Do you do balloon animals as well Pogo? Are your really so dim to compare asbestos to sand as if it means anything? Do you compare your computer to sand as well?
I feel like I've been attacked out of the blue by a cartoon of the worst someone in one political party thinks of the opposing party instead of discussing something with a human being. Is this a false persona for the sake of trolling? If so you got me.
A truly perverted aspect of the Australian system is how multiple entities under the same owner pretend to "compete" with each other. We've got some of the lowest generating costs on the planet but close to the highest retail prices on the planet. When I was watching the "market" set up from the inside from 1994 to 1998 the word on the lips of the people setting it up was "California", and IMHO they copied the mistakes there but not the successes. The state owned org I worked for nominally broke into seven parts (but didn't really) and the other states followed the same model.
Try again and please look beyond the superficial before giving lectures to people who have been mixed in with this shit for that 20 years.
There are generators, owned by state governments with some rare exceptions mostly in two states, and then there are the wholesalers, distributors etc. Many of the generating companies are really just shells owned by a state government - for example CS Energy, Stanwell Corporation, Tarong Energy, Ergon Energy, Energex and several others are owned entirely by the State Government of Queensland.
The most recent development in this current South Australian situation is a mysterious difficulty of some of the gas turbines in obtaining gas at critical moments which triggered a spot price rise - it is under investigation. It is looking more and more like the Enron games every day.
True but it didn't last well with high humidity, properly sealed freeze dried stuff changed all that but vegetarian curries solved the problem in the meantime.
Where ddid you go that salami was not surviving? Sounds like very humid jungle or something similar:D
Yes subtropical and tropical rainforests with a bit of heat and humidity even in most of the "winter". Hanging up with good airflow some might survive but in a backpack they sweat fat and go mouldy. These days cheap vacuum packed meals do the job, though for some reason I get the vegetarian curry ones despite eating a fair bit of meat normally.
You're copping out. Tell me which laws and regulations inhibit competition in this industry.
It varies by region obviously, so if you actually care instead of wanting to score points in some silly game you are going to have to look it up instead of "copping out" yourself.
I voted for Reagan, twice
Twice? Slow learner:) That's a joke since I wasn't in the US then and don't know who the alternative was plus a lot of stuff about Reagan didn't come out for a while.
Even studied Economics
Poor thing. The textbook I had for engineering economics had a different version of the net present worth formula for each variable, making me assume that economic students could not handle introductory high school algebra. Your pointless attempt to puff yourself up and look big has backfired. I've got no idea why you did it. I've given an example, led a horse to water, but I'm not going to do the drinking for you by hunting all over the net looking for court cases or whatever. If you think I'm a liar, fine, I can live with that.
think of what they did to they asbestos industry
I've worked with asbestos you tool. Idiots were declaring it safe while people were dying.
You can look up the regulations if you like and ponder them at length but it's probably best if you think of something you can already relate to, such as taxis, and then think about how it could apply in other industries. You may then understand why there are so many regulations and now only a few very large players in an industry that used to have a lot of competition.
As Rei said. Without a few hours of electricity every day or two it's a problem, hence near hydro or an excess of coal fired power stations have been the sites of choice.
It doesn't depend on that. There is plenty of generating capacity. The problem is that it is being charged out at a much higher rate than is available via the interconnect and there is no sensible cap on pricing.
Spoken like someone who's not sensitive to the wholesale prices
The insane implementation and restructuring drove me out of the electricity industry into the resources sector where pricing doesn't change by the hour.
Did you reply to the wrong post? You are going on about a lot of things and attacking someone who either wrote something very different to me or is a strawman that exists only in your own mind. Either is somewhat pathetic but the latter is utterly childish.
True but that is the one that was being considered as a model in the mid to late 1990s. I kid you not. Think back to what was happening with electricity in California in the mid to late 1990s and you will understand that idiots were at large and copying something they should not have. It's not about the concept, it's about a fucking insane implementation designed to benefit a few at the expense of a working system.
CAs pool was ripe for market manipulation
Hence some unscrupulous pricks salivating at the idea of doing something like that locally. The price gouging mentioned in TFA is as designed.
'Dominant suppliers' is the problem power pools solve, history says quite nicely. They are also frequently being used to fix incredibly fucked and undercapitalized socialist grids
In Australia they ARE socialist grids but engaged in fake competition getting extra government revenue via the back door. Nearly every generator is owned by a state government. The exceptions actually are the tiny private renewable providers with tiny solar farms and a few windmills - it's funny to look at all those other posters to see Americans get everything backwards in this situation and stand up for the socialists against the capitalists.
I don't like the implementation. More than 90% (100% in some states) is fake competition between government owned generators artificially driving up prices.
Are you getting the idea now? You are not looking at capitalism here, you are looking at a rigged casino fleecing the rubes.
The Hilmer "reform". A way for a few private individuals to make money out of public assets and a way for state governments to get extra money through the back door.
The failure in the Australian market is a failure of government
Government is failing the people that it is deliberately fleecing but the governments see it as a success because it provides extra revenue.
It has nothing to do with renewable energy. Even in South Australia most of the money is going to operators of gas turbines. In other states it's well over 90% coal.
I am one of them despite not having worked as an engineer in the electricity industry since 1998. The problem here is not related to the source of energy. It's a stupid spot pricing network that should not exist.
I'll add that I used to take various soy meat substitutes on hiking trips when shelf life was an issue even with salami - bad idea even when very hungry. Full vegetarian in such situations instead of pretend meat seemed to be the answer until freeze-dried food improved. I still can't understand how people can put up with the ersatz soy meat, but someone must like it.
Those over five can look at things like this and see that it's not quite the situation that so many here are ranting about: https://www.sa.gov.au/topics/water-energy-and-environment/energy/energy-supply-and-sources/sa-electricity-supply-industry
Yes. When the national electricity marketing system (mostly fake competition between entities owned by the same government) was designed in the 1990s the California electricity systems was held up as a model. I kid you not. A clown called Hillmer from the third ranking university in a small city made his career out of it. Some people really were that stupid, naive or greedy.
Don't pretend it is all an evil plot to extort money
If this was the only symptom you'd have a point, but unfortunately you do not and it really is a ridiculously stupid system of a pointless middleman driving up prices Enron style right across Australia and not just in South Australia. Similar problems have cropped up in Queensland and New South Wales where renewables are close to non-existent and coal plus some gas provides just about everything. Nuclear is not worth considering in this situation - it is not the USA or Japan so the infrastructure would have to be set up from scratch and is not going to happen this decade even if every Australian became a nuclear fan overnight. Please don't bring it up as if it is relevant to a short term problem.
Total capacity in this case is only 2 GW. There are single hydro projects that size let alone other storage solutions. Perhaps it's time to give up instead of going on about "technology not existing" when off the top of your head you should have thought of one that could have done the job decades ago.
If an aluminium smelter doesn't get electricity constantly there is a very expensive problem of a lot of solid pots that should be full of liquid. They get built in places where they can be sold continuous cheap power.
Nothing to see here - the pricing mechanism is an insanely reactive stockmarketeers wet dream and not something that should have been implemented. All it has taken is a cable outage to sent prices through the roof. Prices going through the roof due to such an insane pricing construct reacting to an outage is given some one issue idiots an excuse to once again complain about windmills.
So all up it's about an extreme reaction to something trivial.
Slashdot Mirror
Blue stuff I seem to remember - annoying, but it did get me to try out food beyond the normal meat and two vegetables.
Do you do balloon animals as well Pogo?
Are your really so dim to compare asbestos to sand as if it means anything? Do you compare your computer to sand as well?
I feel like I've been attacked out of the blue by a cartoon of the worst someone in one political party thinks of the opposing party instead of discussing something with a human being.
Is this a false persona for the sake of trolling? If so you got me.
A truly perverted aspect of the Australian system is how multiple entities under the same owner pretend to "compete" with each other. We've got some of the lowest generating costs on the planet but close to the highest retail prices on the planet.
When I was watching the "market" set up from the inside from 1994 to 1998 the word on the lips of the people setting it up was "California", and IMHO they copied the mistakes there but not the successes. The state owned org I worked for nominally broke into seven parts (but didn't really) and the other states followed the same model.
Try again and please look beyond the superficial before giving lectures to people who have been mixed in with this shit for that 20 years.
There are generators, owned by state governments with some rare exceptions mostly in two states, and then there are the wholesalers, distributors etc.
Many of the generating companies are really just shells owned by a state government - for example CS Energy, Stanwell Corporation, Tarong Energy, Ergon Energy, Energex and several others are owned entirely by the State Government of Queensland.
The most recent development in this current South Australian situation is a mysterious difficulty of some of the gas turbines in obtaining gas at critical moments which triggered a spot price rise - it is under investigation. It is looking more and more like the Enron games every day.
The French built a tidal hydro plant in the 1950s that is still running.
Yes subtropical and tropical rainforests with a bit of heat and humidity even in most of the "winter". Hanging up with good airflow some might survive but in a backpack they sweat fat and go mouldy.
These days cheap vacuum packed meals do the job, though for some reason I get the vegetarian curry ones despite eating a fair bit of meat normally.
It varies by region obviously, so if you actually care instead of wanting to score points in some silly game you are going to have to look it up instead of "copping out" yourself.
Twice? Slow learner :) That's a joke since I wasn't in the US then and don't know who the alternative was plus a lot of stuff about Reagan didn't come out for a while.
Poor thing. The textbook I had for engineering economics had a different version of the net present worth formula for each variable, making me assume that economic students could not handle introductory high school algebra. Your pointless attempt to puff yourself up and look big has backfired. I've got no idea why you did it. I've given an example, led a horse to water, but I'm not going to do the drinking for you by hunting all over the net looking for court cases or whatever. If you think I'm a liar, fine, I can live with that.
I've worked with asbestos you tool. Idiots were declaring it safe while people were dying.
You can look up the regulations if you like and ponder them at length but it's probably best if you think of something you can already relate to, such as taxis, and then think about how it could apply in other industries. You may then understand why there are so many regulations and now only a few very large players in an industry that used to have a lot of competition.
As Rei said. Without a few hours of electricity every day or two it's a problem, hence near hydro or an excess of coal fired power stations have been the sites of choice.
There is plenty of generating capacity. The problem is that it is being charged out at a much higher rate than is available via the interconnect and there is no sensible cap on pricing.
The insane implementation and restructuring drove me out of the electricity industry into the resources sector where pricing doesn't change by the hour.
Did you reply to the wrong post?
You are going on about a lot of things and attacking someone who either wrote something very different to me or is a strawman that exists only in your own mind.
Either is somewhat pathetic but the latter is utterly childish.
True but that is the one that was being considered as a model in the mid to late 1990s. I kid you not. Think back to what was happening with electricity in California in the mid to late 1990s and you will understand that idiots were at large and copying something they should not have. It's not about the concept, it's about a fucking insane implementation designed to benefit a few at the expense of a working system.
Hence some unscrupulous pricks salivating at the idea of doing something like that locally. The price gouging mentioned in TFA is as designed.
In Australia they ARE socialist grids but engaged in fake competition getting extra government revenue via the back door. Nearly every generator is owned by a state government. The exceptions actually are the tiny private renewable providers with tiny solar farms and a few windmills - it's funny to look at all those other posters to see Americans get everything backwards in this situation and stand up for the socialists against the capitalists.
I don't like the implementation.
More than 90% (100% in some states) is fake competition between government owned generators artificially driving up prices.
Are you getting the idea now? You are not looking at capitalism here, you are looking at a rigged casino fleecing the rubes.
The Hilmer "reform". A way for a few private individuals to make money out of public assets and a way for state governments to get extra money through the back door.
Government is failing the people that it is deliberately fleecing but the governments see it as a success because it provides extra revenue.
It has nothing to do with renewable energy. Even in South Australia most of the money is going to operators of gas turbines. In other states it's well over 90% coal.
I am one of them despite not having worked as an engineer in the electricity industry since 1998. The problem here is not related to the source of energy. It's a stupid spot pricing network that should not exist.
I'll add that I used to take various soy meat substitutes on hiking trips when shelf life was an issue even with salami - bad idea even when very hungry. Full vegetarian in such situations instead of pretend meat seemed to be the answer until freeze-dried food improved. I still can't understand how people can put up with the ersatz soy meat, but someone must like it.
Those over five can look at things like this and see that it's not quite the situation that so many here are ranting about:
https://www.sa.gov.au/topics/water-energy-and-environment/energy/energy-supply-and-sources/sa-electricity-supply-industry
All of you are missing the point.
There are no "brownouts".
There is no problem providing enough supply.
There is a problem with price gouging.
Yes.
When the national electricity marketing system (mostly fake competition between entities owned by the same government) was designed in the 1990s the California electricity systems was held up as a model. I kid you not. A clown called Hillmer from the third ranking university in a small city made his career out of it. Some people really were that stupid, naive or greedy.
If this was the only symptom you'd have a point, but unfortunately you do not and it really is a ridiculously stupid system of a pointless middleman driving up prices Enron style right across Australia and not just in South Australia. Similar problems have cropped up in Queensland and New South Wales where renewables are close to non-existent and coal plus some gas provides just about everything.
Nuclear is not worth considering in this situation - it is not the USA or Japan so the infrastructure would have to be set up from scratch and is not going to happen this decade even if every Australian became a nuclear fan overnight. Please don't bring it up as if it is relevant to a short term problem.
Go ask granddad about windmills pumping water. Calm days didn't make people give up on a good idea, they just made them plan for the future.
Total capacity in this case is only 2 GW. There are single hydro projects that size let alone other storage solutions.
Perhaps it's time to give up instead of going on about "technology not existing" when off the top of your head you should have thought of one that could have done the job decades ago.
If an aluminium smelter doesn't get electricity constantly there is a very expensive problem of a lot of solid pots that should be full of liquid.
They get built in places where they can be sold continuous cheap power.
Nothing to see here - the pricing mechanism is an insanely reactive stockmarketeers wet dream and not something that should have been implemented.
All it has taken is a cable outage to sent prices through the roof.
Prices going through the roof due to such an insane pricing construct reacting to an outage is given some one issue idiots an excuse to once again complain about windmills.
So all up it's about an extreme reaction to something trivial.