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Australia has the most expensive energy bills

macrobusiness.com.au

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Re: Australia has the most expensive energy bills

#121

Post by q3k »

egh5oon wrote: post #118
gravelld wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What you describe is the rule in most Western countries. The only countries I know that have their shit together on this are Germany, Sweden and Ireland. The truth is that fixing these problems is going to be expensive. Governments are just kicking the can down the road because they don't want to be the ones that raise taxes to pay for it (fixing existing houses I mean). But it will have to be done. Maybe the biggest…

What? Ireland has terrible isolation and building quality in general compared most of EU.

Indeed. Terrible insulation, walls that might as well be made from cardboard, and mostly electric heating.

On the other hand I can run a homelab at home and don't feel bad about wasting electricity - I need to heat my apartment, anyway.

Re: Australia has the most expensive energy bills

#122

Post by awjr »

pjc50 wrote: post #120
ldp01 wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It does seem quite bizarre. The Finkel Report[1] sums up pretty well why coal isn't competitive. It can't keep up with the rapid changes in demand caused by existing intermittent generation. > "Rapid changes in power output from VRE generation need to be balanced with generation technology that has the ability to increase (ramp up) or decrease (ramp down) power output at the same time. Gas-fired generators have the a…

Money, presumably. Plus a bit of the old toxic masculinity.

And votes. Coal mining is pretty much the only thing keeping some of these communities alive.

People also have a habit of being very nostalgic about the coal industry. I never understood that. It's a pretty nasty dangerous occupation.

Re: Australia has the most expensive energy bills

#123

Post by bobabooey02 »

pjc50 wrote: post #120
ldp01 wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It does seem quite bizarre. The Finkel Report[1] sums up pretty well why coal isn't competitive. It can't keep up with the rapid changes in demand caused by existing intermittent generation. > "Rapid changes in power output from VRE generation need to be balanced with generation technology that has the ability to increase (ramp up) or decrease (ramp down) power output at the same time. Gas-fired generators have the a…

Money, presumably. Plus a bit of the old toxic masculinity.

There's no reason to attack masculinity. I know it's trendy to do so right now, but the gender norms aren't going away yet in some parts of the country still. If politics are involved, it's likely all about money and power.

Re: Australia has the most expensive energy bills

#124

Post by awjr »

dav43 wrote: post #85
sundvor wrote: post #21

I live in Victoria, Australia. Energy bills are through the roof - almost literally as "insulation" is a thing just about no-one here has any competence with. Whatsoever. I'm talking about builders and building code designers specifically. Ironically (see the top and bottom positions of the chart), I spent the first 40% of my life in Norway where things do get proper cold as opposed to in Australia where it's accepte…

Ditto this in Sydney. Literally holes in the walls to outside. I have to tape them up during the colder months. Such poor building quality.

I'd grab some expanding foam and seal them.

Re: Australia has the most expensive energy bills

#125

Post by zizee »

grecy wrote: post #67
Overtonwindow wrote: post #24

Sort of on-topic but I recall once an Australian company called Enviromission that was wanting to build solar updraft towers in the outback. With so much incredibly solar-rich, un-used land, I thought Australia would've gone all in for solar by now.

> Sort of on-topic but I recall once an Australian company called Enviromission that was wanting to build solar updraft towers in the outback Funny you call it "the outback". Their final proposed site was 20km from my then family home :) I was disappointed it never went anywhere, and yes, Australians should be adopting solar much, much faster than they are.

Australia is one of the top adopters of PV solar in the world. Granted, we are not yet at the level of Germany (500MW per million head), but we're doing ok at 250 MW per million head of population. Half the number of Germany might sound pretty poor, but it is twice that of the USA (125), Spain (118) and a a lot more than the UK (178).

Last year saw overall production increase by 13% and there are a lot of big projects in the pipeline.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-03-29/australia-on-cusp-of-l...

I think that you'll find people have been biding their time until the economics looked favourable, which isn't so silly in my opinion.

Re: Australia has the most expensive energy bills

#126

Post by gizmonty »

andrewwharton wrote: post #109

It really is a death spiral in the making. As grid electricity prices rise: 1. Insulation and rooftop solar/domestic battery storage become more competitive / cost effective 2. Which drives adoption (including retrofitting to existing structures), reducing the demand for grid electricity 3. Which, due to the fixed network and distribution costs, becomes more expensive per kwh. Australia is primed for boom in domestic…

I'm in Melbourne. I ordered my Tesla Powerwall 2 today.

Re: Australia has the most expensive energy bills

#127

Post by lazyjones »

ldp01 wrote: post #111
manoj_venkat92 wrote: post #86

And instead of turning to solar power, they are letting Adani power build a coal plant? What is wrong with the government of Australia. And solar power's prices are on decline and are now getting lower than coal and it's clean energy, check any major business news sites like Bloomberg, NYTimes etc., If I am not wrong, Australia is a sunny place, so going solar was an obvious option and Elon Musk was even talking for…

It does seem quite bizarre. The Finkel Report[1] sums up pretty well why coal isn't competitive. It can't keep up with the rapid changes in demand caused by existing intermittent generation. > "Rapid changes in power output from VRE generation need to be balanced with generation technology that has the ability to increase (ramp up) or decrease (ramp down) power output at the same time. Gas-fired generators have the a…

> The Finkel Report[1] sums up pretty well why coal isn't competitive.

Apparently it does cool the atmosphere though, so it's good against global warming.

https://wattsupwiththat.com/2015/05/26/the-role-of-sulfur-di...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_cooling

Re: Australia has the most expensive energy bills

#128

Post by StreamBright »

gravelld wrote: post #89
sundvor wrote: post #21

I live in Victoria, Australia. Energy bills are through the roof - almost literally as "insulation" is a thing just about no-one here has any competence with. Whatsoever. I'm talking about builders and building code designers specifically. Ironically (see the top and bottom positions of the chart), I spent the first 40% of my life in Norway where things do get proper cold as opposed to in Australia where it's accepte…

What you describe is the rule in most Western countries. The only countries I know that have their shit together on this are Germany, Sweden and Ireland. The truth is that fixing these problems is going to be expensive. Governments are just kicking the can down the road because they don't want to be the ones that raise taxes to pay for it (fixing existing houses I mean). But it will have to be done. Maybe the biggest…

Ireland? Where you can still suffocate from coal smoke at winter time and the average building does not have proper insulation and they still use hot / cold water taps? I do not think so. Newer housing surely has better insulation and better heating but it is fraction of the market (or at least it was in 2012).

Re: Australia has the most expensive energy bills

#129

Post by SideburnsOfDoom »

manoj_venkat92 wrote: post #86

And instead of turning to solar power, they are letting Adani power build a coal plant? What is wrong with the government of Australia. And solar power's prices are on decline and are now getting lower than coal and it's clean energy, check any major business news sites like Bloomberg, NYTimes etc., If I am not wrong, Australia is a sunny place, so going solar was an obvious option and Elon Musk was even talking for…

> If I am not wrong, Australia is a sunny place

Ha. It's nicknamed the "sunburned country".

https://www.google.com/search?q=sunburned+country

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