Australian Politics
Wednesday, July 06, 2022
Religious group members arrested over eight-year-old Elizabeth Struhs' death
This is a recurring problem. There are always some people who are so confident in their religious beliefs that they are prepared to risk the well-being of their children over it. On this occasion the fanatics discontinued the girl's diabetes medication in the belief that prayer alone would cure her
This is not a problem of religion. 99% of Christians don't go to such lengths. It is a problem of egotism -- of being certain despite all contrary evidence that you are right in your judgements. Inflated views of yourself too often lead to great evils.
The four men and eight women, aged 19 to 64, are expected to be charged with murder later today.
Elizabeth's parents, 50-year-old Jason Struhs and 46-year-old Kerrie Struhs, have already been charged over the girl's death.
Police said the group was aware of the eight-year-old's medical condition and did not seek medical assistance.
More than 30 officers conducted a search at a residence in Homestead Avenue, in Harristown, where 12 residents were arrested.
Detective Acting Superintendent Garry Watts said the investigation was unprecedented. "In my 40 years of policing, I've never faced a matter like this," he said. "And I'm not aware of a similar event in Queensland, let alone Australia."
Detective Watts said the group were expected to be charged tonight and appear in the Toowoomba Magistrates Court on Wednesday.
Sources have told the ABC the religious group is a small and tight-knit group with no ties to any established church in Toowoomba.
Jason and Kerrie Struhs, who are facing charges including murder, torture, and failing to provide necessities of life, were last before the Toowoomba Magistrates Court in late June.
Appearing via video link the pair again chose to represent themselves. They were remanded in custody and will return to court later in July.
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Aussies could be first in world to get Omicron booster
Australia is set to be one of the first countries in the world to get access to an Omicron booster jab.
Moderna’s new Covid vaccine designed to fight the original Wuhan strain of the virus, as well as the Omicron variant, is currently being assessed by the Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA).
“If approved, the company will be able to supply this new Omicron-containing bivalent booster vaccine within weeks- putting Australia among the first countries in the world to have access to this new COVID-19 vaccine,” Moderna’s managing director in Australia Michael Azrak told News Corp.
Health Minister Mark Butler told News Corp he wanted to be on “the front foot” in accessing the most up to date vaccines.
“I’ve had encouraging discussions with Moderna and Pfizer about the challenges of the new sub-variants and the positive developments in vaccine technology,” Mr Butler said.
“My department is in negotiations about future supply arrangements, including for under 5-year-olds and the variant vaccines,” he said.
Epidemiologists and other experts have been calling for more Australians to get a fourth jab as hospitals and health services buckle under massive pressure from both Covid and the flu.
The government’s expert advisory group on vaccines the Australian Technical Advisory Group on Immunisation (ATAGI) was meeting on Wednesday to decide whether more Australians should get access to a fourth Covid booster.
There are more than 16 million unused doses of the existing Covid vaccines siting in warehouses and doctors clinics.
Currently a fourth dose is only available to the elderly and those who are immunocompromised or suffering certain chronic conditions.
The existing Covid vaccines were designed to work against the original Wuhan variant.
A fourth dose of these vaccines has been shown in Israel to provide a 10-30 per cent increase in resistance to infection but this protection wanes within five to eight weeks.
However, this could be enough to get Australia through the worst of the winter outbreak.
But there is concern about whether the original jab provides much protection against the new BA. 4 and BA. 5 variants sweeping the nation.
These variants appear resistant to the existing vaccine and the antibodies produced by people who were infected with the original Omicron variant.
Mr Butler has appointed former Health Department chief Jane Halton to review Australia’s vaccine purchasing arrangements. She is expected to report within weeks.
Moderna said it “continues to have constructive discussions with the Australian Government regarding the supply of Moderna’s next generation Omicron containing bivalent vaccine booster for people 18 years and older”.
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The Key climate drivers behind record rainfall in New South Wales
The heavy rainfall along the eastern New South Wales coast that has led to major flooding in some catchments over the past week can be linked to changes to several climate drivers.
While the Bureau of Meteorology's latest climate driver update confirms the 2021-22 La Niña has ended, there are several other climate influences associated with above-average rainfall in eastern Australia.
The Bureau's 2022 winter outlook showed above average rainfall over the coming months, particularly for most of eastern and northern Australia, due to warmer than usual waters around the continent and more moisture-filled air being directed into eastern Australia.
The July rainfall event was influenced by the Indian Ocean Dipole, likely to become negative in the coming months, and the positive Southern Annular Mode (SAM).
The Indian Ocean Dipole (IOD) refers to the difference in sea surface temperatures between the western and eastern Indian Ocean. In the negative phase, warmer waters concentrate near Australia, leading to above average winter–spring rainfall as more moisture is available to weather systems crossing the continent.
The SAM refers to the non-seasonal, north-south movement of the strong westerly winds that blow almost continuously in the mid- to high-latitudes of the southern hemisphere. In the positive phase, the SAM directs more moisture-filled air than usual into eastern Australia, driving above average rainfall and more east coast lows in winter.
During this recent rainfall event, very warm waters off the Australian coast (21-23°C) provided extra energy and moisture contributing to the deep trough and east coast low, leading to the relative concentration of the heavy rainfall to one 24-hour period.
The Campbelltown gauge, with more than 30 years of data, recorded its highest ever daily total rainfall amount for any month, while six gauges with more than 100 years of observations have set a record 4-day total for July.
Dozens of gauges from Nowra on the South Coast to Newcastle and the Hunter Valley have set daily rainfall records for July.
Media Release from Bureau of Meteorology [media@bom.gov.au] Issued: Tuesday, 5 July 2022
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Powering ahead on renewables, and damn the high costs
As Europe turns towards coal-fired power in response to scarce and expensive natural gas – think Germany, Austria, The Netherlands and Britain – it’s all systems go here for even more investment in renewable energy to generate electricity. This is notwithstanding the inherent intermittency of renewable energy and the problems of firming electricity to meet our 24/7 demand.
Last week’s release of the final version of the Integrated System Plan of the Australian Energy Market Operator is the latest example of well-intentioned aspiration trumping the grim realities of engineering and economics.
Against the backdrop of the closures of coal-fired plants that already have occurred, AEMO anticipates a further reduction of 8000 megawatts by decade’s end but concedes it may be 14,000MW – a big difference.
Look at what happened when the 1600MW brown coal-fired Hazelwood plant closed unexpectedly in 2017, in part because Victoria’s Labor government raised the royalty rate on coal. Wholesale prices shot up, notwithstanding the Premier’s assurances any price impact of the closure would be negligible.
Owners of power plants are now required to give at least three years’ notice of plans to close them. Origin Energy announced it would close its 2800MW Eraring coal-fired plant in NSW in 2025, bringing its exit forward by seven years. This case illustrates the potential strains the national electricity market will face.
AEMO’s response is to place great store by accelerated investment in renewable energy – AEMO’s chief executive describes the required expenditure as “staggering” – and to “urgently sanction $10bn of transmission projects”. The hope is that additional storage will enable the NEM to provide reliable electricity while meeting decarbonising objectives. What happens to price is another matter.
There is a chart in AEMO’s 100-page blockbuster which, by the way, is replete with dubious assumptions. There we learn about the rapid exit of dispatchable power, particularly brown and black coal. (They currently account for about 60 per cent of all power generated, on average.)
But since there are no realistic options for affordable, long-duration storage beyond pumped hydro (itself limited), the picture that emerges is a substantial fall in the proportion of dispatchable power that will be available. What occurred in the NEM recently – supply falling short of demand, rapidly rising prices and AEMO suspending the market – could become a regular occurrence.
Given the intermittent nature of renewables, it is necessary to have enough dispatchable power to cover close to the total amount of demand, despite the fact there will be times when renewable energy can meet more than 80 per cent of total demand. The degree of redundancy in the system is high and it’s one reason the cost of electricity is likely to skyrocket – it already has increased substantially – under AEMO’s scenarios.
It is worth querying AEMO’s call to arms on transmissions investment. The immediate projects cited are in the works but are unlikely to proceed at the pace AEMO regards as necessary.
There are significant problems securing planning approvals; locals understandably are not keen to have large pylons in their backyards. There are also shortages of necessary supplies and workers.
Bear in mind regulatory approval of new transmission lines guarantees a rate of return to the owner, which also drives up the price of electricity to consumers. A network of new transmission lines crisscrossing rural Australia, some of which will be lightly used, will help renewable energy get to market but will contribute to a further loss of affordability. (Transmission/infrastructure costs make up about 40 per cent of electricity prices.)
AEMO’s report was not the only one released recently that has a bearing on the NEM. The Energy Security Board issued a high-level design paper on a capacity mechanism. According to this report, “we could get the timing (of the transformation of the NEM) wrong (too little, too late) or the mix wrong (not enough dispatchable capacity, including long-duration storage, to firm variable renewable energy). The results would mean high prices (driven by scarcity and uncertainty-inflated costs of capital).”
One solution is to pay “providers of capacity to have their capacity available during certain periods, which will help reduce the risk of a disorderly transition”.
While the design features are important, the key is to ensure 24/7 power at the least cost by getting providers to bid in to auctions to meet specified capacity needs.
Such a mechanism is important to deal with low probability events with serious consequences. A prolonged windless period that occurred in Europe last year is a case in point. Solar power also can be disrupted for days at a time.
The possibility of a capacity mechanism is raising alarm bells with some green activists and renewables investors. Victoria’s Energy Minister unconvincingly declared that the building of offshore turbines in the state – at four times the cost of onshore ones – obviated the need for such a mechanism. There is some opposition to the inclusion of gas as a source of energy, while coal is close to a no-go.
The idea of each participating state and the ACT being able to specify their energy sources within a capacity mechanism could potentially sound the death knell for the NEM. After all, an electron is an electron however sourced and there are interconnectors between participants. In other words, this idea makes no sense at all. The only conclusion to draw is that the NEM is a complete mess and there is a strong likelihood that its performance may decline even further. The idea that we require even more renewables investment – a sevenfold increase, in fact – has to be assessed against the highly subsidised investment that has already occurred.
As the ESB notes, “since 2012, more than 90 per cent of investment in electricity generation in the eastern states has been in wind and solar. And, in per capita terms, Australia has the highest rate of renewable grid-scale generation in the world. It’s about 10 times the world average.”
Without dispatchable power, we are heading in the direction of possible blackouts and load-shedding and even higher electricity prices. The Europeans have woken up this fact; we are just late on the scene. By the time it is fully recognised that we have taken the wrong turn, it will be a long, painful and expensive process to rectify the problems.
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Also see my other blogs. Main ones below:
http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM -- daily)
http://antigreen.blogspot.com (GREENIE WATCH)
http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)
http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)
http://snorphty.blogspot.com/ (TONGUE-TIED)
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Evelyn Rae, a conservative Australian political commentator
Margo Robbie -- a beautiful australian
My son Joe at ANU
One of the happiest pictures ever -- Cleo Smith, aged 4
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