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Maybe it was because he was in Tasmania and somewhat out of things. Or perhaps he was so intent on the political point he was about to make that he didn’t think the situation through.
For whatever reason, Malcolm Turnbull’s comments on the South Australian weather and power crisis at his Thursday news conference were notable for what they didn’t say.
Normally leaders drip sympathy for those affected by natural disasters. Turnbull paid tribute to the emergency services workers and those restoring power. But at no point did the Prime Minister express solidarity with ordinary South Australians. He was just anxious to get onto his argument about renewables.
The federal government has a new slogan. “We must keep the lights on.”
Indeed. First, however, let’s be clear why, according to what the experts say, the South Australian lights went off in such spectacular fashion. A massive storm tore out towers and brought down lines; lightning hit a power station. There was a “cascading failure” through the system, which shut down in self-protection.
The Australian Energy Market Operator (AEMO) says the reason for the “cascading failure” of the network is still to be identified. But it declares the mix between renewables and non-renewables was not a factor.
Government officials have acknowledged that Australia’s 2030 greenhouse gas emissions reductions pledged at Paris in 2015 were made without any modelling to show whether existing policies could achieve those targets.
They also admitted the government did not have any modelling revealing when Australia’s emissions would peak.
The admissions, made in a parliamentary committee under questioning from Labor Senator for New South Wales Jenny McAllister, fly in the face of advice from the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, telling the government it had “existing legislation, policies and measures to enable it to achieve” the the reductions.
They also follow a string of independent modelling exercises showing current policies will not achieve the emissions reductions committed to in Paris. Last week energy advisory firm RepuTex released modelling showing Australia’s emissions wouldn’t fall much at all between now and 2030, under current policies.
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Comments
What none of these supposed acceptors of climate science and supposed supporters of the Paris Agreement (their official policy) appear willing to do is actually commit to the transition to low emissions that follows from that. Which leaves me believing the statements of wanting to do so in principle overlay a deep resistance to doing so in practice - well, they are very obvious about it even if they somehow fail to be called out for avoiding mention of how inextricably they are linked.
Expect some rhetorical and diversionary use of "but nuclear" but those will be cheap shots at RE and "green" policies that remain completely free of actual commitment to this solution they profess so adamantly they prefer - and they won't go into how their much higher priority commitment to not fixing the climate problem by any means is antithetical to them promoting it.
PS - I was very disappointed that none of the TV "journalists" didn't find any homes with lights still on because they have hybrid grid tied solar with batteries that still work when the grid is down.
The German grid is highly reliable and is only getting more reliable. Is Australia the country of incompetent managers and electrical engineers?
I would not vote for a politician that talks this way. To please his fossil fuel donors such a politician has an incentive to cut corners and provoke more large black-outs. That is not good
Ken Fabian comment makes clear that such politicians are a good reason to go off grid as soon as possible.
I think the issue is one of distance with Australia being a vast empty land and the population spread mostly along the long coast line .Tying the grid together along this distance will always be problematic
From what I have read they had a micro bust from the storm that effectively destroyed the transmission network at a key choke point. This would have had the same effect no matter the mix of generation capacity.
Funny you should mention that.
It's a country of dinosaurs. Some of them survived the asteroid, and mutated over the years into lizards that appear to be human politicians. They're still dinosaurs though, and are only comfortable with fuels that have been around for as long as they have. Anything else is new-fangled hippy stuff that is coming to eat your babies.
So these clowns have control of the government. The Prime Minister is their puppet, and they have their hands up his backside. When they wiggle their fingers, his lips move and noises come out of his mouth.I always saw the same picture of a broken transmission line, but now read that 3 major lines went down. That is really really a lot. I would be surprised if any network anywhere has enough redundancy to survive that. Forget my engineer joke. Against that only my beloved underground cables work.
First, the Victorian government's reply to the idiocy of the Feds has basically been "Get a ferret up ya!".
Victoria: Turnbull has no credibility on climate and clean energy policy
Not only that, but AGL (the largest power generator in South Australia) has come out and said that the claims of the Coalition and its supporters are completely wrong, and that rather than shying away from renewables we would be better off with more of them.
AGL says local renewables would offer more security than current grid
And, last but not least, Greg Hunt (who liked to think of himself as the world's best environment minister) has been shown (yet again) to be a blithering idiot.
Coalition’s stunning hypocrisy – and ignorance – on renewable energy
I can't wait to see how they try to spin this.
Edit: I just noticed that the ridiculous article by Chris Uhlman on the ABC website has mysteriously disappeared today, after taking pride of place for several days. I would not be at all surprised if Uhlman is feeling embarrassed right now. He should be. He made a complete fool of himself, and of the ABC.
Malcolm Turnbull says Labor's stance on renewable energy is 'political claptrap'
This is just beyond pathetic now.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/oct/25/coal-will-be-important-for-many-many-decades-to-come-says-turnbull