South Australia, the second cheapest electricity in Australia … or the most expensive?

Previous post detailed electricity prices of four states in Australia, coming to the conclusion that the electricity prices of South Australia were without any doubt the highest of those four states. In the meanwhile, I came across several other sources that also claimed that South Australia has the highest electricity price for consumers in Australia.

Now imagine my surprise reading the last paragraph of the Wikipedia article on “Energy in Australia” (my emphasis):

It was claimed in 2017 that South Australia had the most expensive electricity in the world [⁵⁰] Another analysis claimed that South Australia has the second cheapest electricity in Australia.[⁵¹]

South Australia, the second cheapest electricity in Australia?!?!

In my limited dataset with only four states, South Australia had -by far- the highest average electricity price for consumers. This means that South Australia is at best the fourth cheapest in Australia (if all other not listed states were more expensive). How does this “second cheapest electricity” claim square with being at best the fourth most expensive, possibly even the most expensive?

Advertisement

All gone by the year 2020: Wikipedia rewrites history (2)

This is part 5 in the series on the prediction that glaciers in Glacier National Park will be gone by 2020. You might want to see to part 1, part2, part 3 and part 4 if you haven’t already

This post is a follow-up on a previous post in this series, more specifically the post of Wikipedia rewriting history by suggesting that the 2030 prediction was a “later estimate”, following the 2020 prediction. Contrary to the reality that the 2020 estimate was an update of the 2030 estimate and the 2030 estimate was in fact rehashed after the 2020 claim was abandoned (probably because it became clear that the 2020 estimate would fail).

My take was that the Wikipedia contributor found that the 2030 estimate was made in an later snapshot of a National Park Service webpage and didn’t look at the estimates in the snapshots before 2010, therefor went from the assumption that the 2030 prediction was a later estimate. I think that this still holds, but that there is more to it than that.

All gone by the year 2020: Wikipedia rewrites history (1)

This is part 3 in the series on the prediction that glaciers in Glacier National Park will be gone by 2020. You might want to see to part 1 and part2 if you haven’t already

The title of this page has been updated to reflect an later update.

During my research on the “All gone by the year 2020” prediction, I also encountered the Wikipedia page about the Glacier National Park (U.S.). My attention was immediately drawn to the sequence of the predicted estimates when glaciers would be gone according to a Wikipedia contributor (my emphasis):

Based on the warming trend of the early 2000s, scientists had estimated that the park’s remaining glaciers would melt by 2020;[52] however, a later estimate stated that the glaciers may be gone by 2030.[5]

As it is stated, it is seems that the “glaciers would melt by 2020” prediction came first and was followed by the later “gone by 2030” prediction. I went through a lot of material about those predictions in the last week and this statement is in fact the reverse of what happened in reality. The 2020 estimate was a 2009 update of the 2030 estimate that was made originally made in 2003. This post will explain how the Wikipedia contributor managed to switch the two.