While the transition from coal and gas in the western world, including Australia, has hit the wall, all the talk in progressive circles is about accelerating the transition with massive expenditure on intermittent generation, transmission lines and storage. Parallel worlds in collision! Trillions of dollars spent over 20 years have shifted the needle on the…

Triggerwarming: Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Global Warming (But were afraid to ask). By Jeffrey Grimshaw. This is a lavishly illustrated introduction to climate and energy issues that is accessible for people who do not need the amount of detail in the important books by Ian Plimer and the series Climate Change: The…

First weekly roundup of energy items of interest. Michael Shellenberger on the possible end of the RE craze, extract provided by David Blackmon on his Energy Transition Absurdities site. Peter Smith on the astronomical number of electricians required to deliver on the green fantasies regarding electric vehicles and new transmission lines.

Guest post from our old friend Cardimona. If industrial chemists were tasked with designing a transport fuel from scratch for maximum energy content, ease of transfer and storage, and minimum weight the result would be the hydrocarbon molecules that we know as petrol and diesel. Despite years of hypertrophied rhetoric about a transition to electric…

Dear Editor A few comments on the editorial on Tuesday August 23. On the closure of our ageing fleet of coal-fired power stations, the situation is much more precarious than the writer realises, as explained in this piece that was rejected by your op ed staff recently. Closure of more coal capacity at present will…

Two years ago the Energy Realists started sending briefing notes to 800+ politicians across the nation and we recruited some letter writers in almost half the 151 Federal House of Reps electorates to send follow-up mail to their local MP. The letter-writing program did not proceed because it did not yield enough interesting replies. We…

Snowy2.0 is a pumped hydro scheme to store electric power for use during wind droughts. It is a massive project, costed near 2 billion when it was first announced by PM Turnbull. That was upgraded to 4 billion with power expected by 2024 but now the cost is approaching 8 billion with power expected in…

Farmers, facing a genuine existential threat, push back. And the public is on side while the government shows its ugly face. On Twitter #Netherlands, massive protests are underway. Farmers have been told to shut farms to reduce nitrogen emissions and they’ve taken to the streets. (It’s not clear if this is purely about fertilizer runoff, or climate…

The electricity system in South Africa is in a tragic state with little hope of rescue in the short term. This is a heart-breaking report from Jo Nova. National rolling blackouts have been occurring for days in South Africa and are forecast to continue for another week at least. One engineer warns they are just a…

The time has come to face the fact that the transition to renewable green energy has gone as far as it can go with existing storage technology. Meanwhile, in a parallel universe, the Federal Government is planning to legislate for a more ambition RE target and the push to get rid of coal dominates the…