Image by Alexandra_Koch from Pixabay
By Jo Nova
In a nasty shock, the VNI West interconnector price has doubled and doubled again
The whole renewables fantasy is unraveling before our eyes.
In 2023 the Victorian NSW interconnector was supposed to cost $1.8 billion. By May this year the price-tag had doubled to $3.6 billion, and now a mere two months later, the estimate has been revised again up to $7.6 billion and that’s plus or minus 30 to 50%. So it could cost as much as $11 billion. (And who knows where this trend ends?)
Without this transmission line, many future wind and solar farms evaporate, not just ones that wanted to connect to it, but other ones further away. Even offshore wind farms are less profitable without the VNI and other mainland connectors. Intermittent generators make more profits when there are bigger mainland lines to spread their erratic surges of electricity through.
“The Jacobs review also notes that without VNI-West, other significant renewable energy generation and network projects like offshore wind off the coast of Victoria will be less effective.”
— Summary of the Independent Assessment of Plan B
This is why it’s a blockbuster problem that the costs are rising exponentially. We are only just now finding out how shockingly expensive it is to build a short 190km high voltage line through good farmland.
The farmers hate the project so much they are locking the gates to survey teams. They even published maps of all the properties who are holding out.
Meanwhile, the Victorian government is facing a make or break crisis and so, with the gentle diplomacy of a Panzer Tank, has just legislated that farmers can be fined $12,000 if the government sends someone to their property and they don’t let them in. Now farmers hate the project even more. They have heavy machinery and are threatening to use it to block any entry, even if they risk fines.
The Victorian opposition has said they will repeal this after the next election if they can.
And now there is the new two-year delay as well. This map just marks the new interconnectors the AEMO are dreaming of adding to make the fantasy forced-transition grid come to life. The VNI is in the middle.
Map: AEMO
Electricity bills are expected to rise 50% for households or even double for businesses, if the Victorian Labor government builds this monster:
VNI-West costs may blow out to $11.4bn
By Rachel Baxendale, The Australian
Electricity bills for energy intensive businesses could more than double, and households could pay 50 per cent more, amid massive cost blowouts on a project that is integral to the Albanese and Allan governments’ renewable energy rollout.
Energy experts, industry and farmers have sounded the alarm on the VNI-West interconnector after the Australian Energy Market Operator released a report indicating the proponents of the project believe it is likely to cost $7.6bn, with a range of 30 per cent lower or 50 per cent higher, meaning it could cost as much as $11.4bn.
Victorian Energy Policy Centre director Bruce Mountain said the cost revisions were “laughable”, and followed a 2023 estimate of $1.8bn.
“This could increase power bills for large customers by between 2.5 and 3.5 times, and for households, at least 50 per cent,” Professor Mountain said.
And the only benefit of all this money spent, property invaded, and the eyesore of the high voltage towers and turbines — is so we cool the world by 0.0001 degree in 2100AD (maybe), and our useless universities don’t have to admit they were wrong, and China makes a trillion dollars more profit.
I cannot understand why this information is not front page news. The media is so corrupt and are now hiding real news rather than admit that they have been wrong too. The media must join the corrupt university sector and the gullible politicians is apologising to Australians for real disinformation and misinformation. I sent yesterdays headline about the EPA endangerment finding to several outlets. Today it will go to the politicians. They can’t claim ignorance for ever.
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Well said. I am finding it very hard to see and read the destruction of our beautiful country at the hands of the miserable left. Hard to imagine what our grandchildren will have to face to survive. The lies, the coverups, gross incompetence, complicit media (now worse than the Covid nightmare) and the out of control taxing. All for Net Zero, I think not!
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The power line cannot save Victoria from a Labor Government. Its too late to reverse the madness. Victoria is going to go splat and bankruptcy will follow. No longer “if” or “when”.
The only question is can Australia survive a bankrupt Victoria?
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“The only question is can Australia survive a bankrupt Victoria?”
Oh, absolutely yes! We will just close the borders to Vic emigrants until we sort out which ones we want… Otherwise they will have to elect a Libertarian Govt to kick-start the place again! Outright capitalism and self-responsibility.
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KP…..way too many Vic number plates up here in SEQ…….can’t get out quick enough…..hope they leave their crap politics behind as they depart.
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Hard to say Geoff especially when we have such an inept government in Canberra. Chalmers has only one solution to every problem; raise taxes and keep spending. That is hardly a solid foundation from which to launch a rescue plan.
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This sort of news in not wanted by your Far Left legacy media and presumably that is all you have. Here in the UK we are being invaded on a daily basis by single men of fighting age that are low IQ criminals from Third World shitholes and having been forced to reveal the nationalities of criminals we can see that the only culture they bring us of rape and theft. This makes front page news and lead items on GB News but on the Far Left there is not a peep in the Guardian, Independent, Mirror and of course our national broadcaster – The Hamas Broadcasting Corporation – has much more pressing items to cover supplied by their terrorist friends.
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Someone said –
“Import the 3rd World, Become the 3rd World”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c04r7l455zeo
Even the much-maligned [rightly so, too] BBC appears to have noticed, even if not explicitly pronounced!
“Illegal house-sharing exposed by BBC undercover filming”
Six or eight in a room, no bedding, vermin, it’s back to 19th Century ‘rookeries’ in the East End.
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And obviously, the residents are all, without fail, legally in the UK.
I’m sure the BBC will inform the authorities were even one of them be found to be, perhaps, only dubiously legally resident.
And it is worth wondering how accurate this makes the last [and, potentially, the next] census…
On which, of course, is based all sorts of social development, medics, hospitals, schools, sewers, employment statistics.
And, at a pinch, availability of young men to defend the realm.
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Thanks again Jo for trying to help us understand this lunacy of cost blowouts and let’s hope this idiocy doesn’t proceed.
Even Hoskings the VFF president said the compensation paid to farmers didn’t cover their costs. Hoskings is also a true believer and believes “we must do something for CC” so he’s not worth two bob. Just my very humble opinion.
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SYdeny Opera Hoiuse exceeded its original cost estimate by a factor of 14 and taking 14 years inscead of 4. Can the interconnector match this Australian record?
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Easily!
Just watch. 3 more years of Labor Federally and almost certainly (from their recent antics by the Liberals) three more years in power in Victoria.
Labor’s only problem is the Nationals who may well advertise “who needs EVEN MORE EXPENSIVE electricity”.
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The Opera House was financed through lotteries – people willingly paying for a chance at a big return. (This was vociferously and publicly opposed by the wowsers as “sin”).
Windmill networks with cost numbers beyond comprehension are guaranteed finance through taxation, extracted reliably with the full force of the State.
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Snowy 2.0 will be with it in a photo finish. Developed print for sure….
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INDEED! Note how the interconnectors fan out from that spot west of Canberra? Why would you want Hydro power going FROM Snowy2.0 to the regions. The plan is the opposite, they look like they are feeding this crap power back to Snowy2.0 to do the pumping and then sell the hydro power through the already in place connectors to Melbourne and Sydney.
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We now live in the greatest period of Human flourishing for 300 K years and all because Britain started the Industrial Revolution in the late 18th century.
We should never forget that Energy security is our national security and without cheap, reliable, BASELOAD energy we are stuffed.
At least we should be making sure we have proper maintenance of our remaining power stns, until we wake up and build the latest and the best BASELOAD stns for our future prosperity.
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Hi Jo,
In similar vein, there is an article on page 2 in yesterday’s Australian indicating that the Tasmanian government is hiding the fact that there are huge costs to be borne by Tasmanians should the Marinus link across Bass Strait proceed. While the focus of the article is on alleged State political shenanigans, (Clean energy project at risk from ‘dirty’ politics), the underlying cause seems to be that the caretaker government is trying to hide the costs.
Readers may remember, Dr Tom Quirk and I showed years ago here in your columns, thank you Jo, that this project is pointless, because the outputs of the wind farms either side of Bass Strait move in lockstep. The same would apply to VNI.
But, it’s not about achieving sensible outcomes is it? It’s all about giving further opportunities to litter rural Australia with Wind and Solar junk.
Well spotted and well written, Jo.
Regards,
Paul Miskelly
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It has been recently reported that the Tasmanian BOYER paper mill is unable to replace their aged and failing coal fired boilers with Hydro because there is not the spare 45mw capacity to do so … and save 300 jobs – the power needed must be imported from Victoria at a much higher & uneconomic cost
.
But also … somehow? there is a spare 50mw capacity for 50-100 supposed jobs in an AI development in Launceston.
.
AND somehow? there is enough ‘spare capacity’ to export another 750mw of Hydro power to Victoria – ON TOP … of the 500mw delivered by Basslink.
.
The STUPID … It BURNS.
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“AND somehow? there is enough ‘spare capacity’ to export another 750mw of Hydro power to Victoria – ON TOP … of the 500mw delivered by Basslink.”
We are getting the message that there IS enough power to run the boilers, BUT the power is already spoken for because the govt needs the income from selling the power to broke Vicdanistan.
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The Marinus Link is mainly wanted to export energy from new renewable projects in Tasmania back to Victoria. But I doubt that most of these renewables projects, such as Robbins Island, will ever go ahead, given Tasmania’s strong aversions to anything that impact their environment. Already the proposed link from Marinus to Robbins Island has been moved out of the forest onto the coastal plain.
Given that Basslink went broke, I doubt that the Marinus Link will ever be profitable.
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The Marinus link is essential for the lighting in the new stadium.
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Bread & circuses, the most important thing!
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The Left, the ignorant and the uneducated (a tautology, I know) certainly love their bread and circuses.
As Juvenal wrote:
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Thank you for introducing me to Juvenal. I think he could be the wisest man ever. ““Honesty is admired, and starves.” This should belong to Jo and the other scientists who slave for honesty alone. It also reminds us of the so called climate scientists who sold their integrity for 30 pieces of silver and will be forever remembered as traitors.
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Was that meant to be a “tongue in cheek” remark? The main reason for the Marinus Link is so that Tasmania can supply power from new renewables such as Robbins Island to Victoria. But I doubt that Robbins Island, or indeed any large-scale renewables, will ever go ahead in Tassie. So there’s no need for the Link.
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Meanwhile, more reason for the Greenies to hate Woodside more as they take over the exploitation of the Bass Strait gas fields.
Woodside set for control of Bass Strait offshore gas fields
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Yeah, great news John, I’ve already bought more shares.
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PaulM,
Have you settled on an explanation for why so many people in high places refuse to consider viable alternative explanations? Recently, I saw Minister Bowen at a National Press Club meet saying emphatically that “renewables” were the cheapest form of our electricity production and so would be the choice for future additions. This is despite the considerable literature claiming that it is not the cheapest, by a large margin.
Initially, I put this deviant thinking down to a lack of education/intelligence, but that was not useful because I could do little about it. However, I did know about my education, how my parents threatened me with a beating any time I brought home a school report that had me less than number 1 in position in grade. That iron cord really hurt the backside.
Geoff S
http://www.geoffstuff.com/school.jpg
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Or perhaps large donors to their reelection campaign twist their arm to say ridiculous things?
Or maybe they have an offer from some Blob agency, like the UN, WEF, world Bank, or BIS waiting for them after they retire from politics? Or they have been offered an Ambassadorship to their favourite holiday destination?
They could sit on a board (or 4 boards like Mark McGowan). Or perhaps their children/wife score a nice job?
The payoff possibilities are endless…
Being stupid just makes it easier to accept these offers and pretend you are not selling out your country for personal benefit.
This is pure speculation, of course, of patterns we should be looking for.
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Jo, you may be right.
Here in the UK, there are rules about such … but they seem not to be followed religiously, and perhaps it is so, also, in Australia.
Here – sadly – there appears to be no culture of responsibility.
Things go wrong, taxpayers pay compensation [over £2,000 million last year for [medical] errors in our NHS (‘The Envy of the World’ we are told)], yet there appear not to be consequences beyond, perhaps, a private reprimand.
No demotion, dismissal, loss of pension or honours [very important here that!]; certainly not a prosecution [except for small private enterprises …] with serious prison terms.
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Jo. Putting Bowen on the board of any company hoping to succeeed is about as sensible as Burismo hiring Hunter Biden for advice.
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So a second umbilical cord between Tasmania and Victoria costing 3.8 billion $$$ that will doubtless blowout to at least double by the time it carries the first volt and they guesstimate another billion $$$ for a football stadium in Hobart. Of course the experts conveniently ignore all the peripheral costs for additional road works, pedestrian and public transport requirements that are essential to make umbilical cords and stadia viable. Penury is beckoning!
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Fancy wanting to build a stupid footy stadium on million$ waterfront land.
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At last Sceptics are starting to win in the USA and hopefully this axed endangerment finding will hold and their country will reduce future energy costs.
I wish them the very best and hopefully this could eventually help our country and the rest of the OECD.
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2025/07/29/skeptics-win-endangerment-finding-axed-truth-finally-prevails-in-the-climate-wars/
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G’Day Neville,
Have you seen either Chris Warren or Stu, the two pests on Don Aitkin’s blog, recently in your exploration of the web? I haven’t seen them, though I doubt that either would come here, the audience, with a few notable exceptions, is too well informed
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No BJ and I don’t want to see or hear from them either.
But I do miss Don Aitkin , yourself and Spangled Drongo etc and I must admit it helped me a lot and to always follow the data and not their usual BS and nonsense.
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Its an excellent post by Anthony Watts, so I scrolled through the comments for further enlightenment. Steven Mosher (a supporter of AGW theory) turned up as troll with this comment: ‘co2 is a trace gas it cant green anything”.
He caused an uproar and distracted the conversation for a long time.
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That would be because it’s greens everything.
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A bit like Nick often does. Oh, look over there, it’s a squirrel…
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Graeme4,
In 1994 we visited the Royal Botanic Garden, Edinburgh, with a prized parcel of seeds from new and rare discoveries of Rhododendron vireya that had been collected by others. The Director welcomed us, accepted the seeds with thanks and then took us on a tour of non-public parts of this beautiful garden of international standing. Part way through showing his prides and joys, a squirrel appeared from a thicket. We had not seen one live before, so we paused to look at it for a minute while my camera came out. The Director’s black look negated the goodwill we expressed with his botanical gift.
We remain upset whenever we read “Look, a squirrel” Geoff S
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Love that anecdote Geoff. There are a number of commentators on The Australian that frequently attempt to divert attention away from the subject being discussed, and occasionally I get away with the “squirrel” comment.
BTW, did the Gardens ever grow plants from your seeds?
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The level of civilisation is dictated in the end by that civilisations access to, and the cost of energy.
If you have windmills, you’re stuck with 14th century standard of living.
If all you have is donkeys – the same.
This explains why we are going backwards to serfdom – powered by wind and being led by donkeys.
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Indeed. Friedrich Hayek wrote a book, “The Road to Serfdom” in 1944.
Also worth reading by Hayek, Studies on the Abuse and Decline of Reason.
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I suppose that is too much to expect that the latest CSIRO GenCost report will have included the cost of this and the other proposed interconnection projects in their estimates.
Did they even increase their farcically low estimates of the expected working lives of coal, gas and nuclear generators?
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No John,.. all these interconnector costs ,and the Snowy2 costs have been deliberately not included in the latest GenCost report as they are considered “sunk costs”…eg, already commited or completed !!
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See Table 6:2, on page 73 of the CSiRO report for details ofthe $36bn of Renewables infrastructure costs that is not included.
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They will still turn up in the network access charge, affecting the electricity bill.
While the CSIRO might not see them as a cost, the consumer definitely will.
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I love the label in the middle of the diagram “System Integrity Protection Scheme” Gosh, I wonder why the system now needs billions spent on protection? Could it be all the so called “renewables” being randomly dumped in the countryside?
How a project estimate for known technology across known ground to support known needs can be out by 300%+ must surely lead to some investigation of competence and/or honesty.
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Ha,ha,ha,ha,
“ The Victorian opposition has said they will repeal this after the next election if they can”
Ha,ha,ha,ha! What opposition, does Victoria have an opposition?? Doubt it very much.
After all there isn’t even a Federal opposition!!
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Look, I was so shocked to see this moment of actual opposition I had to share it.
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Too true 😂😂😂😂😂😂
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GR….the perfect get out card…….”if” they can…..pathetically obvious the useless Vic (aus) Libs..
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Meanwhile across the ditch, our govt overturns Jacinda & the Green Slime’s oil and gas exploration ban from 6 years ago. As expected, the lefty loonies lose the plot, throwing their toys out of the cot, calling the govt “cl!mate den!ers” and pawns of the “foss!l fuel industry”, hell-bent on “k!ll!ng the planet”.
Too many soy lattes made with UN-approved slave-produced soylent green, methinks.
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/political/568623/coalition-parties-call-for-opposition-not-to-re-ban-oil-and-gas-exploration
Megan Woods, the lesbian midget aka Jacinda’s Bulldog, and Steve Abel, ex-Greenpeace te**o*ist and self-styled Old Testament prophet – shaggy beard, dressed in black, wild crazed look in his eyes – maniacally claim “wind, solar and batteries” will save humanity from “deadly carbon pollution”. M.A.D.
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Love your descriptions.
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Looks about right though Lawrie…
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Why aren’t any of these contracts on a fixed price basis?
It’s just like Government expenditure of our money, there is nothing whatsoever to limit the costs. The subsidy harvesters can charge what they want.
And I suppose these interconnectors are made with the similiar low lifetime expectation of the wind and solar subsidy farms they support and with low grade Chinese steel and poor footings as was shown when the VIC – SA interconnctor blew down.
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More importantly for the Victorian Labor government, whether it’s the Big Build or the Energy transitions plan, it employs lots of workers with union memberships- particularly one union. The one staring with C and ending with U. When Labor first came to government in 2014 there was about $1b in infrastructure projects “shovel ready”. Now, after 11 years there’s over a $100b (and counting) of ongoing projects. A large slice of that money will go straight to the workers and unions. Most will probably vote Labor and will continue if they are kept in work on very large salaries. A huge gravy train. Probably a lot of the workers on the wind/ solar builds are also union members. They probably don’t even know it, as very often their employer pays the union subs. So, just like the Westgate Tunnel with its poor planning there is a rush to get the project going. To employ future Labor voters. So yes, expect the quality of all these projects to be sub-standard in their build quality. Because if it breaks it has to be fixed by unionised workers. It’s the Magic Pudding of construction.
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Fixed price vs cost reimbursable.
A fixed price contract places all of the risk with the head contractor. They will in effect be carrying the can for everything that raises the price, (unless it can be shown to be a latent condition or the subject of an exclusion clause, eg a force majeure event).
A cost reimbursable contract enables the head contract to avoid cost risks by placing all of these risks, whatever the cause, into the hands, (and from the pockets), of the principal.
In a labor run state NO ONE would take on a fixed price contract. It would be the end of the business if they did.
As it stands now, the union can claim a wage rise of 50% and the head contractor won’t care, it gets approved and becomes the default pricing structure for all other jobs currently on the books and all future work, yet to be booked. No head contractor can afford these rates. Only the taxpayer has pockets that reach that deep.
And now the bleeding obvious observation. If it is too expensive to build a, (non government), factory and too expensive to run it, then will one ever be built, (again), in a labor state? And the politicians wonder why manufacturing is leaving. Are they really this thick or do they hope that at least 34% of the electorate are?
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You’re just about cooked when fairness and common sense is being legislated against.
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The sad thing about Australian energy policy is the big pockets of those needing metals like Aluminium have big pockets to pay to get data centres, yet smelters and refineries are closing and coal, gas, uranium go overseas. Aussies could have huge industrial sectors wrapped up on the back of modern day “oil” in electricity.
https://open.substack.com/pub/irinaslav/p/smelters-versus-data-centers?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android&r=17bedn
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I don’t believe that the destruction of our economy by this government is just through incompetence. They are socialists first and foremost, they believe in the power of the UN, IMF, WHO and every other alphabet organisation that seeks to diminish national authority. They believe in centralised control and subservience of the individual to the collective and they are terribly uneducated and wilfully ill informed. These people are deliberately destroying our country.
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A few months ago a video was released by a Victorian government authority. Maybe I could find a link- cant be bothered. It was a flyover video of all the wind and solar installations in Victoria and right through to Southern NSW. Very flash and probably cost the Vic taxpayer a bomb, because no Vic government departments actually do real work- it’s all out sourced to contractors. I’m sure whoever released it was very proud. But the problem with the video was that it wasn’t to scale. That is, the wind turbines looked way larger than in real life. So, after watching the video the main impression was that it appeared 1/2 the state was going to be covered in wind turbines and solar panels. I’m sure the intention of the video was to inform, because the government is really excited and proud about the whole carbon transition/ blob thingy. Except, not only did it inform it also frightened the pants off a lot of people. Particularly those in regional Victoria, where of course all these ugly monsters are being situated.
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Did the video relate to the “renewable energy zones” which will occupy much of the state along with the associated transmission lines, representing a massive parasitic drain on the grid, cost imposts to consumers and visual and other pollution?
https://www.energy.vic.gov.au/renewable-energy/vicgrid/renewable-energy-zones
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Mate, cant remember. I picked it up via X. Probably should have kept the link, but have too many other things to do. It was a flyover video.
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As I recall the very high number, seventy seems familiar, was percentage of “agricultural” land.
D’Ambrosio is happy to accept any cost increases as they arise even beyond Snowy 2 one wonders and when the fines against landowners barring entry to their properties prove ineffective lord knows what enforcement tactics and thuggery government may adopt, after all people were fired upon at the Shrine during the lockdown protests.
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Ross, The Victorian government released a report on their “energy transition” that literally stated they would require 70% !! ( if I recall correctly) of the land area of Victoria to achieve their Net Zero goal, I’m sure Jo mentioned it in a previous article when the report was released last year, so perhaps the video wasn’t as out of scale as it seemed?
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When you say “our eyes”, that can only mean the eyes of the Thinking Community because for the Left, unable to understand or care about the scientific, technical, engineering or economic insanity of the renewables fantasy, it’s all going perfectly to plan. And the totalitarian Elites of the UN, WEF, the Chicomms and the Labor Party whose mission it is to destroy Australia and Western Civilisation in general, and the Green Billionaires whose mission is to transfer money from the poor to themselves, are ecstatic.
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Given the current installed price for a Chinese nuclear power plant of just $2 (US) per watt, I can think of a better use for those billions….
90
The other big issue that is continually overlooked is that there are not enough skilled workers in Australia to do all the work needed for this “Ruin A Ball” madness let alone the ever increasing costs.
And I bet you ‘London to a brick’ that even with record Immigration, Australia is not importing these skilled workers let alone getting local workers trained/skilled up in time.
Ideology meets up with Reality and Reality wins out once again.
It really does look like this madness will end sooner rather than later IMHO.
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I retired early from the construction industry. Most of my peers will work till they are near 70, engineering allows that, it’s soft on the body.
10 years ago, when I got out, I realised that the future is NOT in Oz manufacturing, nor construction, in general it is not a lack of skills or tradesmen it’s the system in place that dictates the following: –
1. Pay rates that grant a salary equivalent to a brain surgeon to a crane driver.
2. The mandated trades level entry for specific roles, eg pulling cables on a cable tray/structure can only be undertaken by qualified tradesmen.
3. Union entry and representation enforced on all work places where a member MAY be employed, even if none are present.
4. Threats of boycott or delay if specific persons are not employed or sub-contractors/suppliers not engaged.
And all of this has been challenged in the courts and the penalties for any ‘illegal’ actions have not lead to any changes.
With the wage claims the way they are, there is no chance of an industrial restructuring to occur in Oz. It does not matter who sits around the minister’s table or what promises are made. If your unit labour cost dictates your production costs, then you will lose a bidding war to another nation, like china.
The leaders of the world’s industrial giants can see this in seconds, they will not be building in Oz, excepting for the infrastructure that enables the ore to be extracted and shipped from port. After that, all value adding belongs elsewhere. And stating the bleeding obvious, value adding for iron ore is not getting it onto the ship despite what Twiggy may say.
African iron ore is starting to ship to china. This will end one big earner for Oz.
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“And all of this ” was bleedingly obvious when we came over in 2007. I couldn’t believe how far we had stepped back in time.
Unions ran everything, Govt had hidden taxes all over the shop and the roads were full of old cars. NZ had dropped tariffs and import costs in the 80s, gutted the unions and allowed near-new dirt cheap Japanese second-hand imports in. Aussie is now years past bailing out Ford and Holden, and STILL won’t allow Jap 2nd-hand cars in.
It was only 20years of those horrible ‘women’ in charge of NZ that pulled it back again, and its obvious those are the changes that need to be made to make a country grow.
We are heading for another Spain or Portugal, used to be great, now just backwaters scrabbling in the dirt to survive.
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? You can import a japanese used car if you like
Commonly called JDM cars (Japanese Domestic Market)
People have built businesses to do this.
https://www.importcarjapan.com.au/
40
The only truly productive sector in Australia is the Primary sector. Most are run by family businesses and do not employ union labour. Mechanisation and technology are key to survival. A classic example is the wide adoption of centre pivot irrigation and the use of drones, each designed to do away with manpower. Unfortunately to get the produce to market usually requires several labour intensive steps and that is where the costs blow out. Unions will eventually price themselves out of a job hence their desire to infiltrate the contracting industries forcing the self employed to work to union rules. Labor governments facilitate the incursions through the rule that 25 or more employees must have a union rep. The clever employer restructures into smaller divisions. One thing we do know; no unionist or government employee will ever be as clever as the humble tradie small businessman/woman.
40
Out in the bush there is strong opposition.
“This project is only occurring to ensure residents in Adelaide, Sydney and Melbourne can access electricity when coal-powered infrastructure is shut down in the next 10-15 years. However, there is no proposal for our communities, who are hosting this infrastructure, to be compensated in a meaningful way, such as by receiving reduced electricity costs.” (Mayor Garner Smith, Gannawarra Shire Council)
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…some of them wont even be able to access the grid supply these lines are supporting !
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Any expenditure on the grid is waste because those who can afford to are making their own electricity. The grid was destined for economic demise in 2000 with the legislated “renewable” energy theft.
There are now 1000 households a day essentially defecting from grid power. This is really the only energy transition in Australia with legs. Only fools would invest their money in the grid. And only foolish or corrupt regulators would permit public funds to be invested in expansion of the grid.
81
Ah, but that grid will move electricity from those who have solar and batteries to where-ever the Govt want it. Never believe that having your own electricity generation puts you beyond the long arms of the Govt thugs.
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By 2030 we will see 1000W solar panels at a reasonable price and sodium or aluminium based batteries at half the price of lithium iron phosphates. It will then be viable to run some domestic loads from an off-grid system.
Batteries run low volt lighting very well. DC motors in the new fridges and Air Conditioner will make it easier to run medium size loads. One of my clients with a huge PV array now dumps his surplus electrical generation into his Hot Water Service rather than give it away for a paltry rate to the grid.
Fundamentally, political types are technically illiterate and the market will render their day-dream ideas obsolete but at our expense.
“laissez nous faire”
70
I installed a “Catch Power” diverter which gives me year round hot water from the solar panels. With the cheapest off peak rates at $0.2448 cents per kWh and feed in of only 4 cents it makes sense.
00
If the line is only 190 kms, that’s an incredible $58m/km. The last highest line price was $13m/km, and that was way over the top, given that transmission lines only cost around $2.5m/km.
110
Gold plated?
50
That’s how Labor PM Gillard described “poles and wires” from every wind and solar installtion to the main transmission lines, she said “gold plated poles and wires” when she was told the costs.
80
My best guess is kickbacks … take a look at who runs Victoria and you can connect the dots pretty quick.
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The $2.5m/km excludes the legal and administrative cost. Lawyers are still more expensive than electricians and a lot more expensive than line jockeys unless the latter are well represented by the union thugs taking it to Labor.
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When I first looked at transmission line costs, based on their estimated cost and their length, the cost was around $2.5m/km. The figure provided in the paper was just an estimate, and it never stated what was included and what was omitted. A year or so later, the next line estimation was $5m/km. And less than a year after that, the next one was $13m/km. Now they are possibly looking at $58m/km. Incredible to think costs could have risen that much after only a few years.
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Another “Made in Australia” success compliments of the Albanese government.
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83% of Victorians live in Melbourne. We have enough coal nearby for 300-500 years. And it was fine for the last century. We used to make our own gas from coal. And briquettes were plentiful and cheap.
Tell me again why we need a National Grid and pay so much for electricity?
Is it just so Canberra can control the country, making the public servants of Canberra all powerful and rich, the richest in the country although they do absolutely nothing. Our own little EU/UN?
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They aren’t public servants any more TdeF. They aren’t even the civil service or even civil servants. They are bureaucrats, in the worst meaning of that word. Fat cat bureaucrats on way too much money, with way too much power and you can’t even sack them!
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And the anti CO2 governments are now worried that productivity is dropping like a stone. It’s simple. Energy is too expensive and we are having to subsidize businesses just to keep them going. If the price of electricity exceeds the price of aluminium, thousands are out of work. So Trump is right to tariff our aluminium, for example, because it is fake pricing. We Victorians pay the wages to pretend to make aluminum profitably. Everyone ends up a non productive public servant.
As in Russia, they pretend to pay us and we pretend to work. And one of the resource richest countries in the world is driven into the ground financially. Like Argentina. The death grip of socialism. As Margaret Thatcher said, socialism is fine until you run out of other people’s money. In Victoria we owe $200Billion. That,s $30,000 for every man, woman and child in the state. Other states are no better. And the Federal government is as bad. Other people’s money.
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‘So Trump is right to tariff our aluminium …’
I agree, we have been dumping.
‘Australia’s aluminium industry, which has been operating since 1955, is the largest producer of bauxite and the largest exporter of alumina globally. The report highlights that with the right policy settings, the sector can continue to thrive, contributing to the country’s economic and industrial landscape. ‘ (NSW Energy and Resources Knowledge Hub)
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Running at a loss. In Victoria we taxpayers have been paying the wages of Portland Alcoa for many years. As with all manufacturing, you cannot make money when the cost of the product is more than the sale value. And aluminium is 90% electricity in cost. They came here on the invitation of Henry Bolte as we had the world’s cheapest electricity. It seems like only yesterday.
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And it was placed in Portland in 1986 to create jobs in a critical country electorate, as far from Yallourn as you could be. Which was ridiculous at the time. The first smelter in 1963 at Point Henry near Geelong has been closed for ten years. It was powered by the coal power station at the back of Anglesea.
We Victorian taxpayers paid a massive $250million for the necessary massive transmission line when the smelter should have been built on WesternPort bay near the coal power stations, as they do in China. The heat losses in the new transmission line were 50%, doubling the cost of the electricity. It’s all about votes and voters, not common sense or economics. We are still building completely unnecessary transmission lines with our cash. That’s a massive subsidy.
Most recently in 2020 “A Federal Government commitment of $76.8 million to underwrite Alcoa’s giant Victorian aluminium smelter has been hailed as a lifeline for hundreds of workers”
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And in 2020, the risks with random wind power came home..
“A power outage at the Alcoa Portland aluminium smelter in Victoria, Australia, caused the aluminium in production to solidify, requiring the plant to operate at a reduced capacity. The outage, which lasted for several hours, was caused by a fault on the Victorian transmission network. Alcoa has curtailed one potline and around 23% of another due to the incident. The smelter is now operating at just 27% of its capacity. ”
The idea that you can run smelters on random energy is like the idea that you can power aircraft with random energy. It takes only minutes for total devastation.
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There are so many public serpents that produce nothing, it’s no wonder our productivity is dropping like a stone.
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The high salaries were supposed to compensate for the loss of tenure. They got the salaries, and in effect, retained tenure.
Which only happened for those at the bottom of the pyramid.
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I daydream sometimes about a strong conservative coming to power, me. And I think of all the people and departments I would get rid of, the grants that could be withheld. It would be unlikely that a woke Senate would allow such sackings but funding could be withheld surely. Instead of the ABC getting a billion they would get 200 million, defund the CSIRO, that sort of thing. I believe that the best retirement plan is one that allows you to own your own home. Super funds could be used for that serving two aims, home ownership and reduction of union power through the industry funds. I can dream can’t I?
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WA isn’t connected to the “National grid” and is doing ok, with lower electricity costs and less price rises. You don’t need a grid, what you need is a plentiful supply of cheap baseload energy.
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Dang! The Victorian Liberals now have one good policy and it wasn’t even one they thought up themselves.
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They won’t repeal anything. The word opposition is a misnomer.
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Nut zero puts up the cost of doing everything including Nut Zero, and when you think the costs can’t rise further, the extra costs from Nut Zero again put up the costs of everything, including Nut Zero, and, when you imagine that it is impossible for costs to rise further … the extra costs of Nut Zero are fed through and put up the costs of everything including Nut Zero. And, when …. the last insane government finally realises that Nut Zero is an impossible dream … they stop with the insanity.
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A cable carrying 1 GW of electricity is as thick as your arm and has 30 to 50 kg copper per meter.
1000 kilometers of such a cable has a whopping 50000 metric ton of copper. If you down there do not have the ores in your own backyard, and the coal needed to extract it, where does it come from?
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They are mostly made of Aluminium, with copper cladding on the outside of each conductor. It’s possible to bundle such conductors into a cable.
The Aluminium provides better strength for weight than Copper … while the Copper improves conductivity (most electricity flows on the surface) and also Copper is more weather resistant than Aluminium.
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2024 transmission line projects in Denver Colorado and New York for 480 to 800 km transmission lines are in the range of 3 to 4 Million USD / Mile, or 2.8 to 3.8 Million AUD/km. Terrain has a lot to do with it.
How the cost projections for the Victorian interconnector were calculated deserves some attention. At a “likely” cost of 7.9 Billion AUD for 190 km of line, that comes to 40 Million AUD/km. This is 10 times the cost of actual lines being built.
Something isn’t right with the projected costs.
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