💧simon holmes à court Profile picture
Oct 15, 2021 8 tweets 4 min read Read on X
i'm really cross about gov't propaganda claiming australia "has made good progress in reducing #emissions".

[i added the emojis because the taxpayer funded ad is just so misleading]

everybody knows @AngusTaylorMP & team habitually lie to us, but do you know *how*? 🧵 #auspol
the main source of carbon emissions, and therefore global heating, is burning #FossilFuels — and we've done next to nothing to wean ourselves off them.

putting land management aside for a sec, over the last 15 years (since FY2005) australia's emissions have dropped by only 2.9%.
sure, we've made decent progress reducing electricity emissions (by replacing coal with renewables), but it's largely been undone by increases in "stationary energy" emissions (largely gas used for heating) and "fugitive emissions" (methane leaked by coal & gas companies).
hang on… but the gov't says emissions are down 20%, not ~2.9%. what's the discrepancy?

well, we also have emissions from our land management — mostly due to land clearing.

we _were_ clearing a lot, but strict regulations slowed it right down around about a decade ago.
if we count less land clearing as emissions reduction*, and offset that against our shitty progress on emissions elsewhere, it makes us look less bad.

this is how the gov't says emissions fell by 20% over 15 years.

*don't get me wrong, it's good we're not clearing as much.
looking at the change in each sector since 2005, land management and electricity emissions are down (as discussed).

agriculture's down due to drought, transport's down due to covid.

…but other than shutting a few coal power stations, we *haven't* been transforming the economy.
…we stopped the most egregious land clearing, but you can't stop something that's already stopped — so we can't hide behind that again.

the govt's own projections (issued dec 2020) have us reducing emissions by just 3% over this decade.
i designed this tool (built by friend & data viz legend @chienleng) basically to tell this story. it's very fresh, so please excuse the rough edges, and have a play:

(instructions & more info coming soon.)
opennem.org.au/emissions/au/

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More from @simonahac

Jul 20
hardly a week goes by without some 🪿telling me that "saudi arabia built a nuclear power station in just 8 years" or similar.

south korea built it for the UAE & it'll be 16+ years from formal announcement to project completion.

no, it was not on time & likely not on budget Image
any 🪿telling you nuclear can be built in australia in 2-3, 5, 10 or 15 years:
• ignores years of work required before construction starts
• doesn't understand IAEA's "construction" ignores _years_ of actual construction
• assumes an established regulator & warm supply chain.
Read 6 tweets
Jun 28
🤓 icymi, latest data from @EnergyInstitute is out!

this dataset has been lovingly curated since 1952, until recently by @bp_plc.

a good report, lots of charts and most exciting for energy nerds, lots of raw data!

i knocked up a few charts 🧵

energyinst.org/statistical-re…
🤓 global electricity generation by technology

gas and coal still growing, but at a slower pace than renewables.

quite likely we'll see coal and gas both peak in the next few years. Image
🤓 global nuclear and wind+solar, as energy

nuclear peaked in 2006. IEA expects that a new peak may be set in 2025. Image
Read 9 tweets
Jun 18
☢️ with the #coalition expected to announce its #nuclear plan on wednesday, here are 18 questions every diligent journalist should be seeking answers to:

🧵
1. how will dutton remove the ban?

the coalition would require control of the senate to repeal the ban, which is embedded in two acts.

the coalition hasn’t controlled the senate since 2004-2007.
2. which state(s) would dutton build the reactors in?

only VIC, NSW and QLD grids are big enough to handle a large nuclear reactor.

WA, SA and TAS grids are too small to host a GW-scale reactor.
Read 20 tweets
May 20
🤓 you'll probably hear scary claims today about "blackouts" in NSW, due to a "reliability gap".

…caused by delays with SA-NSW transmission line, a few batteries & mothballed generators.

to meet the 99.998% reliability standard, NSW needs to build more kit.

not a big deal. 🧵 Image
the eraring power station has 4 units, each 720MW. delaying closure of 1-2 units could fill the gap.

a 500MW–1GW gas generator operating <10 hours a year would also suffice. lower emissions and might be cheaper?

helpfully AEMO has provided 9 options to fill the gap: Image
small reliability gaps are forecast in VIC and SA, but far enough out that they'll likely evaporate… as they often do for this regular report.

why? because the reports show what happens if we don't do anything more than committed — and we pretty much always do.
Read 6 tweets
May 15
i attended the ‘navigating nuclear’ conference on monday in sydney.

up front: there were some high quality presentations — on issues such as health impacts, safety culture, regulatory systems. Image
…but sadly there was also some abject nonsense…
the presentation below argued that we have two options:

1. build a complex grid of wind, solar, hydro, hydrogen, batteries, pumped hydro, transmission and EVs.

2. just build nuclear and use existing powerlines.

…apparently #2 is the way to go. 🙄 Image
Read 10 tweets
Mar 21
⚛️ @abcnews's recent #FactCheck made a classic rookie error in calculating that the latest US nukes had "build times of 10.1 and 10.4 years".

depending how you count it, it took somewhere between 13.9 years and ~19 years to build them.

easy mistake to make.

let me explain… 🧵
ABC's analysis assumes the build time is the elapsed period between "construction start" and "grid connection" dates.

in the real world, a nuclear power building project begins years before "construction start" and often finishes months after "grid connection".
"construction start" is defined by the IAEA as the "the date when first major placing of concrete for the base mat of the reactor building is made."

"grid connection" is when "the plant is first connected to the electrical grid for the supply of power."

pris.iaea.org/PRIS/Glossary.…
Read 18 tweets

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