Today there was much political beat-up on TV news over a small 190MW QNI upgrade (an interconnector to Qld) costing ~$102Mill. Prime Minister Scott Morrison and NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian with other Ministers in attendance talked about “…putting downward pressure on wholesale prices..”. The purest fantasies you will hear. AEMO has a Generation Information page where you can download Excel files setting out State by State installed capacity also showing new projects for a few years ahead. OpenNem has useful generation presentations.
Here is a Table showing changes to generation out to 2023. Continue reading South Australianisation of NSW electricity
Monthly Archives: October 2019
Drought in MDB worse in the past
Drought and the Govts response is red-hot in the news lately and many claims are made re “worst drought ever”.
BoM data is from their “Australian climate variability & change – Time series graphs” page.
My chart indicates the Federation Drought was clearly worse in the Murray Darling Basin than the current event.
It is also clear that there were dryer or similar anomalies circa the start of WWI, circa 1920, a twinned event in the late 1920’s, during WWII there were few periods of over average rain, a twinned event in mid 1960’s, a sharp event in 1983, 2002-03 stands out clear. Our news and public discourse is swamped with fake news and rubbish. If anybody wants the data just ask and I can email so readers can make their own charts or whatever. Thanks to Lance re data processing. Here is a BoM site with 119 maps of annual rainfall 1900 to 2018.
Labor split over emissions target
There was important news two days ago on 9Oct19 from the Hon Joel Fitzgibbon MP, Shadow Minister for Agriculture and Resources, Member for Hunter, New South Wales, a coal mining electorate. In a speech to the Sydney Institute Joel suggested Labor should adopt a carbon emission target for 2030 of a 28% reduction, the top of the Coalition 26-28% range. So in effect there would be “bi-partisanship” around Australia’s 2030 emission target which would make it harder for the Govt to attack Labor on that issue.
Usually in Labor politics these issued are resolved quietly in “smoke filled rooms” away from public ken.
I have not seen any sign that Labor will adopt Joel’s idea – however Parliament sits next week so it will be interesting to see what happens. Govt could attack Labor on the “split” at question time using Dorothy Dixers.
Hunter voting – large chart – easy to see what bugged Joel with PHON votes rocketing to 21.6%. Mr Stuart Bonds the One Nation candidate. 2PP chart. 
NE NSW fires – were large aircraft working last night?
Grafton radar showed 2 large smoke plumes 4.53pm 8Oct so blind freddy could see these were large events.
The Grafton and Marburg radars are mainly clear now.
This morning ABC news say 30 houses have gone at Ewingar and Rappville.
I have advocated for years that our large air tankers should be incorporated into the RAAF and managed independently of State bureaucracies. The Tathra fires showed how union rivalries affected fire fighting which is an utter disgrace that I have not seen followed up. My main concern is that people are going to die due to poor management of the large air tankers.