Sunday, May 31, 2009

ABC Insiders 31/5/09

Oops!
Something wrong with the start there...

Show and tell with flashcards in Parliament this week...

Joe Hockey sics Kev.

Speaker gets cranky and says that they're not running a sideshow.

Malcolm Turnbull speaks.

Andrew Bolt -PM tested for swineflu, negative, Julia demands a retest.

Karen Middleton - Premier Rees losing control.

Debt advert with Mal Turnbull shown.
Denis Atkins - Calls the ad a winner.
Mal's on... Penny Wong criticising Mal Turnbull on Toady (oops Today, but Toady looks right). Penny's on, of course, about Turnbull's expressing a cautionary approach to adopting an emissions trading scheme.

Sound is screwed on Mal's end - c'mon ABC, wake UP! (Or my wog's sent me deaf-er.)

Oh, that's right, on Sunday noone's around in the ABC studios to help with things like sound... etc.

Hoo f'ken rah, they fixed it.

Mal Turnbull: Look at Canada, he says. Wait for Copenhagen. Noone knows yet what the rules of the ETS are.

Stimulus money going to estates of the dead, people living overseas, millionaires - my mum won't get the $900 stimulus package, she had all the income tax she paid returned to her, and not an insignificant amount, she teaches to supplement her self funded retiree income. I told her I thought it was a bit unfair when dead people were getting stimulated, and she wouldn't get any stimulus package.

Will there be a double dissolution on climate change? Who will win? What will happen?

Woohoo. Bill Heffernan calls bullshit on Laurie Oakes questioning of Turnbulls entry in the BRW Rich List. Good on him.

The sheila on the panel said it's relevant so that we can know what they're worth and how they made their money. Funny how noone's door stopped Lizard Lips the Wastrel and asked him what he's worth and how he made his money....

Cartoon segment is with a Chaser writer/participant. Who gives a rat's? It seems to be all about DPRK's nukes. And they're not happy about the Libs using cutouts and props in parliament. The Chaser boys can't get a Kevin Rudd.... (I don't think they've been trying.) And talk about Sol... and the "chk chk BOOM" girl.

I guess Sol Trujillo just didn't fit in, huh?

Tony Barry?

Dating dugongs?

Interesting final comments from panelists.

Here's the site link...

4 comments:

Wand said...

Skeeter, A follow up on just what is happening in the electricity supply system.

I said the other day: “What we have had in NSW and elsewhere in Australia is a mad pursuit to reduce greenhouse gases from power generation that has shackled any reasonable and cost effective expansion of the electricity system.”

The bureaucrats know precisely how the de-regulated electricity market works and they have been using it to achieve their goal to phase out coal power stations. Simply if new coal power stations are (effectively) banned (in NSW) or priced out of the system (ETS) the electricity market always dispatches the new lowest cost generator. Of course the electricity market is a market and a market assumes that there will always be additional generators available. In the event that there is a supply shortfall, the spot price for electricity goes through the roof and at these times dispatched electricity generators can make a killing. The spot price could be as high as $10,000 per MWh compared to a typical daily price range of $20 - $50 per MWh. In fact there have been accusations of some generators gaming the market to cause it to hit a peak and make a lot of money. Currently, I think there is (still) a price cap of $10,000 but a price like that is quite a nice revenue earner thank you very much. A few years ago there was an inquiry into a gaming claim around price hikes into SA however the findings were that no gaming had occurred.

If you put the whole picture together, the electricity market is being driven to use gas at a much greater cost than coal. Interestingly two days ago I received the latest copy of Engineers Australia’s Electrical News with this story about a new gas fired power station. Presumably it is at the site of the old coal fired power station so the grid connection exists. But it is a combined cycle plant which means it is a base load station and must run 24/7. Now try working out the economics of that project. FWIW, I looked in detail at a gas power station for a site in SA some years ago and it did not stack up then.

So any new gas power station will want (need) an ETS as well as coal precluded from the market and the higher the price of ‘permits’ the better and significantly higher prices for electricity sales.

Also in Electrical News there is this story:

Early works progressing on Victoria's Mortlake power station.

Ground works are now under way on Origin Energy's Mortlake power station in Victoria. about 220km west of Melbourne. The power station is due to be completed in 2011. Site establishment will begin in the next few months after the ground works have been completed. Engineering firm Bilfinger Berger Services has an engineering, procurement, construction and management contract for the 550MWgas-fired peaking power station.

The power station will be fuelled by natural gas piped from Port Campbell via a pipeline currently being constructed by AJ Lucas. It has two Siemens SGTS 4000F gas turbines in an open cycle configuration. Each of the two generating trains is rated for an electrical output of 275MW.

A new 500kV switchyard will be built adjacent to the power station and will connect to the 500kV power grid which passes the site on the northern boundary. The balance of plant systems are being designed and installed by Bilfinger Berger Services, including the fuel gas system, compressed air, demineralised water, raw water and fire protection. The company will also install the Siemens turbines.
In summary, right now Australia is destroying its competitive advantage in the low cost coal-fired electricity that built this nation and we can thank all the state labor governments for this. Any ETS will complete the demise as well as destroy huge swathes of the Australian economy. And Malcolm Turnbull’s comments on Insiders this morning showed that he is completely technically ignorant about these facts.

Skeeter said...

Thanks Wand. That's more fuel for the fire that I am trying to light under the coalition's shiny arse. Let's see if we can spin up their idling policy-generators into a bit of peak output.
Turnbull's responses on ETS this morning lacked spine.
What a pity he can't even deal with it as well as Brendon Nelson did on Q&A.


Thanks also for those fascinating links, especially the daily price range. (WA is conspicuously absent from the "national" data. Is WA not connected to the national grid?)
It seems that Tasmania is paying more than 5 times as much as other states for peak prices. This must add a new dimension to the costs of preserving the wilderness and killing that state's hydro development.

Skeeter said...

Kae, when the sound failed while Turnbull was talking, you could probably hear the shouting from us here in Witheren Wonglepong.
I've never been a supporter of conspiracy theories, but you sometimes wonder why the ABC seems to always have their many technical screw-ups when the Opposition is having their say.

Wand said...

Skeeter:

Yes, WA is not connected to the national grid and neither is the NT. WA is pursuing an ostensibly similar deregulation model. NT is a white shoes brigade area.

Funny that about hearing Turnbull. I just turned up the volume but I take your point.

Cheers