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Aidan Morrison Profile picture
Aidan Morrison
@FootnotesGuy
Researching energy and defence. Physics and data science background. Happy getting into the weeds.
May 28 • 21 tweets • 8 min read
Yesterday this news broke: transmission costs rising, and pushing up power bills.

For those watching closely, this is no news at all, but belated confirmation from official sources of the inevitable. Quick 🧵on the @AEMO_Energy source. 1/

theaustralian.com.au/nation/politic… Two years ago prices were increasing massively. (left chart)
"Unprecedented" we were told.
This year they're increasing even more. But this time (right chart) the costs are almost entirely real, rather than half made up of inflation. 2/ Image
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May 27 • 10 tweets • 6 min read
This insane. @abcnews runs a story about all the endangered wildlife from a UNDERGROUND coal mine extension.

Just 17 hectares of land will be cleared.

Ahem...

JUST 17 HECTARES!!!

The poor bats and koalas!!!
1/ Image Of course 17 hectares is NOTHING compared to what's required for wind farms.

The 'direct impacts' to the bats is from 630 hectares of land that will WON'T BE CLEARED, but may gradually subside, over years. 2/ Image
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May 22 • 9 tweets • 3 min read
A senior executive at @the_AEMC has just given a speech confirming that doublethink is an essential component of the energy transition.

We all knew this was going to get Orwellian sooner or later! 🫠
1/ Image Victoria is the Executive General Manager, Economics and System Security, for the Australian Energy Market Commission, or AEMC.

That's the organisation that makes the rules for the electricity system.

The full speech was yesterday; read it here. 2/
aemc.gov.au/news-centre/sp…
May 9 • 5 tweets • 3 min read
Imagine if Spain's electricity transmission operator published a graph like this a couple years back.

This was actually from the NSW transmission operator, Transgrid, published in 2023.

1/ Image Transgrid spells all the stuff that a few renewabros are still bickering about following the Iberian collapse.

Yes, renewables "need strong source of system security to operate stably".

I wonder if Spain had a document like this. 2/ Image
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Apr 29 • 26 tweets • 10 min read
Spanish blackout 🧵.
Conclusion: relying on wind and solar, ie 'inverter based resources' creates a fragile system, lacking the inertia/system strength that synchronous machines (turbines, from coal, gas or nuclear) provide to ride through faults. 1/ yes, it's comical that just a week or so ago they were boasting about milestones reached being 100% renewable powered. Without very carefully addressing the system security implications of attempting that, it's a precarious position to be in. 2/

Apr 23 • 22 tweets • 12 min read
Yesterday I addressed the substance of this absurd piece of propaganda.

Someone is arguing that wind are better for electricity-intensive industry than dispatchable power such as nuclear or coal.

Now I'm going to explore who made that argument.

First, an important foreword. I really dislike identity politics. I'm determined always to address the substance of arguments irrespective of who makes them. Dismissing an argument because you don't like the connections or identities of people making them is a really bad and cowardly thing to do. The antithesis of good debate.

So I just want to say that up-front. None of this is meant to be any judgement of the types of people involved, or a suggestion that they shouldn't participate in the debate. Anyone of any age, gender, sexual orientation, religious conviction, union affiliation, educational background, professional experience can and should do whatever they can to participate in political debate. And I'll be the first to listen to their arguments, and assess them on their merit.

But when the arguments have no merit, and sources are falsely represented as meaning things they don't, long after the true meaning has been pointed out, it's necessary to ask how such arguments are given voice.

And to summarise my conclusion diving down this wormhole, these aren't the captains of industry engineering boffins one would expect to make a "this industry requires this type of electricity" type of argument. Hang tight. The name on the paper is this Renew Australia for All.

"A new movement backed by social services, unions, faith, community and multicultural groups, environment organisations and industry" 2/

renewaustraliaforall.org/who-we-are/Image
Apr 23 • 25 tweets • 9 min read
Buckle up... I think this is the worst energy disinformation of the election campaign.

We have a group arguing that transitioning to nuclear is going to eliminate electricity-intensive industry. Only wind, solar, and batteries can save aluminium. 1/
renewaustraliaforall.org/wp-content/upl…Image Who produced this? I hate identity politics and will always assess the quality of arguments first, regardless of who's making them. But these arguments are so, so bad, I'll return. Let's just say it's not the captains of industry or engineering boffins one would expect. 2/ Image