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At first glance there would seem no connection between the eastern states’ energy crisis and In Praise of Folly, an erudite satire written by a Dutch scholar in 1509 at the home of a man later beheaded for treason. At the risk of meeting a similar fate, gentle reader, I hope to convince you there is such a connection.
The author of In Praise of Folly was Desiderius Erasmus of Rotterdam. He wrote it at the London house of St Thomas More. For him, Folly was a wily goddess. Nursed by ignorance and inebriation, she praised self-deception and madness. As Erasmus put it, “In the kingdom of the blind, t’is folly to be wise.”
Folly, of course, appears in every age. Who can deny that life would be dull without her? She thrives among desperados searching for a “proper plan”. She loves cavorting with folk who believe they can control the climate. She is especially fond of those who insist the cause of a big problem – such as an energy crisis – is also its solution.
For shining a megawatt spotlight on such delusions – and inflating the optimism that swirls around renewable energy (RE) — Folly deserves a medal. So does the whole NetZero crowd, market experts and 
politicians who tell us a Code Black (CB) is avoidable, even if the energy grid is “not fit for purpose”, “vulnerable” and faces “unexpected challenges”. Perhaps an Order of Porcine Piffle (OPP), presented after a naked mid-winter dip in Tasmania’s Derwent River, might clear the heads of those determined to crash Australia’s economy.
We are told there have been a lot of smart people in the room – “the best minds in the business” – during the past decade. Folly tells me she’s sure that’s true. Yet somehow they were unable to prevent the current crisis or, if you prefer, “energy challenge”. How much confidence can we have that they can stop another one?
Things are desperate when one has to turn to Erasmus for advice: “No Man is wise at all Times, or is without his blind Side.”
In Praise of Folly came to mind again this month. On June 15, the Australian Energy Market Operator (AEMO) announced it was suspending the NEM wholesale market. Mr Daniel Westerman, AEMO’s CEO, said “price caps coupled with significant unplanned outages and supply chain challenges for coal and gas, were leading to generators removing capacity from the market.”
“We are confident today’s actions will deliver the best outcomes for Australian consumers, and as we return to normal conditions, the market-based system will once again deliver value to homes and businesses,” he said, adding
With the high number of units that were out of service and the early onset of winter, the reliance on directions has made it impossible to continue normal operation.
The current energy challenge in eastern Australia is the result of several factors – across the interconnected gas and electricity markets. In recent weeks in the electricity market, we have seen:
♦ A large number of generation units out of action for planned maintenance – a typical situation in the shoulder seasons.
♦ Planned transmission outages.
♦ Periods of low wind and solar output.
♦ Around 3000 MW of coal fired generation out of action through unplanned events.
♦ An early onset of winter – increasing demand for both electricity and gas.
Mr Westerman deserves our praise for his frankness: AEMO cannot control the weather. Yet one would have thought a routine risk analysis would have included scenarios with an “early onset of winter” and “periods of low wind and solar output”.
Mr Andrew Stock, a councillor at the Climate Council, would be a worthy recipient of an OPP, as would the Council’s Chief Councillor, Professor Tim Flannery. We can imagine how Folly and Mr Stock might have addressed the issue:
Folly: Mr Stock, you are quoted as saying Victoria and SA are apparently better placed to weather any power shortfall because of their push towards renewable energy sources.
Stock: Fortunately, states like Victoria and South Australia have been getting on with it anyway and they are reaping some of the benefits, and now Queensland and New South Wales are playing catch-up as fast as they can.
Folly: If we’re going to be honest about this, I just love it when the cause of a problem is promoted as its solution.
Another worthy recipient of an OPP would be Mr Christopher Bowen, the new Minister for Climate Change and Energy. According to a June 22 article in the Daily Mail Australia, the Minister was upset with a journalist for suggesting more coal was the answer to the energy crisis
Chris Bowen has furiously dismissed suggestions that prolonging coal-fired power is the solution to Australia’s energy crisis.
The Energy Minister fired-up in a press conference when he was challenged by a journalist about the unreliability of renewable energy. One of the reasons given for the National Electricity Market suspension on Wednesday was a lack of wind and solar power.
The journalist asked: ‘Isn’t part of the supply problem the fact that you cannot direct wind into the market? The only thing you can do is to keep the coal-fired generators going to their end of life and to fix the ones that you have got now and include them in the capacity market, isn’t that the short-term fix?’
Minister Bowen said the solution is to rapidly invest in renewable energy and storage – not more unreliable coal power.
‘The problem is there is not enough investment in renewable energy. There hasn’t been enough investment in storage,’ he said.
Bowen went on to say:
Yes, you can say the wind doesn’t always blow and the sun doesn’t always shine. The rain doesn’t always fall either but we can store the water and we can store renewable energy if we have the investment.
To which Folly might well reply
Folly: So we can store renewable energy just like we store rain water? Fantastic!
Bowen: That investment has been lacking for the last decade. That is the problem.
Folly: Minister, I just love it when people throw good money after bad. Incurring further losses in a hopeless attempt to recoup a previous loss is a great strategy, especially when it’s not your money. They call it Gambler’s Ruin. Go for it!
My guru on the energy crisis is blogger TonyfromOz. On June 18, 2022 he made the following observation at JoNova: “A perfectly good civilisation is going to waste”, going on to add a comment that is well worth reproducing in its entirety:
You can vilify coal fired power till the cows come home, but until you can replace what it provides, you have (well, less than really) nothing.
Take a look at Joanne’s graph for 17 June, 2022 [reproduced atop this page]. It says so much on one simple graph.
Look at that evening Peak of maximum power consumption. Last night it was at 6.05PM. Incidentally, it’s at that same time year round day in day out, 365 days a year, and has been at that time forever. In Summer it might be somewhat hidden by HVAC power consumption, which is so much higher, but the evening Peak has always been at that time, the time when the power retailers charge the most, telling consumers they can avoid the peak cost by moving their power consumption to cheaper times. You know, come home from school and work some other time. Have your main evening family meal at some other time, watch TV etc. at some other time. Live without lighting till some other time. Tell you children to do their homework some other time. Charge your phones at some other time. Move the habits of everyone to some other time.
So let’s utilise that known-for-centuries time of day and change the cost to a higher rate, eh!
Look again at that graph. At the Peak power time at 6.05PM the AEMO coverage area was consuming 29,035MW. The three renewables of choice, wind, solar plants and rooftop solar power were delivering IN TOTAL ….. 489MW, a grand total of 1.68%. That’s just so incredibly amazing eh! So:
The Nameplate for wind is 9,854MW.
The Nameplate for Solar Plants is 8,506MW
The Nameplate for Rooftop Solar is (around) 17,000MW.
So here we have a total Nameplate from those three renewables of 35,360MW…. a truly HUMUNGOUS total, and delivering 489MW no less, at a Capacity Factor of ….. well, who really cares.
We have 47 coal fired Units in total, with a Nameplate of 22,500MW. Ten of those Units are offline. (two in Victoria, three in NSW and five in Queensland) That takes out a tick over 4000MW. So, 37 coal fired Units with a remaining Nameplate of 18,500MW.
At that same time of the usual evening Peak, same time every night forever, those 37 Units supplied 16,780MW of power. That’s at an online Capacity Factor of 90.7%, from Units in the main, all of them older than 35 years. So:
35,360MW Nameplate RE – Power delivery 489MW
18,5500MW (online) – Power delivery 16,780MW
UNTIL (and let me repeat that ….. UNTIL) those three renewables of choice ….. CAN deliver that gap up to the total of 29,035MW, not just one night a year, but EVERY night of the year, not just at some ephemeral point in the day, but REGULARLY at 6PM day in, day out, forever ….. ONLY THEN can it be said that renewables can REPLACE coal fired power. Trust me that scenario will NEVER happen.
Oh, you say there’s that big BATTERY to fill that gap. Oh, and if there is a battery, then you’ll need an equivalent amount of renewable power to charge that battery. Oh, and if that is to be from renewables, then that’s extra renewables on top of what will be needed, because you CANNOT charge the battery and consume the power from the same source at the same time.
Vilify coal fired power all you like ….. Tell us that coal fired power is dying ….. Tell us that it is unreliable ….. Tell us it’s a stranded asset ….. Tell us they are closing down soon ….. Tell us coal fired power is not needed anymore.
NOW, tell us where 29,000MW of regular and reliable, present ALL the time is coming from.
Meanwhile, as Folly might note, in the middle of this energy crisis Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has written to the United Nations to increase Australia’s emissions reduction targets. He signed the letter to UN Framework Convention on Climate Change Executive Secretary Patricia Espinosa as millions of Australians were being urged to conserve power to avoid blackouts. Good timing, PM!
PM: ‘Our changed position of 43 per cent, up by 17 to 15 per cent, from the 26 to 28 per cent target that had remained there since Tony Abbott determined it in 2015.’
Folly: Mr Albanese said world leaders had welcomed Australia’s more ambitious targets. Hurrah!
WHERE is our Erasmus to expose the rot and corruption in the UN Church of Climate Control? Too many have given up or want to avoid being persecuted for heresy. Too few are prepared to question climate-change dogma, pseudoscience and the UN’s “loss and damages” agenda.
Sir Thomas More’s defence relied on the maxim qui tacet consentire videtur, “one who keeps silent seems to consent”. He refused to answer questions on whether Henry VIII was head of the Church. More lost his head on July 6, 1535, at Tower Hill.
Australia lost its head over “climate change” a decade ago. The national RE obsession will inflict far more damage than this alleged bogeyman. Our future is now determined by anarchists, activists, “carbon capitalists” and a ruthless political class happy to equate “carbon” with carbon dioxide. They won’t rest until they destroy the economic foundation of our way of life.
Has Folly ever witnessed a more bizarre and self-destructive policy, one based on the belief the climate can be manipulated to create an atmospheric utopia for everyone, everywhere and forever?
Farewell!
Live long, drink deep, be jolly,
Ye most illustrious votaries of Folly!
— Desiderius Erasmus
Folly … On 22nd June the ABC website featured a story about winemaker James Tilbrook lamenting that the 2019 bushfires devastated his vineyard, but if he had had an Electric Vehicle he could have used it to drive a pump to save his vines. Mr Tilbrook and the reporter apparently couldn’t see the vastly cheaper solution – a petrol pump, $1000 (and $10 for those evil fossil fuels) rather than a $1000 electric pump and a $40,000 (and more) EV.
This has been building for over 30 years now. Not unremarked, just constantly pushed aside by the cynical exploitation of quite widespread scientific illiteracy (ie. equivalent inability to read and write) and mathematical innumeracy (ie. inability to understand numbers beyond primary school arithmetic). Deliberate dumbing down through education curricula aggravates this.
Pumped hydro ? 1) Where will one put the hundreds of paired dams (upstairs/downstairs) that NIMBY’s and greenies won’t prevent ?; 2) a prolonged El Nino will render these too delicate for normal use anyway. Blakers et al (ANU) coyly avoid these points.
In my view, Bowen is not the sharpest tool in the shed, and vindinctive to boot (look at the glee he exhibited in bashing legal self-funded tax rebates). About the worst possible choice for Minister of this critical portfolio.
So far, ENSO (El Nino/La Nina) has shown no evidence that atmospheric CO2 triggers it, but well over 11,000 years of evidence that droughts with concomitant bushfires and then floods are triggered by ENSO.
Folly is fun to laugh at (including my own, of course) but the notion that other people can suffer hypothermia as a small price to pay for saving the planet is beyond Folly’s pale.
Can anyone explain why the AEMO allowed, and still allows, non-baseload and non-dispatchable RE (wind/solar) onto a baseload+dispatchable grid? Whatever happened to statutory obligation? Did RE treaties trump engineering and scientific realities?
The east coast grid needs roughly 18GW of baseload power – that is, power requirements never drop below this value, but spike (i.e. extra power is dispatched) at various times during the day. Therefore, 18GW of never-varying coal, gas or nuclear would be perfect (and we are not talking about increases due to EV uptake), supplemented by 10-15GW of dispatchable power at various times during the day or night, or even more in heatwaves or cold snaps.
Now the weakness of randomly variable solar/wind RE is clear. Neither can provide baseload power, because it is unstable from hour to hour. Neither can provide dispatchable power because it is randomly generated, or not at all for up to 16h a day for solar. Overall, the grid needs18-30GW every hour, so a day’s storage in the event of a day’s low wind and extensive dark cloud is a gargantuan 400-600 GWh. With large scale lithium battery costs at $400 per kWh (and that’s before the recent price explosion for Li), that’s a capex of 175-250 billion. Snowy Hydro 2.0? That’s a 10y exercise and heading north of 5bn for 2GW of dispatchable hydro (i.e. max 48GWh for a day, or 10% of total “bad weather day” requirements), but good luck getting any more of these built by 2040.
I’m no engineer, but thanks to people like Tony from Oz, and David JC Mackay (RIP) who did hundreds of sums for all sorts of RE schemes to see where they stacked up, I’ve done dozens of calcs myself, based on data presented by the proposed projects. Let me say, the projected costs are astronomical, and the projected NEW electricity output in GW needed mindboggling.
Another important feature that is never brought up is that wind, solar and batteries have useful lives of 20-25y under good conditions, so we have to build it all TWICE during the expected 50y lifespan of a coal or gas plant.
Comrade Bowen blames the lack of investment in renewables, yet ignores the elephant in the room which is the need for a source of constant supply. Morrison went to 100% by 2050 on the basis that outsiders and our 4 banks will not invest in coal or gas (or in Australia generally) if we do not adopt the 100% target. The following statement from the above article says it all: “Our future is now determined by anarchists, activists, “carbon capitalists” and a ruthless political class happy to equate “carbon” with carbon dioxide.”
We no longer live in a democracy of “government of the people, by the people, for the people” . What we have is “government of activists, by activists, for activists” while the rest of us look on in disbelief.
Wonderful to position this in the domain of Folly. Because these people take themselves so seriously, and believe they are dealing with the most serious issue in the world.
We would not have had this problem if the States had not sold off their power generation. Some things are best done by private enterprise whilst others – involving “the common good” – are best done by by the State so that in this case not only does the individual householder benefit from cheaper energy so also does Industry. A State energy enterprise is not in it exclusively to maximise profits or benefit from a carbon “tax” levy – all that is needed is to build the power plants, pay the staff, maintenance costs, inputs and put some aside for future unexpected situations plus a bit into Government coffers. This way the cost to the consumer is kept to a minimum. It used to work, why change it? This former process was controlled ultimately by the voter, not the spectrum of characters who are now calling the shots. Australian States were built this way, by borrowing from the London Bond Market et al for the ports, railways etc because the investors saw that a democratically elected government was safer to invest in than some shonky private or public company.
I think privatisation of electricity generation/distribution was as big a folly as the whole renewables fiasco.
But in Victorian govt hands who could trust the govt to keep coal or gas power stations open? The SA labor govt prided itself on the demolition of the Pt Augusta power station, which it could have saved with a small investment.
“At that same time of the usual evening Peak, same time every night forever, those 37 Units supplied 16,780MW of power. That’s at an online Capacity Factor of 90.7%, from Units in the main, all of them older than 35 years.”
WRONG..! Coal and other fossil-carbon are non-renewables. And as the term ‘non-renewable’ suggests, cannot last forever.
BUT at the same time, they are a valuable resource for such purposes as road tar, plastics (think poly pipe for farm watering and irrigation) and steel-making. And at present rates, they will all be used up inside about 70 years. The last lump of coal (Morrison’s parliamentary exhibit?) will be worth a motza.
No doubt those with proprietary rights to our coal are eager to get it all burned and converted to $$$$ in their own bank accounts asap, whereupon they will become the new aristocracy. Which is why I am a resource socialist, and ever-interested in what the coal shills who infest this purportedly ‘conservative’ site are up to. And so I say: CONSERVE THE COAL.!
Worth noting that Mr Jeff Dimery, Alinta’s CEO, agrees with Tony from OZ’s analysis.
Last week he said the only short-term fix was to restore coal capacity and rejected the suggestion that RE could offer a faster solution. [AFR]
Dimery: “The only lever, the only short-term fix, is that we get those coal-fired power stations up and operating and back into the market. That will take pressure off gas which will also help the price of gas. That’s the only short-term solution.”
“Last Wednesday [15 June] at 6.15pm, South Australia, which has enough RE capacity to supply the entire state, was producing just one megawatt. A single megawatt.”
“At the same time there was very little RE generation going on in Victoria either. It wouldn’t have mattered if you doubled the capacity of RE transmission. It wouldn’t have mattered if you quadrupled the capacity of intermittent RE generation. Without coal and gas the lights would have gone out in South Australia. That is a fact. That is indisputable.”
Folly:Victoria opposes any market capacity mechanism that includes coal.
Dimery: excluding coal in markets such as Victoria would leave the capacity market ineffective.
“Coal has to be included in a capacity mechanism. Let’s just deal with reality and practicalities. Take Victoria, if you exclude coal, then you are excluding Loy Yang A, Loy Yang B and Yallourn, what’s left? If they [coal generators] aren’t included, then you can’t punish them when they aren’t there,” he said.
“You can exclude three quarters of the market, but it won’t be viable.”
This article made me chuckle a bit which is great because there’s otherwise nothing funny about our recent energy problems. Recently I commented on a couple of articles in the Australian regarding the issue. Both comments were accepted. Occasionally they reject a comment for frankly mysterious reasons that I can’t be bothered asking about. The first relate to the recent power shortages –
Well the climate crisis has finally arrived. It’s just not the crisis that the fanatical activists were forecasting, it’s the one their very activism has caused. The schadenfreude would be delicious if it wasn’t for the fear of my next electricity bill.
The second comments on an article proposing we go Nuclear –
I fully support this proposal and we should get the stupid law against nuclear changed ASAP. Build the first Nuclear Reactor at Jervis Bay as being part of the ACT may make it easier. Another very interesting zero emissions solution has been proposed by Canadian Polymath Vaclav Smil. This is to use natural gas (methane, CH4) as fuel for a gas turbine and then fully capture the exhaust gas which would be easy to do. The exhaust gas from methane combustion is water and CO2. The water and CO2 is then used in co located greenhouses to grow food. This already done in greenhouses today with the farmers buying CO2 in cylinders as having higher CO2 concentration (usually about 1,000 ppm) makes the crop grow much faster and better. In addition to the CO2 and water there is also waste heat as the exhaust gas at about 600C. In cold places the heat can be uses to warm the greenhouse (tropical fruit in Alaska perhaps) in warm place like Oz it can be used to heat water to drive a steam turbine for more electricity. Using CO2 from Gas turbines is already being done in the Netherlands. See this link to a brief article by Dr Smil http://vaclavsmil.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/Gasturbines.pdf
I recently referred this information to a close friend of forty years who has become a Global Warming Catastrophist of late. His one word reply to the email was “ridiculous”. Well I guess you can lead a horse to water….
I think that Dr Smils idea is a far better one that just about every other zero emission option I’ve heard of but onne thing I’ve found when discussing this subject with various climate catastrophist contacts is that, whilst they can be sensible, sober and responsible adults in every other respect they revert to whining 5 year olds whenever this subject of climate comes up. There are a couple of friends I just refuse to discuss it with now.
Some of us were born into Green families and didn’t know it at the time for until the late 1950’s we had no electricity, no running water, and the milk, cream and butter came in the cow or cows and it was really refreshing having to chase them in thru the odd frost patch in the mornings when shoes were only worn “for good” or perhaps visits from Royalty so a pair of shoes lasted a very long time. If we removed the fossil fuels as in kero and carbide plus those methane producing animals and didn’t use wood for cooking and heating water for the womenfolk to bathe, we would have been vivid Greenies. They simply do not know what it was like to live back then but they are going to find out the hard way and enjoy life pre industrial revolution once more.
I was broadly supportive of Kennett privatising the power industry, if only to get rid of the lurks and shenanigans of the industry work practices. But I would happily accept those misbehaviours if I got a capably operated power sector, with the promise of cheap, reliable electricity, even with all the attendant inefficiencies, which pale next to the current fiasco of high-stakes lurks, misbehaviours, sophistry, and head-in-the-sand sloganeering we currently have to endure.
Of course, even if the power industry were taken back by the States there would be a different set of lurks and misbehaviours.
It is indeed a pity that this RE insanity is driven by the hoax called the “greenhouse effect”. The Greenhouse Effect hypothesis fails to line up with real world temperature measurements over time.
The Greenhouse Effect (GHE) is proposed as an answer to a supposed paradox in the Earth’s surface temperature.
All the calculations say the Earth’s surface temperature should be -18C, but it is in fact about +14C.
However as is seen in many other answers, the GHE hypothesis is very, very weak and has strong indications of dishonesty.
1. The GHE has never been shown in a laboratory setting
2. It is not mentioned in reference physics text books
3. It is completely dismissed by many knowledgeable scientists, engineers and others.
4. Attempts by universities and others to validate the GHE have never been published, even though it is almost certain many have tried. This very suspicious – null and contradictory outcomes are very valuable in science; if they have been hidden or suppressed – it must be regarded as dishonesty
5. No examples of the GHE mechanism have been found outside Climatology
6. The only GHE prediction – that of a tropical hotspot failed: https://thsresearch.files.wordpress.com/2016/09/wwww-ths-rr-091716.pdf
7. (And for those that read on below) it doesn’t seem to include a source at a higher temperature than +14C or any work done – which as other answers here have pointed out in different ways, is contrary to the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics.
The Paradox:
Stepping around the issues of averaging temperatures, the Earth’s surface should be -18C, but we know it is much more than that as around +14C.
1. Measuring just incoming radiation from the Sun to the Earth indicate the Earth’s mean surface temperature should be approximately -18C.
2. Radiation measured flowing outward from the Earth to space also indicate the mean Earth’s surface temperature to be 18C or thereabouts.
3. Theoretical work only considering the Sun’s radiation and using different and independent approaches also gives the -18C figure.
4. However, using the same assumptions, the apparent measured (mean) temperature of the Earth’s surface is +14C.
There IS a -18C surface on the Earth – it just happens to be at an altitude of 5000m and is known as the Transition Layer. (This effect also happens with Stars – their temperatures varies with depth.)
We can see therefore that the extra temperature at the Earth’s surface must be due to another source at a higher temperature than +14C or work of some kind.
(BTW, there are no other methods; if you think you have found one, you have invented a new branch of Physics.)
The difference is due to the Ideal Gas Law. PV=RT. The Lapse Rate is the change in temperature with altitude and is only a factor of the gravitational constant (g) and the specific heat of the atmosphere (Cp).
This is the heating caused by gravity’s effect on the atmosphere – nothing else.
In other words, 5000m of atmosphere above your head causes a temperature rise
Reading further it can be seen from various references on Lapse Rate and the Standard Atmosphere:
• The theoretical lapse rate for dry air (formula above) is shown to be approximately 10C per kilometre – which means the temperature drops 10C for every kilometre elevation, or increases as altitude decreases.
• The theoretical lapse rate for moist air depends on temperature and works out to be about 5C per kilometre
• The environmental (actual, measured) lapse rate is averaged to be 6.5C per kilometre.
Carbon dioxide is completely irrelevant.
Like most Australians of my generation, I understood the difference between power and energy before I had left primary school. Power (measured in MW, MegaWatts) is the rate at which Energy is produced or consumed (measured in MWh, MegaWatt.hours). The slow kids never quite grasped this and went on to beconme journalists, environmental activists and Energy Ministers. Only someone with a very poor grasp of such essentials could passionately promote the idea that the grid will become more stable when it is powered solely by intermittent sources. A simple calculation will reveal the astronomical cost of batteries and pumped hydro schemes necessary to bring this about. There must surely be someone in Minister Bowen’s Department who can do the sums.
BIG Lithium aka Ian MacDougall is back with his prognostications straight from the school of Folly itself. Exhibit A – ‘Coal and other fossil-carbon are non-renewables. ‘ but apparently Lithium and other Rare Earth Minerals (the name is a give away) necessary for Big Lithium’s BIG batteries grows on trees. Every day I see the evidence of Australia’s diminishing IQ scores writ large through the likes of Mr MacDougall.
P.S. Fossil Fuels are renewable – its called the carbon cycle. Rare Earth Minerals ????
“a ruthless political class happy to equate “carbon” with carbon dioxide.”
Neither of which are pollutants, except in the minds of those activists, anarchists and politicians.
Ian McD oil could be considered a renewable resource based on the fact that reserves have increased dramatically since the infamous Club of Rome report “Limits to Growth” calculated that oil would only last 40 years. Thus the authors estimated that all oil would be gone by 2008 – yet here we are.