1. Queensland electricity day-time prices to zero six days in a row
We’ve had unwelcome dry weather this ‘winter’ in Queensland but the good news is that electricity prices have dropped to zero six days in a row:
Monthly Archives: August 2019
Weekly salon 26/8
1. Hansen gets stuck on Uluru
Pauline Hanson has been campaigning against closing Uluru to tourists. She says that it provides jobs for indigenous people, and closing it is like closing Bondi Beach because people have drowned there. Continue reading Weekly salon 26/8
Keeping the lights on
Last week began with a front page article in the AFR Victoria prone to blackouts this summer as grid wilts and ended with an AFR editorial How can Australia have third-world power blackouts?
The answer to that question is easy – we don’t have to avoid third-world blackouts because we don’t have them. The more important question is, why is Michael Stutchbury’s head in such a muddle? Stutchbury is editor in chief of the AFR and appeared on ABC Insiders this morning. Other panelists asked whether he had read “the report”. Continue reading Keeping the lights on
Weekly salon 21/8
1. Adani’s problems mount
The IEEFA has issued a warning that Contracting with Adani Australia entails counterparty risks.
They say self funding is basically impossible, because Adani Enterprises Ltd (AEL) does not have the capacity to fund it. Adani Mining is already carrying $1.8 billion of debt in Australia. The project would require the coal market to stay robust for decades. Tim Buckley:
- “In IEEFA’s view, Adani’s Carmichael thermal coal proposal is unviable and unbankable on any normal commercial evaluation, absent massive government subsidy support in both India and Australia,” says Buckley.
“Adani’s suggestion it will self-fund this proposal is a clear acknowledgement of this.”
Australia’s climate credibility shredded in Pacific ‘step up’ disaster
In the Pacific Island Forum (PIF) climate change is seen as an existential threat. ‘Existential’ in the sense that life for the Pacific islanders is embedded in community and place. Shifting to higher ground somewhere else is not a solution. (See Geoff Henderson’s excellent guest post Climate refugees in the Central Pacific -the Republic of Kiribati)
To put the best construction on what happened, Pacific leaders and Australia agreed to disagree about action on climate change.
PIF chair, Tuvalu’s Prime Minister Enele Sopoaga, said to Australian PM Scott Morrison:
- “You are concerned about saving your economy in Australia … I am concerned about saving my people in Tuvalu.”
Continue reading Australia’s climate credibility shredded in Pacific ‘step up’ disaster
Water from thin air
As I reported recently, ten towns in northern NSW and the Southern Downs in Qld are at high risk of running out of water. Indeed news.com reports that Stanthorpe could be dry by Christmas, with nearby Warwick at risk of running out in 17 months’ time.
Nature worked out how to extract water from desert air with the evolution of the Namibian fog beetle (above). The image is from my files, so I’ve posted about it before, I reckon about 10 years ago. I googled and found this article: Continue reading Water from thin air
Weekly salon 11/8
1. Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson, PM
Martin Fletcher in the New Statesman says that Brits have given a con man the keys to the kingdom:
- Boris Johnson’s arrival in Downing Street as prime minister signals the end of the UK as a serious country.
Weekly salon 6/8
1. Tears in the rain
I don’t often note the passing of famous people, because there are so many. Recently I was touched by news of the passing of Rutger Hauer, who played the replicant Roy Batty who was meant to be hunted down and killed Harrison Ford’s character Rick Deckard in Bladerunner. See the final part of the scene in “I Saw the Future”: Rutger Hauer (RIP) Remembers His Most Memorable Role in Blade Runner. Continue reading Weekly salon 6/8
How to lose an election
Typically the media describe Labor’s loss as a drubbing, which it wasn’t. Leaving Qld aside, Labor won 62 of 121 seats, the LNP 54, and the crossbench 5. Qld was the shocker, losing 4.34% TPP to land on 58-42 to the LNP, which is nearly wipe-out territory.
So there was a story about what happened in Queensland, yet as Anthony Albanese told Katharine Murphy in a podcast, Labor’s primary vote was an all time low. Labor now has to convince about 1.2 million people to change their vote. So he for one understands that Labor needs to appeal to a wide variety of people. Continue reading How to lose an election
Weekly salon 1/8
1. Will they ever learn?
ABC’s 7.30 Report on Monday looked at Centrelink still operating it’s robo debt scam, where taxation records are matched with Centrelink payments. The program starts with an example where a citizen in Hobart received a demand from a debt collector for $7,000 to be paid immediately. Her wages would be garnisheed if she didn’t pay, they said.
The process then is that the victim has to prove her innocence by showing pay slips etc, bank records etc. In this case more than 7 years had passed, so the bank no longer kept records. Continue reading Weekly salon 1/8