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Dylan McConnell @dylanjmcconnell.bsky.social · 5h

Lot's of RE curtailment in the NEM - just ticked over 6TWh for the last 12 months

Not every electron is sacred - but there's plenty of room for improvement!

More words and lots of figures in the piece below -

💡🔌

theenergy.co/article/lear...

Learning to live with curtailment

Rising curtailment is playing havoc with the economics of new wind and solar projects

theenergy.co

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Reposted by Dylan McConnell

Collaboration on Energy and Environmental Markets (CEEM) @ceemunsw.bsky.social · 10h

💡🔌A new article from Ben Potter explores curtailment of renewable generation in the NEM with the help of CEEM's Dylan McConnell and some illuminating charts, as spring rolls on and curtailment reaches new peaks. ☀️

🔗 Check out the full piece here: theenergy.co/article/lear...

Learning to live with curtailment

Rising curtailment is playing havoc with the economics of new wind and solar projects

theenergy.co

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Reposted by Dylan McConnell

Joshua Basseches @joshuabasseches.bsky.social · 1d

Union of Concerned Scientists report out with some nice recommendations for how to avoid captive residential customers paying for the infrastructure needs of data centers owned by tech giants (which is currently happening):

Customers in 7 PJM states paid $4.4B for data center transmission in 2024: report

Transmission lines built for data centers fall into a "regulatory gap,” with utility customers on the hook for the costs, the Union of Concerned Scientists said.

www.utilitydive.com

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Reposted by Dylan McConnell

Kevin J. CREATURE @kevinjkircher.com · 2d

$16 billion. That's how much the PJM market monitor estimates that electricity ratepayers will pay via increased utility bills to subsidize interconnection of data centers owned by Big Tech. A massive give-away to some of the most profitable companies in the world.

www.eenews.net/articles/dat...

Data center boom sparks sticker shock for PJM ratepayers

New analyses show that costs passed on to utility customers to guarantee future electricity demand are rising rapidly.

www.eenews.net

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Reposted by Dylan McConnell

Costa Samaras @costasamaras.com · 2d

"At its peak, Musk had around 35 natural-gas turbines at the site, capable of producing 420 megawatts of power, enough to power the roughly 250,000 homes in the Memphis city limits"

35 (!) full-sized power plants for this one data center run by the world's worst poster.
www.wsj.com/tech/elon-mu...

Elon Musk Gambles Billions in Memphis to Catch Up on AI

xAI aims to win the tech arms race with its “Colossus” data centers, thrown up at lightning speed. The city is divided over the massive power and water demands.

www.wsj.com

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Reposted by Dylan McConnell

Ketan Joshi @ketanjoshi.co · 2d

You can have a situation with rising renewable absolute output and percentages of total (and falling emissions intensity!), but also stagnant or even rising greenhouse gas emissions: when *demand* itself is rising fast.

This is very clearly the case in Aus, and it should trigger alarm bells

IN GOOD NEWS...
Renewables overtake coal for the first time on a monthly basis in Australia's main grid!
CCLIMATE COUNCIL.ORG.AU
|
...
. crowd-funded science information

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Dylan McConnell @dylanjmcconnell.bsky.social · 2d

.. are you looking at Q3 to Q3 numbers?

Black coal numbers are up Q3 to Q3 (for both 2023 to 2024, and 2024 to 2025) - including on open electricity

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Reposted by Dylan McConnell

Rick Morton @squigglyrick.bsky.social · 2d

De Brouwer made the exact same argument two years ago after the Robodebt Royal Commission report was delivered. This is how I treated it in Mean Streak: "Grow up."

Screenshot of the book Mean Streak by Rick Morton. The text reads:

for the past decade and half, when conclusive certificates were
discontinued, is counterproductive to the Parliament’s intent.
‘When it comes to deliberative material, FoI does not ensure
transparency (because advice is not being written) and it
undermines integrity (because advice is not being written).’
So officials don’t put things in writing because they might get
released under Freedom of Information laws, therefore the FoI
laws aren’t working?
Grow up.
De Brouwer is not alone in his views. Former secretaries have
been doing the rounds making exactly these kinds of noises, as if
the outcome of poor professional behaviour is the result of some
law and not … poor professional behaviour.

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Reposted by Dylan McConnell

Josh Taylor @joshtaylor.bsky.social · 2d

Makes me wonder how many more of these can be found...

Guardian Australia @australia.theguardian.com · 2d

Deloitte to pay money back to Albanese government after using AI in $440,000 report

Partial refund to be issued after several errors were found in a report into a department’s compliance framework * Get our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcast Deloitte will provide a partial refund to the federal government over a $440,000 report that contained several errors, after admitting it used generative artificial intelligence to help produce it. The Department of Employment and Workplace Relations (DEWR) confirmed Deloitte would repay the final instalment under its contract, which will be made public after the transaction is finalised. It comes as one Labor senator accused the consultancy firm of having a “human intelligence problem”. Continue reading...

www.theguardian.com

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Dylan McConnell @dylanjmcconnell.bsky.social · 2d

Some regional variation - for example in NSW, growth in underlying demand was greater than growth in RE

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Dylan McConnell @dylanjmcconnell.bsky.social · 2d

Black coal up from Q3 2024 to Q3 2025

(Growth in demand partially offsetting growth on RE)

www.afr.com/policy/energ...

Thirst for energy undermines effort to pull back from coal

A steady rise in the demand for electricity is slowing the decline of coal-fired power, even as wind and solar generation hits new highs.

www.afr.com

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Reposted by Dylan McConnell

Tom Studans @maximumwelfare.bsky.social · 3d

#BREAKING 🚨 Deloitte to refund government, admits using AI in $440k report into mutual obligations issues.

Fake quotes from Federal Court case that ended Robodebt deleted from new report in Friday DEWR dump.

📰 AFR

✍️ @paulkarp.bsky.social

✍️ @edmundtadros.bsky.social

🗣️ @chrisrudge.bsky.social

HEADLINE: Deloitte to refund government, admits AI errors in $440k report

Deloitte Australia will issue a partial refund to the federal government after admitting that artificial intelligence had been used in the creation of a $440,000 report littered with errors including three nonexistent academic references and a made-up quote from a Federal Court judgement.

A new version of the report for the Department of Workplace Relations (DEWR) was quietly uploaded to the department’s website on Friday, ahead of a long weekend across much of Australia. It features more than a dozen deletions of nonexistent references and footnotes, a rewritten reference list, and corrections to multiple typographic errors.

(photo of Deloitte Australia HQ) Deloitte Australia has made almost $25 million worth of deals with the Department of Workplace Relations since 2021. Photographer Dion Georgopoulos

The first version of the report, about the IT system used to automate penalties in the welfare system such as pauses on the dole, was published in July. Less than a month later, Deloitte was forced to investigate the report after University of Sydney academic Dr Christopher Rudge highlighted multiple errors in the document.

At the time, Rudge speculated that the errors may have been caused by what is known as “hallucinations” by generative AI. This is where the technology responds to user queries by inventing references and quotes. Deloitte declined to comment.

The incident is embarrassing for Deloitte as it earns a growing part of its $US70.5 billion ($107 billion) in annual global revenue by providing advice and training clients and executives about AI. The firm also boasts about its widespread use of the technology within its global operations, while emphasising the need to always have humans review any output of AI.

SUBHEADING: Deleted references, footnotes

The revised report has deleted a dozen references to two nonexistent reports by Professor Lisa Burton Crawford, a law professor at the University of Sydney, that were included in the first version. Two references to a nonexistent report by Professor Björn Regnell, of Lund University in Sweden, were also deleted in the new report.

Also deleted was a made up reference to a court decision in a leading robo-debt case, Deanna Amato v Commonwealth.

The new report has also deleted a reference to “Justice Davis” (a misspelling of Justice Jennifer Davies) and the made-up quote from the nonexistent paragraphs 25 and 26 in the judgement: “The burden rests on the decision-maker to be satisfied on the evidence that the debt is owed. A person’s statutory entitlements cannot lawfully be reduced based on an assumption unsupported by evidence.”

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Dylan McConnell @dylanjmcconnell.bsky.social · 2d

* They are still burning some coal when they are doing this - be interesting to know how much exactly.

This is what whole power station was doing: "Peaking coal" .. ~1600MW increase in space of a couple of a couple of hours.

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Dylan McConnell @dylanjmcconnell.bsky.social · 2d

This is pretty amazing from Bayswater Unit 2 over the weekend - so-called "two shifting".

i.e. black coal turning off* in the middle of the day due an abundance of RE and low prices.

🔌💡

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Dylan McConnell @dylanjmcconnell.bsky.social · 2d

It's actually from the recently published (2025) targets advice - see the "2035 Targets Advice report" available here: www.climatechangeauthority.gov.au/2035-emissio...

Screenshot is from page 36

www.climatechangeauthority.gov.au

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Reposted by Dylan McConnell

Dave Earley @earleyedition.bsky.social · 3d

In full public view, a top deputy to Stephen Miller chatted on Signal about plans to send the 82nd airborne division into Portland. Deployed in both world wars, Vietnam & Afghanistan, the 82nd is an elite unit that specialises in parachute assaults & forcible entry operations

White House official inadvertently reveals plans to send elite army unit to Portland

Anthony Salisbury displayed chat about deployment of 82nd airborne division on cell phone while in Minnesota

www.theguardian.com

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Reposted by Dylan McConnell

Tim Dunlop @timdunlop.bsky.social · 4d

What a pathetic decision.

Miriam Cosic @miriamcosic.bsky.social · 4d

Christopher Hedges: journalist, war reporter, Presbyterian minister

Revered in the industry, a powerful campaigner for the professional safety of Palestinian journalists

Never have so many been reporters been killed in a war

Cancelled by our National Press Club

open.substack.com/pub/chrished...

The National Press Club of Australia, caving to the Israeli lobby, Cancels My Talk on Our Betrayal of Palestinian Journalists

The National Press Club of Australia cancelled my talk on how the media, by amplifying Israeli lies, have betrayed Palestinian journalists, 278 of whom have been assassinated by Israel.

open.substack.com

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Reposted by Dylan McConnell

Ketan Joshi @ketanjoshi.co · 5d

"AT Proto decentralization doesn't exist as a practical reality, and if it ever does it won't be for years"

This is a great post and it is a huge, huge shame to see @jay.bsky.team switching into Musk-Mode. Absolutely irresponsible and really gross.

Olivia Guest · Ολίβια Γκεστ @olivia.science · 5d

"People don't necessarily realize this because if you try to explain to someone how AT Proto works, they immediately go to sleep, but let's try anyway."

🥲

azhdarchid.com/delusions-of...

Delusions of a Protocol

On vaporware as an ideological product.

azhdarchid.com

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Reposted by Dylan McConnell

ACLU @aclu.org · 5d

BREAKING: Our client Mario Guevara, an Emmy-winning journalist detained by ICE in retaliation for livestreaming law enforcement activity, will be deported tomorrow to El Salvador.

Mario and his family are being punished for his reporting. This cruelty is meant to stifle our free press.

660 16K 32K

Dylan McConnell @dylanjmcconnell.bsky.social · 6d

Fair - (but would also point out that previous ESoO's also said that Eraring closure would be fine if x and y happened).

(also in the NSW case, electricity price concerns were also a factor, separately from reliability - an argument which may or may not feature in this case as well).

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Reposted by Dylan McConnell

Lenore Taylor @lenoret.bsky.social · 6d

www.theguardian.com/australia-ne...

At least 29 Americans have sought asylum in Australia since second Trump presidency began

Applications from US citizens make up less than 1% of monthly applications but have risen steadily since Trump’s inauguration

www.theguardian.com

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Dylan McConnell @dylanjmcconnell.bsky.social · 6d

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Dylan McConnell @dylanjmcconnell.bsky.social · 6d

Yeah I reckon you're right .. but also this update from AEMO might scare the horses

(.. the new 'QLD Roadmap' is due next week, which might have something to say too)

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Dylan McConnell @dylanjmcconnell.bsky.social · 6d

Just a quiet reminder: what was announced was the *option* to close.

Much like the Eraring announcment, which is we all know famously closed in August of 2025.

www.theguardian.com/environment/...

Queensland’s biggest coal-fired power station could close six years early

Crisafulli government wants coal plants to run longer – reversing previous Queensland Labor government’s plans to end reliance on coal power by 2035

www.theguardian.com

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Reposted by Dylan McConnell

mr dog @firstdogonthemoon.bsky.social · 6d

Shout out to all Artificial Intelligence enthusiasts this First Dog on the Moon Spoken Cartoon is not for you soz - everyone else go and look at it! www.youtube.com/watch?v=gDBl...

Artificial Intelligence - Everyone hates it! A spoken cartoon...

YouTube video by firstdog onthemoon

www.youtube.com

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