it a try mate, you might even learn something. I do whenever I take the time to dissect someone's arguments.

Otherwise all you are left with is the label 'blowhard'.

How China and INdia must be laughing at us making fools of ourselves and destroying our own economy by bowing to the the Green religion. Maybe just maybe people are waking up to then scam.

Aidan,

You will disagree with anything I put up because I have revealed you as a windbag, so you are wasting your time. I don't care what you think about anything. I will not stop referring to wind and solar as UNRELIABLES, because they are unreliable, so you know what you can do. Whether Germany is replacing nuclear (which they are) or coal, they are extremely stupid, just like Australia, whose uselessness political class will go along with any fairy tale that comes along - a bit like you.

certainly 200000 Victorians found out last week how unreliable renewables are. Even with facts staring them in the face the Government stood by their lying narrative.

Yes, runner, the MSM doesn't want to talk about the Victorian blackouts. As one commentator said it's unfortunate for Morrison that he cannot capitalise on it for the Federal election because his (Morrison's) energy policies are not much different from Victoria's and Labor's in general. There is no politician with any sanity on the issue.

Back to Germany: in now looks like any cleaning up of the air prior to 2009 was due to their getting rid of filthy, East German machinery, not expensive unreliables. So, it's all been for nothing as even bent UN officials admit.

ttbn,
No matter how much you and the neocons' useful idiot try to blame renewables, the fact remains that output from renewables was above average at the time. But Victoria could not rely on the output from Yallourn or Loy Yang A

But you will not refer to coal power as UNRELIABLES because you're no really interested in reliability at all. It doesn't tie in with your preconceived notions of cost, even though those bear very little resemblance to the truth.

Liars!!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JCCWlkZtlF8

Germany to phase out coal-powered electricity by 2038

https://www.euronews.com/2019/01/26/germany-to-phase-out-coal-powered-electricity-by-203

Aiden, my actual experience was to check out my electricity price and be told my current supplier would be better value under a different plan. I changed to that plan and got fifty dollars of my own money back from the Victorian Government. That was last November. My cost in January increased on last year by twenty seven dollars. Voila, my fifty bucks was eaten up in less than two months and I bet AGL will not double their profit this year, as they did last year but certainly increase it.
There are the actual facts. Spare me your sarcasm and oh so superior abuse. I have no respect for you, you do not know me, you are part of the disgusting theft of poor people's money with the rider that it is good for them!

Aidan,

“Neocons”. “Useful idiots”. “Output above above average” at that time. The problem is, with unreliables, nobody knows when or how they will perform - as it is with all things unreliable. Calling people names will not change that reality.

I am not interested in reliability! That's a stupid comment even from you. Tell me, who doesn't want a reliable electricity supply!

“It doesn't tie in with (my) preconceived notions of cost, even though those bear very little resemblance to the truth”. My “notions” are not “preconceived”. I follow the money, and the increasing costs are as plain as the nose on your face. You are in complete denial of the facts. And the ‘truth’ is clearly foreign to you.

You have also run out of wind; you are just left with the bag, which you have pulled firmly over your head to shut out the real world. Get out more, Aidan. You will find that you need to make more sense than you do in your little echo chamber when you have deal with real people.

Now AEMO tells us that they will pay SA and VIC electricity users to reduce their consumption. What a whacky, costly way to deal with their incompetence and blatant undermining of our once reliable power supply from coal-powered plants.

These ridiculous people say that rolling blackouts are “common” in first world countries. One commentator says, yeah, if South Africa can still be called a first world country. Or Pakistan.

How much longer is the gutless Australian majority going to put up with this crap!

ttbn,

"How much longer is the gutless Australian majority going to put up with this crap!"

Probably until someone corners the market on candles and forces the price up, even then some will be content with fat lamps.

Is Mise,

I think that we are closer to dark caves (no lights at all) than we realise.

ttbn,
Notice that commentator didn't give Germany as an example?

I make no apologies for referring to runner as "the neocons' useful idiot" because it's an accurate description of him. The neocons noticed that the environmentalists (and indeed the climate scientists) threatened their commercial interests, so they came up with the idea of calling it a religion to make it seem logical to their fellow atheists and evil to Christians. Most people were smart enough to see through that ploy, but runner has fallen for it hook line and sinker. I've alerted him to it a few times in the past, yet he's at it again on this thread!

>The problem is, with unreliables, nobody knows when or how they will perform - as it is with all things unreliable.
But it turned out the renewables performed pretty well at that time - as I said, their output was above average. Whereas technical problems and scheduled maintenance meant that Yallourn and Loy Yang A could not be relied upon.

Regarding interest in reliability, let me clarify: yes, you want a reliable supply (as we all do) but you're not interested in the technical details of how that can be achieved. And because of that you support policies that would make our electricity supply more expensive rather than more reliable.

If you followed the money properly, you'd abandon your preconceived conclusion that renewables are the cause of the increased costs, and you'd start to learn about the real cause.

JBowyer,
I unironically ask: what sarcasm? I very rarely use sarcasm on the internet, and have not done so at all in this thread.

I have never disputed the seriousness of the profiteering problem. What I have pointed out is the stupidity of blaming renewables when it's the fossil fuel generators who hold out for a better price, and it's the Generators at Yallourn and Loy Yang A being offline (at a time of very high demand) that caused the supply problems.

Renewables actually put downward pressure on prices. But many people would rather scapegoat renewables than look at the real reason for high prices.

I don't claim to know you, and I'm not part of (nor financially involved in) the industry, so why do you disrespect me?

Aiden, mainly because you are not deserving of respect.
We had coal and cheap electricity. Then we get the con job of solar and then wind power. Cheaper you said, prices doubled, getting cheaper you said, prices doubled again!
That says it all, if renewables were any good they would need no subsidies and prices would reduce but prices just increase and increase.
Another thing never reported. Gas was always pegged to the electricity price and if electricity prices increased, gas always followed. So now we have the worse possible result.
I bet the Chinese and Indians are laughing their bottoms off at our rank stupidity. Go to Asia, I was in Vietnam for some months and saw no solar panels or wind turbines. That's because they are building more coal fired power stations as their population needs cheap power not paying off sleazy Green companies and even sleazier scientists!

“Disrespect” is it? Nobody is going to respect someone who insists on making claims that are clearly untrue. Over the 30 or so years of climate change hysteria, everything claimed by the hysterics has been debunked - most assuredly so by the climate itself. Carl Jung would have diagnosed the culprits for this nonsense as 'hysterics who try to make themselves interesting by whipping up hysteria among others’, to gain a following and, something he probably would not have imagined at the time, to make motza of money out of it.

Aidan has done his dash with me with this unfathomable comment: “And because of that you support policies that would make our electricity supply more expensive rather than more reliable.”

You are unhinged, Aidan. The policies that you favour are the expensive ones. You must be the only person in the entire world who hasn't noticed that unreliable sources have increased power prices. Does the missus pay all the bills and not show them to you?

There is something very wrong with you, mate, and I've run out of patience with you. Rave on all you like. Someone might still think you are worth arguing with, but it's not me.

JBowyer and ttbn,
So let me get this straight: you saw a correlation between renewable energy and higher prices, and rather than surmising that it might be the cause and investigating further to try and determine if it was (as an intelligent person would) you concluded that it must be the cause and anyone who says otherwise is clearly not worthy of respect?

If you are willing to switch your brains back on for a few minutes, you'll find that renewables (and the way they're funded) were responsible for a small part of the price rise. Other factors responsible for the higher prices include (but are not limited to:
• Unsustainably low starting prices (the policy of sweating old assets rather than building new ones is often sensible, but it can't go on for ever).
• Rising fuel prices (gas prices have quadrupled since 2010, matching international prices as our LNG export industry developed; leading not following electricity prices)
• Rising network costs, largely due to poor regulation
• Insufficient competition for the NEM to always work efficiently (thus generators profiteering at the expense of consumers)

Any objective analysis would show the last of those factors is responsible for the high wholesale prices last week. But you're too pig headed to ever hold anything other than renewables responsible!

So what can we do about it? More generation is the obvious answer. And Lomborg's prediction has now turned out to be correct - prices for renewables have fallen so much that solar plus batteries is now cheaper than coal. I know you won't take my word for it, so check it out for yourself: there's a CSIRO report at http://www.csiro.au/~/media/News-releases/2018/Annual-update-finds-renewables-are-cheapest-new-build-power/GenCost2018.pdf

As for why they need subsidies: with subsidies there's more incentive to add more solar panels, wind turbines and batteries than without subsidies. And the sooner they're added, the sooner prices will come down. I know it's counterintuitive, but if you look at what's really driving wholesale prices, it makes sense.