This is the story of how a fund chaired by former Labor PM Julia Gillard acquired a wind farm project just six days before Labor Energy Minister Chris Bowen underwrote its future revenues with taxpayer money. Today we've learned Julia's fund is trying to flip it. For a profit.

If anyone finds anyone who holds an office where they might have a duty to be truthful/sane, (not politicians, I’m thinking senior bureaucrats, directors of public companies) still repeating the ‘renewables are cheaper’ claim please point them out.

A bloke can’t claim to have a decent shed of tools out back if he doesn’t have at least one or two of these contraptions. 😍😝.

Brain dump…. Gotta get this off my chest. I think I know why AEMO has kept system security requirements so vague. It makes more sense when you realise how the regulatory process is about to be used to fund private battery investments.

As a follow-up, by far the best single-tweet take on this year’s GenCost is here. The lack of transparency from @CSIRO is inexcusable.

The GenCost report from @CSIRO is going to be remembered as the downfall of the credibility of a once trusted institution. Their resistance to telling the truth, transparently, is appalling.

Here is the Keynote panel from Diggers and Dealers, which is in the top three mining industry conferences globally. It was a pleasure to share the stage with Tom Switzer and @Dr_Keefer. I argue that the “energy transition” died a couple of years ago, and is only showing signs of.

This is a slide from HMC Capital's Investor Day slide pack from April. @JuliaGillard Chairs HMC Capital's 'Energy Transition Platform'. And here they are showing off to investors that they have received a revenue guarantee (worth maybe ~$1bn?) from Chris Bowen. They are

About to land. no time to dissect how they managed to close. There's a tiny bit of mystery there, it seems that it could be almost all with debt still. But they're selling down other assets too. I think the stress is showing. 16/16.

So, it's really no wonder that they are still trying to raise. The official deck confirms that they've swallowed all their own propaganda, and will be entirely dependent on subsidies. And yet think their "investment thesis. remains as strong as ever." 🤣.15/

And then there's this ridiculous demand growth projection. Note that it's actually dead flat, until you add in all the fantasy stuff like electrification, hydrogen, and data-centres. None of which will happen with expensive electricity, which wind and solar is. 14/

As it turns out, coal is doing very nicely on a commercial basis. Origin declined the underwriting to extend. Coal can and will endure profitably, even in weather-induced volatility, if they're allowed to. Trap for woke bankers right here. 13/.

Next, they imply that the demise of coal is not policy dependent, and assume that renewables inevitably are required for replacement. (And displary the 2024 ISP projections, which is pure policy-driven garbage, divorced from reality.) 12/

This is renewabro nonsense of the highest order. If having 10X the land required was any indication that renewables could be cost-effective, the tragedy unfolding in the UK wouldn't be occurring. It doesn't work economically, even with enough land! 11/.

So, it might be worth checking the story that no-one's buying. They held an investor day back at the start of April. Their first slide on energy says Australia has 400X the land we need for renewables. The UK has 10X. 10/

That ,of course, is exactly what they said was the situation a month ago. When they failed to settle as scheduled. All options were on the table. I think the real story is that no good options have emerged yet. And they're left reapplying lipstick to the pig. 9/

And don't forget, a little over a week ago, it was widely reported that they were actually trying to sell the portfolio. My guess is they're trying anything/everything. Sell, hold, raise, refinance. Whatever they can, whichever way. 8/.

You can see that the pig's lipstick is starting to look a little worn. It now appears that their fundraising target is cut in half, down to $1bn, and they're also only expecting "at least" 15% returns to equity. Originally they projected 20%. 7/.

It should be hard to get anyone to buy in. As I discuss in this thread, Di Pilla and Gillard seem to have exactly the wrong idea about how energy works. As I said at Diggers, this is a superb example of a banker swallowing the political BS whole. 6/.

Before they pounced on HMC assets, just before Chris Bowen underwrite one of their development projects, the plan was to raise $2bn, starting in second half of last year. So, more than a year later, they're still scratching around looking for someone to buy in. 5/

In December last year, when they bought the portfolio with IOU's and debt, they were adamant that fundraising was "on track" for first half of calendar year 2025. Before the financial close that was due 1 July this year. 4/