A small hiatus

I last went on vacation in the year 2004 so I have begun to feel that I should get out more.  So I have decided to take two or three short breaks in the months ahead.  I will therefore be getting on a train later today for a 7 hour trip to see my gorgeous sister.  To have a great sister but rarely see her is crazy.  And the trip will be on a very modern fast train so the travel alone should be interesting.  I will be away for only a few days and will be unlikely to do any blogging while I am away.  I will however be taking a computer with me so if there is a big drama happening I might put up something.




China’s Coal Secret Revealed: China Is Building Hundreds Of New Coal Power Plants

Building work has restarted at hundreds of Chinese coal-fired power stations, according to an analysis of satellite imagery.

The research, carried out by green campaigners CoalSwarm, suggests that 259 gigawatts of new capacity are under development in China.

The authors say this is the same capacity to produce electricity as the entire US coal fleet.

The study says government attempts to cancel many plants have failed.

According to this study, there was a surge in new coal projects approved at provincial level in China between 2014 and 2016. This happened because of a decentralisation programme that shifted authority over coal plant construction approvals to local authorities.

The report says that at present China has 993 gigawatts of coal power capacity, but the approved new plants would increase this by 25%.

China’s central government has tried to rein in this boom by issuing suspension orders for more than 100 power plants but this analysis suggests that these efforts have been significantly less effective than previous news reports had indicated.

In this study, the researchers used satellite photos to examine every power plant that was subject to a suspension order. They found construction ongoing at many locations.

For instance, in September last year, China’s National Energy Administration ordered a group of plants – that together could produce 57 gigwatts of electricity – to slow down construction. The organisation also prohibited them from connecting to the grid in 2017.

However the satellite data suggests that half of this capacity appears not to have slowed down at all.

“This new evidence that China’s central government hasn’t been able to stop the runaway coal-fired power plant building is alarming – the planet can’t tolerate another US-sized block of plants to be built,” said Ted Nace, from CoalSwarm.

SOURCE





Owners of America's only under-construction nuclear plant agree to finish building it

After days of negotiations, the owners of America’s only under-construction nuclear plant agreed Wednesday to keep expanding it by adding two new reactors, a major victory for the fading industry and supporters of the zero-emissions power source.

The completion of the Georgia Vogtle plant's new reactors, which are half finished, had been in doubt because the project is years behind schedule and billions of dollars over budget.

“We are pleased to have reached an agreement and to move forward with the construction of Vogtle Units 3 & 4, which is critical to Georgia’s energy future,” the co-owners said in a statement. “While there have been and will be challenges throughout this process, we remain committed to a constructive relationship with each other and are focused on reducing project risk and fulfilling our commitment to our member-consumers.”

Utility Southern Company and the plant’s three other owners had sought to reach a deal to limit further cost increases for the nearly $28 billion project, more than double the original projection, after blowing by a self-imposed Monday deadline to decide whether to proceed with the expansion of the Vogtle plant.

The companies said the agreement will "mitigate financial exposure.”

Southern Company’s subsidiary Georgia Power, which owns 45.7 percent of the plant -- making it the largest owner -- agreed to absorb a greater share of the cost of any additional overruns, according to details of the agreement filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

The deal also gives Georgia Power the option to buy out the other owners if there are more than $2.1 billion in future cost overruns, or it can choose to cancel the project.

Southern Company announced last month that costs for the project had increased by $2.2 billion, which prompted a vote on whether to complete the plant, including the other three other owners: Oglethorpe Power, the Municipal Electric Authority of Georgia, and Dalton Utilities.

The Trump administration has firmly backed and invested in the plant, providing $3.7 billion in loan guarantees, viewing it as central to keeping alive the promise of clean energy from nuclear power, which emits no greenhouse gases. Vogtle has received a total of $12 billion in federal loan guarantees, with the Obama administration also supporting the plant. The new reactors would be the first to be successfully built in the U.S. in more than 30 years if they are completed as expected, beginning with the first reactor in November 2021.

Southern Company has pitched Plant Vogtle since 2009 as a way to revive the U.S. nuclear industry, to supplement an aging fleet losing out to lower-cost natural gas and renewables. The owners promised that two reactors planned for the site would give the state emission-free electricity for as long as 80 years, powering 500,000 homes and businesses.

Today, 60 percent of the carbon-free energy produced in the U.S. comes from the nation's existing 99 nuclear power plants.

But in March, Westinghouse, the lead contractor on the project that designed the reactors, went bankrupt, imperiling the future of the plant.

Cost overruns forced South Carolina last year to cancel a similar plan for two nuclear reactors in the state after Westinghouse, also the reactor's designer for that project, went bankrupt.

Federal officials on Wednesday, in anticipation of the Vogtle decision, said a thriving nuclear power industry is crucial for the U.S. to limit carbon dioxide emissions.

“Nuclear energy is both clean and reliable,” Environmental Protection Agency Acting Administrator Andrew Wheeler said during an address recognizing National Clean Energy Week. “President Trump and his administration are committed to reviving and revitalizing nuclear energy. We're watching what's going on in Georgia to see how that pans out for nuclear energy.”

Neil Chatterjee, a Republican commissioner of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, made similar comments at the same event.

“I am worried about what even a slight uptick in the retirement of nuclear units may have on our ability to reduce global emissions,” he said.

SOURCE





Growing Pressure for Clexit – (even from France)

Viv Forbes

Growing Pressure for Clexit – (even from France).  And it’s Time to Defund all UN Climate bodies

President Trump has extinguished all hopes that USA will join the Paris Climate Agreement. Since then, other countries are heading towards the Climate Exit. An increasing number of prominent people are joining the campaign to counter the falsehood that man-made CO2 emissions drive global climates, and to expose the threat that UN agencies will take control of every aspect of our lives. The list of dissidents includes:

Tim Ball of Canada led the rush for the exit:

“Canada has more culpability than any other nation for creating and perpetuating the climate deception. It is not an exaggeration to say that Canada was central to creating and mobilizing the false claim of anthropogenic global warming (AGW).”

Graham Williamson from Australia explains why this is not just about climate alarm and the war on coal – there is a far deeper agenda. This not-so-secret agenda covers climate regulations and carbon taxes, paying climate “debts’, enforcing sustainability, control of education, wealth re-distribution, enforcing  a new world order, controlling national boundaries and migration, enforcing global environmental laws and preventing environmental backsliding by deplorables.

Graham says:  "We also need UNexit.”

Once we are out of the Paris Climate Agreement we should review our membership of and contributions to all UN Agencies that threaten our sovereignty and our prosperity.

Nils-Axel Morner from Sweden supports the need for world-wide Clexit and writes on the treason of the Swedish establishment:

“The Bolin-Palme treason against Science, the IPCC and Paris illusions, and a Clexit solution.”

Professor Bernard Beauzamy from Paris says: “France Too Needs to Clexit the Paris Climate Agreement.”

Roger Tattersall from UK (which is battling to escape the suffocating blanket of the EU Brexit and Clexit.) writes:
“Brexit and Clexit – Leave-Means-Leave”

Herman A (Alex) Pope (retired from NASA in Houston in 2007) writes: “Climate changes in natural cycles and man does not cause them.”

Jerry Ellis AO (Retired Chairman BHP, retired Chancellor Monash University, and retired Chairman of Landcare) says: “I hope our new government abandons the Paris Agreement.”

He is supported by Bob Beatty, Brisbane, who says –
“Australia must Clexit - Leave While We Still Can.”

Jane M. Orient, M.D., physician, President Doctors for Disaster Preparedness says: “Why We Should all Clexit.”

Finally, Germany’s Grand Plan to Abolish Carbon Fuels Fails:

And the UN admits that the Paris deal was a fraud

The globalists made enormous gains while western politicians and media were mired in petty politics. We need to recognise the big picture, roll back the totalitarian green tide and push the need for Clexit and UNexit.

SOURCE






German Green Energy Debacle: “Self Deception”…Dependence On Coal “Cemented For Years To Come”!

Germany used to be regarded as a global leader in the transition to renewable green energies — especially wind and solar power — a project dubbed the “Energiewende”. But this is no longer the case. Germany has fallen behind to the rear of the pack.

Ironically the USA is leading the world in cutting back CO2!

Germany’s “self-deception”

The Düsseldorf-based daily Rheinische Post (RP) here writes that it’s time for Germany to “face inconvenient truths” concerning green energies and that pragmatic (and not ideological) action is needed.

The title of the commentary: “Self-deception in the green energy transition“

Green, cult-like dream now colliding with harsh reality

For years the German government, activists and alarmist scientists promised that green energies — foremost wind and sun — would be plentiful, cheap and clean. “Hooray!” the entire exclaimed in jubilation.

But today in its commentary the RP concedes that “the reality looks totally different” and that it is requiring “an enormous effort” just to keep the power grids stable as waves of unpredictable green power repeatedly surge into the power grid.

According to the RP, emergency power grid interventions by grid operators cost electricity consumers last year 1,4 billion euros. German households consequently pay 47% more for their power than the average EU.

Energiewende: “risky, inefficient and expensive”

And so what have German consumers gotten in return in terms of climate and CO2 emissions for all the extra pain? Nothing.

German CO2 emissions have stagnated (i.e. haven’t fallen at all). And according to the RP: “The German transition to green energy is in reality risky, inefficient and expensive.”

Energiewende “derailed”

The RP comments that highly ballyhooed headlines of new record amounts of green energy being produced don’t change a thing with respect to the failing green energy transition, and notes that although green energies made up 37% of the gross share of gross power consumption, these clean energies amounted only to a measly 13 percent of the entire German energy mix!

The RP asks: “How could the German flagship project have derailed in this way?”

German dependence on coal “cemented for years to come”

The main reason for the failure, the RP writes, was Germany’s panicked rush to exit nuclear power in the wake Japan’s Fukushima nuclear disaster amid a deeply-rooted, collective and decades-old German aversion to nuclear power. This lead to the German government shutting down half of its nuclear power plants overnight and diving blindly into a rapid, unplanned expansion of wind and solar power.

The decision, the RP writes, was driven by the aim to shut down nuclear power, and not to reduce CO2.

The result, the RP comments: “Unfortunately, both goals are in direct contradiction. The politically desired phase-out of nuclear power has cemented our [German] dependence on coal for years to come. Its share is still 42 percent.”

The RP then comments that if Germany were really serious about reducing CO2, the country would not shut down its remaining nuclear power plants, which produce no “greenhouse” gas emissions.

Green energies “a naive illusion”

The RP also writes Germany should reconsider its efforts “to demonize diesel engines”, which have considerably higher fuel efficiency than gasoline engines. The move to eliminate diesel engines will make CO2 reductions more difficult. The RP also notes that electric cars “are no alternative” in terms of CO2.

100% renewables “a naive illusion”

The RP calls the idea of covering all Germany’s energy needs through renewable energy “a naive illusion” and expects that the country will have to accept the fact that it will remain dependent on fossil fuels also over the long-term.

Also the collectively naive Germans in general need to get realistic and serious about what going 100% green entails. The RP comments:

Anyone who has solar cells mounted on the roof and then flies mindlessly to vacation on the Maldives, has not understood the problem.

Public also opposes CCS

The RP finally comments on other possible technical solutions that could be employed to make the pain of having to go without fossil energies bearable, namely subsidizing CCS technology. However, a great number of Germans oppose that technology as well.

The way things are going, the RP suggests, Germany will never be able to meet its CO2 reductions targets.

SOURCE





Australia: Victoria’s nonsensical renewable energy experiment

One of the benefits of a federation is that each state can learn from the mistakes of others. When it comes to electricity, the disastrous experiment of South Australia, with its uncontrolled promotion of renewable energy, should be a salutary lesson for all the others.

South Australia has close to the highest electricity prices in the world and a system that is so fragile it is constantly being propped up — think coal-fired electricity from Victoria and specifically purchased diesel generators. It’s an example of what not to do. But this is not how the Victorian government sees the world as it embarks on an even riskier scheme of promoting subsidised renewable ­energy in that state. Virtue-signalling to attract wavering, inner-city voters trumps concern for keeping a lid on electricity prices and maintaining the stability of the grid.

Deeply unimpressive Victorian Energy Minister Lily D’Ambrosio has announced the results of a reverse auction for ­investments in large-scale renewable energy. The government’s legislated target is for at least 40 per cent of electricity to come from renewable energy by 2025. The auctions aimed to ­deliver 650 megawatts (nameplate cap­acity) of new projects. In the end, projects for 928MWs were accept­ed.

But let’s be clear: reverse auc­tions involve huge subsidies to the promoters of these projects, guaranteeing cashflow at high megawatt per hour prices. By contrast, the (federal) renewable ­energy target is a less secure source of subsidy, particularly as total investment is nearing the 2020 final target and the value of the underlying certificates, the large-scale generation certificates, will fall sharply in the early 2020s.

Now, the renewable energy sector will claim wind and solar deliver cheaper electricity than new fossil fuel power plants, although this claim doesn’t take into account the associated costs of firming intermittent renewable energy. This claim is worth interrogating because, notwith­stand­ing a fall in the cost of the solar panels, there is not much in the physical construction of these projects that supports the assertion.

The real answer lies in the subsidised cost of capital that renewable energy projects underwritten by governments are able to secure. In effect, these projects can access debt finance at the long-run government bond rate. (Note that Victoria has a AAA credit rating.) Were new coal-fired plants able to access debt at this concessional rate, their cost per megawatt hour on a firmed basis would be much lower again. But because these plants need to accept direct merchant risk, their cost of capital could easily be 300 basis points above the government bond rate, assuming they can even secure debt finance in this country.

The fundamental problem of the renewable energy policy in Victoria is the refusal to learn from the problems of the South Australian experiment. These include:

The failure to impose any firming obligations on the renewable energy projects to ensure 24/7 supply of electricity.

The failure to take into ­account the extra expenses associated with investment in transmission and distribution needed to connect these often far-flung projects to the grid.

The failure to take into ­account the destruction of the economics of existing generators — in Victoria’s case, the brown coal-fired generators in the Latrobe Valley — and the effects of the early retirement of these assets.

If any Victorian voter is foolish enough to think state taxpayers or electricity consumers are getting a good deal out of these reverse auctions, they need to think again. While these costs are not directly sheeted home to the renewable energy providers — they should be — they are real and will cause economic and social damage down the track.

Consider the firming costs that are necessarily part and parcel of renewable energy. Wind farms produce at most 30 per cent of their capacity, mainly in spring and autumn. Solar farms produce slightly less than 20 per cent, with peak output at 1pm — a time of relatively low demand.

When it comes to firming and using the figures from the current Snowy operation, the cost for solar is about $40 per megawatt hour. In the case of wind, however, a firming cost cannot even be nominated ­because of the inherent unreliability of wind patterns.

So when the Victorian government quotes figures of between $53/MWh and $57/MWh for the successful renewable energy projects in the recent reverse auction, we need to add a minimum of $40/MWh for firming. This makes these projects very expensive.

In terms of the poles and wires issue, there are considerable weaknesses in the way in which the regulation and pricing systems ­operate. Effectively, a renewable energy project can be located anywhere and, as long as the regulator agrees, the cost of connecting the project to the grid is borne by all customers without any cost imposition on the operator.

Note that regulated assets are priced at a fixed margin over the cost of capital, so the transmission/distribution companies do not ­really care who bears the cost.

Let’s also be clear about another thing: the abrupt closure of the Hazelwood power station in 2016 was a disaster for the state and the consequences still reverberate. At the time, Labor Premier Daniel Andrews made the ludicrous claim that retail prices would rise by less than 4 per cent in 2017. The actual rise was four times higher.

There are also some important short-term issues for Victoria, ­including the forecast shortfall of generating capacity of close to 400MW during the coming summer. The Australian Energy Market Operator says a combin­ation of demand management — paying customers to power down — and extra diesel generation will be sufficient to see the state through those very warm days. But it will be a close call.

The Victorian case — and let’s not forget Queensland’s equally bizarre promotion of renewable energy projects, again many in far-flung places — should provide the backdrop to some much needed changes to the operation of the National Electricity Market. The rapid penetration of large and small-scale renewable energy ­demands some new rules to ensure the stability and reliability of the grid as well as deliver lower prices.

These changes must involve the imposition of more obligations on renewable energy providers who have been afforded too many favours. There are three main changes that are required: day ahead pricing; scheduled generation by requiring firmed cap­acity; and developer charges on generators for the cost of extra transmission and distribution.

There is no doubt these changes will be resisted by the ­renewable energy sector. But without them, the stability and reli­ability of the grid will be imperilled. It was one thing for a small state such as South Australia to lose its head and overinvest in renewable energy; it is another thing altogether for several states to do so.

The AEMO is clear we need to extend the lives of our thermal plants for as long as possible but the actions of foolhardy governments promoting renewable energy to secure inner-city votes threaten this outcome. At the very least, consumers in those states should bear the full costs of their governments’ foolish policies.

The hope is that federal Energy Minister Angus Taylor can deal with some of these issues before it is too late.

SOURCE 

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