In which the pond returns to its herpetology duties, with the Caterist and Major Mitchell ...

 

The train that delivered the pond from Melbourne to Sydney ran a commendable sixty one minutes late, an improvement on the mere fifty minutes of lateness on the original trip to the deep south.

It might seem Polonial pedantic to quibble about the minute, but not to a Japanese train driver. The pond can remember the penalties involved in an ancient video game if you missed aligning train with station ...

Perhaps the train was aware of its mission, delivering the pond back to its herpetology studies, and acted the laggard out of a sense of humanity ...

Whatever, the pond has tasted freedumb, but now must head back into the hive mind, an experience no better than spending time in a seminary with the onion muncher and the Ughmann ...

It was remarkable, if also remarkably depressing, that nothing seems to have changed in the time that the pond was in the Athens of the south and resolutely refusing to betray southern comrades by opening the lizard Oz ... because lo, there was Major Mitchell entrenched in the far right position, while the lead story indulged in a fit of hysteria about gas ...

Down below the fold, as predicted and expected, the Caterist was out and about ...

Oh sheesh, not the bromancer too, but at least the pond could ignore Eric's gas attack, simplistic 'here no conflict of interest' Simon and the echo Chambers ...

Time to roll up the sleeves, pull up the stockings, get down to brass tacks, get it done, and naturally there was a terrifyingly eerie shot of a ghostly windmill up front to send the aged demographic into a frenzy of foaming fear...

Did anyone see Ted's outing on The Insiders? 

It was astonishingly bad, which is perhaps why the Caterist has discreetly ignored it. The Graudian did a running commentary here, including, inter alia, these sorts of exchanges (together with the French clock's bagging of the nonsense):

As the Coalition has cast the upcoming election as a referendum on nuclear power, O’Brien is asked, repeatedly, whether he will drop the idea of a nuclear powered Australia if the Coalition loses.

There follows another extraordinary exchange:

Speers: It doesn’t sound like you can say locals can stand in the way. Peter Dutton says he’s happy for this to be a referendum on nuclear power. If you don’t win the election, will you drop the nuclear idea?

O’Brien: Peter Dutton has made it clear. He’s more than happy for this election to be a referendum on cheaper, cleaner and consistent electricity.

Speers: And he said nuclear energy.

O’Brien: Nuclear is part of a balanced energy mix.

Speers: If you don’t win, that’s it?

O’Brien: Very happy to be public about that.

Speers: So if you don’t win, that’s it?

O’Brien: When it comes to, if we don’t win, firstly, we plan to win. And we are doing nuclear energy as part of that.

Speers: If you don’t win, you drop it?

O’Brien: It’s the right thing by this nation. There’s people like you who will run commentary on it.

Speers: I am asking if you accept the referendum

O’Brien: I didn’t say it’s a referendum.

Speers: Peter Dutton said he’s very happy for this to be a referendum on energy and nuclear power.

O’Brien: You’re right. Because we want cheaper, cleaner and consistent. As part of - is nuclear part of it?

Speers: So you’re not willing to say you will accept the outcome...

O’Brien: Let’s extends your logic. As part of our plan, we are going to be saying renewables are important. So if we were to lose the election, do we dump renewables? We are saying that gas is important. If you say we lose the election, we dump gas?

Speers: You may keep going on nuclear even if you lose the election?

O’Brien: We’re doing this because it’s in our national interest. The lights are going out, the prices are soaring. It’s happening today. Are we doing this because it’s easy? No, we’re doing this because it’s in the national interest.

O’Brien on local community opposition

Can I lay out our approach? That includes engaging with locals. Upon coming to government, we’ll have a two and a half year community engagement process. Ultimately the decision, we are part of a Westminster system of government. The decision will be a matter for the minister. Now, if I am the minister, at that time, my decision of course will be based on the independent coordinating authority’s feasibility report. What is in our national interest, and what’s in the community interest. On the community interest, we need to account for economic, social, and environmental issues. They are the very issues for the last two years as I have heard complaints about how the Albanese government has been steam rolling over communities, they are the three areas they have come up with.

It is also worth recalling how, under the Coalition government, an attempt was made to build a nuclear waste dump at Kimba in South Australia. In an attempt to get the project off the ground, the local Indigenous community were excluded from a vote, and locals opposed to the project described a “divide and conquer” campaign to get it over the line.

Speers has continued to test O’Brien over the Coalition’s nuclear plan. Much of the conversation has concerned the various reports the Coalition is relying upon as part of its claim – one of which recommends Australia not pursue nuclear power.

According to O’Brien, however, nuclear will simply replace coal:

In Australia, at the turn of the century, Australia had among the cheapest electricity in the OECD. Now, that was due to coal. Now, as we move forward, as coal retires, exits from the system, it will be replaced with zero emissions nuclear energy.

O’Brien has also said the government would not subsidise the industry as it would own the industry.

On whether the government would override local opposition to the construction of these plants:

Speers: What if locals say no?

O’Brien: When it comes to our community engagement process, I was up in Muswellbrook, one of the communities that may host a plant on Friday. I was talking to a lot of people there. The conversation we had was around their needs as a community. So, one of the benefits we have of nuclear is up to 77% of workers in a coal plant can seamlessly transition to a nuclear plant, in the same occupation.

Speers: Back to the question, what if locals say no?

O’Brien: I don’t think that will happen.

Speers pushes further for details – specifically how much renewable power the Australian energy grid should aim for and gets no response.

O’Brien: Again, you’re very good at this, I won’t be announcing this. I will make this point, David. We believe that Australia needs always on 24-7 baseload power in the system. If you get 98% of the grid, which is all variable and weather dependant, as we move forward and we have to tackle the challenge of climate change, we all know that weather is going to become more volatile. The last thing we should do is have our entire electricity system weather dependent.

It is also worth remembering that nuclear power generation requires large quantities of water, which make them vulnerable to extreme weather patterns caused by climate change. When persistent drought caused French rivers to run dry, energy suppliers had to cut production at their nuclear power plants.

Speers keeps pushing O’Brien for detail – on costs, on what renewable energy will be doing, on what the Coalition plans to do with gas – asking again: “Do you know this?”

O’Brien says that has yet to be announced.

Speers asks whether this information will be released before the election.

We’ll be clear as to what we believe the potential capacity could be through to 2050.

However O’Brien doesn’t make clear whether Australian’s will know how much nuclear power the country will generate under the Coalition’s plan before the election.

O’Brien appears to suggest an independent nuclear energy body that will look closely at each proposed plant site to hammer out specifics.

There is an extraordinary exchange between Speers and O’Brien where the host attempts to get any sort of detail about the Coalition plan:

Speers: “They’ll only do that if the market keeps investing, as you have acknowledged.”

O’Brien: “I could have answered that.”

Speers: “They will only invest if you give them some clarity if nuclear will take up 50% or 2% of the mix.”

O’Brien: “They will get clarity.”

Speers: “Do you know this answer?”

O’Brien: “In terms of the broader energy mix, we’ll be coming out with that in due course.”

Speers: “Do you know yourself? You mentioned earlier this body that will work out how many reactors will go on each plant site. That suggests you haven’t worked this out.”

O’Brien: “So, we have done our planning and we’ll be very explicit about our assumptions.”

Speers: “Do you know the answer to this question?”

O’Brien: “Rephrase the question.”

Speers: “The question is how much of the energy mix will be nuclear under this plan?”

O’Brien: “We’ll be announcing that at the time we announce our broader mix.”

Speers is probing O’Brien for detail on the Coalition’s nuclear proposal

How many reactors across the seven plants?

In terms of exactly how many [reactors] on any plant, we’ll be leading that to the independent nuclear energy coordinating authority. It is right we want multi-unit sites. That’s how to get costs down. What we’re doing is based on best practice internationally.

How much nuclear will be part of the energy grid under the Coalition plan?

Firstly, I’m a Liberal. I appreciate and respect that investors want to make money. But to be really clear, our focus is on the Australian people who want to save money. And so we have designed this policy with a crystal clear vision of Australians paying for cheaper, cleaner …

O’Brien has been challenged on his sources for claiming the rollout of renewable energy in Australia has “stalled”, with host David Speers noting that the rollout is continuing even if it needs to be more. O’Brien has also been challenged over whether the Coalition wants to cap investment in renewables.

No, there’s no discussion about capping investment.

O’Brien appears to contradict statements made by David Littleproud that suggested the Coalition did want to cap the renewable energy rollout.

On Wednesday, he explained that is not the coalition position.

O’Brien is challenged to provide a number for how much renewables the Coalition wants in the energy mix, with Speers asking “So not 825 but you’ll have a figure of what? 60% renewables?”

We’re not releasing anything today.

O’Brien frames Coalition’s nuclear push as ‘balanced approach’

Ted O’Brien, Coalition shadow minister for climate change and energy, has sought to frame his party’s nuclear push as a “balanced approach” to managing the country’s energy grid with the bulk saying “in the future, we’ll still have renewables, we’ll have gas and we’ll have zero emissions nuclear.”

On gas, the O’Brien says “we need to pour more gas into the market”.

Then when it comes to renewables, we support the continuation of rolling our renewables. But we’re different from the government, the government believes the aim of the game is to maximise the amount of renewables on the grid.

It is worth a reminder that the International Energy Agency, when it modelled out how to achieve a net zero future, found that the world has enough coal, gas and oil to cover the transition if it began the transition in 2021 and would not need new investment.

It was a marvellous performance, best summarised by a couple of cartoons ...

The pond doesn't regret interrupting the Caterist, climate science denialist turned alleged planet carer ...

Meanwhile, on another planet ...

Does the pond regret taking a 'toon approach to the discussion? 

Not really, not when all the relevant data explaining the desire to nuke the country stays missing.

Strange as it might seem, the pond isn't ideologically adverse to nuking the country, but when the entire point seems to be to generate a heap of FUD and steam about renewables and delaying the implementation of any solutions, it's hard to pay attention.

This is particularly so when the Caterist cites the Fraser Institute, with the wiki for that august body recording ...

The Fraser Institute claimed in 2014 that "There has been no statistically significant weather change for the last 15-20 years." Additionally, in response to a 2019 report published by Environment and Climate Change Canada, the Fraser Institute claimed in an article that "Most of what people are noticing, of course, are just natural weather events." The rest of the article goes on to portray the report as hype and misleading.

Birds of a feather ...

That's the best the Caterist can do this day? No wonder there's been a cartoonish reaction ...

And so to the Major. 

It feels such a long time since the pond was in the Major's presence, but the pond did think of him when touring the Potter in its Melbourne sojourn. 

Alas the pond missed the side trips and the proposed pubs suggested by correspondents, but did spot a splendid bird ...

Credit to the artist ...

Talk about iconic bird species, and there was something for the discerning gentleman viewer too ...

Sorry, the pond should stay focussed on its studies ... let's hear the bird squawk ...

You can't beat the Major. What an opening line, an opinion scribbler opining that journalism is being destroyed by opinion, as you might expect from a rag which routinely destroys the concept of journalism on a daily basis ...

As for "disrespects", what a strange use of the word, down there with street gangs or rappers dissing about disrespect. 

Surely Wilcox did more than enough, as featured on Insiders ...

There was also a Knight cartoon featured ...

But no, the Major must keep on opining, in lieu of actual journalism at the top of the lizard Oz digital edition ... the rag long ago having crossed the Rubicon separating reporting from propaganda... and so to a serve of the Major celebrating the deeds of the liar from the Shire ...

At this point the rag interrupted the wily old bird with a snap...

... then it was back to more ranting about China ...

Inevitably the Major managed to work into his column a note on nuking the country to save the planet.

Naturally the Major didn't mention stories such as Peter Dutton’s nuclear plan could cost as much as $600bn and supply just 3.7% of Australia’s energy by 2050, experts say.

Best not to note Punxsutawney Pete in full folly, and best not to mention all those heat waves around the world,  though you could find all sorts of explainers elsewhere, such as As the U.S. heat wave drags on, experts warn of deadly 'wet-bulb' temperatures. Here’s what those are.

Instead this is all the wily bird could manage ...

And that helps explain why the pond spent so much time with Ted above. 

How anybody could expect anyone to extract anything coherent from Ted - even before an election where punters are expected to vote on the proposal - is a mystery deeper than transubstantiation ...

As for the bromancer?

Well the pond can only do so much on the first day back, and has held over the bro for a late arvo slot, on the basis that the bro offering was already a couple of days old, and so was a stale serving by the reptiles ...

What's piece published on 22nd June doing hanging around on the following Monday? Have the reptiles had to cut back on their opinion pieces? Strange, when you remember that the entire rag is a hotbed of opinion and propaganda...

Whatever, it's just a standard bout of bro hysteria, and delaying it until an arvo slot will allow the pond time to recover its breath.

Time then to close with fond memories of the pond's Melbourne sojourn ...

Oh it's always good for a laugh, with the hanging Premier still just a wayward artefact ...