• Simandou and other dark clouds

    We once proclaimed that our wealth was derived by riding ‘on the sheep’s back’. More recently, we have ridden the iron ore train but all good rides come to an end and dark clouds are gathering on the horizon. The threat to our long-term prosperity is becoming clear. Currently, China and Australia are bound together…

  • Wind drought June 2020

    This was a “killer month” when the Capacity Factor of the entire wind fleet was 10% or less for several periods – This submission to an inquiry in NSW in 2020 contains a day by day account of the drought in SA, Victoria and NSW during the longest “dry” spell, over 30 hours through the…

  • Global Stilling

    Late in the day, supporters of unreliable intermittent energy discovered that there can be a problem with the wind supply. They speculate that this could be caused by global warming and the term global stilling has been invented to make it look new and cover up their delinquency in failing to report wind droughts when…

  • Wind Droughts: Who Knew?

    HELP WANTED Can you tell me in the comments when you first encountered the term “wind droughts?” It came up in the second briefing note from the Energy Realists but not in the first which was written to convey the idea of sudden death if wind is not available all the time. The choke point…

  • Bob King’s list of RE submissions

    Please distribute to your network those sections which may be relevant. Victorian renewable projects are particularly difficult to identify – see note Three QUICK SUMMARY OF WHAT IS OPEN FOR SUBMISSIONS:- LOCATED or ADVISED THIS WEEK 8/3/24   Offshore Storage – another enquiry 13/3/24 Stratford PHES, Hunter Valley 15/3/24 Euston Wind, Balranald 18/3/24 Gippsland Basin CCS 18/3/24 S.A. Hydrogen Hub,…

  • Hairless Apes

    Just been rereading Tom Wolfe’s wonderful book The Kingdom of Speech (2016). Read it if you haven’t already. You won’t be disappointed. It’s all about why and how human beings developed the ability to speak and whether there are rules which apply across different languages. Wolfe entertainingly covers the debate between naturalists Charles Darwin and…

  • We are breaking the Paris Agreement

    Taking over farmland to build facilities to produce intermittent energy is a violation of Article 2(b) of the Paris Agreement. Article 2 of the 2015 Paris Agreement states: “This Agreement… aims to strengthen the global response to the threat of climate change, in the context of sustainable development and efforts to eradicate poverty, including by: “(b)…

  1. Moslems filled the UK streets cheering the massacre of Christians in Syria. Will the UK Govt stand by also when…

  2. There is a less that zero chance that spending will meaningfully be reduced by any Govt. So, that means increasing…

  3. “Calls for private UN Security Council meeting over spiralling violence in war-torn Syria after 1,000 people were massacred – including…

  4. A decade of deficit budgets financed by borrowings looms. Fitch has already warned Australia that it needs to get its…