There will be if we get some pollies who develop some backbone and are willing to consider options where we have a natural advantage - thorium, hydrogen, uranium
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IMPORTANT // Please look after your loved ones, yourself and be kind to others. If you are feeling that the world is too hard to handle there is always help - I implore you not to hesitate in contacting one of these wonderful organisations Lifeline and Beyond Blue ... and I'm sure reaching out to our PRE community we will find a way to help. T.
Global Warming
- Thread starter Disco08
- Start date
Subsidies drain power from the electricity market (paywalled)
Alan Moran
The Australian
December 2, 2020
Last week’s virtual Climate and Energy Summit screened politicians, industry leaders and bureaucrats, many of whom have been responsible for destroying the world’s most competitive electricity industry. The sledgehammer has been subsidies through regulations and government spending, which are running at $7bn a year.
Speakers included US Democratic Party activist Audrey Zibelman, who came to Australia as a refugee from the 2016 Trump victory and is returning as a Google executive to help refill the Washington swamp. Zibelman heads the Australian Energy Market Operator, which she transformed into a policymaking body fostering increased renewable energy supplies by spending $17.4bn on new transmission in addition to the $10bn for Snowy pumped storage. She assisted in designing the new NSW subsidy package.
Also featured was Kerry Schott, who was picked by Malcolm Turnbull to head the Energy Security Board, which is at the apex of the electricity industry’s dozen regulatory agencies. Schott’s energy industry experience includes having sold, for $1m, the NSW government power station Vales Point, which now makes annual profits of $60m.
Among the many openly speaking for the renewables lobby was Anna Skarbek of ClimateWorks. Skarbek raised the goal for renewables supply of 100 per cent of electricity to 700 per cent, arguing Australia could soak up sunlight and export it, a delusion assisted by a mirage involving its conversion into hydrogen power.
Politicians included Victoria’s Lily D’Ambrosio, who has pioneered a damaging subsidisation of renewable energy to prove the ALP’s green credentials and save inner-city seats. The state’s spendthrift 2020 budget provides even more subsidies.
But NSW Energy Minister Matt Kean is the new standard bearer for government control over the industry. Last week he pushed through the NSW parliament a package of imposts on electricity consumers and central planning machinery. This is designed to leverage $32bn in new private investment in renewables and the transmission lines they will require.
Kean maintains a game changer is that the cost of renewables has plummeted. But not one of the 24 gigawatts of wind, grid solar or rooftop solar would have been installed without a subsidy. Nor, as the state’s new legislation demonstrates, would any future supply be built without assistance.
Kean claims these regulations will lower prices. The assumption is subsidised renewable power will force down prices of all electricity supplies, with non-subsidised coal-fired plants running at a loss but remaining operating. But 20 years of such policies brought the opposite outcome. Seven years ago financial losses sustained by coal-fired plants as a result of competition from subsidised renewables forced the Northern and Hazelwood power stations to close. The outcome was a doubling of wholesale prices.
Kean thinks laws preventing power stations closing will prevent a reoccurrence of this but it is doubtful firms could trade while insolvent. Moreover, industry sources suggest the intrusion is so great investors might take legal action against the government. AGL’s response to Kean’s plans was to shelve new investments.
These developments have led Kean to give voice to his barely disguised socialism and fulminate against Big Business that refuses to cop losses by doing the government’s bidding. Kean copped an earful from federal Energy Minister Angus Taylor, who recognises the precarious nature of a renewables-rich energy supply in an electricity system where supply and demand must be precisely balanced for every 86,400 seconds a day. The unpredictable variability of wind and solar adds further expenses to their intrinsic high cost. Indeed, negative prices are almost a daily occurrence and the difficulties are so great that the market manager is spending consumers’ money to switch off subsidised surplus wind and solar.
That said, the federal government’s policies are not markedly different from those of state governments. The commonwealth retains the subsidies on renewables that have created the present high costs and unreliability, while putting taxpayer dollars into speculative funding of hydrogen and other new technologies that might replace coal.
Twenty years ago, soon after the dawn of the national electricity market, the divestiture of political interventions and privatisations that came with this produced a world-beating electricity supply system. The only way to restore this is through a market unpolluted by subsidies, regulations and directions.
Sadly, the replacement of market forces by subsidies means government intervention is advocated even by backbenchers Matt Canavan, Craig Kelly and Labor’s Joel Fitzgibbon, who recognise the low cost and reliability advantages of fossil fuels. Ranged against these are powerful lobbies advocating for closure of fossil-fuel generation — in some cases out of environmental zealotry and in other cases to benefit from subsidies.
Alan Moran
The Australian
December 2, 2020
Last week’s virtual Climate and Energy Summit screened politicians, industry leaders and bureaucrats, many of whom have been responsible for destroying the world’s most competitive electricity industry. The sledgehammer has been subsidies through regulations and government spending, which are running at $7bn a year.
Speakers included US Democratic Party activist Audrey Zibelman, who came to Australia as a refugee from the 2016 Trump victory and is returning as a Google executive to help refill the Washington swamp. Zibelman heads the Australian Energy Market Operator, which she transformed into a policymaking body fostering increased renewable energy supplies by spending $17.4bn on new transmission in addition to the $10bn for Snowy pumped storage. She assisted in designing the new NSW subsidy package.
Also featured was Kerry Schott, who was picked by Malcolm Turnbull to head the Energy Security Board, which is at the apex of the electricity industry’s dozen regulatory agencies. Schott’s energy industry experience includes having sold, for $1m, the NSW government power station Vales Point, which now makes annual profits of $60m.
Among the many openly speaking for the renewables lobby was Anna Skarbek of ClimateWorks. Skarbek raised the goal for renewables supply of 100 per cent of electricity to 700 per cent, arguing Australia could soak up sunlight and export it, a delusion assisted by a mirage involving its conversion into hydrogen power.
Politicians included Victoria’s Lily D’Ambrosio, who has pioneered a damaging subsidisation of renewable energy to prove the ALP’s green credentials and save inner-city seats. The state’s spendthrift 2020 budget provides even more subsidies.
But NSW Energy Minister Matt Kean is the new standard bearer for government control over the industry. Last week he pushed through the NSW parliament a package of imposts on electricity consumers and central planning machinery. This is designed to leverage $32bn in new private investment in renewables and the transmission lines they will require.
Kean maintains a game changer is that the cost of renewables has plummeted. But not one of the 24 gigawatts of wind, grid solar or rooftop solar would have been installed without a subsidy. Nor, as the state’s new legislation demonstrates, would any future supply be built without assistance.
Kean claims these regulations will lower prices. The assumption is subsidised renewable power will force down prices of all electricity supplies, with non-subsidised coal-fired plants running at a loss but remaining operating. But 20 years of such policies brought the opposite outcome. Seven years ago financial losses sustained by coal-fired plants as a result of competition from subsidised renewables forced the Northern and Hazelwood power stations to close. The outcome was a doubling of wholesale prices.
Kean thinks laws preventing power stations closing will prevent a reoccurrence of this but it is doubtful firms could trade while insolvent. Moreover, industry sources suggest the intrusion is so great investors might take legal action against the government. AGL’s response to Kean’s plans was to shelve new investments.
These developments have led Kean to give voice to his barely disguised socialism and fulminate against Big Business that refuses to cop losses by doing the government’s bidding. Kean copped an earful from federal Energy Minister Angus Taylor, who recognises the precarious nature of a renewables-rich energy supply in an electricity system where supply and demand must be precisely balanced for every 86,400 seconds a day. The unpredictable variability of wind and solar adds further expenses to their intrinsic high cost. Indeed, negative prices are almost a daily occurrence and the difficulties are so great that the market manager is spending consumers’ money to switch off subsidised surplus wind and solar.
That said, the federal government’s policies are not markedly different from those of state governments. The commonwealth retains the subsidies on renewables that have created the present high costs and unreliability, while putting taxpayer dollars into speculative funding of hydrogen and other new technologies that might replace coal.
Twenty years ago, soon after the dawn of the national electricity market, the divestiture of political interventions and privatisations that came with this produced a world-beating electricity supply system. The only way to restore this is through a market unpolluted by subsidies, regulations and directions.
Sadly, the replacement of market forces by subsidies means government intervention is advocated even by backbenchers Matt Canavan, Craig Kelly and Labor’s Joel Fitzgibbon, who recognise the low cost and reliability advantages of fossil fuels. Ranged against these are powerful lobbies advocating for closure of fossil-fuel generation — in some cases out of environmental zealotry and in other cases to benefit from subsidies.
There have been subsidies in the market for a long time, so i dont think you can blame renewables for "wrecking the market".
its funny the writer didnt mention those.
About as "balanced" as anything The Guardian publishes.
They're as bad as one another.
There is no maybe. Those are the facts.
A slowdown of what? We are still pumping huge quantities of CO2 in the atmosphere, just slightly less than last year and much more than ten years ago.
What would you expect to see? The rate of increase has slowed slightly, the increase continues. What "scientific explanation" are you looking for?
Why does he not mention the massive subsidies for oil and gas? Then he'd have a point about subsidies wrecking the market.
He lost me completely when he claimed that Coal isn't subsidised.
"Kean claims these regulations will lower prices. The assumption is subsidised renewable power will force down prices of all electricity supplies, with non-subsidised coal-fired plants running at a loss but remaining operating. "
This IMF article states that fossil fuel subsidies in Australia in 2019 amounted to $29bn.
"The IMF estimates that annual energy subsidies in Australia total $29 billion, representing 2.3 per cent of Australian GDP. On a per capita basis, Australian fossil fuel subsidies amount to $1,198 per person."
Global fossil fuel subsidies reach $5.2 trillion, and $29 billion in Australia
IMF says fossil fuel subsidies in Australia amount to nearly $1,200 per person, or a total of $29 billion.
reneweconomy.com.au
To try and infer that that expensive renewables are subsidised and the amazing coal isn't is counter productive from the writer as its clearly false. Bearing in mind fossil fuel subsidies (which I believe includes circa 30c / litre on fuel) is nearly $1200 / person is incredibly high.
A large amount of grid energy will be lost over the next 10-15 years due to decommissioning of older coal plants so it is frustrating when there is no clear energy policy from the government as to what our long term strategy is.
A slowdown of rising CO2 concentration. The chart is oblivious to COVID.
Which are the peak months and which are the trough months in that chart? Looks to be a cycle right? This is a question, not loaded as I've never seen this chart before.
Is there a scientific reason why it peaks in May and troughs in September / October? Its around about a 10% swing from peak to trough so fairly sizeable?
Seasonal behaviour of natural carbon sinks (oceans/tropics/forests etc) affected by a large number of variables including el nino/la nina.
On Lee's point, you should see a measurable reduction in increase over the year, but it would be very hard to see on a month to month basis.
I found this:
"In other words, without the lockdown, the total amount of CO2 in the atmosphere would have increased by 0.68% in 2020, compared to the 2019 global average. But with the lockdown, we project the increase to be 0.60%."
From https://www.carbonbrief.org/analysi...-coronavirus-pandemic-have-on-atmospheric-co2
April was the most depressed month with emissions down by 17%. Just seeking an explanation for the absence of correlation.
| Month | 2019 | 2020 | Diff |
| Jan | 410.83 | 413.39 | +2.56 |
| Feb | 411.75 | 414.11 | +2.36 |
| Mar | 411.97 | 414.51 | +2.54 |
| Apr | 413.33 | 416.21 | +2.88 |
| May | 414.64 | 417.07 | +2.43 |
| Jun | 413.93 | 416.38 | +2.45 |
| Jul | 411.74 | 414.38 | +2.64 |
| Aug | 409.95 | 412.55 | +2.60 |
| Sep | 408.54 | 411.29 | +2.75 |
| Oct | 408.52 | 411.28 | +2.76 |
That article from the Oz was utter crap. I do always like the way they cite the closure of Hazelwood, which was closed about 5-10 years beyond the lifespan it was designed to operate. You know you are dealing with someone who is willing to just twist anything when they start claiming that coal fired power stations, which are operating well beyond the timespan they were meant to last for, should be kept open and subsidised to do so.
Plus, what sort of f***wit has a problem with exporting hydrogen and even straight out electricity when Australia clearly has a massive comparative advantage in generating power from solar, wind, tidal etc.
That was a pretty poor effort even by the standards of the Oz, which are very low.
DS
Plus, what sort of f***wit has a problem with exporting hydrogen and even straight out electricity when Australia clearly has a massive comparative advantage in generating power from solar, wind, tidal etc.
That was a pretty poor effort even by the standards of the Oz, which are very low.
DS
The writer saved his most strident criticism for Kean, a Liberal, then remarks that federal policy is not far removed from the state approaches he disapproves of. The purpose as I saw it was to point out the deteriorated state of the energy industry from the strong position of 20 years ago due to the zealous pushing of renewables without regard for the country's unique circumstances.
Yes it contains strong "anti-progressive" overtones, but that is secondary.
I assume you have a backbone and invest your hard earned into it? When you say the Australian government needs to do this, what you really mean is the Australian government has to force everyone to invest into these industries whether they like it or not.
Do you understand what the $29 billion in subsidies claimed includes?He lost me completely when he claimed that Coal isn't subsidised.
"Kean claims these regulations will lower prices. The assumption is subsidised renewable power will force down prices of all electricity supplies, with non-subsidised coal-fired plants running at a loss but remaining operating. "
This IMF article states that fossil fuel subsidies in Australia in 2019 amounted to $29bn.
"The IMF estimates that annual energy subsidies in Australia total $29 billion, representing 2.3 per cent of Australian GDP. On a per capita basis, Australian fossil fuel subsidies amount to $1,198 per person."
Global fossil fuel subsidies reach $5.2 trillion, and $29 billion in Australia
IMF says fossil fuel subsidies in Australia amount to nearly $1,200 per person, or a total of $29 billion.
To try and infer that that expensive renewables are subsidised and the amazing coal isn't is counter productive from the writer as its clearly false. Bearing in mind fossil fuel subsidies (which I believe includes circa 30c / litre on fuel) is nearly $1200 / person is incredibly high.
A large amount of grid energy will be lost over the next 10-15 years due to decommissioning of older coal plants so it is frustrating when there is no clear energy policy from the government as to what our long term strategy is.
