Last federal election saw one of Labors safest seats,in the Hunter Valley, see a twenty percent swing, to one notion
Yes coal has a limited future, maybe less than 50 years, no more than one hundred
But right now, like it or not, this country is not prepared to live without it
Or the massive income we get from it
Lets look, with unbiased eyes, at those against using it
Greens get what, say ten percent of the vote
Who else, no one comes to mind
Labor, now branded by even some of its base as the new Liberals, has said ok, let the voters have their say
Selling coal while we can, seems much better than leaving it in the ground forever
Renewable,s will replace coal, until then? sell it or watch others do just that

I am now in an alternative universe. More than two genders and the cheapest and most reliable energy source being replaced by much more expensive and unreliable sources.
Then when the unreliables fail the cheaper reliable source is blamed.
Nutters making spurious gender claims bully the majority and silence common sense.
Amazing but I changed my vote and will be very reluctant to vote for the two main parties again. If I am truly some troglodyte and totally unrepresentative so be it. If I am not rest assured all the contortions of the swill that are currently mis-representing me will matter nought I have left them behind me.
I look forward to the future, always! If I am wrong we will enter a new golden age of milk and honey, cheap electricity and less personal problems. However if I am right we will take twenty years to sort the almighty mess we have gotten ourselves in if ever!

Have you thought of voting for the new party Belly has mentioned - "one notion"

It is a bit like gas Belly, if we stop exporting it, it will last a lot
longer. It seems that, according Swiztoski, or whatever his name is, we
have missed the boat on nuclear energy, as it has become too expensive.
He has been the main promoter of nuclear energy for years.

Given that, where do we go ? I know Alan, Thorium.
India was working on it, how is it going ? Any catches ?
In the meantime coal & gas is all we have.
The solar & wind is, after all the money we have spent on it, still a
very small amount of generation.

Someone, and I cannot imagine who, will have to go to the governor of
each state and ask that he suspend each parliament on the grounds
of evident insanity. They do not comprehend that 3 - 5 = -2 a negative
number.
Anyone that believes it produces a positive number MUST be insane.
This is what they are doing by closing the coal fired power stations.

Hey Bazz,

I found the article

Cook, J., et al. 'Quantifying the consensus on anthropogenic global warming in the scientific literature', Environmental Research Letters 8 (2), 2013.

If we had enough mountains, & enough rain, hydro could replace thermal power generation by coal or gas, but we don't have either.

Apart from Hydro, none of the existing alternate renewable generation systems CAN EVER replace thermal generation. It is simply impossible, & only fools & ratbags believe it is possible. With out a new system of voltage control, windmills need despatchable power to get them to start. They need an outside power supply to keep them warm & rotating in cold windless conditions & to hold voltage for them.

Solar panels can generate useful electricity, I use them to pump a little water. However we would have to cover the whole continent with them if we wanted to supply just our domestic power requirement. We'd need another continent to cover with the things to supply even our miserly industrial requirements.

Of course they can only give us power for 8 hours a day, so we would need a third continent covered with the things to drive 100 Snowy 2.0 systems if we wanted power at night. Here again finding enough mountains become a problem.

Gas could replace coal, if the idiots running NSW & Vic would allow their own gas to be harvested. Virtue signalling or buying ratbag green preferences, or what ever drives this stupidity, may disappear when those state residents spend enough time dark & cold on enough long winter nights, but I'm not sure those states residents are smart enough to know the cause of their coming problems.

So Belly, I doubt we can lose coal, & still have lights, unless some very stupid people wake up to a few scientific facts. Of course they need some math for that, & the politicians rarely have enough to make change from a bus ticket.

Pragmatism, a much needed thing these days
Coal will not be used forever, I question that it is the cheapest fuel, and believe it will, within decades not be so if it is
Now for the double somersault and twist
This rise of the right is real, and like it or not, here at some level to stay
Fact is most want renewable energy, truth is they will get it, but not over night
Coal will continue to be used until it is over priced or its use is seen as wrong
No dump coal now policy will find support right now or in the short term future
Chase achievable change, not change that entrenches the very right

JBowyer

you sum up why the West is doomed unless people like Trump expose and deal with the swamp quickly.

Despite the title of this thread, a lot of people in it are still living in fantasy land.
What will it take to convince them that the costs today are very different from a decade ago? And that Lomborg's prediction has come true; it is now cheaper to generate electricity with renewables than with fossil fuels (even when the cost of battery storage is included)?
How many more breakdowns of our coal fired power stations will it take to convince them that reliability isn't synonymous with dispatchability?
What will it take to convince them that they're overestimating the area of solar panels needed to power Australia by a factor of ten thousand?

Coal probably has a good future as a chemical feedstock for the manufacture of graphene etc. But the sooner it becomes a thing of the past for electricity generation, the better.

Hasbeen, the wind generators can be fitted with synthesised equipment
that enables them to generate 50cycles, presumably using xtal oscillators.
This then enables them to get synchronised with the grid.
This equipment was not fitted in Sth Aus turbines and that was why
they had all that trouble. But that is all by the bye.
The ERoEI of coal will fall someday in Australia as it has in the US & China.
So the more coal we sell the sooner we will have to shut the mines down.
Who is "them" Aiden ?
The power stations comprise thousands of parts, each of which can get
the three "Rs". Major items like boilers can be replaced for the same
cost as putting new ones into new power stations.
The turbines can be run for a hundred or two years with maintenance.
If they burn the stator out, it can be rewound while a spare is used.
True the maintenance has been run down because they have taken away
their output so they cannot make money.
The only reason to scrap a coal fired power station is if the coal
runs out and there is none in an economic distance. But then we ship
it around the world !
Ding a lings are running around saying they are "clapped out".
How ridiculous, as if they are like an old car !
So they are fifty years old, so what ?

It is starting to sink in that the dream of all wind & solar even
in a country as large as Australia is unaffordable because of the
duplication needed to get 100% supply and 99.9% reliability.
Read between the lines and you can sense it.
It is politically incorrect to say so. The emperor has no clothes.

Hey Bazz,

Guess what! I found the article

Cook, J., et al. 'Quantifying the consensus on anthropogenic global warming in the scientific literature', Environmental Research Letters 8 (2), 2013.

Bazz,
What trouble is it you're referring to? If it's the statewide blackout, that was nothing to do with the frequency control settings, but in the settings for how they should react when the powerlines short circuit.

The EROEI of coal is irrelevant, as costs are dominated by non energy inputs. Which is just as well, as the world can't afford to keep burning coal until the EROEI crashes.

"Them" referred to other posters on this thread (and anyone with good comprehension should be able to identify that my remarks were specifically directed at JBowyer and Hasbeen). But it could easily also be directed at some politicians (including our PM) who are under the same illusions.

>The power stations comprise thousands of parts,
That doesn't make them any more reliable. It doesn't necessarily make them unreliable either - real world reliability is what counts, and this is where our coal fired power stations are proving to be unreliable.

>each of which can get the three "Rs".
What does that mean in this context?

>True the maintenance has been run down because they have taken away
>their output so they cannot make money.
Dubious - the maintenance changes happened shortly after privatisation and made them very profitable.

>The only reason to scrap a coal fired power station is if the coal
>runs out and there is none in an economic distance.
Who do you think should pay when they run at a loss?

>It is starting to sink in that the dream of all wind & solar even
>in a country as large as Australia is unaffordable because of the
>duplication needed to get 100% supply and 99.9% reliability.
Firstly that dream's a strawman, as nobody's proposing phasing out hydro.
Secondly, now big batteries are here, most of the perceived impracticality of 100% renewables has gone.
Thirdly, as the market share of renewables continues to increase, more of the arguments against it will be shown to be groundless.

Aiden we are probably more on the same side but
But what happens to our economy if we stop using and exporting coal over night
Can we right now dump coal all together as a source of power
Then tell me how many, no truly, would vote for such a thing
More importantly how many, even on my side, would vote against it
Let the feeble view renewable s are too costly go it is untrue
And ignore one posters view the sun only shines for eight hours a day so solar panels will not work
KNOW solar battery's leap forwards every year, and make long ago first generation ones look ancient
But the subject is coal, the future will see change and one day an end to its use, that day is not here

Aiden said;
>The power stations comprise thousands of parts,
That doesn't make them any more reliable.
>each of which can get the three "Rs".

Repair, Replace or Refurbish.
If taking over a rundown power station that is what you do.
It may mean a years work before the reliability improves but it will
improve.

In the timescale ahead of us is there a choice ?
The timescale is about three months.
All the coal handling plant is in place and needing little work
probably, mostly conveyor belts, all the storage and control is in place.
The idiots claiming they are clapped out and should be closed now
are just stupid. I seriously doubt they have ever seen the inside of a
plant like a power station or similar bulk handling plant.
Sure if you had an old plant and plenty of spare capacity available
you might opt for financial reasons to rebuild.
But that is not the real world, we are looking at sitting on the floor
of lifts for a couple of hours in a few months.

Aiden, one simple question. If renewables are so cheap and coal is so expensive why did prices increase? Further if you say it’s the big power companies can we have a fixed, mandated price for power to reduce it to what it was? I am being facetious of course.
With your system prices will keep going up, this years blackouts will be blamed on coal and more coal will be closed. When we crash the system and the whole country faces what Victoria faced courtesy of John Cain so much debt and not enough electricity I am stumped! Perhaps you can paint a picture of this golden age we are approaching due to your delusion?

I don't wish to blame women.
But I think there is something to be said for displacing policies based on logic with policies based on emotion.

With regards to coal and energy:

I'll happily tell everyone I love coal just to go against everyone else, but there's a basis of merit for it.
Coal has enabled me to have a life that I couldn't have otherwise had, and I will not remove myself from this fact.

It creates jobs and puts money in government coffers;
So they can fund all their moronic progressive agendas.
When they come up with something better, I'll gladly go for it.
- But I won't shoot myself or others in the foot prior to that day.

I think we could do a lot better with energy, if only we actually actually tried.
I think there's a whole bag full of updated and improved methods for energy creation, if only we had the will and determination to make it happen.

Sadly yet again the totally untrue claim renewable s drove power prices up
Any thoughtful person knows gold plated delivery wires did part of it
Privatization,selling to those wanting profit did the rest
Feed back, numbers here continue to hark back to the early days, when good money was paid for that, not any longer my six cents subsidizes those who have no panels
No we will not have over night new fuels, no closing of service stations over night, coal will continue to be used but too decline
Renewable,s now have a future profit makers are in the market and its growth will not be stopped

Dear thoughtful Belly; the first I heard of gold plating wires was from George Brandis on Q & A one Monday night. Because Gillard and Rudd let that happen on their watch! It is dishonest for you to blame this and then say part. The facts are a whole lot more gold plating will be needed to accomodate wind and solar in the future. Bring on solar and wind bring on gold plating because sometime the bill will arrive as it did for Victoria after John Cain. Then your mob will slink away with massive pensions and we will have that to pay as well as for a new proper power grid. As envisioned by John Monash in the 1920’s.
Read the first line of this whole posting One Nation, remember? When things are really tough a Truth &Justice Commission could make the current crop pay dearly!

J Bower well in NSW at least we have known about the gold plated wires, and been a victim of them for years
YOU not me claim exemption for Labor in this matter
I think my view of the impacts did not target one side
However your post seems tainted by you political views not facts
Coal, as AC said above, is one of those things we must be realistic about
That twenty percent vote *for a one Motion candidate* in a coal mining once safe Labor seat, speaks for its self

JBowyer,
>Aiden, one simple question. If renewables are so cheap and coal is so expensive why did prices increase?
Could you be a bit more specific please? To what timeframe and state are you referring?
If, as I suspect, you're referring to Victoria last year, the Hazelwood closure meant there was less electricity from coal coming on to the market, so more reliance on gas. Gas fired power stations have significantly more expensive fuel (at the moment) and more ability to vary their output, so they bid higher than their coal fired competitors. But as more renewables come on to the market, they push down gas use.

>With your system prices will keep going up, this years blackouts will be blamed on coal
Prices will go down as well as up. More renewables and more storage will bring prices down, and more closures of coal fired power stations will bring prices up. Eventually they'll run out of coal fired power stations to close, at which point the prices will keep falling.

And when the breakdown of a coal fired power station results in inadequate supply, doesn't coal deserve the blame?

>When we crash the system and the whole country faces what Victoria faced courtesy
>of John Cain so much debt and not enough electricity I am stumped!
Australia's interest rates were too high for too long, devastating state governments and the private sector alike. But that's never going to happen again, so debt is no longer the problem it used to be. Not enough electricity is a potential problem which the NEG is designed to solve.

And I think you misunderstand what "gold plating" means. It isn't the provision of more infrastructure than we have, or even more infrastructure than we're likely to need. It's the provision of unnecessarily expensive infrastructure. Our toothless regulator allowed electricity transmission companies to make a profit based on the cost of new infrastructure, so there was an incentive to INCREASE the cost.

Aidan I was referring to the fact that electricity prices have more than doubled since renewables. Hazel wood showed what we can expect over the coming years. Solar and wind are not the answer to cheaper power they increase all cost forever. No need to argue, give me a shout when electricity prices start reducing.
I do know what gold plating means and corrupt public servants working with the wires and poles people ensured we were right royally turned over. Your preferred renewables mean a whole new thick layer of cost will be added to all this.
Cain got Victoria into horrendous debt that was the problem, debt that was of no use. You think like the RBA that low interest rates are the answer we’ll see what happens when the savings run out and it’s peoples super being taken for no return and there is another recipe for disaster.
Mate you are useless, cannot add up, know nothing but with a touching faith in crackpot notions like solar and wind. This will all end in tears as it always does!

If there has been so much gold plating of the distribution systems, how come, lots of the towers fell over in South Australia, in no worse conditions than an average Queensland thunder storm?

How come we get outages every year a few times in the thunder storm season?

How come the people of Tamborine mountain can get a number of outages in a mild spring day?

Surely a gold plated system should handle simple average conditions.

We need to stop building windmills & start doing some upgrades & maintenance on those gold plated wires.

Investment is flowing to renewables,
not coal-fired power, says Westpac.

Westpac's Head of Infrastructure and Utilities,
David Scrivener said investors were backing
wind and solar despite the policy settings coming
out of Canberra.

"From a commercial sector, you have to look at the
consistency of building a coal-fired power station
with the Paris climate commitments for Australia and
net zero emissions. It would appear to be incongruous
from that perspective," Mr Scrivener said.

"To my mind if we are to meet the Paris commitments,
it is hard to see coal-fired power as a long term part
of that transition."

Over the past 24 months, Westpac has lent over $800
million to the Australian Renewable Energy Sector,
supporting the construction of 14 renewable energy
projects with an aggregated capital cost of more than
$5 billion.

When complete these projects will have an installed
capacity of over 3 gigawatts and generate sufficient
electricity to power 1.8 million homes.

There's more at the link given below:

http://afr.com/politics/investment-is-flowing-to-renewable-not-coal-fired-power-says-westpac-20190217-h1bcyz

Hasbeen gee thought you would know that
South Australian lines are clearly sub standard, very cheap probable at a high price
Maybe a Labor governments fault, not sure
But as an engineer you should see those toy like thin towers for the failure they are
OK so you do not get the full story about NSW
At my last NSW state Labor conference I joined in a protest that carried a lot of weight, against Labor selling its power
Including some [they wanted all] transmission lines
Nifty Nev, a thief and worse, once partner to Turnbull, was by then aged and frail, but came to fight us, [never know how but he would have made money out of it]
We lost, after the *rats in the ranks * bought us down the Libs sold the rest
Thank both sides and privatization for higher prices not renewable s

Hasbeen,
>If there has been so much gold plating of the distribution systems, how come, lots of the towers fell over in
>South Australia, in no worse conditions than an average Queensland thunder storm?
Are you referring to the ones that were hit by tornadoes?

The gold plating claims referred to new infrastructure rather than existing,

>How come we get outages every year a few times in the thunder storm season?
Maybe because your state doesn't have a big battery? The system's more reliable in SA nowadays!

>How come the people of Tamborine mountain can get a number of outages in a mild spring day?
Haven't the foggiest! Do you know?

>Surely a gold plated system should handle simple average conditions.
Again, you misunderstand what's meant by gold plating. It's more about inefficiency than high standards.

>We need to stop building windmills & start doing some upgrades & maintenance on those gold plated wires.
Are you aware that building windmills and making the wires and transformers more reliable aren't mutually exclusive?

_________________________________________________________________________________

Bazz,
There is quite a lot of renewable energy being commissioned now. But even if that doesn't meet our needs, and we don't have enough peaking capacity available, and we don't have enough demand management arrangements in place, we wouldn't get trapped in lifts. In the unlikely event that the electricity companies do resort to load shedding, they'd do it in the outer suburbs not the CBD.

Foxy do not confuse nameplate ratings with actual generated power.

Dear Bazz,

I'm not confusing anything. Merely quoting
from the Australian Financial Review and
Westpac - as my link shows.

Aiden, where do you think all these multistory units are being built ?
I live in an outer area and many multis are being built around the next
areas out from here.
You can criticise the councils for allowing this size units in areas
that are likely to suffer load shedding. They are convinced that
that wind and solar will be fine; ask them !

I know Aidan you have a real problem with reality, but would you please explain just what a big battery would do for power outages caused by storms.

These outages are not due to any lack of power in Queensland, we have adequate coal fired power for the state, & much of north NSW. For your information, storms don't cause destruction of coal fired power houses, as they do for wind power. The outages are due to lack of adequate clearance of trees from power lines.

This lack of maintenance is due to a mixture of insufficient money allocated to this work, & fear of ratbag greenie protests about tree clearing. I guess it will take major fires caused by power lines too close to trees, as caused the major fires in California recently, to get this problem addressed.

Hasbeen, have a look at this, you will see that NSW hardly ever has
enough power for itself and the extra needed comes from Queensland.
Both NSW & Vic and sometimes SA need Qld to keep the lights on'

http://www.aemo.com.au/Electricity/National-Electricity-Market-NEM/Data-dashboard#nem-dispatch-overview

http://tinyurl.com/y9n75xkf

Tassie has been out of the act due to a fault for a few weeks.
Aren't we all lucky it didn't happen next December.
Victoria gets a lot fed in from Qld also.
Just make it your home page and you will all realise how dependant
we are on Qld.

Yes Bazz, without our coal fired power the sough eastern states couldn't keep the lights on, but it is worse than that.

Without our coal, WAs iron ore, & north shelf gas, earning our foreign exchange they couldn't earn enough for themselves to buy cars, electrical & electronic goods, hell they couldn't even buy shoes.

With their manufacturing industry basically gone, there is really no reason for their existence, except perhaps to house migrants.

You have to wonder just what they have between their ears, when they tell us to stop mining coal, it is all that keeps them going.

Hasbeen,
I suggest that we all petition the governor to dissolve parliament on
the grounds that the politicians are obviously insane.
As well as electricity Sydney Water is now warning about water shortage.
The dam level is falling faster than ever before.
So their solution is more migrants, fix both problems in one go.
No electricity, no water, no problem

Hasbeen you take a step too far in including Iron ore in your defense of coal
Why? no challenge to the use or export of it exists
Coal is here to stay, for now, and we must trade in it use it while we can
That much is the very reason for the thread
Count the voters who agree
Now consider why any group unable to ever win government, should convince us other than to continue to use it
Coal, in time, will be over taken by? cheaper power sources
Think Kodak,had anyone foretold the coming of Digital Cameras, and very near death of film printing, a shop on every corner, we would have thought them mad
Such new things come, like it or not, and are driven by profit not politics as this coal debate is

Hasbeen, your conclusion that I have a problem with reality is the result of your cognitive dissonance. You have so much trouble accepting that you could be wrong that you assume the problem is with whoever contradicts your delusions.

See http://reneweconomy.com.au/coal-and-hydro-generators-struggle-after-lightning-strikes-twice-on-network-57485/ for the role SA's Big Battery played when lightning struck the Queensland-NSW interconnector.

Have you any actual evidence of "ratbag greenies" preventing trees being cut back around HV powerlines? Or is that also a figment of your imagination.

Regarding economics, you seem unaware that there's an equilibrium; if our mineral export volumes were lower, our dollar would also be lower so our manufacturers would be more competitive.

And doesn't your state have a desal plant that can be turned on when its dam levels get low?

________________________________________________________________________________

Bazz, I thought those multi-storey units were being built in the inner suburbs. And how many of them are tall enough for the residents to need to use lifts?

The days of SA being reliant on interstate power to keep the lights on are gone. However without a carbon price, coal power is cheaper than gas power, and SA sometimes takes advantage of cheaper interstate electricity. Although nowadays SA is a net exporter of electricity, and usually has lower wholesale prices.

Aiden, you should refrain from insulting people and using big words to
do it is no excuse.

Most of the units being built are three to six floors high.
The legal limit without lifts is three floors but those ones never sell.
Even some two floor units have lifts but not these ones.
Try this;
http://tinyurl.com/yyf26553

There are hundreds like this around Sydney. The 10 to 20 storied ones
are near the city centre where the would be's if they could be's like
to live so they can vote green etc.

Well my mistake, see my view is the thread is about our use of coal, not in any way in my mind about renewable,s or failures in the current system
We do not live forever so may not see it, but a child born today may well at age 50 never see coal used in its current form or current way
My view is strongly, not to leave it in the ground while it is salable
To continue to use it until we no longer need to, that time is not now
Re reading the posts it is clear some base every view on their side of politics not the facts

Sorry, Bazz, I thought you were in Melbourne.
I accept the Sydney housing situation is as you've described, but I'd expect the chances of having to resort to load shedding to be remoter in Sydney.

______________________________________________________________________________________

JBowyer,
It's cheaper to generate electricity from renewables because the fuel cost is zero.

Fifteen years ago, when we were jut getting started with renewables, they did work out as more expensive than fossil fuels because of their high capital cost. But since then two things have happened to change the economics: firstly the capital costs have come down because of advances in design and manufacturing. Secondly financing costs have dropped, so high capital costs are less of a problem than they used to be.

The need former transmission infrastructure did not depend on renewables, and was clear before it was decided to install wind turbines. But there are other factors that greatly raised the price of electricity, including the development of gas export facilities in Eastern Australia, resulting in our gas prices getting much higher (to match the international gas prices) which increased the price the gas fired electricity generators were willing to supply power at.

Are you under the impression that the amount the RBA lends out depends on people's savings? That's not the case at all; the RBA has unlimited lending capacity (in Australian dollars) even if there's no savings at all.

Belly it is much more likely that your 50 year old will be witnessing a huge fight over who is going to pay to demolish all those ugly proven useless towers that currently carry windmills.

Wind power is a dead end technology, & will be proven so in the not too distant future.

Hasbeen I am confident if in that future, 50 years from now, someone researches these pages they will have huge fun
And looking back 25 years, see the date coal, like whale oil before it, was no longer used
Too from that date look back at these days with stunned disbelief at just why we ignore near daily evidence man made or not the climate is [now] changing
But coal,ALDANI forces true reasoning, while people do not want new mines new coal fired power stations, they do not in numbers, have the power to stop it yet
Pushing for things you can not achieve is unwise and gives head start to conservative in every election

Aidan the cost of renewables is nothing to do with it. State and federal governments both tip in for the construction of wind generators. Direct subsidy to build and then preference of supply and subsidy to supply. Otherwise it would not get built. Trouble is the erratic nature of wind means no certainty of actual supply. This was why coal powered steam replaced wind.
Solar is on the same lines except the power is so diffuse it makes no sense either.
We can argue now but time will sort out who of us is right.
The RBA is an anachronism lead by a bunch of total overpaid fools. You think you just print money? I suggest you have a read about the South Sea Company and the contemporary French economy. A depression that went for just over one hundred years and resulted in things being worth less at the end than at the beginning. That was the poisoned fruit from that particular tree.
My main frustration will be that dick at the RBA blaming me, making me pay for his inattention and stupidity. Especially as he will walk away from his disaster with a big fat pension.
Tell me why not print one million dollars each for every Australian adult to fire up the economy? Jokes on you, in 2008 when Australians withdrew six billion in cash the RBA had to print more notes. Of course only four billion eventually returned so there is two billion under beds right now. RBA would like to abolish cash to steal our savings too and we sneer at Zimbabwe?

Aiden, many of those towers of say 10 stories and up are standing there
empty. Dive past at night and there might be 5% of the windows lit up.
Much of the money tied up in them is Chinese and having got it out they
are happy so sit and wait.

There is more to the cost of renewables than zero cost fuel.
That is the point of what I have been saying for a while now.
It is the multiplication factor. As I have said previously the only
factor I have seen is 12 which seems too high for my guessing.
However it can be easily demonstrated that 3 is too low.
I know that batteries help, but like hydro they have to be recharged.
They have to be recharged when the wind is blowing when running the current load.
So another set of turbines & solar is needed.

There was a report last night, forget where, that Germany is in a
financial bind over capacity and cost of electricity.
It is affecting their economy badly. Sound familiar.

Will go of topic, well sort of, to show a reason we are indeed paying too much for power
First how many are prepared to believe this truth, politicians on every side made cash out of the privatization of power plants
And that some, and their family's own shares in them and other privatized things
Do we also know many politicians are in fact millionaires
They thrive on us blaming renewable s, standing against new fuels, until they get the opportunity to invest in them, or are given shares to help along the way
A challenge, [sorry about the spelling] Roth bury riot, a coal mine shutout
READ how the judge, yes judge, who ruled in favor of that mines owner Brown, inherited that mine!on Browns death
Justice has not changed money buys influence

JBowyer, cost o renewables has everything to do with it. Yes there is an incentive t add generation capacity, but that has the effect of reducing wholesale prices. Indeed the Abbott government's attempt to stop is part of the reason electricity prices remained so high at the time despite the repeal of the Carbon Tax.

Of course preference goes to whoever can generate electricity the cheapest. That's how markets are supposed to work!

I admit there are some anachronisms in the way the RBA operates (such as not directly lending money to the government) but the institution itself is very far from anachronistic - it is a vital part of the public sector that's needed to keep the economy healthy. It's something Britain didn't have at the time of the South See Company (for although the Bank of England existed at the time, it was in private hands until 1946) and contemporary France has a similar problem having surrendered its currency creation function to the ECB - a move that's also caused terrible trouble for Ireland and the PIGS.

Which dick at the RBA are you referring to?

>Tell me why not print one million dollars each for every Australian adult to fire up the economy?
Do you really need me to explain the difference between firing it up and burning it down?

>RBA would like to abolish cash to steal our savings too
Are you sure that's the RBA not the government?

>and we sneer at Zimbabwe?
The country that declared war on its main export industry, discouraged foreign investment, kept the official rate of its currency high (preventing other export industries from developing) but didn't have the resources to keep that rate high (so a collapse was inevitable)?
Stupidity like that deserve sneering!

Aides the price of electricity goes up not down, it increases, it costs us more and more and it is a continuing problem. What part are you having difficulty with. It keeps going up! You deserve a slap for suggesting that is how it is supposed to work because it keeps going up, up and away!
Lowy is the dimwit I was referring to, he is absolutely out of his depth theyt all are. They are clueless and with no idea whatever except they have big fat pensions to fall back on.
The South Sea company was chaired by George the third and a major shareholder was the Prime Minister Walpole. It was a stupidity based on shares going up only on speculation. It ruined England for one hundred years. Mate Bank of England, with the king as chairman and Prime Minister as a major shareholder. Good news is they got out and left the plebs to do their money.
Around the same time Louis the 16th (I think) , Contemporaneously started fiat money, no EC never mind ECB. That went very very well until it did not. Both countries one hundred years plus depression.
Don’t, please don’t, defend the RBA to me. I would bankrupt and jail the whole lot of them.
Sorry for such a long bitter post but you know how it is.

J Bower agree it is going up reserve my right to differ on the reason why
But look at petrol, in my lifetime it went from a very minor part of living expenses to the stage its price murdered weekend drives
For some it limits driving at all,
TAX drives the rise even more than the price of oil
In fact if over night we found a way to use tap water instead government would find a way to tax water
Coal is cheap today, once much cheaper but exports make it so
I continue to think it will be over taken by some thing new
But we should use it till that happens

Belly, they are already discussing how to tax electric cars.
They can see the writing on the wall.
One suggestion so far is a box in every car that tracks the car where
it goes and charges by the km.
Another is cameras on every road to read number plates and work out the km.