To paraphrase Clarence Darrow, I have never wished a private enterprise to fail, but I have smiled at a great many financial reports. Especially when they concern painfully woke billionaires whose latest “renewable” scheme has gone bust.
A fall out between two of the nation’s richest men has led to the abrupt implosion of the $30bn Sun Cable project, one of the world’s biggest solar and battery projects which had aimed to turbocharge Australia into a major international clean energy exporter.
Did somebody say “Solyndra”?
Sun Cable was placed into administration on Wednesday after a dramatic scrap between its two high-profile backers – Mike Cannon-Brookes and Andrew Forrest.
Oh, look, Marge: they’re fighting over our money again.
Cannon-Brookes is, of course, the billionaire owner of a chain of mansions, who lectures we peasants to make do with less for the sake of the planet. Who uses his massive wealth to buy reliable fossil-fuelled energy infrastructure, solely to scrap it — and drive up the power bills of ordinary citizens.
Forrest is the billionaire who owes his entire fortune to communist China, yet lectures Australia about its piddling contribution to global CO2 emissions. Also while kowtowing to the Chinese Communist Party, which oversees the largest slave regime in the world, Forrest pontificates about eradicating slavery.
It couldn’t happen to a more deserving pair.
The fallout threatens to sink one of Australia’s biggest energy projects, pitched as a vision for how the nation could move away from fossil fuels and become a major renewable energy exporter.
The Australian
Another dodgy “renewable” scheme goes tits-up? Oh dear, how sad. Anyway…
To the surprise of absolutely no one, climate-deranged government meddling in the energy market is blowing up in their faces, yet again.
The Albanese government’s plan to compensate New South Wales and Queensland for imposing a cap on coal prices could run “significantly” above $500m with most of the money directed to coal-fired power plants, according to Treasury briefings.
Can we make the Family Feud “bah-bow!” sound?
The compensation for the $125 a tonne price cap for black coal is part of the package announced by the government on Friday to lower energy prices. There would be compensation for coalminers but the bulk of the money would be for power stations, sources say.
“The generators would get the lion’s share,” one of those briefed told Guardian Australia. “It could be significantly higher than $500m,” they said, with the figure possibly running to hundreds of millions of dollars more.
This is what happens when you put a bunch of Arts graduates in charge of running a country’s energy infrastructure.
Naturally, the Basket-Weaving graduates in the Greens aren’t happy that the wrong billionaires are scarfing up taxpayer money.
The Greens leader, Adam Bandt, said his party would not support compensation for coal. He urged the government to provide more detail on its plan and reiterated calls for a windfall profits tax on fossil fuels. He said the Greens hoped to reach an agreement before parliament resumed on Thursday.
Guardian Australia
Big union bosses are also complaining about “Giving half a billion dollars to some of the richest CEOs in the country”.
Unless, of course, it’s ultra-rich CEOs who spout the approved woke catchphrases, while trousering hundreds of millions of our taxes.