Sunday, August 4, 2024

Australian Housing Affordability Crisis

There should be a sense of urgency in addressing the current "Housing Crisis":
We're adding almost another Sydney or Melbourne over the next decade, 3.7 million people.

For the 160,000 new houses per year, we'll need 400 square-km each year, or 4,000 sq-km over the decade. At least one third the total size of Greater Sydney.

How do we even fit that in? 

Australia has been settled mostly on the coast, a thin band at most 50km wide, between the sea and mountains. Where all the good water and best agricultural land once was.
We might have 7+ million km2 of total land, but only a fraction is arable and we need to carefully preserve and curate our best land.

The Greens new Housing Policy is "Business as Usual", but with a stated goal of "stopping" price growth.

There's a fundamental misunderstanding by the Greens:
the System is working Perfectly, as it was Designed to. [ see Berwick's Central Law ]

There's very good reason that Real Estate Agents have wall posters proclaiming:
Real Estate, The Source of All Wealth.

They've never seen the market collapse, despite millions of home owners being highly leveraged, making a huge, life-defining bet on a single asset in a single asset class. This is insanely risky.

Steadily increasing house prices is a design feature of our Residential Property Market, it can't be "fixed", unless the System itself is changed.

We've got three related and simultaneous problems:
  • creating mass affordable housing, ensuring anyone on the average adult wage can afford a mortgage, back to 1950's and 70's affordability with a 2x - 3x ratio of median price to avg wages.
    We've got to service the backlog of unsatisfied demand plus all new arrivals.

  • Create this new "city", larger than any but Sydney & Melbourne, of housing somewhere people will want to live and stay, while being able to access work in major cities easily and affordably.

  • We can't wreck the existing housing market, valued at over $10 Trillion-with-a-T, around 5 times our GDP or Stock Market or three times our total Superannuation savings.
Whitlam in the early 1970's understood the problem of the housing market and attempted to create a regional development pipeline, starting with Albury-Wodonga. The attempt stalled.

It doesn't take 3-6 months to build a house.
The record at Levittown was 18 houses completed in 4 hrs.
The Empire State building, over 100 floors, went up in 410 days. They installed a railway on each floor and had on-site production lines.

With today's new tools, machines, methods and machinery, it should be possible to dramatically lower build times and costs.

One critical factor is 'lowering expectations', or demands, of new home buyers.

It's a housing ladder, it's many steps to your "dream home" & lifestyle, but the most important is starting, getting onto the ladder with an entry level property you can pay off quickly and consider what next.

Residential Properties are assets, they have to also be treated as financial investments.
It makes no sense to put a $1M house on a $50k block of land, or a caravan on a $1M block.
Neither will ever sell for close to costs.

Properties can't be over- or under-capitalised, the value of the building has to be proportionate to the cost of the block it sits upon.

Which creates demand for large, expensive "Dream Homes" with all the inclusions, with developers pricing blocks accordingly, via what they pay for the original land, then the high cost will bleed first owners dry over time. They're not buying for their needs, but hopes & desires.

Until and unless there's total land + house packages, in attractive communities, available for $300k (3x avg earnings), there's no solution to the system that's designed to constantly push house prices skywards.

$150k doesn't buy much if built by others, but with factory assembled parts and modest DIY skills, a liveable, comfortable, efficient and individualised small house for singles and couples is entirely possible.

We just have to want to do it.
02 Aug 2024
... we know Australia will grow by around 3.7 million people in the coming decade,
[ 365,000 / yr = 1,000/day ]
400 sq-km for 160,000 houses / year
= 400k ppl @ 2.5pp/house
= 1k ppl/sq-km

[ At same density as Eastern Suburbs of Sydney ]
2.7pp / household = 365k / 2.7 = 100k houses / year
1,000 pp/sq-km = 365k/1k = 365 sq-km / year

= 4,000 sq-km in a decade 


https://soe.dcceew.gov.au/coasts/pressures/population

Australia is an urban coastal nation.

In 2001, 85% of Australia’s population lived within 50 kilometres (km) of the coast, but by 2019, that proportion had risen to 87%.

This equates to over 22 million Australians now calling the coast home.


https://www.ga.gov.au/scientific-topics/national-location-information/dimensions/australias-size-compared

Australia covers 7 688 287km2


Greens 2023 Housing Policy
https://www.thenewdaily.com.au/finance/finance-news/2024/07/23/housing-negative-gearing-cgt
A long-held truism across the federal Parliament is that Australian voters like rising property prices so much that any-self interested politician would be silly to propose plans to curb it.

But as average income earners in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane are increasingly priced out of the suburbs they grew up in, there's a growing push to shift the debate towards affordability.

Greens housing spokesperson Max Chandler-Mather echoed the plight of first-home buyers in The Australian on Tuesday, calling for house price growth to be brought back in line with income.

"Our goal, our stated goal, is to stop house price growth," he said.

"So zero per cent growth to give wages a chance to catch up.

"The net effect would be a stabilisation of house prices."


Berwick, in 1996, defined the "Central Law of Improvement":

Systems deliver exactly what they're designed to deliver



Berwick, BMJ 1996
A primer on leading the improvement of systems
http://app.ihi.org/Events/Attachments/Event-2680/Document-4562/Berwick_1996_A_primer_on_leading_the_improvement.pdf

Central Law of Improvement:
Not all Change is Improvement, All Improvement is Change.

Systems deliver exactly what they're designed to deliver.

Therefore, Change The system, not actors & rules.



https://www.amazon.com/You-Want-into-Real-Estate/dp/B002KZQEU8
So, You Want to Go into Real Estate?:
The Source of All Wealth



Quarterly Essary: QE92 - November 2023
Alan Kohler
The Great Divide: Australia's Housing Mess and How to Fix It
https://www.quarterlyessay.com.au/essay/2023/11/the-great-divide

Kohler's graphs provide definitive evidence the long-term ratio of Median House price and Average Earnings broke out in 2000.
Fuelled by Howard's changes to Capital Gains Tax, Negative Gearing and low interest rates.
A deliberate strategy of John Howard, alongside the windfall $180+B tax from the Mining building boom,
tax cuts creating a structural deficit.

He notes that unwinding the situtation back to the previous long-term ratio of 3.5 is difficult.
The closest he comes to a solution is (someone) holding house prices steady
and, assuming wage growth of 4%/year, then waiting for 20 years.

Only that's not supported by the recent decade-long stagnation of wages & ignores external shocks,
to which Australia is extremely vulnerable as a commodities exporter:
  • collapse in demand for our commodities
  • supply chain issues
  • sudden & prolonged shift in foreign exchange rates


After the party: how Australia spent its mining boom windfall
28 MAY 2012
https://apo.org.au/node/29573
The result was a windfall to our public coffers of at least $180 billion over the six years from 2002 to 2008.



"Temporary Boom, Permanent Tax cuts/Promises", Chris Richardson, 2014



19/09/2003, John Howard, on constantly increasing house prices.
https://pmtranscripts.pmc.gov.au/release/transcript-20920

Q: I wonder if I could ask you to respond to how you see the over heated housing market in Australia?

A: Anybody who owns a house is very happy that the value of that house has gone up, let's be quite straight about that.
I haven't found anybody in seven and a half years shake their fist at me and say
Howard I'm angry with you for letting the value of my house increase."

Q: I think house prices have doubled nationally since 1996, haven't they?
A: My point is that we have, in a sense, become the victims of our own prosperity and success.



Notes on Housing.

1. The current housing model of Everyone in One Big City is broken, the system is a major part of the problem.

2. Australia has lots of suitable land to build housing on, just very little inside existing Capitals.
We know Whitlam understood this, but a 'build it & they will come' solution didn't work.
Cause is the gambling mindset, wanting to 'win big' without effort or risk.

3. We have modern industrial machines, methods and materials that can be combined to create 7-star rated houses, in a mass-customised way. [ mass produced, but individually customised ]

These can be prepackaged so they need zero or few on-site qualified tradespeople, and be modular, extensible over time, when needs must.

Upshot:

We could quickly & cheaply create large estates with low eco-footprint on desirable locations,
if we designed-in remote working, fast transport, all local services and community facilities,
with home owners able to choose between many options and customise their homes.

But, home owners have to trade in the One Big Expensive Asset mindset for 'Simple Living', start small with 'just enough'.
They have to be happy with a low-cost, mostly self-built home that's not huge & overfilled with expensive 'stuff'.

Giving up "Keeping up with 'The Jones'" and blind consumption have to be abandoned as well - the drivers of consumerism & economic growth,
in favour of a much more deliberate, thoughtful and 'conscious' approach to needs, earning and spending.

Fulfilling status & competitive needs has to be built into the fabric and design of 'intentional communities'
in a way that natural, non-judgemental, non-preachy and allows infinite expression.
We used to have weekly community dances and yearly 'Shows', where people could compete & shine - why did they even end?

How is anyone worth being paid 1,000x more than an "essential" worker, it's unjustifiable.
why are wages of $250,000/year, along with 60-80hr weeks 'A Good Thing'?
when all this money is doing is paying for excessive mortgages, expensive personal transport and "status signifiers".
Why do people need to accumulate more wealth than they can possibly spend in a lifetime?

We don't have enough volunteers providing community support, child minding, aged care & other necessary work & care.
While we pay billions victimising people receiving social support and force huge work hours on those in high-paying jobs, while 30%-50% of people are desperately seeking 'more hours'.

In the 1930's, there were predictions / projections of 10 hour weeks in the 2000's.

What happened on the way to the future, when The Select Few scored The Big Brass Ring and everyone else scrabbles around the edges?

Technology has progressed beyond the wildest dreams, into wholly new dimensions, past the 1930's imagination.

Our survival and security needs are provided by under 1% of the population, yet nobody has enough Leisure Time, unless they're on below poverty level social benefits...

How did any of this happen? Who drove it there? What values and attitudes allowed it to happen?

We have more than enough for everyone to access healthcare, be educated, housed, clothed, well nourished, to have enough work hours at good pay to feel valued and contributing, and for most / all people to do jobs they love...

It's a choice to swap "A good life for all" for "Fantastic Wealth & Income for a Few" - with downsides of stress, bad health and constant pressure.

The UBI - Universal Basic Income - as currently envisioned isn't a workable model as it asymmetrical:
- benefits only flow one way, dollars from Govt to Individuals.

A workable system has to require, enable and reward return "societal" contributions, such as:
the often overlooked, unpaid "women's work" of caring, washing/cleaning, cooking, organising and "emotional labour" needed to make houses into homes, developments into communities and the enrichment of lives & creation of meaning and purpose.

To make a sustainable future requires protecting our Democracy with Equity, Inclusion and Social Cohesion.

It's not optional.

A system based on the accumulation of wealth and privilege can only concentrate wealth, power and influence.
The limit of which / end-game is a Feudal society with slaves, plebes and a very few 'Citizens'.
No such system / society is stable under resource pressure or external challenge: the 'peasants' always revolt.

We know the lies that Libertarianism is built upon and where they must inevitably lead:
  • Individual 'Freedom' without collective collaboration, trust and cooperation, the creation and curation of Public Goods,
  • leads inevitably to "Failed States", where it's every man for himself and "Strong Men" (Feudal Lords) rule,
  • and Justice is delivered by the sword.
England spent a Millennium, or more, developing a stable, representative Democracy, based on the Rule Of Law, where everyone, bar Royals, is notionally treated equally under the Law.

There are only a few parts to this system, but all must be known & practised by everyone, all the time,
or the system can implode, as we're seeing in the USA in real time.

The Magna Carta of 1215 was just one step along this parth.



A prefab building revolution can help resolve both the climate and housing crises
January 12, 2024
https://theconversation.com/a-prefab-building-revolution-can-help-resolve-both-the-climate-and-housing-crises-220290

  • Ehsan Noroozinejad,
    Senior Researcher, Urban Transformations Research Centre, Western Sydney University

  • Parisa Ziaesaeidi,
    Associate Lecturer in Architecture, Western Sydney University
These authors of this piece are exactly right about all the new 'modular' offerings, but that's just solving the wrong problem in new ways.

1. We've $3 Trillion-with-a-T in super, looking for long-term, low-risk 'good' returns.
We can afford a major building program.
Getting dwelling unit prices down to $100K should be easy, not just possible.
That $1T buys 10 million new dwellings, enough for another 15-20 million people :)
And would give stable employment to a huge workforce for 10-25 years.

2. Australia has enough land to build on, just no in SYD/MEL or the other Capitals.

3. The suggestion of "string of pearls" developments of 10,000-25,000 dwellings each is exactly right.
It also requires building the underlying transport infrastructure to move people into/out of cities at peak hour.
Plus with proper broadband and local shared work centres, solves many problems.

4. We know the most efficient and fastest way to build.
It was done here after WW-II, throwing up large immigration facilities.

5. We need to return to small houses & apartments, coupled with large open spaces and shared facilities nearby.
Housing without 'Communities' doesn't work.
We've seen this in Adelaide: our parents & their generation created communities, not dormitories.

6. With modern technology, we aren't locked into one single design.
We can do mass customisation for the same price with CAD and direct digital cutting & fabrication.

7. We've mentioned modern materials - specifically SIP.
Designing around those & modern industrial techniques would increase productivity 10x at least.
And reduce lead times and delays

8. Shipping containers are great for many things, but 8'x8' is not a suitable or sustainable living space for more than a week.

9. With increasing numbers and scale of natural disasters, we need two new things:
rapid response 'instant' housing to create on-site temporary accommodation
flood and fire-proof housing solutions, preferably as whole 'villiages'



Empire State Building
https://www.esbnyc.com/about
From the start of construction to modern day fame, the story of the Empire State Building is one you'll never forget.

Intended to be the world's first 100+ story building, construction of the Empire State Building began on March 17, 1930.
Construction was completed in a record-breaking 1 year and 45 days.


Levittown

https://dreamsongs.com/IHE/IHE-84.html#53233


Levittown shows how fast houses can be built [ 18 finished in a 4-hr shift ].
This was 50 years or more ago, should cause people now to reflect on why we can't do better now...

The story of Levittown on Long Island is our favorite example of how people acting in their own interests can effect a positive redesign of a community that has suffered from extreme master planning.

The first Levittown--once called Island Trees --was a postwar innovation in low-cost housing in which a potato patch on Long Island was turned into the first mass-produced housing tract.
After the foundations were laid, specialized crews descended on each lot, one after another, so fast that 18 houses were completed in the 8 AM to noon shift--we could say they used an especially brutal and efficient master plan.
Many lamented the approach. Peter Bacon Hales, art historian from the University of Illinois at Chicago, wrote of the criticism:

The accusations against Levittown from the first focused on its relentless homogeneity, the cramped quarters of its interiors, and the raw, unfinished quality of its landscape.

Architects, artists, and even some computer scientists have used Levittown as an example of how modernism--the belief in reductionism and the ultimate value of the machine--can lead to what some call the deathlike morphology of late-20th- and early-21st-century life, the unimaginably dulling effect of sameness and inhumanity on ordinary lives.

Postwar Americans needed affordable housing near their jobs to raise the first wave of baby-boomers, not unaffordable aesthetics.
The houses were snapped up while trucks hauling tools and pulling trailers carrying bulldozers drove away toward their next project.
The architects, designers, builders, and developers did not care to learn from their projects, and the United States experienced an unending string of housing projects since then that imposed a planned living experience on people bent more on living than on planning.

Levittown relied on wood framing, but many other projects cast their designs literally in concrete.
The Pruitt-Igoe apartments in St. Louis won architectural awards in the mid-1950s for low-cost housing design.
But the two complexes were simply steel and concrete high-rise warrens in the mold of the Swiss architect Le Corbusier, who said,
a house is a machine to live in

And also:
the design of cities is too important to be left to the citizens

Seventeen years after being completed, the Pruitt-Igoe complex was demolished, creating a vacant lot still mostly vacant, signaling the beginning of the postmodern era.
So in 1951, the designers of Levittown watched as families poured in to begin life in the carefully planned and constructed warrens relentlessly devised according to modernist principles of machine love.

Nature and the Levittown community did not care about the master plan:
The bulldozed landscape began to sprout trees and shrubs, and over a period of years, as economic realities changed,
the community developed a sense of innovation and its inhabitants a control of their own destinies.
Not being trained as architects or builders did not faze them.
They thought locally and acted locally.
The community, through small acts of repair, transformed a homogenized and orderly Levittown into a place deserving the name Island Trees.

Through customization, additions, remodels, landscaping, disorder, the community, acting as a multitude or aggregation of individuals regarded as not individually important--as a mob--made Levittown over.

Peter Bacon Hales wrote the following about the transformation of Levittown:

The raw, new quality of the landscape, too, didn't seem so awful to new renters and (a little later) owners, who knew that the trees and grass would quickly grow,
and who understood the Levitt salesman's pitch promising opportunities to personalize the interior and exterior of your Levittown house.
Life [magazine] ran a contest, seeking the best-decorated Levittown house, and the winner was a rather startling red-themed Mandarin-Revival Sino-Asian extravaganza.
Over time, Levittown houses changed character, as their occupants rose in status and in economic wealth,
and as families expanded and community standards of innovation and growth trickled from the home-improvement seminars at the Community Center and later the High School,
out into the Saturday projects and summer vacation plans of Levittown residents.
Today's heterogeneous Levittown is a testimony to the resilience of the community ...

Levittown is not much different from many towns:
The people who live there have inherited its earlier form from people who are gone and whose cares and requirements are perhaps passe.
The specifications, needs, and criteria for the evolving town are being invented community wide on-the-fly.


https://dbr.abs.gov.au/compare.html?lyr=gccsa&rgn0=1GSYD&rgn1=3GBRI

Estimated resident population - year ended 30 June 2023

Data available for years: 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023
Description 2023 (Greater Sydney) 2023 (Greater Brisbane) 2023 (Australian Capital Territory)
Estimated resident population (no.) 5 450 496 2 706 966 466 566
Population density (persons/km2) 440.7 170.9 197.9
Imputed Area 12 367 km2 15 839 km2 2 357 km2


Greater Sydney, data
https://www.cityofsydney.nsw.gov.au/guides/city-at-a-glance
Greater Sydney, data
https://profile.id.com.au/australia/about?WebID=260
https://dbr.abs.gov.au/region.html?lyr=gccsa&rgn=1GSYD

Estimated resident population - year ended 30 June
Description 2018 2019 2020 2021 2022 2023
Estimated resident population (no.) 5 190 353 5 256 836 5 295 529 5 261 801 5 303 794 5 450 496
Population density (persons/km2) 419.6 425 428.1 425.4 428.8 440.7
Estimated resident population - males (no.) 2 580 829 2 615 130 2 633 132 2 615 806 2 636 618 ----
Estimated resident population - females (no.) 2 609 524 2 641 706 2 662 397 2 645 995 2 666 118 ----
Median age - males (years) 35.3 35.5 35.8 36.3 36.3 ----
Median age - females (years) 36.8 37 37.4 37.9 38 ----
Median age - persons (years) 36 36.2 36.6 37.1 37.1 ----
Working age population (aged 15-64 years) (no.) 3 502 491 3 539 337 3 549 127 3 503 529 3 530 763 ----
Working age population (aged 15-64 years) (%) 67.5 67.3 67 66.6 66.6 ----


https://dbr.abs.gov.au/compare.html?lyr=lga&rgn0=11450&rgn1=17200

Estimated resident population - year ended 30 June
Description 2023 (Sydney) 2023 (North Sydney)
Estimated resident population (no.) 231 086 72 014
Population density (persons/km2) 8 662.6 6 864.4
Description 2023 (Sydney - Parramatta) 2023 (Sydney - Inner West)
Estimated resident population (no.) 514 925 314 776
Population density (persons/km2) 3 162.3 4 876.5
https://dbr.abs.gov.au/compare.html?lyr=sa4&rgn0=118&rgn1=122
Estimated resident population - year ended 30 June
Description 2023 (Sydney - Eastern Suburbs) 2023 (Sydney - Northern Beaches)
Estimated resident population (no.) 273 139 267 921
Population density (persons/km2) 4 731 1 053.9
Household composition - Occupied private dwellings - Census
Data available for years: 2011, 2016, 2021
Description 2021 (Sydney - Eastern Suburbs) 2021 (Sydney - Northern Beaches)
Lone person households (no.) 30 608 21 056
Group households (no.) 8 049 2 990
Family households (no.) 64 362 70 330
Total households (no.) 103 014 94 377
Average household size (no. of persons) 2.3 2.7



https://www.parliament.wa.gov.au/WebCMS/webcms.nsf/content/facts-and-figures-1939
Total population was 6,907,078, on 30 September 1938.



1301.0 - Year Book Australia, 2001
https://www.abs.gov.au/Ausstats/abs@.nsf/0/0b82c2f2654c3694ca2569de002139d9

In 1901 Australia's population numbered 3,788,123

Seven million 1939 Menzies 'forgotten ppl'
Nine million 1954 Boomers, mid-pint
Fourteen million 1976 Gough
Nineteen million 1999 Millenium, Howard CGT

current 2024, 27M



1301.0 - Year Book Australia, 2012
https://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/abs@.nsf/Lookup/1301.0Main+Features802012

Saturday, June 22, 2024

Dutton Nuclear Power Co - Only two key numbers: Utilisation & Revenue, Proportion Total Grid Capacity

The "Put up or Shut-up" Challenge:

If Dutton et al believe there is deep public support for Nuclear Power, then he should have no problem getting people to pledge their share of the cost.

Dutton will have to raise at least $100 billion for his 7 Nuclear Power Plants, there's roughly 10 million households, so a 'share' is $10,000.

By the election, can Dutton marshal his charisma and supporters and have $100 Billion pledged? If even only half comes from individuals & households, the Liberal Party with its deep connections to Business, should easily be able to garner $50 Billion in pledges.

One of the public misconceptions about Electricity generation & consumption is that households (i.e. taxpayers) are a significant consumer of electricity. Households are a minor energy consumer.

Households comprise under 25% of current electricity demand and only 8.6% of total Australian Energy Consumption. The proportion of Residential electricity demand declines significantly as the whole economy is electrified.

Who is Dutton building his Nuclear Power Stations for:
Voters/Taxpayers, Australian Business & Industry or Foreign Corporations?

Is Dutton going to sign subsidised long-term base load contracts for big industrial consumers, like Alcoa's NSW Aluminium smelters? 
Is the plan for taxpayers to directly subsidise big, foreign firms, who are already making a motza from Australia?

If so, it’s a terrible deal for Australian Taxpayers.

The nameplate capacity of just the NEM is 40,000MW - 55,000MW, with large scale solar already at 11,000MW, adding 6,000MW of Nuclear does what exactly?

[ 6 x 1GW AP1000 plants on East Coast: approx 12.5% current capacity ]

If we’re to get to Carbon Neutral by 2050, we’ve got to double total electric power generation, just to cover demands of transport. Which again makes the contribution of Nuclear much less significant.

Dutton's Big Plan is to add 5%-6% of total future capacity with Nuclear, while over 50% will have to be entirely new.
This is a marginal change to future supply, with half the output large scale solar PV [11GW] already installed, which itself is only 2/3 the size of the installed rooftop solar PV.

Growth in large & small scale solar PV continues to accelerate, already multiples of Dutton's proposed Nuclear capacity.

Rooftop Solar, especially with a in-home, EV or community battery, significantly eases Peak Demand and, being deep within the distribution network helps with stability, reliability and avoids blackouts.

Dutton can't seriously be proposing adding additional capacity that is a fraction of existing rooftop solar, but located a huge distance away, on an expensive, fragile distribution system, decreasing, not increasing Network resilience and limiting the impact of failures.

A more pressing issue than Nuclear Power is upgrading the East Coast NEM to high-voltage DC interconnects. Having one of the world's largest single AC electricity networks, 5,000km long, reduces the Network's stability, resilience and reliability.

The NEM operates on one of the world's longest interconnected power systems - from Port Douglas in Queensland to Port Lincoln in South Australia - a distance of around 5,000 kilometres. The NEM generates around 200 terawatt hours of electricity annually, supplying around 80% of Australia's electricity consumption.

The solution is to do what Europe and the USA are already doing: reducing the size of each AC network, which reduces the "Distribution Loss Factors", in particular the "Power Factor".

AC power, unlike DC, has three components: voltage, current and their alignment ("Power Factor"). Because AC voltage & current are constantly changing, they aren't necessarily aligned. Even if the generator is pushing out 1GW, the power-factor prevents 100% of it being available to customers. This is a major contributor to network losses and needs careful, constant management and adjustment.
GigaWatt AC-DC & DC-AC converters at each of transmission lines solves this problem and much more.

The economy grows roughly with population, so we might expert more energy will be needed in Australia in 2050 than now. Over time, technology & investment improves our "Energy Productivity", so total energy demand, outside residential where we know increasing rooftop solar & batteries will reduce demand significantly, will decrease per dollar of GDP.

In 1990, the most cost-effective, highest Return on Investment, form of Power Generation was developed: the Negawatt. It's many times cheaper to reduce wasted electricity, of 'negative watts', than to build a watt of new capacity, of any type. The notional 'generation' cost is zero, forever. There are local firms already specialising in this.

If Dutton's goal was to shore up the Grid, reduce (household) power prices and increase Grid reliability & stability, then he'd be investing in the simplest, most effective, highest return and lowest delay proven technologies and approaches - in which 'Negawatts' lead by very large margin, even over Solar & Wind.

In 2010 the Queensland Government under Anna Blight received a report on the states' Energy Future.
This plan for future needs was killed by the One Term Wonder, Campbell Newman.

Unsurprisingly, the same Qld Liberal National Party that Dutton hails from, showing the same disregard and disdain for the Future and Planning.

The QLD Smart Energy Future made the point there were a lot of very under-utilised assets, do nothing, waiting around for the 1% Peak Demand. 99% of time, those assets are idle, unable to earn income.

A pretty terrible return on investment, unless you’re making 80x-100x the average yearly revenue for that 1%, then merely ‘average’.

For Dutton's Power Co (DPC) to really provide "base load", it’s got to win supply contracts, stay near full capacity, 24hrs a day, always equalling the cheapest bidder, or undercutting.

Even if DPC sells power for 8,765 hrs / year, the revenue will be capped by the lowest bidder (Solar, Wind moslty) & negative during supply surpluses. They cannot come near a break-even averaged price.

So a “base load” DPC is designed to lose money, a lot of it.
Who pays? The taxpayer, by raising taxes or cutting services.
Which will the Liberal Party plump for? In the past, it's always been cuts to Services & Infrastructure.

So is Dutton’s plan to “Lower Power Prices, with Higher Taxes to cover huge losses”?
Not an election winner.

What will the DPC actually do in practice?

The same as the large, inflexible, expensive coal-fired power stations. running now at the margins:

sell nearly no base load, operate as “peakers”, cherry picking contracts during high demand, the $5,000 - $10,000 MW-hr range, hoping the Price x Utilisation total revenue will cover their high expenses.

Even a $500/MW-hr baseline needs 10% utilisation to break even, or ‘peak’ pricing for over 10% of the time, while the 2010 Smart Energy Future report suggests this is only 1%.

The economic test for viability of a Nuclear plant project is it versus storage, each providing the same PetaJoules per year to the grid, not acting as base load, but as intermittent "peakers".

I have not seen that calculation.
Burying storage deep in the grid, near consumers, increases Grid reliability & stability, lessens distribution network costs & losses and protects communities - taxpayer households - from blackouts, more so as more EV’s are charged at home and supplying power back to the grid. 

"Vehicle to the Grid" is likely to become a major 'generator' for Residential Peak Demand as adoption of EV's, and their massive batteries (50kW-hr - 100kW-hr), increases.

From the South Australian 100MW-hr Tesla battery, we know the “peaker” profile and performance needed for grid firming [ sub-millisecond response ]. Nuclear, as a steam driven generator, performs very badly as a “peaker” - they want a sports car but have bought a massive, slow, expensive Dump Truck, completely unsuited for our needs.

It’s possible that Nuclear Plants will be able, for a time, to break-even with 1%-2% utilisation - but only if there is perennial under-supply of power, routinely causing very high 30-min contract prices…

This is an unlikely scenario as Australian Super Funds have a mountain ($3.7 trillion currently) in savings looking for low-risk, high-return long-term investment opportunities, whilst right now and over the next 25 years, Australia has to double it's Electricity Generation capacity, to replace fossil fuel use.

For long-running Energy Market Stability & financial sustainability, Supply has to comfortably exceed Demand for >99%, probably 99.9% of the time.
The AEMO might have a model for long-term financial sustainability: it won’t be pretty for operators with a $500/MW-hr cost.

Which will increase the average price earned, borne by consumers: higher, not lower, costs.

For expensive Nuclear Plants to be profitable, consumers will have to pay higher electricity costs either directly or via higher taxes. The opposite of Dutton's claim of "lower prices".

The most likely scenario is for Dutton's Nuclear Power Co to be the most extraordinary White Elephant Australia has ever seen, while we can guarantee Dutton and the Liberal Party won't compensate taxpayers with the $100 Billion wasted.

Something that has to be included in large projects, especially for Nuclear Power, is the "Whole of Life" costs - not just building and operating, but shutting down, decommissioning, full remediation of the site and building 1,000 year safe 'repositories' for the high-level waste of spent fuel rods.
Presumably, this more than doubles the cost of already obscenely expensive power plants.

This is why Dutton can find no private investors willing to build his Nuclear Power Co, it's financially unsound and extremely high risk - all downside and no upside.
If his seven vanity reactors are built in 25 years, they'll end up as millstones around the taxpayers neck, and 'Stranded Assets' that multiple future generations of taxpayers will have to fund.

Compared to the alternative of large storage batteries deployed throughout the community, storing power when the Sun Shines and Wind blows for when it doesn't and times of Peak Demand, Nuclear isn't in the race... It's Storage and daylight.

Dutton cannot offer both “Lower Power Prices” and “No tax increase” without seriously cutting government services & tax transfers and knows it. This could be the most mendacious part of his plan... 


An EnergySmart Plan. Positioning Queensland for a Diversified Energy Future 2010 - 2050 

Nov 2010, Queensland Government report  

Ergon and ENERGEX will each spend $6 billion (that is $12B combined) in capital expenditure over the next five years to cope with extraordinary consumption during a fraction of the year, rather than the average consumption over the course of the year.

To put this into perspective, ENERGEX has over $900M in assets that are only used for approximately 3.5 days per year. (Mark Paterson, ENERGEX, The SPRA Standard).


Seismic Probabilistic Risk Assessment Possibly the SPRA acronym above.


AER: Review of Energex's maximum demand forecasts for the 2010 to 2015 price review

Modelling of Queenslands' power demand, including Spatial Reconciliation.


Energy data 

Australian Energy Statistics 

Australian energy intensity and energy productivity:  generating more $ of GDP per PJ


Australian Energy Update 2023 

Australian Energy Flows & Interactive HTML 

Energy Flows: where’s nuclear going to sit when heavy haulage goes Electric and network demand doubles?

Australian energy consumption, by sector 2021-22 [ PDF, Pg 11]

Table 14 National Electricity Market metered electricity generation, by fuel type [ PDF pg 34]

AEMO / NEM Market statistics: All charts
https://www.aer.gov.au/industry/registers/charts

Annual generation capacity and peak demand - NEM

This figure compares total generation capacity with peak demand (as at 1 April 2024) in the NEM since its commencement. It shows actual NEM peak demand and AEMO’s NEM peak demand forecasts.  


Australian Energy Update 2023 September 2023

 Figure 19 Cumulative capacity of accredited large-scale solar power stations [PDF, pg 32]


Wednesday, July 6, 2022

Long Response to Climate Change Denier, Letter to Editor, 2009

Cardwell_Renate-Metzger_Response

There are three broad responses to the Letter:

    1. Assumptions & Omissions
    2. Incorrect or should've known
    3. Examining Claims. [ Summary Response ]



Letter to the Editor to a regional newspaper, published in 2009.
Included as a submission to 2012 Senate Inquiry "The Social and Economic Impact of Rural Wind Farms".
Text at:
        https://stevej-on-misc.blogspot.com/2022/06/climate-change-denier-letter-to-editor.html

Sunday, July 3, 2022

Summary Response to Climate Change Denier, Letter to Editor, 2009

Original Document

Letter to the Editor to a regional newspaper, published in 2009.

Included as a submission to 2012 Senate Inquiry "The Social and Economic Impact of Rural Wind Farms".

Text:
https://stevej-on-misc.blogspot.com/2022/06/climate-change-denier-letter-to-editor.html

Long Response: Long Response


Summary response

What a hoot this letter is. Reminiscent of "Grampa" on the Simpsons, an angry old man shouting incoherently at the sky.

The author confuses 'area' and 'volume', more than once,

Monday, June 20, 2022

Climate Change Denier, Letter to the Editor in 2009. "Coal fired power stations are 96% efficient"

Below is the text of a Letter to the Editor to a small regional newspaper, published in 2009.

It was attachment 9 of a submission to 2012 Senate Inquiry "The Social and Economic Impact of Rural Wind Farms”. 

Part 2: Summary Response 

Part 3: Long Response



The context is during the "Kevin '07" Labor Government.

Monday, January 2, 2017

Creating effective Multi-Person Volunteer Groups

Creating effective Multi-Person Volunteer Groups as Unincorporated groups, Incorporated Associations or "Not For Profit" entities (Trust, Company, ...)

Comments derived from my experiences of NonProfits & Volunteer groups, using my research on Australian Skeptics Inc as a small case study.

Another puzzle piece: Richard Lead 'international tax expert' as Footnote in High Court case

Seems Richard was a phantom director for one of Vanda Gould's fraudulent off-shore Tax shelters.

Lead stuffed up in 2001, with unsigned Tax Returns naming Gould as the beneficial owner of the company (HWBB). Gould is claimed in newspaper pieces to be rather unforgiving of perceived slights - making sense of Lead's sudden disappearance from Aust. Skeptic magazine, but not the ASIC registered Foundation. [High Court Document, 2016, Lead's affidavit, 2012, and Hua Wang Bank Berhad v Commissioner of Taxation  [2014] FCA 1392]

There was also a 2004 tax case in the Admin Appeals Tribunal Australia (AATA) where Lead had to give testimony. The Judge deliberately mentioned his reluctance in giving evidence. Most names were disguised, including the beneficial owner, Gould. Which newspaper reports later unpicked.

This was the year Lead dropped from view. The judgement refers to him as 'independent accountant and tax consultant'. We might infer from that, that Lead was no longer in Gould's employ.

I once contacted the firm, CCS Partners, 154 Elizabeth Street, Sydney, Lead had used to audit the ASIC Foundation returns until 2004/5. They knew of Lead, years later, but referred me to him if I wanted a comment on his employment there.

In a webpage on Bougainville Copper Project, Lead's wife is noted as returning to her maiden name.
His address on formal documents changed as well.

Riverbend
http://www.riverbendnelligen.com/bougainvillelocation.html

Lead and others, ASIC Company Director Info for ACN-088-875-772.
ASIC search purchased for ACN-088-875-772.