Power prices skyrocket

18 June, 2017 by

Turnbull policies make energy unaffordable

Who cares that fewer and fewer people in Australia can afford this most basic necessity? At least we’re saving the planet, right?

Actually no, since nothing Australia does makes any difference to the global climate. It just appeases the idiotic Green/Left activists, while India and China burn cheap coal to their hearts’ content.

The Australian highlights ($) the continuing price rises for electricity and gas:

About three-quarters of households and businesses on the east coast and South Australia face substantial increases in power bills from next month, after Origin Energy announced price rises for electricity and gas.

Origin, the biggest of the three major generators and retailers, confirmed the pressure on wholesale prices from a historic lack of investment in new baseload generation capacity. AGL Energy and EnergyAustralia also announced price rises in recent days.

NSW, which came close to blackouts amid soaring temperatures in February, faces the steepest percentage increases for power, with business bills set to rise 18 per cent, or an average $748 a year, while households will pay about $282 more, up 16.1 per cent.

But South Australians, who faced blackouts from September and who already pay most for power, will face the biggest dollar increases. Businesses are set to pay an average $920, or 15.3 per cent, more, while households will pay $313, or 15.9 per cent more.

[Read more…]

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Oh, look what Energy Australia is doing…

16 June, 2017 by

Finkel’s new portrait

Would never have seen this coming, since Finkel is the magic pudding that cuts emissions and prices!

A MAJOR electricity retailer has announced a $130-a-year price hike and blamed closing coal-fire power plants, among other factors, as some government MPs dig in their heels on the Finkel report.

There is a growing push within the Coalition to ensure coal plays a key role in the government’s energy policy coming out of the Finkel report’s recommendations.

Queensland LNP MPs have been among the most vocal in the push to keep coal in the energy mix, since a three-hour Coalition party room meeting in which more than 20 backbenchers raised concerns with the proposed clean energy target.

Energy Australia, which has 120,000 customers in Queensland, announced yesterday it was putting up prices 7.3 per cent. (source)

Madness on stilts.

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Adani vs Finkel

14 June, 2017 by

Just ship it to India…

Compare and contrast the following two current news stories:

  1. Australia will ‘Finkel around the edges’ of a tiny emissions footprint in order to make Malcolm look like he’s a really sensitive, new Age, trendy-lefty guy who cares about the environment (but clearly not the pensioners who can’t heat their homes in winter, or cool them in summer);
  2. Adani will dig millions of tonnes of coal out of Queensland, ship it to India and burn it to provide cheap energy to Indians, and obliterating any possible difference Finkel will make to the climate hundreds (thousands?) of times over.

Here’s an idea – I know it sounds really, really, reeeeaaaally stupid – but why don’t we [whispers] burn the coal here and give Australians dirt cheap electricity?

Freaking MADNESS.

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It’s 2009 all over again

14 June, 2017 by

Déjà vu all over again

Australian Climate Madness is back – at least for now – as the Coalition seeks to tear itself apart once again on the issue of emissions reductions.

The Finkel report is trying to sneak through a low emissions target under the guise of energy security and lower prices – yes, you read that right: lower prices. They genuinely believe that imposing targets on low-emissions generation will actually reduce energy costs. Not sure what planet they are on, but it isn’t this one.

A three-hour party room meeting last night reopened all the old wounds in the Coalition with PM Turnbull on one side and ex-PM Abbott on the other.  Australians are already struggling to pay ever increasing electricity and gas bills, thanks to the insane policies of the Turnbull government, so why the government is allowing itself to be seen as going within a mile of emissions reductions ahead of affordability is a complete mystery. No wonder voters are deserting the Coalition in droves.

It’s all drearily familiar to anyone who has followed Australian politics for any length of time. Labor and Liberal wets on one side, and Conservatives on the other.

For those in a nostalgic mood, here are a few posts from late 2009 on the stoush between the Coalition factions on the doomed Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS), or as it was wildly incorrectly known, the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme:

Maybe the result of all this will be the same…

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