Oil giant Venezula, Green giant Tasmania – both running out of electricity

Venezuela Shuts down

In a land where energy makes up 25% of their GDP and most of their exports – it takes some management to run out of electricity. Apparently the land of oil needs some fossil fuel generation.

Venezuela to Shut Down for a Week to Cope With Electricity Crisis

The government has rationed electricity and water supplies across the country for months and urged citizens to avoid waste as Venezuela endures a prolonged drought that has slashed output at hydroelectric dams.

The socialist solution? Blame the weather:

The ruling socialists have blamed the shortage on the El Nino weather phenomena and “sabotage” by their political foes, while critics cite a lack of maintenance and poor planning.

And hope for help from heaven:

“We’re hoping, God willing, rains will come,” Maduro said in a national address Saturday. “Look, the saving is more than 40 percent when these measures are taken. We’re reaching a difficult place that we’re trying to manage.”

Looks like Venezuela will be doing its bit for the Paris agreement then.

h/t Willie

The Green state — Tasmania — has an electricity crisis and is now running on dirty diesel

Due to profiteering and bad planning the Tasmanian hydro dams are only 15% full. They shut down their “back up” gas power last August, and then the sole cable across the Bass Strait broke in December. Now they’re flying in diesel generators to keep the lights on. (Golly. Don’t those windfarms work?) Indeed the ABC news says they were desperate enough to try cloud seeding too, to hopefully make it rain on the dams. Welcome to the new green energy where we seed clouds to generate electricity.

The Marcus Review brilliantly sums up the Five Part Act of the Tasmanian Energy Scandal. It’s greed, mismanagement and bad practice all the way down.

First they had one cable, and only one cable. Second their own generation relied heavily on hydro. Thirdly, they run down their dams to sell expensive electricity to Victoria when the Carbon Tax made it more profitable. (See: “greed”). Fourthly the government commissioned the Tamar Gas power station as a back up, built it, but then gave it to Tas Hydro, which cannabilized it and then shut it down to sell it off. That project was only started in 2009, yet the new plant was decommissioned in August 2015, deemed “unnecessary”, just four months before the cable broke.

As the Marcus Review says:

“The decision to sell the Tamar Valley gas station’s major operating component in August 2015 was made despite the fact that:

Tasmania was in the middle of a dry spell; and

Hydro Tasmania had already savaged the State’s stored hydro energy supply to less than 30% (with summer coming around the corner).

Not to worry, it’s not like the Tamar Valley gas station cost around a quarter of a billion dollars to build and was still in brand new condition or anything. Oh, wait a minute…”

“When you add it all up, Tasmania is now laughably and hopelessly reliant on the dirtiest forms of fossil fuel for its survival. Insane amounts of money have been squandered.”

The cable probably won’t be fixed til June by which time the dams will be down to 6% full, and the eco-greens who don’t want people to burn coal, also don’t want the water used to make electricity calling it “environmental vandalism” to run the dams so low. Perhaps if the Greens had protested against the closure of the gas power station they might have been able to save more flora and fauna in the dam valleys now?

If the Wilderness Society cared about the outcomes for environment, they could start a new campaign and call it: “Fossil Fuels for Flora and Fauna”!

h/t Robert O, Analitik, Dennis, ROM.

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