Labor’s lead remains steady at 52-48 in this week’s reading of the Essential Research fortnight rolling average, from primary votes of 38% for the Coalition (steady), 35% for Labor 35% (down one), 9% for Greens 9% (down one) and 9% for One Nation (up one), whose curious resurgence was the subject of an article I had in Crikey on Monday. Also featured are Essential’s monthly leadership ratings, which find Malcolm Turnbull down one on approval to 36% and down three on disapproval to 45%; Bill Shorten steady at 34% and down two to 43%; and Turnbull leading 39-26 on preferred prime minister, up from 39-31 last month. In other findings, the poll also records only 17% saying the recent budget improved their perception of the government, compared with 30% saying it made it worse; a 41-32 majority in favour of a clean energy target if it resulted in price rises of 5%, turning into a 50-21 deficit if they rose 10%; and 64% favouring investment in renewables in a no-strings-attached question compared with 18% for coal.
Also out yesterday was the Lowy Institute’s annual survey on Australian attitudes to international affairs and the direction of the country. Among many other things, the results find Australians continuing to rate the alliance with the United States highly (53% very important and 29% fairly important, recovering to near 2015 levels after a dip to 42% and 29% last year), with Donald Trump’s influence on perceptions of the US rating slightly less badly than George W. Bush in 2007 (60% said Trump contributed to an unfavourable opinion of the United States against 37% for no, compared with 69% and 27% for Bush). However, the proportion of respondents rating the US as Australia’s best friend has slumped from 35% to 17% since 2014, with the beneficiary being New Zealand, up from 32% to 53%. Only 20% now say they have a “great deal” of trust in the US to act responsibly in the world, compared with 40% in 2011.
bemused @ #1186 Friday, June 23, 2017 at 6:59 pm
Along these lines, last night I went looking for any news of the wave farm that WA Labor promised at the last election and found the WA Government has committed $19.5m to the farm and it is planned to be up and running in about 18 months: https://thewest.com.au/news/albany-advertiser/albany-wave-energy-farm-18-months-away-ng-b88502674z
The wave farm is going to be 1MW initially before being upgraded to 20MW and eventually 100MW. It will have 100% uptime: http://reneweconomy.com.au/wa-election-delivers-win-for-carnegie-20mw-albany-wave-project-97139/
player one @ #1200 Friday, June 23, 2017 at 7:31 pm
Nope, you said you weren’t aware of any detailed proposals,
jimmydoyle @ #1198 Friday, June 23, 2017 at 7:27 pm
You are forgetting the write-off costs for existing generation assets. From memory, I seem to recall them being given somewhere as $165 billion – but in any case it was something of that order.
Michael Pascoe’s thoughts on Australia reaching a population milestone – 25 million rounded: http://www.canberratimes.com.au/business/the-economy/australias-new-population-milestone-sure-to-reignite-debate-20170622-gwwtx2.html
Michael casually dismisses the citizenship rule changes as dogwhistling. I had another thought when reading the article. Are the proposed citizenship changes a veiled attempt at voter suppression? I understand that recent migrants are less likely to vote for the Coalition. I wouldn’t put that beneath this Government. After all, they tried it before with young voters back in 2010.
barney in go dau @ #1197 Friday, June 23, 2017 at 7:23 pm
Fair point – the lack of electricity policy is current political news! : )
Good evening all,
Apparently it is the federal liberal national council conference over the week end.
A friend has just told me that a ” younger ” liberal delegate was on stage and she made the comment to the assembled delegates that the liberal party should target ” voters with low IQ’s ” as they do not all vote labor. Apparently Turnbull was on stage at the time.
Cheers.
My pointing out how you’ve discredited yourself does not mean I’m attacking the credibility of gas as a source of electricity. On the contrary, I’ve already said that gas has a role to play – indeed in Europe, especially the UK, gas is helping drive down emissions – but fluctuating gas costs and the plummeting cost of renewable sources effectively has effectively put a a very short shelf-life on gas.
In other words, the globalised economics of renewable energy is killing gas just as surely as it is killing coal:
https://greycellsenergy.com/articles-analysis/50-emissions-drop-from-uk-power-how/
https://www.carbonbrief.org/huge-coal-gas-switch-drives-down-eu-emissions
https://sandbag.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/Energy-Transition-in-the-Power-Sector-in-Europe-2016.pdf
What this probably means for Australia is that the opportunity for gas to replace coal has probably well and truly come and gone. It (arguably) makes more economic sense to transition directly from coal to renewables.
A construction company manager has been arrested and charged after allegedly threatening to track down a union safety organiser and saying he would “attack you and your family”.
Right. So all construction company managers are thugs, bullies and criminals, and by association, so are the Liberals. All Liberal voters need therefore abandon their love of free markets, austerity, low wage growth and absence of brown people on boats and embrace socialism to avoid being tainted. I expect to see extensive coverage in tomorrow’s Murdoch crapsheets.
Doyley
when you say a “younger” liberal delegate, do you mean they were under 70?
Is Rex not alloed to comment on a totally unrelated matter without the same tired joke being made? He has a different opinion than the rest of you, get over it
the liberal party should target ” voters with low IQ’s ”
I thought they already did.
cud chewer Friday, June 23, 2017 at 6:50 pm
Out of interest, is anyone proposing to build one of those in Australia at the moment? Most of the publicity I see is for PV.
The write-off would happen irrespective of whether or not we switch to renewables. Australia has OLD coal plants that need replacing in the near future no matter what. To lump that on top of the projected cost over fifty years of switching to 100% renewable energy is an example of the very intellectual dishonesty I’m accusing you of!
You are also ignoring the fact that the report argues that the combined savings on fuel by switching from fossil fuels to renewable energy would be enough to cover the capital cost of the switch to renewable energy!
https://www.uts.edu.au/sites/default/files/article/downloads/ISF_100%25_Australian_Renewable_Energy_Report.pdf
Monica,
In the liberal party ” younger ” is all relative so starting at 70 and working backwards is most probably the easiest way to go about it.
Cheers.
Cheers.
shiftaling
As far as I’m concerned, Rex can comment on whatever he likes, within the bounds of William’s guidelines.
I suppose Rex gets to be the butt of jokes because a lot of what he says is so predictable, like the Libs parroting “It’s all Labor’s fault”.
doyley @ #1206 Friday, June 23, 2017 at 7:40 pm
I thought they already had that demographic.
We see some in parliament.
https://www.gizmodo.com.au/2017/05/theres-110-million-for-solar-thermal-energy-in-australias-2017-budget/
Using gas as a backup for such a system? That I haven’t come across yet.
BC
Solar thermal is proposed for Port Augusta.
grimace @ #1202 Friday, June 23, 2017 at 7:34 pm
https://blogs.crikey.com.au/pollbludger/2017/06/10/bludgertrack-52-8-47-2-labor-4/comment-page-35
Actually, what I said was that I had not seen any proposals that could even remotely accomplish rapid decarbonisation, which you claimed was technically possible now. I still haven’t. And my next request was …
If your report does not reflect your preferred path, then ok – having subsequently read it, I can certainly understand why. But it seemed that it did, and in any case that report was the source of the figure I used.
shiftaling @ #1210 Friday, June 23, 2017 at 7:46 pm
Grow a sense of humour comrade. You will enjoy life more.
Oh dear, back to the energy argument I see.
I’m outta here.
Trog, I agree. Renewable electricity is a done deal.
Its transport fuel and other fossil fuel uses that presents a challenge.
Grenfell Tower fire: police considering manslaughter charges
Detectives say building’s insulation and tiles failed fire safety tests and they are establishing if use was illegal
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2017/jun/23/grenfell-tower-fire-police-considering-manslaughter-charges
Grimace,
I’ve been following this technology for over a decade and its great to see it has been refined and is now being implemented. Its such a cool technology and it answers so many of the technical/engineering problems that have bedeviled wave power. There’s huge resources. And the other nice thing (shhh don’t tell P1) is that wave power is even more constant and more predictable and adding it to the mix will mean even less need for gas 🙂
Farms hit by labour shortage as migrant workers shun ‘racist’ UK
A 20% shortfall in migrant workers relied on to pick fruit and vegetables is blamed on Brexit making the UK seem ‘xenophobic’
Farms have been hit with a shortage of the migrant workers that Britain relies on to bring in the fruit and vegetable harvests, according to a series of new reports.
There was a 17% shortfall in May, leaving some farms critically short of pickers, according to a new National Farmers Union (NFU) survey. The decline is blamed on Brexit, with the vote to depart the EU leaving the UK seen as “xenophobic” and “racist” by overseas workers, according to the director of a major agricultural recruitment company.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/jun/22/farms-hit-by-labour-shortage-as-migrant-workers-shun-racist-uk
jimmydoyle @ #1207 Friday, June 23, 2017 at 7:44 pm
You really can’t help yourself, can you? I wonder if you even realize just how insulting you are?
For goodness sake – of course it makes more “economic sense” to transition straight from coal to renewables. That’s pretty much what the Finkel report is all about!
But doing so does not eliminate coal as soon as we could and it therefore does not minimize our C02 emissions as much as we could – and indeed might have to, to meet our Paris commitments, given that the other sectors of the economy probably cannot make similar reductions. Transitioning through gas does that, but at higher economic cost.
So which is more important? Here is where we fundamentally disagree – you apparently think the economic cost is primary, whereas I think minimizing C02 emissions is primary.
OK I was only (partly) joking about the Liberals going after low IQ voters, but they do have many who supporters who apparently vote against their interests, apparently not based on any high principle (for example a genuine deep conservatism or a strong devotion to free markets). Liberal campaigning so often appears to require people to suspend their critical facilities in order that they respond as if they were unintelligent. Much of the carbon tax scare campaign and “boats boats boats!” were classics – in fact so was the whole Abbott leadership. Intelligent Coalition voters knew Abbott and his team were talking crap, but they liked the sort of country they knew the Liberals were trying to create.
Conservative party call centre ‘may have broken election law’
The Conservative party allegedly operated a secret call centre during the election campaign that may have broken data protection and election laws, according to an investigation by Channel 4 News.
An undercover investigation by the programme has found that the party used a market research firm to make thousands of cold calls to voters in marginal seats in the weeks before the election.
Call centre employees working on behalf of the party used a script that appeared to canvass for support rather than conduct market research. On the day of the election, call centre employees contacted voters to promote individual candidates, which may be a breach of electoral law, the investigation claimed.
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2017/jun/22/conservative-party-call-centre-may-have-broken-election-law
Not on Energy:
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-06-23/chinas-toothpick-crossbow-nightmare/8647770
JFC. I can’t imagine the mindset of anyone who would manufacture and sell a product like this to children.
P1 ‘s gas extractors have same problem as the coal extractors. Their business models are premised on large scale and high capital intensity. They also rely on technologies and engineering methods that are now practically obsolete. They are really simply irrelevant in markets where micro scale and capital lightness are advantaged.
The mega-entities that are adapted to the fossil fuel system actually cannot compete in the new energy market, particularly when the pay-back term on fossil-fed plant is so long and the revenue available from electricity production is falling toward zero.
P1 – well given that neither a transition to renewable via gas (and zero coal), nor a rapid transition to renewable energy (e.g. 100% by 2030) has been independently modelled by a serious non-partisan body, that argument is not even academic, but wishful thinking.
We have no facts or independent modelling upon which to compare those two scenarios, so your claim that gas would lead to lower emissions than renewables is exactly that – wishful thinking.
ctar1 @ #1229 Friday, June 23, 2017 at 8:20 pm
Yeah, we made our own. But kids were different in those days.
OK, not crossbows, but things like darts made with a matchstick and a pin for example.
Its not hard to show P1s trillion dollar claim are bullshit by a large margin.
Solar is trending towards $1/W at scale. Its currently under $1.50/W and that’s the entire system not including interconnects. Solar may have a capacity factor of 0.3 on average but at 2am it has a capacity factor in most places of 0.6. In other words to produce 30GW of power in the afternoon you need 45GW of solar. That’s $45B. But of course a real system would have a mix of solar and wind because their output tends to anti-correlate, so you have less solar and more wind and the price stays roughly the same.
Storage? In a 100% renewable system that matches wind and solar and includes some wave, you’ve got two kinds of storage requirement. One is essentially load shifting a portion of your peak towards the evening. The other is having a reserve system with lower peak power but higher energy stored. For the former you need about 100 GWHr and 30GW of storage in order to load shift a system dominated by solar into the evening. On present prices ($250/KWhr) that’s going to cost you $25B with batteries. In 5 years time, half that.
Then there’s other tech like solar thermal with storage that is trending down towards $2.50/W but with 24 hour storage. Adding this into the mix means staying roughly competitive with battery but adding deeper storage.
Or, you can use pumped hydro. At scale you can get 10GWhr and 1GW of pumped hydro for under $500M (in some locations). A few of those gives you energy security.
So what are we talking about? In the order of 100 billion bucks for the entire country. Not a trillion dollars.
P1 truly deserves the ridicule s(he)it gets.
By going after more of the low IQ demographic, the Liberals risk inflaming a turf war with PHON.
An eyeball on a toothpick? Sounds like a great little snack..
Friday, June 23, 2017 at 6:29 pm
Fairfax has belatedly discovered that the States, including NSW, were not consulted and consider themselves conned by the Libs. Turnbull tells them to stump up huge extra sums or lose Gonski funding for public schools.
I figured this much out when Pegasus began spruiking for The Greens and Turnbull deal on Conski. It’s why I asked Pegasus that very question about whether The Greens were happy to have the States having to find more Revenue to pay for a now increased share of the Education dollar. Plus would The Greens be happy to support the way States may have to find that Revenue, or on the other hand, for the Public School sector to be starved of the funds they need in the future.
I am also disappointed in Jacquie Lambie. Turnbull certainly pulled the wool over her eyes. A woman who has known poverty intimately, voting for the toffs’ schools to have guaranteed funding. Sad.
Still, in their favour, at least The Greens pulled back from the brink in time to maintain their dignity. 🙂
I bet Bemused had a home made slingshot as well before they were outlawed. 🙂
An undercover investigation by the programme has found that the party used a market research firm to make thousands of cold calls to voters in marginal seats in the weeks before the election.
Call centre employees working on behalf of the party used a script that appeared to canvass for support rather than conduct market research. On the day of the election, call centre employees contacted voters to promote individual candidates, which may be a breach of electoral law, the investigation claimed.
Plus ca change. That’s an old Crosby-Textor special.
cud chewer @ #1233 Friday, June 23, 2017 at 8:33 pm
Pretty impressive moonlight! Obviously a full moon.
Is that pronounced “shit”?
Lizzie
I worked in a building on the intersection directly across from it for about 5 years. If you walked to my window you could see the driveway and front door.
I didn’t waste time watching who was in and out but knew that if a big white C’wlth Car accompanied by a white Commodore were in the driveway then little Johny was there (white commodore = AFP Close Protection squad).
jimmydoyle @ #1231 Friday, June 23, 2017 at 8:28 pm
There is plenty of modeling out there if you look. Not just Finkel/Jacobs – Frontier economics has also modeled various scenarios, as have others. They consistently show that the more gas you use on the way to decarbonizing, the lower your total emissions. We also have the real-world case of the US, which went for gas in a big way a few years ago – precisely to meet emission restrictions. China also expects to use more gas, and for the same reasons.
So this is not just wishful thinking, although many of the ‘solar enthusiasts’ here (how’s that for an inoffensive term?) certainly seem to wish otherwise : )
c@tmomma @ #1237 Friday, June 23, 2017 at 8:38 pm
Among other artifacts.
I didn’t know they were outlawed.
I posted a link to RN Breakfast here earlier.
http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/breakfast/
Have a listen to the podcast Report warns increased gas reliance means high emissions.
The very fact that P1 thinks that this supports its argument says a great deal.
There is absolutely no way that the report says anything other than gas may be useful in some measure for peaking purposes. P1 has all along gone gung ho for large scale, baseload gas fired power. And that’s precisely what the report says a big fat NO to. And for precisely the same reasons we have said. It boils down to the fact that it takes 20 years of regular use to pay for a gas fired plant. No one is going to invest in that knowing that before that 20 years is over, the gas fired plant will only get intermittent use.
The other issue raised is that there is actually a bigger picture than electricity and using gas for electricity simply competes with other domestic uses of gas (and presumably makes those uses more expensive). The person being interviewed does say that we have to also replace those uses of fossil gas and we can in time. The other point is that because other uses of fossil fuels are harder to replace, the argument for more going much harder on making electricity carbon free is therefore much stronger.
Bottom line here is that if we care about emissions and we want to get to nearly carbon free electricity by 2030 (which is the only way to lower overall emissions sufficiently) then we simply have to build renewables at scale.
Btw, I’ve noticed the following. Its a lot easier to implement carbon capture and storage for gas than it is for coal. It still makes it expensive, but its doable. Why isn’t P1 going gung ho about “clean gas”? Because P1 is fundamentally conflicted and illogical, perhaps?
Jacobs has already been shown to be out of date P1 and you ought to know that by now.
That should of course read ‘pm’. I shouldn’t have to point out an obvious typo but for s(he)it who will not be named.
Player One
Friday, June 23, 2017 at 5:49 pm
However, I have certainly pointed out that renewables are expensive – but that is usually because of the oft-repeated claims made here that “renewables plus storage are already cheaper” than fossil fuels. This is just nonsense, and quite easily refuted.
The point is not whether A or B is cheaper than the other at any given time. The exercise involves projecting flows over long periods; really, in deciding when to allocate the costs of amortising large capital sums. Typically, fossil-fed plant is depreciated over long spans, reducing the booked cost in any one year. But non-fossil power systems are falling in price very quickly. Even if a given piece of non-fossil plant is depreciated quickly (current write-off costs will be high), its replacement is likely to be much cheaper to instal and likely to be more efficient as well.
The result is that long-life fossil-fed plant is likely to become non-competitive (financially-obsolete) before at has been full amortised. Since final amortisation dates cannot be forecast, it’s not possible to compute Net Present Values or Internal Rates of Return. Investment in such projects should be (and are) classed as risky with respect to cost. As the risks are seen to rise, returns should also be expected to rise. But returns also face negative risk from the prospect that revenue will weaken as the availability of electricity from non-fossil sources increases and the price of electricity falls.
Fossil-fed projects face investment risks that renewable projects simply do not face. Strange as may seem, the risk/return relationships are driving capital away from fossil-fed projects….a trend that has become well-established and is accelerating.
cud chewer @ #1245 Friday, June 23, 2017 at 8:51 pm
Amusing though. As many are.
Yawn!
edwina stjohn @ #1248 Friday, June 23, 2017 at 8:56 pm
Welcome back Edwin, we have missed you, particularly GG.
Oops… Edwina