Just another manic nuke the country Monday with the Caterist and IPA guest The Bryce is Wrong ...

 

'Twas a sullen Monday morn, and the reptiles looked around and wondered what to write, the times being grim and forlorn. 

Let's give energy another flog, they decided, being short of wit and imagination and still deep in post-mortems, and so the digital edition ran ...

Over on the extreme far right, the Caterist was cock of the walk, top of the world ma, with yet another post-mortem, but right below him came the most excellent news that sweet, devout, loyal, virginal, clean and dinkum Oz coal hadn't been forgotten ...

In short it was just another humdrum day of energy follies tedium, but with a special delight for those who love to see the entrails splattered over the floor, so that they might yet again be examined for signs of nuking life ...

Relax, the header doesn't give the right clue: Coalition drama is just a proxy war for the soul of Liberal Party, The tension between the Liberal modernisers and conservatives that overshadowed three terms in government lay dormant under Dutton. Not any more.

Nor does the caption: Nationals leader David Littleproud and Liberals counterpart Sussan Ley.

But the mystical injunction, adjusted slightly, does provide a clue: This article features the usual moronic rehashing of the energy and nuking the country debacle which should only available in the web version, Take me there for five minutes of standard Caterist wanking ...

And with those introductions, hey nonny no, on we go ...

All credit to ABC 7.30 presenter Sarah Ferguson, who last Tuesday asked Sussan Ley the most incisive question of the week: “What is it about winning elections that you understand that John Howard doesn’t?”
Two days was long enough to remind the Liberal and National party leaders that a broken Coalition cannot win. Nine presenter Allison Langdon put the dilemma succinctly when John Howard appeared on A Current Affair: “You know what, Mr Howard? Maybe they, they kiss and make up next week, or otherwise Sussan Ley unfollows Littleproud on Instagram and goes no contact and ghosts him.”
“ I can’t handle all the lingo of social media,” replied Howard. “But the longer they stay apart, the more attitudes will harden.”
No one is under any illusion that the unity the Coalition achieved under Peter Dutton will be restored anytime soon. Re-establishing a working relationship is the easy part. The squabbling between the Liberals and Nationals is merely a proxy war for a fight for the soul of the Liberal Party.
The tension between the modernisers and conservatives that overshadowed three terms in government lay dormant under Dutton. His patience and skill kept the parliamentary party together through a fractious referendum and enabled the party to overcome the nuclear taboo.
Yet the dispute has been simmering, particularly within the faction-ridden NSW division, where leading figures among the modernisers had been quietly positioning for a post-election power grab. On Sunday, May 4, less than 24 hours after the polls closed, the modernisers gathered over lunch to discuss tactics. Their host was Michael Photios, who holds no formal position in the party but retains influence through his factional network and his lobbying firm, PremierNational.
The decision was taken to back Ley over Angus Taylor in the forthcoming leadership contest. They argue the Nationals have contaminated the Liberal Party brand, especially in seats behind the teal wall.

For reasons best known to a party notably short on female talent, the reptiles decided to feature two huge snaps featuring Michael Photios. Picture: Tim Hunter, Jason Falinski. Picture: NewsWire/Dylan Coker

It's almost possible to feel sorry for Sussssan, who will need all the strength those extra "s's" give her ...

Jason Falinski, whose parliamentary career was cut short by Sophie Scamps’s victory in Mackellar in 2022, voiced his frustration in an interview with Peter FitzSimons in the Nine newspapers at the weekend. He claimed the Nationals represented just a small section of the electorate but had been driving Liberal policies.
“We must go our way from the National Party … I think we should reconcile only after we’ve dealt with the fundamental issues underlying the problems that we face,” Falinski said.
His tail-wagging-the-dog argument was echoed in an ABC podcast by Malcolm Turnbull when the former prime minister accused the Nationals of “holding a gun to the Liberal Party’s head”.
Turnbull is chairman of Turnbull Renewables and recently sold two Upper Hunter pumped-hydro projects. He took a swipe at nuclear power recently as a “truly crazy idea”.

Good old Malware, and that was enough to set the dogs howling, and the Caterist barking at the sky, and sure enough, there came an AV distraction featuring towers and energy, because the reptiles love those erections, Former Liberal MP Jason Falinski discusses the future of nuclear following the Australian federal election which saw Prime Minister Anthony Albanese re-elected for a second term. Senator Maria Kovacic was the first Liberal member that called for the nuclear policy to be axed. “Ultimately if you believe in net-zero, if you believe in climate change and that we need to do something about it, the only way for us to get to net-zero … is with nuclear energy,” Mr Falinski told Sky News Australia. “Maybe our approach to that policy was wrong."

Actually the pond doesn't want anyone to approach climate science as a theological belief system. 

How about accepting and understanding climate science instead? Or maybe accept that you weren't just wrong, you were completely clueless ...

Never mind ...

As in 2015 when Turnbull deposed Tony Abbott, climate and energy policy is the flashpoint for factional disagreements. Three days after the election, senator Maria Kovacic tested the waters on behalf of the modernisers by appearing on ABC Radio National Breakfast to call for the Liberals’ nuclear strategy to be scrapped.
Her advance was supported by a newly minted organisation called Liberals Against Nuclear, which ran blanket advertisements on Sky News to ram home the message. The organisation purports to be a group of concerned Liberal Party members appealing to the party’s true values.
In reality, it’s an exercise in astroturfing. This movement, allegedly a grassroots one, registered with ASIC at the start of March and was orchestrated and funded by a person or persons unknown.
The nuclear debate has been contaminated by purportedly grassroots organisations such as Farmers for Climate Action, Veterinarians for Climate Action and Bushfire Survivors for Climate Action. All three were created by Environmental Leadership Australia, a registered charity with links to Photios. ELA received $5m in funding last year from undisclosed sources and handed out $1.5m in grants and donations to friendly organisations.
As I reported on these pages a year ago, ELA flew seven Coalition MPs to Dubai in 2023 for COP28. They included former minister Paul Fletcher, former NSW treasurer Matt Kean and Kovacic. ELA is listed as a client of Photios’s PremierNational on the lobbyist register. These tangled relationships have blurred the line between principle and profit, and fuelled the emotion driving the policy split.

Meanwhile, if the beefy wind farm-hating boofhead from down Goulburn way was the answer, what on earth was the question? Angus Taylor on his farm in Gundary, outside of Goulburn, NSW. Picture: Hilary Wardhaugh,

Thus far the pond has missed only one item which would take us back to the 1950s, or even the 1940s ... but can feel it coming...

Conservatives such as Taylor, who look to the suburbs and regions for the party’s future strength, threaten the dominance of the party’s metro elite stranded in the former heartland.
The Liberal Party’s tightly scripted campaign struggled to talk to both constituencies. A vigorous crusade against offshore wind would have strengthened Liberals’ chances of winning Paterson and Cunningham. It might have helped in Bendigo and Eden-Monaro, where the destructive effect of wind, solar and new transmission lines is keenly felt.
Yet campaign HQ feared that opposition to renewable energy would have killed the chance of recovering Wentworth and other teal seats. Appeals from Wollongong and Port Stephens for campaign posters and brochures playing to local concerns were brushed aside.
The split mirrors the profound cultural divide that has changed the nature of politics across the West this century. The ABC’s Laura Tingle claimed the split liberated the Liberals to move to the centre and leave the Nationals to stew on the backbenches as rump minor party. Yet the chances of finding a sweet spot in the middle of the left-right axis diminish with every election.

Go the Ming! 

Dust off ancient times and appeal to vulgar youff by doing the Ming the Merciless dance with the Caterist. It's time warp time again...

The economic, social, and philosophical differences are profound. The unavoidable truth is that the centre-right is weaker and more divided than it has been since the debacle of the 1943 election when John Curtin’s Labor Party was returned with 58.2 per cent of the two-party-preferred vote, the highest in its history.
Robert Menzies responded to that defeat by convening the Non-Labour Unity Conference in Canberra the following year and set about the task of combining 14 parties under one banner and one body of ideas. In her effort to bridge a divided Coalition, Ley unwittingly echoed the rhetoric of 1944 when Menzies began stitching the centre-right back together under a single vision.
“We will all work hard as the parties on the other side of the chamber from Labor,” she said.

Doomed. If the rhetoric of 1944 is the single vision answer, then don't bother with the question ...

The party’s path back to government will be by stating what it proposes rather than what or who it opposes. It must begin with a repudiation of factionalism and the vested interests that lie behind it. The Liberals must offer a vision of a brighter future than Labor’s reversion to big government policies, corporate welfare and crony capitalism. Ley must restore Menzies’ vision of a resourceful, enterprising and aspiring nation that considers individuals to be the motive force for progress.

Oh yes indeed, a Snowy scheme and education scholarships for all ... and meanwhile ...

At this point,  the pond should honour the stories that led the way this morning ...

Bills set to spike
Transmission shock for households: Poles, wires, power price pain
Up to 10,000km of transmission projects are needed to deliver Australia’s switch to green energy. New analysis shows major cost blowouts could be passed on to household power bills.
By Perry Williams

Energy
Mapped: renewable boom as NSW energy shift gathers pace
NSW is pushing ahead with its renewable energy transition at speed with about 100 projects securing approval. Many are either under construction or close to feeding power into the grid | Full list and map of projects.
By Colin Packham

Splendid stuff, though a tad confusing, what with it being both a boom and a spike ...

Naturally it set off the lizard Oz editorialist, here showing how to fill in a Monday ...

Highwire act on power is running out of cost control, Folly of not having a coherent energy plan from the outset is exposed.
Editorial
2 min read

As the Albanese government ponders how high to lift what many consider to be its already unattainable climate change response targets, the cost for electricity users has just moved further out of reach. The Australian Energy Market Operator now says it will cost up to 55 per cent more – an extra $10bn – to build the 10,000km of transmission lines deemed necessary to keep the system working and the lights always on. Without grid upgrades, many of the major renewable energy projects that are supposed to replace retiring coal-fired power generation will not be able to access the grid. Failure to deliver on transmission lines also will increase the risk that a lack of wind or sunshine in one area will not be able to be covered by generation from somewhere else.
Ironically, the additional transmission lines are what the Coalition forces were trying to avoid with their nuclear ambition, something that was demonised by Labor as being prohibitively expensive. But with the election now over, the latest AEMO report provides a continuation of the familiar bad news that things will be costlier, less timely and generally more difficult than had been promised. The AEMO report did not contain a figure for what energy users will now be expected to pay for an upgrade that previously was tipped to cost $20bn. For a measure, Transgrid announced in March 2024 that the HumeLink project that is needed to connect the over-time and over-budget Snowy 2.0 pumped-hydro project had increased in cost from $3.27bn in 2021 to $4.88bn in 2024.
The latest AEMO estimates are contained in its draft 2025 electricity options report, which, in what is now a familiar pattern, was released late in business on Friday without public fanfare. The AEMO report will help form the basis of AEMO’s 2026 integrated system plan, regarded as the definitive blueprint for Australia’s electricity grid. AEMO said in addition to the increase of up to 55 per cent in real costs for overhead transmission line projects there was an increase of up to 35 per cent in real costs for transmission substations as well. Cost increases were driven by supply-chain pressures, market competition because of the high number of concurrent projects under development, project complexity, social licence requirements and additional contracting costs to account for risk allocation in engineering, procurement and construction. The report acknowledges that plans to expand the national grid’s high-voltage transmission network have sparked outrage among many rural communities, something Climate Change and Energy Minister Chris Bowen was keen to downplay after the election result.
Farmers now are being offered up to $250,000 a kilometre to host the pylons and wires. The experience of rising costs is consistent across the renewable energy transition and will cause AEMO to recalculate whether building the new lines still can be justified. The truth is there are no cheap options. The cost spiral exposes the folly of the Victorian government’s plans to build renewable energy zones covering 7 per cent of the state’s land area, with 5.2 million solar panels, nearly 1000 onshore wind turbines and four new transmission projects expected to provide 95 per cent of its electricity by 2035. It all adds to what should have been the obvious problem of not having a coherent plan for the much hoped for energy transition from the outset.
While it grapples with energy, the federal government also is being called on by climate evangelist Andrew Forrest to subsidise the transition of his Pilbara iron ore operations to produce green steel or face an existential threat to export income. Meanwhile, keen to be a global player, the federal government is being harangued to increase the nation’s emissions reduction target for 2035 to at least 75 per cent from the 2030 target of 43 per cent below 2005 levels. As always, the buck will inevitably stop with taxpayers.

Splendid stuff, compounded by the desire to label Twiggy a climate evangelist, when the Caterist had already featured a true believer... if you believe in net-zero, if you believe in climate change and that we need to do something about it, the only way for us to get to net-zero … is with nuclear energy,” Mr Falinski told Sky News Australia. “Maybe our approach to that policy was wrong."

Hallelujah brother, now there's a splendid belief system in action.

How the pond yearns for an American distraction ...

Actually the reptiles did come up with someone from the land of the chaotic clown carnival ...

Here he comes ...

More energy in the header: Australia limiting its role as a global energy superpower, Australia is rich in coal, natural gas and uranium so why isn’t it operating as a global energy superpower?

And look at the snap: Leavingcoal (sic) in the mix. Picture: Bloomberg News

Dear sweet innocent virginal Oz coal glistening in the light. 

How it dances, how it entrances the reptiles. Why it's a black diamond of delight ...

And so to introduce our author, travelling as an IPA man and so naturally essential reading for the lizard Oz hivemind ...

There's a lot more at Bryce's DeSmog entry ...

Make sure to head off and to follow some of the links ...

Robert Bryce, a fellow at the dirty industry-funded Manhattan Institute, is under increasing scrutiny as media outlets continue to use him as an “expert” on energy issues without disclosing his ties to the energy industry. DeSmogBlog’s Brendan DeMelle has written several pieces on Bryce’s connections to the industry, as well as how media outlets, including the New York Times, continue to allow Bryce to write op-eds on energy issues that are laden with fallacies without disclosing his conflict of interest.
From Brendan’s previous reports on Bryce’s New York Times piece:
"Bryce penned an op-ed attacking renewable energy while promoting nuclear and fracked shale gas, with no disclosure in his byline about the Manhattan Institute’s fossil fuel clients. I offered Bryce’s piece as an example in order to formally seek answers about the disclosure policy at the Times and whether it was adequate in light of the failure to disclose Bryce’s dirty energy backing."
Now Media Matters (the original link was broken, find it at the Wayback Machine) has done a fantastic job of detailing the numerous media outlets that are allowing the industry hack Bryce to pen his agenda-driven drivel, as well as uncovering where his group’s funding is coming from:
"Manhattan Institute Is Funded By ExxonMobil. According to ExxonSecrets.org, the Manhattan Institute has received $385,000 from Exxon since 1998, including $50,000 in 2010.
Manhattan Institute Has Received Funding From The Koch Family Foundations. The Manhattan Institute has received over $1.3 million total from the Claude R. Lambe Foundation and the David H. Koch Foundation over the years, both of which are associated with Koch Industries, an oil, gas and chemical corporation. From 2001 to 2009 (the most recent year for which data is available), the Lambe Foundation gave The Manhattan Institute $200,000 annually. The Lambe Foundation’s board of directors is “comprised entirely of Koch family members, senior Koch executives, and staff who serve Koch foundations,” including the CEO of Koch Industries Charles G. Koch, according to Greenpeace."
In addition to the reporting of Media Matters, a website called TrueTies.org (link now dead) has taken a close look at Bryce’s clear conflicts of interest and asked the New York Times to craft a policy of disclosure of conflicts of interest for its op-ed contributors.
Agenda-driven journalism is a growing problem in America, and without full disclosure from media outlets, viewers and readers have an almost impossible task of sorting the industry’s views from actual facts.

In short, nothing new to see here, especially as Bryce cites the Bjorn-again one in his opening flourish:

When it comes to resources, Australia is the Saudi Arabia of the southern hemisphere.
Like the Saudis, Australians sit atop staggering quantities of mineral wealth. While the Saudis’ wealth depends on oil, Australia has oceans of coal, superabundant natural gas resources, and more uranium than any country on the planet. And yet, despite this massive wealth, ordinary Australians are struggling with soaring energy prices, the prospect of Spain-style blackouts, and a prolonged energy crisis – all of which are due to self-inflicted climate policies that ignore the realities of today’s global energy market.
The recent re-election of Prime Minister Anthony Albanese shows that plenty of voters like the idea of renewable energy. They also liked Albanese’s pledge to accelerate Australia’s emissions reduction efforts. But there’s a disconnect at work here. Aussies can cheer solar and wind energy all they like, but the hard truth is that renewable mandates mean higher prices. Australian households have seen their energy costs rise by more than 40 per cent over the past three years alone.
That’s not unusual. As Bjorn Lomborg has recently shown, there’s no such thing as cheap “green” electricity.
Lomborg analysed International Energy Agency data from almost 70 countries. He found a “clear correlation between use of solar and wind and higher average household and business energy prices”. He said that for every 10 per cent increase in the share of solar and wind, “electricity costs rise by nearly eight cents per kilowatt-hour”.

The Bjorn-again one truly is the cockroach of lizard Oz hive mind writing about climate science and energy ... and Bryce is a faithful parrot ...

Now let’s look at Australia. Since 2008, wind and solar have gone from zero to about 33 per cent of all the electricity produced in the National Energy Market. Over that same period, wholesale prices in the NEM have jumped from $48 to $128 per megawatt-hour. Furthermore, according to data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics, the retail price of electricity in the NEM has more than doubled since 2008.
It doesn’t have to be this way. Australia is an energy superpower, but it’s acting like an energy weakling.
Let’s look at the facts. Let’s start with Australia’s share of global CO2 emissions. Between 2000 and 2023, that share has declined from 1.5 per cent to 1.1 per cent of the global total. Over that same period, the combined emissions from China and India soared from 18 per cent of the global total to 40 per cent. And there’s no doubt their share of global emissions will continue rising as their economies grow.
Thus, Australians can push for cuts in domestic emissions, but their contribution matters less and less with each passing year.
Despite these realities, Australia is rushing to close its coal-fired power stations in the name of climate change.
This makes no sense. Australia is a coal superpower. It has the world’s fourth-largest coal reserves and is the second-biggest coal exporter. Australia’s plan to quit burning its own coal is like France banning the consumption of wine while exporting Bordeaux by the tanker-load.
Nuclear power continues to be the most viable option for reducing the world’s reliance on coal-fired generators. Indeed, China is now building more nuclear power plants than any other country.
And yet, Australia, which sits atop almost one-third of the world’s uranium reserves and produces about 8 per cent of the world’s uranium, refuses to build nuclear reactors. This one, to me, is the silliest of Australia’s energy policies.
Imagine the Saudis saying: “Oil? Too dangerous for us, but we’ll sell it to you!” That’s Australia’s nuclear policy in a nutshell: export uranium, but never use any of it at home.
Natural gas? Australia is the world’s third-largest exporter of LNG, and now exports almost three times more gas than it consumes. Despite the country’s gas riches, according to the Australian Energy Regulator, wholesale gas prices have tripled over the past decade. Why are prices rising? Some analysts are blaming LNG exports, but the hard truth is that Australia hasn’t developed sufficient pipeline infrastructure. More pipelines would allow drillers to ship large volumes of fuel from their gas fields to urban consumers.
The backdrop for all of this, of course, is Australia’s barmy plan to achieve net-zero emissions by 2050. But drastically cutting emissions will require spending a staggering amount of money on renewable energy projects at the same time that rural residents from Perth to Cairns are fighting back against the encroachment of large solar and wind projects.
Furthermore, rural Australians are fighting plans being made by AusNet, Transgrid and other companies to string high-voltage transmission lines across their farms and ranches. Furthermore, there’s no chance of a major cut in overall emissions without massive increases in the use of nuclear energy.
The punchline is obvious: Australian policymakers need to embrace energy realism. Australia cannot, will not, achieve net zero by 2050. Love them or hate them, hydrocarbons are here to stay. Yes, solar and wind can supply some of Australia’s energy, but those sources are incurably intermittent, need gobsmacking amounts of land, and require construction of vast reaches of expensive, and unpopular, power lines.
There’s no reason average Australians should be punished for the sake of a climate policy that is more about optics than outcomes. Expensive energy is the enemy of the poor and the middle class. Cheap, abundant, reliable energy is the foundation of prosperity. Australia is a global energy superpower. It should start acting like one.

Credit where credit is due, as Bryce sings for his Gina-funded IPA supper ...

Robert Bryce is a Texas-based author, film producer and public speaker. He writes about the global energy and power sectors at robertbryce.substack.com and is touring Australia with the Institute of Public Affairs in June.

Must he tour Australia? Hasn't his home country got more interesting phenomena to write about?

Maybe he should stay there and help sort out the mess ...

It's always in the slogans and the map ...