Opening with an argument that Britain's energy privatisation drove i) a slowing of capital (re)investment, leading to ii) falling productivity and increasing prices as the market reorganised around a higher cost of private capital (go build that low capex/high opex gas!)

Really excited for @arthurdowning.bsky.social's new book on the political-economic history of electricity in Britain: industrial development, municipal supply, nationalisation and privatisation, from pioneering growth to today's crises. I've been reading Arthur's work for a while - well worth a look

Great, great piece today on the challenges of building new wind generation in Australia: www.abc.net.au/news/2026-08... Key pics to me are below. Costs have ~doubled while the market value of wind energy has fallen. Lots of heavy-handed public support needed to push past this barrier, I think.

Can't say I followed Sussan Ley's political career all that closely, but genuinely enjoyed this piece on her post-politics pivot to Greyhound bus travel writer: www.afr.com//politics/fe...

Enjoyed reading today's release of CSIRO GenCost: lots of good content, and most importantly it has the honesty to state that decarbonising *will* increase power costs somewhat but that those costs are modest and obviously worthwhile. Hopefully AEMO can find the same clarity one day...

Literally me on holiday the other week:

Aus energy Christmas! AEMO's 2026 ISP releases today, our national energy plan for the future. Important to remember: • This is a plan, not a prediction. It won't happen without the right incentives. • Govt policy wishes are input constraints, regardless of likelihood www.aemo.com.au/-/media/file...

Great piece here from Os, making a strong argument that public fears of multiculturalism are effectively a misdiagnosis of the root causes behind a broader collapse of societal institutions and participatory democracy.

High-culture Viennese fashion

I don't quite follow the "six months payoff" thought - assuming 25% PV efficiency, I'd have thought local thermal albedo would be ~26-27% and so will still deliver more heating than a white surface? But potentially less than soil or grass?

I'm in Slovenia for a few days of walking, and staying next to a small church with a remarkably extended 7am wakeup bellringing session. Works for me! But from the 1.7 star rating on google, seems not everyone's a fan

What a world where ABC Arts is publishing articles grounded in vintage 4chan posts: www.abc.net.au/news/2026-05...

Krugman on oil demand elasticity and proper price outcomes: open.substack.com/pub/paulkrug... Now thinking on how to treat producers withdrawing traded supply to prioritise domestic demand. Is that effectively a high-WtP inelastic demand signal, or something different and distinctly nonlinear?

Following a seven month outage after blowing an LP turbine last August, Yallourn 2 came back online yesterday. Seems like a lot of effort for a unit that's meant to retire in mid '28 wattclarity.com.au/market-opera...

Sad to say of what used to be a beloved public institution, but the ABC seems unsalvageable. A week of horse-race reporting on whether sending cops to break pensioners' backs polls well, almost no mention (let alone analysis) of rights or national principles - this org is cooked. Let it die.

Only six months late but I really enjoyed this preso from @dylanjmcconnell.bsky.social touching on one of my favourite niche energy topics: diesel! Pipeline gas has real challenges meeting seasonal peaking needs - big tanks of liquid fuel are a great complement www.ceem.unsw.edu.au/sites/defaul...

NSW Police playing some very stupid games tonight while suppressing protests against Chris Minns's (and Jeffrey Epstein's?) mate Isaac Herzog. Police blocked the crowd on George St from both ends then moved in behind pepper spray to squeeze it. Fortunately few panicked - could have been a real mess.

always

Finally made it out to Lake Gordon after a day walk in the southwest to see the monumental Gordon Dam - built 1974, 140m high, with a stark double-curvature that leaves you overhanging when walking over the top

Hobbytools.com.au will sell you a basic compressor and a very nice Iwata Eclipse for a bit over $400 - and it's every bit as satisfying as you might think

Not great!

Excellent essay here on the slow strangling of mass literary culture in the West - most clearly in the US, but it's obviously happening here too

Utterly deranged writing here forced by Australia's ridiculous defo laws

Incredible piece here, bringing together some clear insights into the thinking driving America's technical/economic self-immolation at the altar of a millenarian quest for AGI. Definitely check out the linked FP piece, too

Still thinking about energy market complexity and possible topologies that can scale to accommodate >millions of energy assets providing co-optimised energy and network support services. Two fundamental structures come to mind - are there others? (I accept this is all very conceptual/hypothetical!)

I love these new charts on wind lulls & correlation. Managing long winter periods of correlated low wind availability is IMO *the* big reliability challenge for a mostly-renewable system in temperate latitudes.

Hot new Q2 Quarterly Energy Dynamics! aemo.com.au/-/media/file... Intermittent renewable seasonality means most grids will become winter peaking systems. In the NEM that means June/July is the painful part of the year - look at that evening price peak! Many more batteries needed to bring it down.

SMH implying a new take on the production challenges of AUKUS: out Trump's contacts to use and go make a deal with Sevmash for some Borei boats

Saw this today, and it looks like a decent approach: www.smh.com.au/property/new...

The goal of the REGO is *not* to incentivise new generation - that's what the CIS is for. The REGO is designed to have the flexibility to recognise a range of attributes (e.g. additionality, time-matching), but it's a tool for compliance: it's not a demand signal for any of those things.