Aidan Morrison @FootnotesGuy

@arthurscarfukin Interesting idea... Certainly they have pretty substantial slabs prepared to be mounted on permanently. So the possibility of some bitumen being affected is... credible. Would be interesting to get a time-laps of this spot over coming months.

So this is a transformer. Heading to Golbourn River solar farm apparently. Apparently the whole package including cradle is around 600tonnes. The cradle just lowers the whole thing down and sits it on the road when they break overnight.

@PaulMan70983272 Not really, no.

@PaulMan70983272 yes, that's done now.

Another “should be news” story… the workers camps planned in Central West Orana are quietly being consolidated onto the big one at Merotherie that belongs to ACEREZ who are building the transmission. Wind and solar developers are being invited in too, and that camp is expanding. Consolidation is unsurprising given the social license has collapsed. Fewer objectors. But this has big implications for road traffic, and the locals nearby, who I’ve spoken to. But this is happening oh-so-quietly. And crucially, this opens a window for potential cross-subsidisation of wind and solar projects from the transmission build. All these projects haven’t reached financial close, and won’t without loads of government support. So carefully concealed subsidies is what we expect, and this could be one of them.

Bit by bit… the admissions of climate overreach come creeping out.

Polymarket @Polymarket

3 days ago

JUST IN: Germany and France join forces to officially scrap the EU's 2035 climate neutrality goal for cars.

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@rkc_62 Exactly.

New details here… Tumut 3 is Snowy Hydro, which is owned by the federal government. And this is extremely aggressive bidding behaviour, which exploited vulnerabilities and technicalities in the market to grab a bucket of money from consumers, almost certainly contributing to the seriousness of this price spike. They bid at deeply negative prices, ensuring they got switched on, ramping up counterprice flows, which they would know would lead to more constraints, leading to a severe price spike. They they altered the rate at which they could ramp down their power. So once they got switched on (with an ultra-low bid) they used technical constraints to ensure they wouldn’t get switched off while prices were high. Oh for some serious energy journalists. What an epic story. Heavy sigh. Are taxpayers happy with their investment gaming the market to return, pushing up prices to produce super profits to Snowy Hydro? I guess that’s how Snowy 2.0 gets funded. To save the embarrassment of the federal government shovelling cash into the entity, everyone looks the other way while they play an ultra-aggressive game to gouge the market.

Ben Beattie @EnergyWrapAU

7 days ago

Odd dispatch outcomes for the NSW wind fleet coincident with the price spike.

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So all is as one would expect... These admissions are coming. But they will be too little, too late, to keep the lights on. Soon there'll be an admission that Eraring will extend to 2032, and the others will be pushed out well past their planned dates just after that. 3/3

They've specifically ruled out batteries... must "not rely on energy consumed from the grid." That means they've read this section of the ESOO I pointed out on page 89. There's not enough ENERGY to charge up the batteries, or even pump water up hill. 2/ x.com/FootnotesGuy/s…

Aidan Morrison @FootnotesGuy

2 months ago

Now why is close timing of Snowy 2.0 units, with perfect foresight, in perfect co-ordination with massive other batteries so, so critical? Becuase later AEMO tells us that the water in the dams runs out. And that's when blackouts start. Not only that, short-term storage of

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So this week NSW energy minster has commenced a process to procure (at any cost) 1.5GW of "firming" by 2033-34. But this incorrectly cites the ESOO as saying that's the year when problems emerge. Actually, unserved energy spikes three years earlier, just after the first major coal station closes (Eraring). They're assuming things only need a lot of help when the second two close, four years later. This is... concerning. 1/ asl.org.au/-/media/servic…

Aidan Morrison @FootnotesGuy

2 months ago

Ok, time to unpack key charts/assumptiosn and findings of the ESOO. Electricity Statement of Opportunities. Released by the market operator, AEMO. The key takeway is that things fall appart soon after we close coal, specificially Eraring, as marked. NSW is first to fall apart.

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Looking forward to this event in Scone next week, Thursday 22nd of October. See link below. events.humanitix.com/form-australia…

@RetiredADF No, haven’t!

This grinds my gears so much. Vanity projects and global poppycocking polluting the policy-making process in Australia. This EV charger rule change request is the easiest hard-reject on economic grounds. But because it’s Bowen’s, and it’s COP time, the AEMC is indulging him.

Aidan Morrison @FootnotesGuy

a week ago

Ok I'm not done... Turns out this EV charger stuff is a massive case of tail-wagging the dog. Chris Bowen's using this initiative as Exhibit A in electrification reports he's commissioned as part of COP negotiations he's "President" of. Really sickening. 1/

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Good take. Just missed the 800GWh, or about 10% of the renewable share, that came from hydro. Not wind and solar. We’ve had hydro for donkeys years. These days we’re using less of it… to make more room in the grid for wind and solar.

Peter Lyndon-James @PeterPerthWA

6 days ago

"RENEWABLES BEAT FOSSIL FUELS." HERE'S WHAT THE MINISTER LEFT OUT. Chris Bowen posted a chart this week. Last month, renewables generated more electricity on the national grid than fossil fuels. Only the second time in history. The numbers are right. Here's what the chart

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Researcher @curryja was once a “rock star” in the climate change movement. Then she discovered that some scientists conspire to hide data. “A lot of really ugly things,” she tells me. She reveals the “manufactured consensus” about climate change:

Here's the thread on Sydney Ring South for reference. x.com/FootnotesGuy/s…

Aidan Morrison @FootnotesGuy

11 months ago

When Jesus said "the first will be last and the last will be first" he wasn't giving instructions on how to build out transmission lines. And yet... In NSW... This is the story of Sydney Ring South. Probably the most urgently needed transmission line. Approved to be...

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Great chart Ben, thanks for tracking this down. No, it's not odd at all. This is a crystal-clear example of planning failures in NSW. Because quite a bit of that wind power was flowing to Victoria, against price, the wind was switched off. To prevent the "Negative Residue", ie interstate bills that no-one agreed to pay, from racking up. And then this caused a price spike in NSW, because there was now none of that low price wind dispatched. This wouldn't be a problem if our transmission was planned in the right sequence, with Sydney Ring South being built first, which would fix this problem between all of NSW's wind fleet (outside Canberra) which can't reach Sydney. Then HumeLink could follow, Project EnergyConnect, etc. But we're building things in exactly the wrong direction. So this problem won't be solved until the mid-2030s. The failure on AEMO's part to manage the construction of transmission according to an orderly plan is catastrophic.

Ben Beattie @EnergyWrapAU

7 days ago

Odd dispatch outcomes for the NSW wind fleet coincident with the price spike.

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@RationalistsUtd Nope because diesel.

NO NO NO NO!!!! Enough of these activist institutions selling out their independent mandates to protect consumer interests in favour of pursuing Bowen's vanity projects. “The benefits that we can see is the virtuous cycle of more chargers leading to more EVs leading to more chargers leading to more EVs – and more EVs on the road means reducing emissions ... one of our specific objectives.” Piss off with your "virtuous circle" BS. You're meant to push back on uneconomic proposals that interfere with consumer interests that are best met by market forces! A 🧵 to expose what a betrayal this is. Absolutely indefensible. 1/

Gulp... I assume all the papers will be running this tomorrow... Right after Yallourn is forecast to close. And there's an election coming up... Are the forecast blackouts going to be a thing? What other thing would you campaign on, if in opposition?

This is not how it's meant to work... Two states with high prices... others negative. But power either unable to flow between them, or trying to flow the wrong direction, and hence blocked with "negative residue" constraints cycling on and off.

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