Royce Kurmelovs

"By the time a gas peaker has finished its start-up sequence, a battery has already stabilized the system. If you only have gas, you’re trying to stop a bullet with a shield that takes 10 minutes to lift."

The physics of reliability: Why gas peakers alone can’t save the modern grid Most outages don’t start as a multihour energy shortage; they start as a frequency crisis. If you only have gas, you’re trying to stop a bullet with a shield that takes 10 minutes to lift, writes Arun...

"A grid relying solely on gas peakers is a grid operating with one hand tied behind its back. If we want a system that is actually resilient, we have to recognize that standalone energy storage is no longer an optional upgrade; it is a foundational requirement."

Another 🚨 @fieldnotes.co investigation is out in the wild.

This one reveals how an obscure nonprofit founded by oil & gas lawyers and funded by right-wing ideologues—and registered at a suburban Texas strip mall—has played an outsized role in Donald Trump’s assault on climate /enviro policy. 🧵

US Won’t Allow India to Become Rival Like China, Official Says The US won’t give India the same kind of economic advantages it gave China, which allowed that country to emerge as a major competitor, Deputy Secretary of State Christopher Landau said on Thursday, s...

US leaders regret allowing China to escape poverty and get on a plausible path to prosperity and they intend not to repeat that mistake anywhere else. US national security requires that the global south stay poor and weak forever www.bloomberg.com/news/article...

BYD’s Second-Generation Blade Battery Makes Western EV Tech Look Ancient The battery can add a staggering amount of range in under 10 minutes. Here's just how quick it is, and how it compares to the best Western designs.

On a 1,500-kilowatt charger, these batteries added over 500 miles of indicated range in ten minutes.

Good thing we keep you around then.

What exactly do you mean by "fixed"?

Very similar but with a different accent owing in part to the role stations, the wool and mining industries played at various points along with the massive distances and population densities involved.

FT comments section this morning - saying what everyone else is thinking, right?

There can be. Most of the population is cluster in major cities along the coast, and there are differences within cities. There is also a bush v city divide in our politics, which is its whole conversation.

Oh, I had more.

There is also, frequently, a disconnect between the conservatism of parliamentary leadership and the mood of the electorate, or even their party.

Yes and no. As snarky as my tone was, it is actually a very interesting question and a long, long story about incentive structures, norms, and patterns of behaviour, attempts to break them, and deep reactionary movements. It is also not uniform. "Blue Labor" has been an insult for a long time.

Okay, so, where should I start? We've got European colonisation, federation, the White Australia policy, the modern information environment, the role of resource extraction, the UK and US, multinational capitalism, the Whitlam dismissal, the Third Way 90s, the Accords, geography...

📣 Reportedly only 140,000 out of the 480,000 Robodebt class action members have registered to receive additional compensation in the proposed settlement.

If you're eligible, you have until 4pm tomorrow to register with Gordon Legal:

robodebtsettlement.com.au

Good work. If I recall, this is not the first offence. This time the mask slipped.

Do not engage. Please report and block.

Pro-Palestine protest organisers ‘a pack of communists’ intent on confrontation with police, Minns tells budget estimates New South Wales premier faces questions over what he told MPs who attended demonstration opposing Israeli president Isaac Herzog’s visit

"The New South Wales premier, Chris Minns, has labelled pro-Palestine protest organisers “a pack of communists” as he continues to blame them for violent clashes with police last month, amid ongoing dissent among Labor MPs about the government’s response."

Just had to block someone for trying to trojan horse anti-Jewish hatred on my feed, so I feel compelled to once again post the terms of engagement for my socials.

Goodbye Debbie.

Discussions with Board of Peace 'on hold' due to Iran war, Indonesia says Indonesia's foreign minister said talks on U.S. President Donald Trump's Gaza "Board of Peace," of which the Southeast Asian nation is a key troop-contributing ​member, were on hold due to the Middle ...

Indonesia may be realizing the drawbacks to Prabowo’s recent charm offensive seeking to ingratiate himself with the Trump administration. I expect we might see some recalibration in coming weeks: www.reuters.com/world/asia-p...

Motion by leave A motion moved to suspend standing orders by Senator Gallagher was agreed to. Senator Gallagher moved a motion to discharge the Freedom of Information Amendment Bill 2025 from the Notice Paper - debate in progress

We love to see it. ⚰️

‘We got there!’: Text messages reveal Woodside’s negotiating tactics Private text messages between Woodside officials and senior Australian decision-makers lift the lid on how the industry engages with government to get results.

"A Woodside spokesperson said it was wrong to describe what took place as lobbying, pointing to provisions within federal environment laws that require the government to consult on conditions it attaches to environmental approvals processes."

Sea Levels Are Already Higher Than Many Scientists Think, New Study Shows

“from a global perspective, the findings indicate that hundreds of millions more people — particularly in… Southeast Asian & Pacific nations — are living closer to sea level than widely assumed by Western experts & policymakers”

www.nytimes.com/2026/03/04/c...

All the involved groups are denying the reports that Kurdish fighters have entered Iran

And Anne Aly was sent out to take the bullet.

Labor explores more changes to home battery rebate in cost-cutting push If implemented, it would be the second tweak in six months as the government casts a wide net in its search for ways to cut spending before the May budget.

The Albanese government is modelling changes to its generous home battery subsidy scheme that could have the $7 billion policy scaled back for the second time in six months as Labor casts a wide net in its search for ways to cut spending before the May budget.
www.afr.com/policy/energ...

The largest daily newspaper in Israel published an opinion piece by someone arguing for the total redrawing of the Middle Eastern borders— first by dismantling Lebanon and Syria and reconstituting them into half a dozen or more smaller, ethnic statelets.

I discovered something that just nauseated me to my core today - Polymarket has a huge number of bets running on climate impacts and disasters

An entirely new flavour of disaster capitalism

Chimpanzees Are Really Into Crystals

This article is amazing.