Larissa Waters asks former Treasury chief Ken Henry if it’s too simplistic to say wartime gas profits from the war on Iran can either go to Australians, or to overseas investors & shareholders.
Henry “That’s not simplistic, that’s how it is!” “It is as simple as that.” 💥 #auspol
ABC headline: "Why oil refineries are designed to not catch fire: A former refinery safety manager says preventing fires is hardwired into refining plants."
huh.. turns out they design them to *not* catch fire
"The oil can be sent to the Geelong refinery to produce diesel, aviation fuel and/or petrol"
... but can it?
Headline: "Firefighters battle out-of-control blaze at one of Australia’s two remaining oil refineries in Geelong"
Not now, out-of-control-blaze ...
Hello, World! Hello, Bluesky!
PyPSA is now officially on Bluesky - it took a couple of years and a major version release, but we're finally here!
Python for Power System Analysis (PyPSA) now has an official social media channel - follow for feature deep-dives, releases and other updates!
Australia's largest industrial climate pollution scheme is also its most poorly understood.
Today the federal government is releasing a new round of data today: details of the second year of the reformed scheme ahead of a review this year.
Here's what we know so far...
Screenshot of the top half of page 1 of a document called "Safeguard Mechanism: The ultimate guide"
I just hit go on my first major piece of work from Naru Research: a guide to Australia's Safeguard Mechanism for change advocates and curious folks who love to learn.
You can download it from here: www.naruresearch.com.au/sgm-guide
Headline in the Australian "Brown coal can fuel a fix" (about converting brown coal to liquid fuels in the latrobe valley).
And here I was thinking this idea had died at least a decade ago ..
(I know they are different and so on on - but really $20billion for that much energy storage, is really extremely quite cheap, even more so in the context of what $2.6-2.7-ish trillion dollar economy).
It's kind of funny to me that ~$20 billion is considered too expensive a cost for expanding Au's liquid energy storage capacity.
Wait until they hear about Snowy 2.0 ... 2-3 *orders of magnitude* more expensive.
In 2025, the Clean Energy Finance Corporation found that data centre growth in Australia induces higher electricity prices ***whether the companies build new renewable energy generation or not***
www.cefc.com.au/media/hs5ner...
Figure showing the ACCC's LNG netback price series - historical, and forward curve just before the (current) middle eastern crisis, and week after. Shows significant increase (almost 2x) in forward price over next 12 months.
In case folks interested in seeing how the forward netback gas prices have moved over the last couple of weeks..
Mid $20's per GJ for next 12 months .. haven't been that high since early 2023, following the first energy shock.
Domestic prices haven't seemed to move up..... yet
Who's gonna tell him?
"Worst case really is we won't have enough, or we won't have any...It is more difficult if we have no diesel at all than if we have a supply that is expensive" Philippines may not have any fuel supply beyond April; no official reserves & govt is in talks to buy at premium prices.
NV Energy will also not be able to meet its climate goals thanks to skyrocketing power demand from data centre developments. This whole region is under so much stress from this industry that it's hard to describe
thenevadaindependent.com/article/data...
I guess there is still a bit of shadowing going on - perhaps partially reflects that?
Figure showing the forward curve for NSW baseload swaps - rising across considerably (15-20% ish) across the outlook
.. forward curve for NSW over the past couple of weeks:
Figure showing the FY2027 baseload contract prices - with noticeable / sharp increase in last few weeks following the beginning of conflict in the middle east
In case you're interested in what's happening to the futures prices for next FY in the NEM...
I have a joke about carbon offsets but someone else is going to have to tell it to you and a third person is going to have to verify if it is funny while a fourth person argues that the second person was already going to tell the joke anyway
Photo of Chris Bowen above a guardian headline: "Chris Bowen declares rush on jerry cans ‘un-Australian’ as he urges end to panic buying of petrol"
Stockpiling valuable liquid un-Australian? The Rum Corps would like a word...
.. updated maybe? They were first published before Xmas! (I think they have been updated several times now actually)
Pace farm eggs - tbf it does say that on the label, but also not really something you check for
idk I’ve seen a bajillion kids movies where the kids parents die & let me tell you, having a convo with my kid about how anyone can die at any time & it doesn’t matter if they’re someone’s mom or dad is way harder than having a convo about how sometimes someone has two dads or whatever. And yet
..same external dimensions a normal dozen too
They've gone and shrinkflationed a dozen ..
incredible, he did the joke
People switching from ChatGPT to Anthropic are telling on themselves. Will they now cancel their Claude subscriptions because it was used to help plan the attack on Iran? They won’t and we all know it.
