I’ve said for years that these billion dollar toys for which we pay billions each year in subsidies to foreign owner operators, are boutique at best.
“..Wind turbines in South Australia were using more power than they generated during the state’s electricity crisis, which has prompted major businesses to threaten shutdowns and smaller firms to consider moving interstate. Business blows up as turbines suck more power than they generate The sapping of power by the turbines during calm weather on July 7 at the height of the crisis, which has caused a price surge, shows just how unreliable and intermittent wind power is for a state with a renewable energy mix of more than 40 per cent. Australian Industry Group chief executive Innes Willox yesterday said the rise in prices, already the highest in the country, had disrupted industry and served as a warning for the rest of the nation. “That is a serious blow to energy users across SA and has disrupted supply chains upon which thousands of jobs depend,” he said.
“The real risk is if this volatility becomes the norm across the National Electricity Market…”
That front page article in The Australian yesterday elicited this missive which nails the point about Soviet style planned economies. (ie) They don’t work. Never have.
The energy crisis in South Australia is a perfect example of central planning and its repercussions (“Business blows up as turbines suck more power than they generate”, 20/7). Central planning did not work for the Soviet Union or Eastern Europe and is not working in Venezuela.
Undaunted, the Left continues to support economic mayhem called sustainable renewable energy, a central planning concept that attacks living standards of citizens, particularly the poorest, but makes the gentrified Left feel good. Subsidising renewables to make it “cheap” has been disastrous for South Australians.
Ignoring the free market is a key factor in central planning and in each case has impoverished those countries that experiment with it. South Australia today, the rest of Australia in the not too distant future.
Dennis Murphy, Hope Island, Qld
Someone doesn’t know how wind turbines operate. That’s OK, we have an entire set of governments (state and fed) who have no idea how to manage a power grid. Seems like the utter stupidity has penetrated all layers of politics now. I think we need new people and a new system…