Scott Morrison doesn't know watt's watt

This was the ‘interim’ Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison on ABC TV The Drum, 23 September 2018:

SCOTT MORRISON: I want more dispatchable power in the system.

ALAN JONES: Could you stop using the word dispatchable? Out there they don’t understand that.

SCOTT MORRISON: Well, real power, OK?

ALAN JONES: Real power.

SCOTT MORRISON: Well, fair dinkum power.

So what exactly is this “dispatchable power” the Prime Minister is talking about whenever he cites “fair dinkum power” that “works when the sun isn’t shining and the wind isn’t blowing”.

This is what Energy Education:has to say on the subject:

Dispatchable source of electricity

A dispatchable source of electricity refers to an electrical power system, such as a power plant, that can be turned on or off; in other words they can adjust their power output supplied to the electrical grid on demand.[2] Most conventional power sources such as coal or natural gas power plants are dispatchable in order to meet the always changing electricity demands of the population. In contrast, many renewable energysources are intermittent and non-dispatchable, such as wind power or solar power which can only generate electricity while their energy flow is input on them.

Dispatch times

Dispatchable sources must be able to ramp up or shut down relatively quickly in time intervals within a few seconds even up to a couple of hours, depending on the need for electricity. Different types of power plants have different dispatch times:[3]

Fast (seconds)

Capacitors are able to dispatch within milliseconds if they need to, due to the energy stored in them already being electrical, whereas in other types of power storage such as chemical batteries the power must be converted into electrical energy.

Hydroelectric facilities are also able to dispatch extremely quickly; for instance the Dinorwig hydro power station can reach its maximum generation in less than 16 seconds.[4]

Medium (minutes)

Natural gas turbines are a very common dispatchable source, and they can generally be ramped up in minutes.

Solar thermal power plants can utilize systems of efficient thermal energy storage. It is possible to design these systems to be dispatchable on roughly equivalent timeframes to natural gas turbines.

Slow (hours)

While these systems are typically regarded as only providing baseload power, they often have some flexibility.

Biomass

Nuclear

Coal

Many coal and biomass plants can be fired up from cold within a few hours. Although nuclear power plants may take a while to get going, they must be able to shut down in seconds to ensure safety in the case of a meltdown.

What this tells us is that renewable energy can and is used as “dispatchable power” and often responds faster than coal-fired power.

Battery storage by way of home battery installations and mega battery installations such as the Tesla system in South Australia are just two successful examples of storing renewable power for later use – making it dispatchable power.

According to the Melbourne Energy Institute, South Australia’s new mix of renewables and traditional source of energy is working well.

What has become increasingly obvious over the years is that once renewable energy via wind and solar reaches a reasonable scale it becomes cheaper than coal and other fossil fuels. That is where Australia is now.

Yet Scott Morrison apparently doesn’t understand how electricity generation and the national power grid work – it’s a though he has been asleep for the last decade. Because he appears to believe that renewable energy systems have not evolved to meet market demands.

Therefore, based on his erroneous views Morrison states he is “going to force them [electricity wholesalers] to put more fair dinkum, reliable energy, power, into the system”.

Which in his mind means more coal-fired power.

Expensive, polluting, coal-fired power supplying electricity to Australian homes at maximum cost to ordinary consumers.

Xenophobic, racist US President Donald J Trump produces a midterm election campaign video

This is US President Donald J. Trump campaigning ahead of the American mid-term elections on 6 November 2018.

It is outrageous what the Democrats are doing to our Country. Vote Republican now! https://t.co/0pWiwCHGbh pic.twitter.com/2crea9HF7G

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 31, 2018

As with everything Donald Trump tweets - a little fact checking is in order.

Firstly, the convicted felon in this video entered the USA illegally twice. The first as a 16 year-old under a Democratic Administration in 1963 ,which later gaoled and then deported him in 1997 on drug offences. The second time he entered the USA was under a Republican Administration sometime around 2002 and he was not arrested until 2014 – after the drug-fuelled killings for which he was sentenced to death in April 2018.

Secondly, the Fox News mass scene shown is not necessarily video of recent events as Trump has a history of misrepresentation and, the current 'migrant caravans’ are nowhere near the USA-Mexico border, as the first caravan had not yet reached San Juan Guichicovi and the second was yet to enter Mexican territory on 31 October 2018. Both are quite literally thousands of kilometres south of the United States and members of these caravans are travelling on foot.

The yellow line represents the distance the first caravan was from the US border as the crow flies on 1 November 2018. The second caravan is at least 200-300 kilometres behind the first.

What Trump is also not saying in his campaign ad is that no previous migrant caravan has ever made it to the US border. The last one reportedly made it to Mexico City before petering out - at least 1,300 kilometres short of reaching the United States.

Scott Morrison just can't get his political spin to stick up here on the NSW Northern Rivers

Interim Australian Prime Minister and Liberal Member for Cook Scott Morrison just doesn't know when to keep his mouth shut.

He tweeted what looked like one of his own staff's media releases which had been taken up by the Murdoch media, only to have Byron Shire Council issue a denial of his claim that it had backed down. 

SBS News, 29 October 2018:

Byron Shire mayor Simon Richardson has dismissed the Morrison government’s claim the council has backed down from plans to change the date of its Australia Day festivities.

Immigration minister David Coleman stripped the council of its right to hold citizenship ceremonies in late September as a punishment for “politicising” the day, only to reinstate the right on Monday.

The government claimed Mr Richardson’s council had “reversed” its plan to change Australia Day ceremonies.

But the mayor said the bitter argument with the government was triggered by a “misunderstanding”. Byron Shire will proceed with its plans to move Australia Day speeches and awards to January 25, he said.

“Nothing has changed, from our perspective,” Mr Richardson told SBS News on Monday…..

The council plans to hold a citizenship ceremony in the coming weeks. The events are held semi-regularly throughout the year.

BACKGROUND

North Coast Voices, 26 September 2018:

An est. 5 per cent of the total population of the Northern Rivers are Aboriginal people principally from the Bundjalung, Yaegl, Gumbaynggirr and Githabul Nations.

They are an integral part of townships and villages spread across seven local government areas and, able to clearly demonstrate cultural connection to country, hold Native Title over land and water in parts of this region.

These families and tribal groupings contribute to the richness of community life in the Northern Rivers.

So Byron Shire Council's media release of 20 September 2018 comes as no surprise.

However, Prime Minister & Liberal MP for Cook Scott Morrison's reaction and the manner in which it was delivered did surprise me. 

SBS News, 24 September 2018:

A NSW mayor says his council's decision to change the date of an Australia Day ceremony is to reflect history after Prime Minister Scott Morrison weighed in.

A NSW mayor whose council won't hold its Australia Day ceremony on January 26 has hit back at Scott Morrison after the prime minister tweeted about the issue.

Byron Shire Council will hold some council events on the national holiday but has announced its official ceremony will move to January 25.....

Tweets of the Week

I remember when Australia has a price on carbon, investment in renewable energy was booming, carbon emissions were falling & Australia was seen as a global leader in these policies

— Stephen Koukoulas (@TheKouk) October 26, 2018

If Murdoch and his sons won’t rein in its extremist propaganda, advertisers should flee Fox, and investors should flee its parent company, News Corp. Its stock should become as toxic as shares of mining companies that produce “blood diamonds.” Me: https://t.co/GVsXBolSt9

— Max Boot (@MaxBoot) October 29, 2018

Remember the date well 11/1/18. On this day in history President Donald Trump announced building massive concentration camps to house asylum seekers while giving permission for the military to fire on civilians armed with nothing more than rocks. @realDonaldTrump

— Brian J. Karem (@BrianKarem) November 1, 2018

“In an unprecedented move, the Morrison government has questioned the Federal Court's authority to commence cases that allow sick children to be brought to Australia for emergency medical care.”

The Guardian, 26 October 2018:

The Australian government is challenging the legality of the federal court hearing applications for urgent medical transfers of refugees and asylum seekers held on Nauru.

The move comes amid a rush of transfers, and appears in contrast to claims made by Australian Border Force to those detainees that the delays are due to the Nauruan government.

Should the federal court action be successful it has the potential to void some previous orders, forcing those cases to refile in the high court.

The rate of medical transfer orders has ratcheted up as the health crisis worsens, criticism of the policy strengthens, and the Nauruans appear to have stopped attempting to block departures.

The home affairs department raised the jurisdictional challenge in a case involving a child detainee, her mother and two siblings, Fairfax Media reported.

The family have already been transferred to Australia. But lawyers for Peter Dutton’s department have continued to argue that under section 494AB of the Migration Act, the federal court cannot hear legal proceedings against the commonwealth relating to a “transitory person”. It is believed to be the first time the government has made this argument in about 50 cases relating to the transfer of people from Nauru.

On Thursday two federal court judges ordered both parties to submit their arguments in coming days for a yet-to-be scheduled expedited hearing, expected next week. The child, an 11-year-old Iranian girl, is being represented by the law firm Robinson Gill and the Human Rights Law Centre.

“This has come out of the blue, and there’s a risk it could make it much harder for desperately unwell children to get the urgent, lifesaving medical care they need,” said Daniel Webb, director of legal advocacy at the HRLC.

The challenge appears at odds with the government’s messages to detainees laying the blame for transfer delays with Nauruan authorities. Guardian Australia is aware of ABF writing or verbally suggesting to people or their lawyers that the department had approved their medical transfer but Nauru was holding up cases.

The Sydney MorningHerald, 24 October 2018:

The legal point was raised last week in the case of an 11-year-old Iranian girl held on Nauru who had not eaten in more than two weeks.

Medical experts gave evidence she was facing “imminent death” if she was not treated by paediatrics experts in an Australian intensive care ward.

However, lawyers acting for the Home Affairs Department argued that under section 494 AB of the Migration Act the court could not hear the case as it did not have jurisdiction because she was a “transitory person.”

Tony Abbott looks further afield for conservative politicians to destroy

Having had a hand in destroying or diminishing the careers of so many conservative politicians in Australia, sacked former prime minister and current Liberal MP for Warringah, Tony Abbott, has been forced to turn his gaze overseas......

The Sydney Morning Herald, 28 October 2018:

London: Tony Abbott secretly met with Boris Johnson two weeks before writing an incendiary article savaging Theresa May's beleaguered Brexit plan, it can be revealed.

The British Prime Minister faces daily leadership speculation and a growing rebellion by Brexiteer MPs and the party's grassroots who fear she will not make a clean enough break from Brussels.

In his piece for The Spectator magazine this week, Mr Abbott accused Mrs May of toying with "surrender" unless she is prepared to go through with crashing Britain out of the European Union with no deal, a scenario remainers believe would have catastrophic consequences and even strident leavers concede could cause the ports to "seize up." Mr Johnson, the former British foreign secretary who is widely considered to be planning a tilt for Mrs May's job, has used the same word to describe her approach to Brexit.

Mr Abbott's meeting with Mr Johnson, kept secret by both parties until now, has been exposed by a Labour MP whom Tony Abbott confided in, not realising he was a Labour and not a Tory MP.

Stephen Doughty told The Sun-Herald he was in Oxford on October 4 when he bumped into Mr Abbott in the street. The former prime minister told him he had just had some "good meetings" with "your man Boris", not realising Mr Doughty is a strong remainer and campaigning for a second referendum…..

“Boris Johnson meets Tony Abbott who two weeks later writes a piece urging Britain to pursue a catastrophic No Deal? As they’d say in Porpoise Spit - ‘What a coincidence!’” Mr Doughty said, referring to the cult film Muriel’s Wedding.

Mr Doughty said he was surprised that both Mr Johnson and Mr Abbott would keep their meeting secret and questioned what the pair discussed “not least given the ongoing attempts by Boris to oust Theresa May and take over as PM and the Brexit negotiations himself.”

"Perhaps he was also giving him some tips on how to oust a prime minister?"

“It seems to me that there are some very strange linkages between Tony Abbott and Boris Johnson and others pursuing a hard Brexit agenda," he said.

Australian Politics 2018: This Federal Government Can’t Do Anything Right

Reared with a sense of righteous self-importance, fed on a diet of IPA ideology with a side dish of entitlement, brought to Canberra by the Old Boy’s Network, then fattened into self-complacency by the political perks of office, this particular Coalition Government (which took the reins of government in 2013 and kept them in 2016) was always a puny failure.

Faced on a daily basis with its own failings this clueless federal government scrabbled about for years before turning bitter, vindictive and intent on destruction.

Here is yet another example of the Morrison Government’s inability to do more than spin its wheels…..

Financial Review, 26 October 2018:

Federal energy minister Angus Taylor's roundtable aimed at forcing big energy companies to lower their standing offers for retail power by January 1 is under a cloud because of real fears this could amount to an illegal cartel.

Energy industry sources say the legal risks of breaching cartel laws - jail terms and massive fines for individual executives - are too great for them to risk at a roundtable at which issues of pricing will be hanging in the air even if not explicitly discussed.

Mr Taylor dismissed suggestions that the round table could breach competition laws.

"Of course we're not going to breach the Australian laws; we don't do that," he told reporters after the COAG Energy Council meeting in Sydney.

But he signalled that all the invited retailers may not attend the round table, at which the government would outline its policies and expectations that the sector will deliver price cuts for consumers.

"We're looking forward to as many electricity providers coming to the round table as want to come along," Mr Taylor said.

The energy companies' fears of breaching the cartel laws are heightened because they have been under permanent surveillance on pricing by the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission for the last 18 months and the government recently extended that monitoring until 2025.

As well, cartel laws have been widened to include so called "signalling" and other forms of tacit agreement falling short of explicit price fixing agreements during the last decade because offences were too difficult to prove in court under the previous, much stricter definition.

Mr Taylor wrote to energy companies on Tuesday inviting them to a "roundtable" to discuss the reductions in their standing offers they will be required to make for January 1, 2019 - before the July 1 scrapping of standing offers which are to be replaced by the "default" tariff to be set by the Australian Energy Regulator by April 30.

 Read the full article here.