Climate Change in Australia (Part 1)

But would you trust the same people to make it more affordable this time?

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Lots of criticism and smart-■■■■ replies but no answers to high price power, hands up all those who want to pay 0.55/kwh for electricity.
Put your name down if you believe power prices will drop in accordance with the computer models
No comments on the price of power in the state that has 42% renewables, a target that has been foreshadowed for the rest of us.
No comments on the probability of power blackouts this coming summer.
No comments of the threats from the government regarding scheduled maintenance.
No comments on reopening of mothballed plants.

BATTERIES, THATS THE ANSWER.

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Weather does not equal Climate.

Higher energy prices was due only to renewable energy as opposed to the owners of gas / coal plants jacking up the prices to take an opportunity to rip off the consumer? How about the electricity companies in Adelaide buying people’s power for 6.8c per kwh? I noticed that hasn’t gone up. Has anyone discussed the price of replacing the turbines that need replacing? How much is all that going to cost cause it will need to be done soon (given they are on average over 50 years old)? Will this drive down prices? Where are these projections for power prices? If prices are so high why isn’t there any new construction happening taking advantage of these high prices? Surely there is money to be made here right?

When people here from both sides argue the full picture instead of always focusing on one detail i’ll talk more.

This isn’t really directed at you, Trip, because I know you’ll ignore it, but it’s an interesting point.

The reason why cutting the carbon tax has likely increased power prices (and you can’t completely put it down to the carbon tax of course, but it’s definitely a factor) is because of investment uncertainty. Investors in big energy projects expect there to be some sort of climate policy, but until they know what it is they’re not going to spend big money on new generation.

The lack of new generation leads to increased power prices because there’s less competition. I’m not sure what level you got to in economics but less competition increases the cost of something. It does not reduce it.

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Not to mention privatising the Electricity sector in the 1st place, … leaving it to be more about making profit & keeping shareholders happy & getting wealthier.

Making huge money by taking it out of the pockets of working people etc that the waffler purports to care about so much.

No comments on financiers not willing to back ANY new coal.

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Would you put your money into a political football.

Fair post however there was less competition 20 years ago than there is now so your argument doesn’t really stand up to reality.

100% agree on your investment uncertainty argument. As a hypothetical if government was to announce that coal was to be the primary source of energy for the next 40 years and put in water tight legislation to ensure that to be the case, then investment in coal would definitely increase as it’s a known producer of usable, cheap energy that can be produced en masse.

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I would if it was the sure thing you’re saying it is.
Were you ever going to respond to the historical comparison between CO2 and sea levels?
Just if you’re going to call people out for not responding to you…

Have you ever contemplated that maybe your assumption on this is wrong.

But, but they are building coal plants in India and China!!! Maybe they are building them there for the same reason they build clothes and electronic factories there i.e. cheap labour to both build and run the factory.

You really think in Australia it’s cheap? Guarantee that building a new coal plant would make the desal plant look like a bargain. Then once built you’ve got to deal with the 500 strong unionised workforce to run it, again not cheap.

Or you build much simpler gas or wind plants. That in turn have less or no labour to run.

Where can one download this Finkel report?

Becoming more and more convinced Essendon 12 is Peter Costello.

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http://www.environment.gov.au/energy/publications/electricity-market-final-report

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Yes. They are worried about lefties putting a tax on them and forcing them to close. A no brainer I would have thought.

Here is an interesting article:

Next time you read your increased power bill, blame Tony Abbott

Matt GrudnoffWednesday 14 June 2017 14.26 AEST

Electricity prices paid by households are about to rapidly increase and the single person who is probably most responsible is Tony Abbott.

It has been claimed that in a party room meeting Tuesday afternoon, Abbott was interjecting while Craig Laundy was speaking in favour of a clean energy target. Shouting slogans while someone talks policy is a fitting metaphor for Abbott’s contribution to the climate change debate.

The Finkel report highlights what is currently wrong in Australia’s energy policy: there isn’t one. We haven’t had an effective energy policy since Abbott abolished the carbon price and replaced it with nothing. The result of this has been a lack of investment certainty.

This shouldn’t come as a shock to anyone. It’s what experts were warning about for years. A failure to tackle climate change will have higher costs in the long run. But it seems that when it comes to energy policy, ignoring experts is what Australia does.

Electricity prices have jumped almost 20% in some states, with many others soon to follow. Even before these increases, electricity prices are higher now than when the carbon price was in place.

This is the unfortunate price that we pay when we listen to self-interested politicians and ignore experts.

You might think that this all has to do with climate change. But while climate change is important, the increase in electricity prices would have happened even if we lived in the fantasy world where climate change doesn’t exist.

Why? Because there is a technological transformation happening in energy, and much like the horse and cart, the VHS cassette and photo development labs, coal is about to be pushed out of the market by something better and cheaper.

While you might be able to find those who cling to the past and try and convince people that coal still has a future, it is telling that none of them are investors in electricity generation. Those who have to come up with the money and take the risk are all uninterested in investing in coal.

If you want to build a new coal plant you have to think about what is going to happen to electricity prices over the next 20 or 30 years, because that is the time frame that you have to sell over to make back the cost of building the plant.

The reality is that renewables and storage is going to be much cheaper than coal in far less than 20 years, so anyone building a coal plant today is never going to make back their money.

The problem Australia has is that right at the changeover point when energy production is shifting from fossil fuel to renewables and storage, we have a bunch of very large, very old coal fired plants coming to the end of their working lives.

Anyone who has owned an old car knows that there comes a point when maintaining and repairing it just isn’t worth it anymore. So it is with our ageing coal fired power stations.

After the abolition of the carbon price by Abbott and Hunt there was a drought in investment in new generation, including for renewables. Renewables had previously been pushing additional generation into the market. According to many studies, including Mr Abbott’s own review, renewables were putting downward pressure on electricity prices.

Along with the withdrawal of ageing coal assets, the lack of investment in new generation slowly built pressure in the market. The final result was a rapid rise in wholesale electricity prices, a rise that is going to be increasingly felt by Australian consumers.

These kinds of problems are very solvable, and all it needs is political leadership and a sensible energy policy. Instead Australia got political self interest in the form of Abbott and the abolition of astute policy.

The market for electricity is not the only part of energy policy where we have ignored the experts. We have also had a massive fail when it comes to natural gas.

Gas on the east coast of Australia until recently was relatively cheap. In order to increase the price the gas industry has built three large export facilities. This linked the east coast gas price with the world price. The effect was to massively increase the price paid by Australian consumers.

Governments were warned well in advance that this increase in gas prices was coming. Yet nothing was done. There appears to have been no consideration by state and federal governments about the impact these higher gas prices would have on industry or electricity prices. Instead governments happily waved through approval of the export facilities.

For the last four years energy policy in Australia has been a fact free zone of bad politics and no interest in understanding the issue. The biggest losers are electricity consumers. It is long past time for the government to reengage with experts and start ignoring self-interested politicians.

This is not to say that we should blindly listen to experts. There are many good democratic reasons why it might be appropriate to ignore the experts. But if this is the case, people should be able to expect that politicians can clearly explain those reasons. Whyalla being wiped out and $100 roasts are not sufficient explanations.

TL,DR: When you open your electricity bill and it’s gone up, think of Tony Abbott and the policy instability he helped create.

The problem is you are talking about tangibles. It’s much easier to abuse non-warmists and crap on about projections of doom where the world will end as we know it (which incidentally it did in the past well before humans arrived with their horrible fossil fuels).
As I’ve said in the past, let people choose if they are prepared to pay the extra cost of renewables with an even playing field in terms of power related taxes and restrictions . We will very quickly see how the majority sits.

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You going to stop the $9B subsidy to coal?

http://www.imf.org/external/np/fad/subsidies/data/codata.xlsx

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Tony Abbott is probably the worst thing to happen to Australia in it’s political lifetime.

A festering skid mark on it’s history.

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Serious? Juliar created the debts that my kids kids will still be paying off. In doing so she actually killed people with one of the ludicrous green schemes known as the pink Batts program. This actually killed people. Tony Abbott did a lot of good including getting rid of the disgraceful carbon tax sell off by Juliar to claim power.
Not disputing he was a poor pm but he’s not in the ballpark of some others.

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That post really deserves this award:

(Edit: Kudos to the BBer who made the badge, and sorry I forgot who it was. Let us know, because it is great work!)

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