The extension cord to Singapore has always been a scam. Now given environmental approval. God help us all!
Clueless Energy Minister gushes about job creation. A job is paid human activity which adds value. An individual being paid for subtracting value holds not a job but a sinecure.
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The Guardian, 21 August 2024
Huge NT solar farm backed by Mike Cannon-Brookes gets environmental approval
The Australian government has given the green light to the first stages of what it describes as the country’s “biggest renewable energy project ever” – an ambitious proposal to send energy from a solar farm in the Northern Territory outback to Singapore via subsea cables.
The environment minister, Tanya Plibersek, said the approval under conservation law of SunCable’s $30bn-plus Australia-Asia Power Link was a “massive step towards making Australia a renewable energy superpower” and that the project would be “economically and socially transformational” for the NT.
Backed by the tech billionaire Mike Cannon-Brookes, SunCable’s proposal includes a huge solar farm on a former pastoral station between Elliot and Tennant Creek, an 800km transmission line to Darwin and 4,300km of underwater cables to deliver electricity to Singapore.
Plibersek said it was “a generation-defining piece of infrastructure”. “It will be the largest solar precinct in the world and heralds Australia as the world leader in green energy,” she said. “It shows that the energy transition is real and it’s happening right now.”
The federal decision was announced three days before an NT election to be held on Saturday. It follows the development being approved by territory Labor government last month.
SunCable Australia’s managing director, Cameron Garnsworthy, said the federal decision was a “vote of confidence” and a “landmark moment in the project’s journey”. He said a final investment decision on whether it went ahead was not expected before 2027, with electricity supply expected to start in the 2030s.
Plibersek said the approved project was expected to generate enough electricity to power 3m homes and support 14,300 jobs at the peak of construction.
She said there were strict conditions to protect nature, including avoiding the greater bilby, which is considered vulnerable to extinction. The bilby is on a list of 21 threatened mammals the government has said it will prioritise for protection.
Some details of the SunCable project have changed since it was announced more than six years ago. The federal government approval allows construction of up to 10 gigawatts of solar and 42 gigawatt-hour of battery storage capacity on a 12,000 hectare site at Powell Creek, an overhead transmission line to Darwin and a cable to the edge of the Australia-Indonesia maritime border.
The company said it was aiming to provide up to 4GW of energy to Darwin and 2GW to Singapore in the project’s first two stages. It was also considering adding a windfarm but that would need separate approval.
SunCable went into voluntary administration last year after billionaire investors Cannon-Brookes and Andrew Forrest, an iron ore magnate now investing in green hydrogen, fell out over its direction. A consortium including Cannon-Brookes’s Grok Ventures and Quinbrook Infrastructure Partners eventually took on the company’s assets, and Forrest left the venture.
The company said its next steps would include ongoing negotiations with traditional owners over Indigenous land use agreements and engaging with authorities in Singapore and Indonesia on its subsea cable plans.
Always a Scam
The extension chord project was a scam when it was conceived. It was a scam when I wrote on 5 August 2020, in an article soon therafter published by the wonderful defenders of civilisation WUWT:
“In the unlikely event that it is ever completed, the proposed Northern Territory solar farm will function for a maximum of 30 years, by which time its output may have degraded[i] by 8% to 12%. Nobody knows whether fifteen years might be very optimistic for the life of the gargantuan battery. During that 30 years of solar farm life, the extension cord project may have delivered less energy than was used in solar panel and battery and powerline construction and decommissioning. The world’s available energy may have been reduced by the project. The profiteers will be enriched even if not one kWh reaches Singapore.
Like Snowy Hydro, like all subsidies to unreliable energy, like the submarine contract, this unspeakably irresponsible plan must be stopped. The figures and logic displayed above are more than a damning indictment of one immense scam. Every proposal to link unreliable energy to any grid is automatically suspect. The default position is that every estimate of cost will be recklessly understated and every estimate of performance will be exaggerated.”
Ways to profit from a gigantic scam include milking subsidies and tax benefits, and also ramping shares. No government should bestow Major Project Status on a doomed "project" where no profit will ever be made from selling a product to a willing buyer. Australians should call on the Prime Minister to guarantee that not one cent of public money will be committed to any fraudulent plan aimed at subsidies and lurks.
Any government which endorses a scam deserves to be brought down electorally. Who will receive a reward from the CCP for billions of dollars worth of materials and/or components for useless solar panels? Any fund manager who goes anywhere near a scam will be exposed. Any individual who encourages any private investor to contribute to a scam will be committing an unconscionable crime.
Australia has a highly educated parliamentarian, Rhodes Scholar the Hon Angus Taylor BEc, LLB, MPhil(Econ) MP. He bears the shameful title Minister for Energy and Emissions Reduction, which institutionalises Government war upon reliable energy and gives undeserved credence to the false tenets of the global warming cult.
The 29 July 2020 joint media release[i] attributes to Minister Taylor:
"As technologies change, we can capitalise on our strengths in renewables to continue to lead the world in energy exports."
There are no strengths in renewables. Every increase in renewable energy inflicted on a grid weakens the nation, drives up electricity costs, impoverishes the poor and threatens the elimination of industry. See the Geoff Sherrington graph of Australian retail power prices[ii].
A 30 July 2020 article[iii] from the Economic Times attributes to Minister Taylor this description of the project:
“strategically important for Australia, the world's top coal and liquefied natural gas exporter, to remain a major energy exporter, and for its potential to create hundreds of jobs.”
Also named in the joint Media Release is another well-educated parliamentarian, Hon Karen Andrews, BEng(Mech), CertMediation, GradDipIndRel, MP, Minister for Science and Technology. The media release admits that the intention is to spend abroad $14bn of the fictional figure $22bn, in attributing to Minister Andrews this statement:
“This project draws on Australia’s world-class solar technology and our high-tech manufacturing capability to export renewable energy on an unprecedented scale. Not only will this power link make Australia a world-leader, it will also create significant economic and employment opportunities here at home with about $8 billion of the $22 billion investment to be injected directly into Australia. It’s a strong statement to all Australians that despite the immediate challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic we will come out the other side stronger and industry is still investing in opportunities that will drive our economic recovery and create much needed jobs.”
Few would believe that either Minister uttered the statements attributed. Both statements were likely written in the Prime Minister’s office and agreed to by staff of the respective Ministers. Nobody in any ministerial office bothered to check any of the invented and unsubstantiated propaganda which induced some negligent individual or group to bestow Major Project Status on this scam. The time is right for these two ministers to join with other wise colleagues in telling the Prime Minister, among other things:
· Australia should never have had a Minister for Emissions Reduction and that portfolio must be abolished forthwith.
· Major Project Status must immediately be withdrawn from a project which is so replete with fakery that it must be described as a scam.
· All subsidy of unreliable energy must cease immediately.
· Australia must withdraw from the Paris Agreement.
· ARENA (The Australian Renewable Energy Agency) and all similar and related bodies must be abolished.
· The Snowy Hydro pumped hydro plan must be abandoned.
· The Australian Energy Market Operator must be relieved of all responsibility for transition of energy sources away from coal.
[i] https://www.minister.industry.gov.au/ministers/karenandrews/media-releases/22b-project-power-nt-singapore-given-major-status-boost
[ii] http://michaeldarby.net/GeoffSherringtonPowerPrice.jpg
[iii] https://energy.economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/renewable/australia-fast-tracks-16-billion-solar-power-export-project/77256841
[iv] https://www.capitalcitysolar.com/2018/07/25/solar-panel-degradation-well-will-solar-power-system-work-20-years/
In the table above, columns two and three show a genuine CAPEX for the touted claims of AAPL, which despite the unacceptably high cost cannot ever deliver reliable energy, because a mere ten hours of backup for solar panels is risible. Columns four and five show a genuine CAPEX for what might work but must never be contemplated because of frightening cost.
Major Project Status was wrongly granted for a doomed project with a claimed capital cost of $22bn. The Column 3 figure of $75.77bn exceeds $22bn by 244% for a project which is non-viable. End the scam now without needing to refer to the staggering $165.081bn dollar figure in Column 5.
Two factors add irony to the financial impossibility of this scam. Firstly there is no reason to believe that Indonesia will ever permit the laying of the cable through the Archipelago, and there is even less reason to believe that the Australian Foreign Minister has bothered to ask permission, before the granting of Major Project Status. This is a diplomatic disgrace.
A further point worth noting is that the cable is strategically indefensible. Why would Singapore want 20% of its electrical energy helplessly vulnerable to sabotage?
An Energy World article[i] dated 30 July 2020 from India’s The Economic Times reveals that the COVID-19 pandemic is being used as an excuse to promote the fortunes of interests hostile to reliable energy under the guise of assisting recovery. The article reads:
“MELBOURNE: Australia decided this week to fast track approvals for a A$22 billion ($16 billion) project to supply solar power to Singapore via the world's longest subsea high voltage cable, a move to boost recovery from the coronavirus crisis.”
The Northern Territory Government at its Major Projects website[ii] lists: Project Sash - Sun Cable Pty Limited. There is no excuse for the Federal Government to follow the bad example of the Northern Territory Government. Major Project Status has been granted, but not on the merits of the project, which has no merit. Australians deserve to know the real reason. Possibilities include:
· The mentality at all levels of government that any plan to destroy reliable energy, however irrational, must be automatically supported.
· COVID-19 has increased the opportunities for recklessly irrational destructive behaviour by governments, and our rulers are determined not to miss this opportunity.
· Wealthy and influential friends of the Government stand to profit immensely.
Governments parrot statements such as “Extraordinary times call for extraordinary measures.” This is a very false concept. Extraordinary times require maximum caution in decision making, which must be based upon historical precedents for wise decision making in the face of danger or disaster, and careful analysis of the consequences of all decisions.
Dangerous attitudes are common among political leaders who have never been trained by the market place to feel the impacts of their own exercise of judgement. Now inflicted upon Australia is the concept: “Something must be done! This is something.”
[ii] https://business.nt.gov.au/investment-and-major-projects/major-projects-in-the-northern-territory/about-major-projects
Still a Scam on 25 August 2020
On that date my article was revised, greatly improved by kind assistance from eminent British scientist The Viscount Brenchley, Lord Christopher Monckton. With a cople of additions, the article was later paublised as Chapter 28 in Unchain Australia, published in August 2021 and available to my substack subscribers free in pdf form at www.michaeldarby.net/unchain.
This table is included:
Still a scam today
The revised budget, reportedly $30bn up from $22bn is a farce. My costings are now outdated by the increase over four years in the price of copper. The former chief scammer, Andrew Forrest AO, has never dared to debate the figures with me. I now invite the succsssor chief scammer, Mike Cannon-Brookes, to debate me, any time, any place, in front of any audience, in person and online. The rules are simple. Each participant can nominated two team members. Attendees, whoever they are, get to vote. The loser donates 10% of his net worth to a charity nominated by the winner.
The scam will continue
Scammers and profiteers continue until they are stopped. Saltbush Club founder wrote this four years ago:
The political war on carbon fuels has damaged the environment with forests of “green” power poles, flats of ground-sterilising solar panels, hills of bird-slicing wind turbines plus spider-webs of new power lines and roads. This mess produces unreliable expensive electricity, sterilises land, and wastes water to keep solar panels clean. And imagine the debris when a cyclone sails through a “farm” of panels or a “forest” of turbines. This expensive and unreliable power, plus green taxes and regulations, has destroyed much of Australia’s manufacturing, processing and refining industries – all for zero climate benefits. Gladstone aluminium refinery with is a potential victim.
Abandon the climate war on carbon fuels and withdraw from the useless and destructive Paris Climate Agreement. It will never cool the climate, even if that was a sensible goal. Abolish all subsidies and taxes supporting intermittent green energy and legislate that any generator feeding into the grid must be able to supply 24/7 power, either from their own backup facilities or under contracts.
Economic recovery needs to encourage and fast-track sensible infrastructure and development proposals. We should also abolish stamp duty and capital gains tax and reduce income tax. Governments should prohibit real pollution of land, air and water, but allow farmers, fishermen, foresters, explorers, miners and entrepreneurs to get on with building and expanding their businesses.
To protect Australia against profiteers like Forrest and Cannon-Brookes and thier allies among corrupted politicians like Morrison and Albanese, our best weapon is the ballot box. The great success of Lia Finocchiaro in the Northern Territory on Saturday 24 August 2024 is a good beginning. If you are a political candidate on the side of the Australian people and their right to inexpensive reliable energy, phone me on 0402 558 947 to obtain leading edge technical assistance.
Crowdfunding for legal costs of Victorian Doctors Bev Peers and Val Peers
Message to Free Subscribers
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Unity of Purpose is a Worthy Aim
or
Let’s Get Our Act Together
Dr Peter McCullough and his ally John Leake have together made a wonderful international contribution to understanding of early treatment protocols and the harm caused by mRNA drugs. In addition to their powerful intervention against the Biden administration’s obsession with maximising the profits of Big Pharma, DrMcCullough and John Leake also contribute strongly to the defence of civilisation against the profiteering advocates for abolition of reliable energy.
Similarly, Dr Robert W Malone MD, another effective opponent of coercive vaccination, also warns us of the immense dangers inseparable from the policies of the Environmental Protection Agency, for example the intended requirement for electric models to account for 60% of new urban delivery trucks and 25% of long-haul prime movers by 2032.
Some of the millions of victims of vaccine harm have not yet realised that their suffering has been caused by the same politicians, the same unelected authoritarians and the same profiteers who drive the global warming fraud. Let’s all encourage such victims to identify and expose the wickedness which has caused their pain, while we maximise our efforts to alleviate that pain.
Some of the good folk who lucidly advocate for real science in opposition to the charlatans of the Global Warming Cult have not yet turned their attention to the wickedness of Big Pharma and its corrupt allies in positions of power in Australia, Canada, USA, UK and elsewhyere. Let us all encourage every person of goodwill to speak up for the victims of vaccine harm (or their surviving loved ones) who emphatically deserve compassion, care and compensation.
Some readers have not yet declared themselves as supporters of freedom and national sovereignty for the people of Ukraine, victims of brutal aggression by the Putin hegemonists. Historians of the future may well concur that the October 2023 attack on Israel by HAMAS was orchestrated by Putin, with the results exactly as he planned; a major distraction from public examination of the wickedness of Russia, and a dilution of support for Ukraine. Neither Putin nor HAMAS care in the slightest about the consequent bloodshed. Note that Australia has still failed to deliver on the promise to shift our Embassy to Jerusalem. Thoughtful Australians stand with Ukraine and stand with Israel. Riccardo Bosi - the thug who called for Australian public officials to be hanged - and his fellow twerps shamefully stand with Putin.
Michael Darby comments: My aspirin packet displays this message: Unless advised by a doctor, do not use during the first six months of pregnancy. Do not use at all during the last three months of pregnancy. This responsible warning contrasts sharply with the scientifically unfounded and demonstrably wicked assurances to pregnant women that they and their hapless unborn children should be inflicted with experimental mRNA drugs.
Logistics and costs for Australia to achieve net-zero carbon dioxide emissions by 2050
THIS IS THE LINK TO THE COMPLETE KEN SCHULTZ RESEARCH PAPER (21 pages)
Nuclear Honesty from Peter Dutton
Federal Opposition Leader Hon Peter Dutton MP deserves the support of all thinking Australians in his efforts to remove the irrational and unsupportable Federal and State bans on nuclear generatio of electricity. A start has to be made in the direction of safe, reliable and inexpensive energy for Australia, and Peter Dutton is keen to make that very necesary beginning. More needs to be done. With removal of the nuclear bans established as a defining policy, Peter Dutton can look forward to winning over the Liberal State leaders to the pro-nuclear cause. In due course Liberal and Nationals parliamentarians will all learn that there is no climate crisis and no reason to support purposeless emissions targets. Moreover, there is every reason to restore Australia’s sovereignty by ensuring that decisions about the future of Australia must be made in Australia, by Australians and not by internationalist bureaucrats and plutocrats.
Exposing the lies and the Goebbels methodology of the advocates for destruction of reliable energy is a fundamentally necessary beginning.
From Michael Darby and allies, a program to save Australia
To save Australia from serious harm already done, and from even worse harm which the forces of darkness intend to inflict, we need a popular program of peaceful persuasion which includes these elements:
Turn the Nation away from centralised authoritarianism by devolving decision making wherever possible to local communities. The NDIS is a ghastly example of inevitable waste, corruption and criminality when control of an ostensibly humanitarian activity is vested in Canberra bureaucrats. Aged Care and Education are further examples of failed Federal overreach. Let hospitals be run by locally elected Boards with representation from the health professionals.
Rescind indemnities granted to Big Pharma
Provide total transparency on vaccine harm and excess deaths
Uphold the Early Treatment Protocols devised and continually revised by Dr Peter McCullough, Dr Pierre Kory and their affiliates in genuine concern for patient welfare.
Sack health bureaucrats who have no experience of treating Covid-19 and replace them with competent evidence-based Australian medical professionals who uphold the doctor-patient relationship and honour the DO NO HARM principle
Restore the right to work to all persons who suffered discrimination for non-compliance with coercive vaccination
Ensure all victims of vaccine harm receive compassion, care and compensation. Especially deserving of compassion, care and compensation are the thousands of women whose unborn babies were murdered or maimed by mRNA drugs administered during pregnancy. The official line that there are no contra-indications to mRNA drugs during pregnancy was always a lie.
Redirect academic funding from worthless study of climate change to a ge nuinely important and urgent goal, namely ameliorating the harmful effects of mRNA experimental drugs
Cease subsiding windmills and solar panels and they will soon disappear
Insist that there be no additional connection to the grid of solar panels and windmills.
Ban offshore windmills in all Australian waters
Expose the profiteers and scammers who promote for their financial benefit the most outrageous fraud in world history. Name and shame Andrew Forrest AO and all the rest of them
Declare that action on climate change deserves no status as a goal of policy, and that governments at all levels are expected to lead and inspire focus upon genuine goals which embrace: compassion care and compensation for victims of mRNA vaccines and all other forms of governmental, bureaucratic and corporate over-reach; elimination of homelessness; minimisation of suicide; practical locally-based assistance and encouragement for the poor, the elderly, the disadvantaged and the marginalised; control of immigration to uphold the job opportunities, access to housing, personal security and cultural cohesion of Australians; plus restoration and preservation of Australian sovereinty through economic and military strength; all with the aim of achieving peace, progress and prosperity for future generations.
End dangerous, expensive and wholly purposeless geo-sequestration
Educate all politicians, teachers and media presenters to read tide gauges
Stop destroying farmland, forests and habitats by useless grid expansion
Shut down the fake industry ripping off grants for studying the non-problem of climate change
Accept the truth that edible animals cannot increase carbon dioxide levels by eating grass, nor by any other means
Stand with primary producers in guaranteeing the right to live export
Slash immigration, and limit refugees to persecuted Christians only
Remove the Federal ban on nuclear energy and also remove State bans on nuclear energy in Queensland, NSW and Victoria
Incentivise the conversion to liquid fuel of Victoria’s vast brown coal reserves, to rescue Australia from dependence on foreign refineries and dire lack of strategic fuel reserves
Accept that brown coal is an excellent low-cost source of energy for electricity generation, and resist all restrictions upon it use
Where possible extend the life of coal-fired power stations
Replace destroyed and non-extendable coal fired power stations with nuclear power stations
Call for tenders for deploying small modular reactors mounted on unsinkable powered barges at sites including Esperance, Busselton, Karratha, Carnarvon, Karratha, Port Hedland, Broome, Wyndham, Darwin, Gove Peninsula, Cooktown, Cairns, Townsville. The UK nuclear regulator has completed the second phase of its three phase Assessment of the technoogy of the Rolls Royce small modular reactor. THIS IS THE LINK.
Encourage industry and population growth by offering free residential electricty in the vicinity of each nuclear reactor.
Cancel the Snowy Hydro II scam and write off the money already wasted. Invite tenders for commercial use of the now worthless tunnel, perhap as the world’s largest mushroom farm. Note that pumped hydro and other forms of energy storage cannot convert unreliable energy to reliable energy. Pumped hydro is good for extending the utility of reliable power generation fueled by coal or nuclear power, and the use of mine voids is appropriate for this purpose.
Quit the WHO, reject the WEF, the IPCC and Paris Agreements
Cancel every agreement and rescind evey law or regulation which mentions Climate Change, Carbon Dioxide or Emissions Targets or Net Zero
Cease immediately all governmental promotion of mRNA vaccines while permitting prescriptions by private doctors for fully informed consenting patients.
Stop growing fuel and instead focus on feeding hungry deserving humans
Stop paying primary producers not to grow food
Stop printing money
Guarantee the permanent continuation of cash
Get rid of the woke wastrels pretending to lead the Australian Defence Force
Impose a Commonwealth royalty of 20% on the local turnover of international tech giants who presently pay minimal tax on contrived low declared profits.
Acknowledge that local government across Australia has been deliberately and systematically subverted by international cultists hostile to the welfare of Australians, and develop a strategy to undo the damage.
Ensure that any group of Australians who wish to form a new State, should be entitled to vote on the matter.
Most of the above recommendations are explained at length in Unchain Australia, launched in August 2021. Unchain Australia is free to subscribers at www.michaeldarby.net/unchain
No Surrender on the Digital ID Bills!
Friends, this is not the time to surrender. Lobby your local minor party and opposition parliamentarians and candidates. The priorities for governments do not include even greater intrusion in the lives of Australians and destroying their right to use cash. The priorites for governments do include a Federal royalty on the gross earnings of the tech giants, plus State and Territory legislation to allow victims of fraud to recover damages from the entities which advertised that fraud. These important points are convincingly made in Unchain Australia, published August 2021, and available in pdf form free to subscribers to this substack at http://www.michaeldarby.net/unchain
Save the The Fritz Karger file to your own system for valuable reference
Click above for a visual litany of windmill horrors. Stop these environmental disasters!
