Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull has confirmed he donated nearly $2 million to the Liberal Party for the 2016 election campaign.

Key points:

• Malcolm Turnbull has admitted donating $1.75 million to Liberal Party for 2016 election campaign
• Says donation was in this financial year, so not included in publicly released records
• Opposition said he had to "buy his way out of trouble" in campaign

 

Mr Turnbull has come under pressure to confirm how much money he put towards last year's federal election campaign.

There was no evidence of his donation in Australian Electoral Commission records released on Wednesday, but those records only covered the past financial year.

Mr Turnbull has told ABC's 7.30 he and his wife Lucy gave $1.75 million.

"I've always been prepared to put my money where my mouth is. Now, here's the difference: I put my money into ensuring that we didn't have a Labor government.

"I put my money into the Liberal Party's campaign."

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-02-01/turnbull-admits-donating-1.75-mill...

 

Nothing wrong with giving the cash to the Libs, but let's say that the amount would make sure that Turdball would not be bowled over by an upsmart like cockroach Abbott. 

On the coal front, Turdball is off course wrong when mentioning the South Australian electricity blackout last year as a wake up coal (call). There has been plenty of electricity outage in the history of electricity that have had NOTHING TO DO WITH RENEWABLES. The list is available here as already mentioned on this site:

Similar shutdown of the grid happened in the US networlk of coal/gas/nuclear power stations, a couple of decades ago. Nothing to do with renewables, just a design of the networlk which cannot be "overloaded", thus shuts down during a storm of sorts (or excess demand  of "heat" due to cold storm)... NOTHING TO DO WITH RENEWABLES.

Meanwhile CO2 from burning carbon is warming up the planet's surface and trouble is looming large on the horizon, despite the scientific community being a bit coy with politics VERSUS global warming:

‘Beyond the extreme’: Scientists marvel at ‘increasingly non-natural’ Arctic warmth
The Arctic is so warm — and has been this warm for so long — that scientists are struggling to explain it and are in disbelief. 

• By Jason Samenow
• Capital Weather Gang

read also:
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-arctic-is-getting-crazy/
And when doing the sums in regard to convections in a complex gaseous system of reducing pressure with altitude and the dew point, we can conclude that this is due to Global Warming... 
TURDBALL IS THE CARBON COPY OF TONY ABBOOT. Burning MORE coal IS NOT THE SOLUTION.

Treasurer Scott Morrison will not rule out using money set aside in the Clean Energy Finance Corporation (CEFC) to fund a new generation of coal-fired power stations. 

Key points:

• Experts warn more coal power stations could see power prices double
• Josh Frydenberg says Australia must take a "technology neutral" approach to energy
• Frydenberg says the Government remains committed to its emissions reduction target

Mr Morrison's statement came after Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull claimed Australia had an obligation to be at the forefront of coal technology. 

"Coal is a big part of the future under a Coalition Government and clearly that's not the case under the alternative," Mr Morrison told the ABC. 

"It's the Clean Energy Finance Corporation — it's not the wind energy finance corporation."

However energy experts have warned power prices for consumers could double, not fall, if new coal-fired power stations are built.

"Several authorities' projections, including from the CSIRO, put the price of new coal at $80 a megawatt hour, and new wind and solar around the same level — but we are seeing lower prices achieved day by day [for wind and solar]," the Australian Industry Group's principle national advisor Tennant Reed told The Business.

The price per megawatt hour for a new coal generator is closer to $160 a megawatt hour, according to work done by Bloomberg New Energy Finance. 

"The price of $80 a megawatt hour for clean coal power assumes a uniform cost of funding between wind, solar and coal and that's simply not the case," Bloomberg's Kobad Bhavnagri said.

read more:

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-02-02/clean-energy-money-could-fund-coal...

 

Where do these guys like Scott Morisson get their ideas? In a barrel of bullshit? A tank of sewer-piss? A reservoir of crap-dung? A container of feculence? A vat of feces? A poop deck? A field of excrements? from bowel motions? a delivery of fecal matter?

Deceiving thieving Idiots... Clean Coal is not clean in regard to climate change. Clean coal is that coal with less impurities such as sulphur, but still produces vast amounts of CO2 nonetheless... Calling coal "clean" in regard to global warming is a deceiving act that deserves a hanging. Same with the shit weasel words "technology neutral" by Frydenberg. What a crap lot we have in this government of thieves and tiger tamers...

‘Listen to Evidence’: March for Science Plans Washington Rally on Earth Day

read also:

The cost of building the required infrastructure would be enormous and the time periods involved may be too long to prevent the risk, identified by the consensus of expert scientists, of potentially catastrophic climate change.

The International Energy Agency (IEA) has found that the world would need to capture and store almost 4 billion tonnes per annum of CO2 in 2040 to keep global warming to 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels.

Far more would be needed to limit it to 1.5C, the target agreed to by 195 nations at the Paris climate conference in 2015.

Yet current carbon capture capacity for projects in operation or under construction sits at approximately 40 million tonnes per annum.

We also don't know if all gas would stay buried. While scientists are confident that there are geologically stable areas that could keep the carbon underground for very long periods, there is a risk of carbon seeping into the atmosphere.

To date, the technology is not commercially viable.

read moe:

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-02-02/clean-coal-explained/8235210

Turnshit, Turdball, Shitbull or whatever his name was before he became a low rated worm in Kambra, talks about "ideology free" energy supply. With this he hints that "coal" is "ideology free"... Never heard so much rubbish in a few words. Science is not an ideology and science has accurately shown that coal is one of the culprits in global warming. No need for ideology talk. The need now is to reduce CO2 emissions and building more coal power stations IS NOT GOING TO DO IT. It's simple. It's clear. It's irrefutable. Yes, Malcolm, science is "ideology free" but your f%$#@*ing "ideology free" politics are full of shit ideology. 

 

Yes, if science could tell politicians to shove "ideology free" policies up their arse, the future of the world would have a better chance to go beyond a few more years of bullshit....

During his address to the National Press Club this week, Malcolm Turnbull told Australia it needed more efficient coal plants, and that this would deliver “cheap”, reliable power that could help Australia meet its international climate change targets laid down at the UN climate talks in Paris.

Joining Turnbull this week in touting for coal have been his environment and energy minister, Josh Frydenberg, and treasurer, Scott Morrison.

A second talking point is that coal can help lift poor countries out of poverty – another argument willingly adopted by Australian government ministers, including Turnbull.

Who can forget Tony “coal is good for humanity” Abbott? 

There is a stream of analysis that says building new coal plants, even the most expensive and slightly less dirty versions, are incompatible with targets to keep global warming below dangerous levels. They’d also likely be much more expensive than renewables. That’s for another day.

But how did the coal industry do it? Where did these two talking points come from and how did they make their way into ministerial speeches and presentations by prime ministers?

One possibility is incessant lobbying to a willing administration that’s happy to meet a coal industry executive at the drop of a hat.

The coal industry has been playing a long game on these two talking points and we can trace them back to a 2010 World Energy Congress conference in Montreal.

Greg Boyce, then the boss of US coal giant Peabody Energy, gave a speech where he laid out the coal industry’s future.

Read more:

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/planet-oz/2017/feb/03/coal-lobby...

 

See toon at top.

Malcolm Turnbull’s next climate and energy adviser will be Sid Marris, who is leaving his role as head of climate and environment at the coal industry lobby group, the Minerals Council of Australia.

The appointment comes amid a push from the Turnbull government for new coal-fired generators to be built, a suggestion enthusiastically welcomed by the Minerals Council.

Marris has worked for the Minerals Council since 2008, after spending 16 years at the Australian newspaper, filling roles including Canberra bureau chief, online political editor and economic correspondent.

read more:

https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2017/feb/03/turnbulls-new-ene...

MOSCOW (Sputnik) — The applications came for investments in 1,500 megawatts of renewable energies, the local IRNA News agency wrote, citing Chitchian’s speech at a local ceremony on Saturday at the Shahid Mofatteh Power Plant in the province of Hamedan.

 

The minister added that the country plans by 2030 to set up renewable power plants that would generate 75,000 megawatts, stressing that Iran has committed to cut greenhouse effects and has prepared all necessary conditions to expand the use of renewable energies.

According to Iran’s sixth Five-year Development plan, the country plans to construct several new power plants with a total capacity pf 26,000 megawatts, which would bring the power generation capacity via renewable sources to 5,000 megawatts, with the current level being around 200 megawatts.

Recently, the Middle Eastern and Asian countries started to work on development of alternative energy sources, planning to gradually lessen the oil consumption.

read more:

https://sputniknews.com/asia/201702051050358914-iran-renewable-energy/

In his piece in the SMH today((6/2?17), Ross Gittins exposes Turnbull's bullshit about the necessity of coal to maintain base load power. The con relies on the price of gas. Gas was reasonably cheap and is more efficient and cleaner than coal. But the price has spiked due to exports and followed the parity export/local retail prices. The more we export gas, the more expensive it becomes here. 

Apparently, the South Australian capers happened partly because the operators of a mothballed gas power station preferred to sell/export the gas at a high price rather than use it to balance the local power supply. Meanwhile the new coal power stations planned by Turdball are not "clean", will never be clean and they are going to be "in use" for another 60 years. The main difference between coal and gas (both fossil fuels) is that gas power stations can be fired up very quickly on demand, while coal power stations have to be on-line at all times, defeating the purpose of renewables that can have intermittent supply, though the technology is improving to make them more permanent with electricity storage facilities.

All in all, coal power stations are many steps back in the nineteenth century. We deserve better from Turnbull, but whether he now believes his own bullshit or not is irrelevant as he has become a puppet of the coal miners...

The Clean Energy Finance Corporation has said it is “very unlikely” it would invest in new coal-fired generators and poured cold water on the federal government’s push to support “clean coal” technology.

The CEFC’s hostile approach to the sustainability and commercial viability of new coal plants means the government will have to change CEFC’s investment rules or directly subsidise new coal plants if it wants to support them.

read more:

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/feb/10/cefc-warns-against-r...

Anyone promoting "clean coal" should be in prison. It's a scam 100 times bigger than all the scams from Peter Foster.

...

Before we untether from reality entirely and drift off into a Trump-like universe where truth belongs to whoever delivers the best poll-driven lines or brings the dumbest prop to question time, let’s hammer down a few facts. Because we aren’t reviewing bad theatre here and when some commentators opine about whether Turnbull’s lines will “work”, or how funny the whole thing was, what they are really assessing is whether the prime minister can successfully, and in broad daylight, shift the blame for a monumental stuff-up, while apparently proposing solutions that will make it substantially worse in every regard. 

Since it’s our job to point out things like that, here are a few facts that undermine the “coal comeback” PR strategy that started rolling out sometime last year:

• Renewable energy is not “causing” blackouts. They’re primarily due to the (incredibly complicated) energy market that wasn’t designed or isn’t being run to cope with a higher proportion of renewables, and is throwing up perverse incentives that mean South Australia can have a blackout while generators are sitting idle. It would seem obvious that the answer to this problem is not to abandon all incentives for renewable energy but rather to fix the market and the rules. Cars probably got bogged when they started driving on roads designed for horses and buggies too, but it wouldn’t have been wise to respond by trying to stop the roll-out of automobiles. And New South Wales – a state that gets a very small proportion of its energy from renewables, was also facing the prospect of blackouts on Friday, which sometimes happen during peak demand but also undermine the Coalition’s simplistic arguments.

• Renewables cannot take the blame for the recent rise in prices. Queensland, which also has a tiny proportion of renewable energy, has had price spikes that added an astounding $1bn to wholesale power prices just since the beginning of this year. South Australia, cited by the federal Coalition as the terrible case study of what Labor’s renewable energy policies might do, has had just a few. The Queensland price spikes are also vastly higher than those felt in South Australia last July, which were described as an emergency, according to an analysis by Dylan McConnell from Melbourne University. Weirdly, no federal ministers have been berating the Queensland government over its (fossil fuel) choice of energy source.
• New coal-fired power stations are not going to be built. You don’t have to go to greenies for that assessment – it is also coming from the AI Group, which represents Australia’s manufacturers, and from the Australian Energy Council, which represents the big electricity and gas businesses that generate and supply most of our energy, as well as from the head of the Clean Energy Finance Corporation – who has expert knowledge of lending to the energy sector. Business knows climate change is a thing, and that locking in emissions from a new coal-fired power station for 50 years, no matter how efficient it is and how lovingly the current ministry can carry around lumps of coal, is incompatible with our long-term climate commitment and therefore an unacceptable investment risk. When really pressed, the only way experts can imagine the construction of a new coal-fired power station is if the government pays for it, or signs a contract indemnifying the company paying for it from the impact of future climate policy. And no sane government would do that. You’d only do that if you suspected the world was about to decide climate change was a hoax or at least not so much a problem, which might explain where some of the Coalition’s coal boosters are coming from. 
• read more:
• https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/feb/11/hard-facts-unmask-th...

Anyone promoting "clean coal" should be in prison. It's a scam 100 times bigger than all the scams from Peter Foster.

Given the significant costs levied on those putting waste into landfill and the prohibition on disposing of noxious materials into our waterways, it's remarkable that to this day, the atmosphere is freely used as a garbage dump at no cost.

Last week, a study commissioned by the Minerals Council claimed that renewable energy in Australia was the beneficiary of huge subsidies.

Large-scale renewable projects, it claimed, were on the receiving end of $1.8 billion in direct subsidies last year alone. That's a claim rejected as simplistic and incorrect by those in the renewables industry.

Whatever the number, there is no doubt that renewable energy has been on the receiving end of vast subsidy handouts both for large scale and home generation here and around the globe.

But it's equally true that, in the absence of a carbon price, high-polluting industries have been getting a free ride, not only by avoiding the cost of damage to the environment and the planet, as the science overwhelmingly points to, but through the damage to the health of countless millions of people.

It's also worth noting that every Australian coal-fired power plant was built with taxpayer money. As were the electricity distribution systems. And while many since have been sold to private interests, the sales processes have thrown up some interesting numbers.

When the NSW government sold its electricity generation assets for $1.5 billion, the deal was hailed a breakthrough. But the Tamberlin Inquiry in 2011 discovered about $4 billion worth of taxpayer subsidies to the generators in the form of cheap long-term coal contracts.

Coal-fired generators also use huge amounts of water, much of which — unlike farmers — is gifted to them. Then, of course, there are the would-be new coal miners up in the Carmichael Basin — most notably the Adani family — with their hands out for about $1 billion in taxpayer-funded infrastructure.

read more:

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-02-13/ian-verrender-the-simple-truth-on-...

 

Anyone promoting "clean coal" should be in prison. It's a scam 100 times bigger than all the scams from Peter Foster.

 

Read also:

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-02-13/agency-assessing-$1b-loan-to-adani-rejects-foi-request/8259342

Officials told Malcolm Turnbull a major gas plant shut down during the freak storm that plunged South Australia into blackout last September, with the malfunction caused by a lightning strike or an “automatic shutdown to protect generation assets”.

Documents obtained by the progressive thinktank the Australia Institute suggest a failure of gas power played a significant role in both the blackout, and during efforts to restart the power after the storm event.

Officials told the prime minister’s office early on 29 September the loss of major transmission lines during the storm, which led to a loss of wind power being generated and transmitted at the time, was “followed by the Torrens Island gas power station shutting down shortly afterwards”.

The briefing points out Torrens Island was “the biggest local power station online at the time”.

Later in the day on 29 September Turnbull attributed the loss of power in SA to “an extreme weather event that damaged a number of transmission line assets, knocking over towers and lines”.

The significant failure of gas fired power in the state on the day of the storm wasn’t referenced specifically by the prime minister in his comments immediately after the event.

Turnbull proceeded to make a point about the reliability of renewable energy. He noted renewables placed “strains and pressure on a grid” in contrast to “reliable” baseload power – which was a beginning of a political campaign the prime minister has waged subsequently against state-based renewable energy targets.

“I regret to say that a number of the state Labor governments have over the years set priorities and renewable targets that are extremely aggressive, extremely unrealistic, and have paid little or no attention to energy security,” Turnbull said the day after being given the advice about the gas failures in SA.

read more:

https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2017/feb/13/malcolm-turnbull-...

Turnbull is a bullshit artist.  He should be in prison for lying on a subject which is very important to the future of this planet. All denialists should be in prison. All coal advocates should be in prison. Simple.

PM dubs Labor's renewable policies mindless, negligent

• Mark Kenny
 
• 42 mins ago

When will turdshit becomes turnbull again? When he is bootd out of this rubbish government that has no spine, does not know what is real or fake information about coal and electricity supply, is syncophantic, is duplicitous, is hypocritical, is idiotic imbecilic and deranged, and is dangerous. 
Turnbull is a deceiving disappointment... We knew this fom the beginning. His aim was to destroy what is fair in this fair country. He should be placed in prison for promoting the clean coal scam. But unfortunately, his saving grace is that no-one in the media or in real politics is prepared to take him on because should Turdshit go, we end up with Turdy Abbott once more...
Oh please... can someone get rid of this lot?

The state Labor government’s encouragement of wind and solar power were to blame, the PM claimed. They were “extremely aggressive, extremely unrealistic and have paid little attention to energy security”.

The base politics of the attack were exposed by the Australia Institute’s FOI that revealed a trail of departmental emails warning the government that the extraordinarily fierce storm, and not renewable energy, was the immediate and sole cause.

Tackled in Question Time on the subject, Mr Turnbull feigned indignation that he had ever even hinted at such a thing.

“Let me be very clear, of course windmills did not cause a blackout,” he told reporters later. “The blackout, as I have said many times, was caused by a storm breaching transmission lines.

read more:

http://thenewdaily.com.au/news/national/2017/02/13/malcolm-turnbull-rene...

 

see also:

apologists for the idiots...

How did governments and fossil fuel industries collude?

There is collusion to bring about World Government subsidies of $5.6 trillions per annum (according to the IMF calculations), to create the illusion of low costs and reliable coal generated electricity, and to manage, resist and delay the growing threat of investment in renewable energy as competition to the dominance of the fossil fuel sector.

There certainly has been a climate hoax that continues today. It is the four decades long campaign by the world’s largest fossil fuel companies to deceivethe public by distorting the realities and risks of climate change.

Why do taxpayer funds subsidise the fossil fuel industry while coal and oil giants pay virtually no tax?

Malcolm Turnbull has been subsidising the fossil fuel industry with, according to IMF estimates, $1,712 per Australian a year, or $41 billion of taxpayer funds.This includes exploration funding for Geoscience Australia, and tax deductions for mining and petroleum exploration. The IMF calculates that Australians subsidisations to the fossil fuel industry account for hidden adverse costs spread out across the states and the ATO that, ultimately, permanently come out of taxpayers’ pockets.

read more:

https://independentaustralia.net/politics/politics-display/turnbull-reso...