Australian news and politics.

[LFC]

36% is actually higher than I thought.

The federal government's legislated target is to have 82% of Australia's electricity powered by renewables by 2030. Sitting at a true national average of 36% means the nation needs to more than double its total green output in a very short time frame....3 and a half years??

And transitioning a grid fractured island continent where heavy industry is locked in the desert and the cities are separated by thousands of kilometers of empty space shows exactly why a complete, national 2050 Net Zero target looks like a monumental uphill battle.

yer I have to see it to believe it - also talk is cheap whereas laying out a actual/projected "cost" plan And having it go through seamless just isn't Aussie any more Thanks Not to a number of barriers put up the modern times.
OH&S (talking getting man labour and work done), compliances, red tape over red tape.
We have set up to make it harder to move forward in everything.
Dreaming !

I had been a regular China biz visitor pre covid some 30/40 times - I just returned from my first of many ahead post covid.
Now were talking the CCP eh, by the way Jingping only recently changed the law normally you govern 2 terms.
Yes, a law was changed to remove presidential term limits, which allows Xi Jinping to remain in power indefinitely. In March 2018, China's parliament, the National People's Congress, passed a constitutional amendment that eliminated the two-term limit on the presidency
The 2018 Amendment: The National People's Congress voted nearly unanimously (2,958 to 2) to alter the 1982 constitution. This removed the ten-year cap on presidential service.

I'm mentioning this purely on the base's of continuity.......
He cleaned out the countless messy/sub standard factories being they are such manufacturing power house now having everyone by the balls, volumes are massive you need good factories and improved pollution standards.
A lot more filtration systems imposed, the massive increase of EV's on their roads I noticed the air quality has improved 100% compared to per covid.
They build infrastructure in no time for new Industrial developments typically.
No mucking about waiting on report after a million like here - whereas we once we're far more productive.
Their car boom, they got so much IP from Euro/American grandfather companies they have helped cooking their goose's the last 50yrs.
You cannot believe how many EV's are there.
There is up to 100 brands give or take.
At the bottom end (brand quality wise) you get into a mid size EV SUV for around A$10K !
I travelled all round Shanghai for days then 3/5hrs south remaining days.
Chargers everywhere.
Petrol is expensive purposely mind you many still around might I add.
New car ICE sales are around 40%.
Coal currently accounts for roughly 51% to 60% of China's electricity supply and makes up about half of its primary energy mix. Despite an aggressive rollout of renewables, China's coal reliance remains deep-rooted due to structural grid inertia and energy security policies.

The tech advancements they can implement and do it - we can't part due to what you said, geography etcetc......

Whereas I was in KL the previous week, their Gov polar opposite.
ICE rules and being a oil producer.
They subside fuel greatly to manage their cost of living and prevent widespread inflation.
Now how about all these type of Nations that are similar to introduce a green outlook intent hahaha
Good luck.

 

[Toebash]

Why are you both saying renewables are 36% of generation?

OpenElectricity, which tracks live energy generation in Australia and is authoritative, has renewables at 44.5% of generation over the past full year in the National Electricity Market, plus another 1.3% from batteries (which are largely charged by renewables). Here's the website if you want to play around yourself: https://openelectricity.org.au/ It's an amazing resource and I look at it almost weekly. It also tracks all energy facilities, including those under construction and committed.

I suspect your 36% figure is a couple of years out of date. Things are moving really, really quickly.

 

[LFC]

because there is many sites to get figures hence the conflict.
yes I re checked was '24 and its a gov site energy.gov.au unlike a UNSW energy research institute you passed on..
8% huge jump not to me and who's right - we'd look up another 5/6 if we like and find different figures.
That's another issue the way I see it.

 

[Football us life]

yer I have to see it to believe it - also talk is cheap whereas laying out a actual/projected "cost" plan And having it go through seamless just isn't Aussie any more Thanks Not to a number of barriers put up the modern times.
OH&S (talking getting man labour and work done), compliances, red tape over red tape.
We have set up to make it harder to move forward in everything.
Dreaming !

I had been a regular China biz visitor pre covid some 30/40 times - I just returned from my first of many ahead post covid.
Now were talking the CCP eh, by the way Jingping only recently changed the law normally you govern 2 terms.
Yes, a law was changed to remove presidential term limits, which allows Xi Jinping to remain in power indefinitely. In March 2018, China's parliament, the National People's Congress, passed a constitutional amendment that eliminated the two-term limit on the presidency
The 2018 Amendment: The National People's Congress voted nearly unanimously (2,958 to 2) to alter the 1982 constitution. This removed the ten-year cap on presidential service.

I'm mentioning this purely on the base's of continuity.......
He cleaned out the countless messy/sub standard factories being they are such manufacturing power house now having everyone by the balls, volumes are massive you need good factories and improved pollution standards.
A lot more filtration systems imposed, the massive increase of EV's on their roads I noticed the air quality has improved 100% compared to per covid.
They build infrastructure in no time for new Industrial developments typically.
No mucking about waiting on report after a million like here - whereas we once we're far more productive.
Their car boom, they got so much IP from Euro/American grandfather companies they have helped cooking their goose's the last 50yrs.
You cannot believe how many EV's are there.
There is up to 100 brands give or take.
At the bottom end (brand quality wise) you get into a mid size EV SUV for around A$10K !
I travelled all round Shanghai for days then 3/5hrs south remaining days.
Chargers everywhere.
Petrol is expensive purposely mind you many still around might I add.
New car ICE sales are around 40%.
Coal currently accounts for roughly 51% to 60% of China's electricity supply and makes up about half of its primary energy mix. Despite an aggressive rollout of renewables, China's coal reliance remains deep-rooted due to structural grid inertia and energy security policies.

The tech advancements they can implement and do it - we can't part due to what you said, geography etcetc......

Whereas I was in KL the previous week, their Gov polar opposite.
ICE rules and being a oil producer.
They subside fuel greatly to manage their cost of living and prevent widespread inflation.
Now how about all these type of Nations that are similar to introduce a green outlook intent hahaha
Good luck.

Ecologists and climate scientists are exceptionally good at defining the destination—the carbon budgets, the parts-per-million limits, and the ecological necessity of stopping warming.

But traditional, pragmatic economists look at the journey, and they see a massive disconnect between political rhetoric and economic reality.

When mainstream economists critique how Net Zero is being handled, they aren't necessarily denying the science; they are pointing out that the current policy design violates basic economic principles, leading to massive inefficiencies, hidden costs, and waste....

I think that perhaps the net-zero plan has an economic blindspot. Ecologists point out where we need to go, but economists warn the journey is too rushed. Using government subsidies instead of a simple pollution tax creates huge bottlenecks. It drives up power bills, strains the workforce, and triggers inflation which risks losing public support entirely.

I don't want it to have an economic blindspot....I want it to succeed but reality often has a habit of biting hard when lofty ideals collide with the laws of physics and economics.

 

[Football us life]

Why are you both saying renewables are 36% of generation?

OpenElectricity, which tracks live energy generation in Australia and is authoritative, has renewables at 44.5% of generation over the past full year in the National Electricity Market, plus another 1.3% from batteries (which are largely charged by renewables). Here's the website if you want to play around yourself: https://openelectricity.org.au/ It's an amazing resource and I look at it almost weekly. It also tracks all energy facilities, including those under construction and committed.

I suspect your 36% figure is a couple of years out of date. Things are moving really, really quickly.

You are completely right, and I appreciate the correction. OpenElectricity is indeed the gold standard for tracking this live, and having the rolling 12-month average for the NEM sitting right at 44.5% (plus that extra 1.3% battery slice) paints an incredibly precise, up-to-the-minute picture.


But that 44.5% figure actually strengthens the core of the paradox we are looking at... .

On one hand, it shows that the physical "generation" part of the transition is an absolute powerhouse. Stepping back to look at the NEM being nearly halfway run on wind, solar, and hydro over a full annual cycle and including winter doldrums is an extraordinary achievement that almost no one would have predicted twenty or even ten years ago. The momentum there is absolutely massive.

But on the other hand, it highlights why the next phase is where reality bites the hardest. Going from 0% to 45% is about adding cheap generation to an existing grid. But then going from 45% to 82% (the 2030 target) or 100% is where you stop just "adding green power" and start having to completely re-engineer the entire system.

If you really dig deeply into OpenElectricity’s live data, it captures the exact point where the system transitions from a generation challenge to an integration challenge.

It's called The Curtailment Wall....

And even at 44.5%, the data shows that wind and solar are routinely being switched off because the grid physically cannot handle the surges.

 

[LFC]

ah huh, thanks I'll suss it out more.

 

[Football us life]

Unfortunately the true answer to the Net Zero debate isn't an engineering choice or a political ideology. It is a lesson in humility.....

Because you cannot dismantle the foundation of modern society on a tight, artificial timeline without triggering intense economic and social friction. Reality doesn't care about targets; it operates on supply chains, engineering limits, and the laws of physics.

I wish it was all going to be easy and good fun along the way too but it's going to be a fucken hard slog....

And anyone pretending otherwise is selling something.

We are really living through a massive generational pivot point. For over a century, electricity was something most people never had to think about. You flicked a switch, a coal plant hundreds of kilometers away hummed along, and the lights came on. It was cheap, it was reliable, and it was invisible.

But now, here we are and we're asking society to rebuild the entire foundation of modern life in mid-air, while everything is still running. We are doing it in an environment of hyper-polarised politics, global supply chain chaos, and intense cost-of-living pressures. Every step forward whether it’s a new wind farm, a massive grid battery, or a proposed nuclear reactor is great but I get the feeling it's going to be fought over inch by inch......

 

[LFC]

Unfortunately the true answer to the Net Zero debate isn't an engineering choice or a political ideology. It is a lesson in humility.....

Because you cannot dismantle the foundation of modern society on a tight, artificial timeline without triggering intense economic and social friction. Reality doesn't care about targets; it operates on supply chains, engineering limits, and the laws of physics.

I wish it was all going to be easy and good fun along the way too but it's going to be a fucken hard slog....

And anyone pretending otherwise is selling something.

We are really living through a massive generational pivot point. For over a century, electricity was something most people never had to think about. You flicked a switch, a coal plant hundreds of kilometers away hummed along, and the lights came on. It was cheap, it was reliable, and it was invisible.

But now, here we are and we're asking society to rebuild the entire foundation of modern life in mid-air, while everything is still running. We are doing it in an environment of hyper-polarised politics, global supply chain chaos, and intense cost-of-living pressures. Every step forward whether it’s a new wind farm, a massive grid battery, or a proposed nuclear reactor is great but I get the feeling it's going to be fought over inch by inch......

yep you got that covered broadly........
I believe in cleaning up the air and everything else for we have been ruining the planet and for many many moons not realising.
TBH the ocean isn't spoken of enough any more compared to the early days of the Greens when they first came to be if I recall right.
This is just as important for I detest the the massive large commercial side of netting today let alone the amount of crap we have pumped into the ocean/rivers.
Huge changes but as you say its not as easy like in a Factory actioning a running change.

 

[Football us life]

yep you got that covered broadly........

And I stress Im not a climate change denier. I'd love to see it all work out without shit hitting the solar powered fan but....

I mean we all want a cleaner planet, cheaper bills, and reliable power.and it’s a beautiful vision.

The tragedy is that the laws of physics, human nature, and economics do not bend for good intentions.