Energy again

 For ten years the coalition simply hoped global warming would go away. It didn't. As time moved on the abolition of the price on carbon looked more and more stupid. A  price on carbon is necessary because of the negative externalities. Without that the  price is lower than it should be. It makes for a more fairer market.

When we had a price on carbon we saw a reduction in carbon emissions and a switch towards renewables. It is a reasonable assumption to make that combined to where renewables costs are now and still going most of our energy needs would be met by renewables. Thus the new government has a job on its hand to boost renewable generation to get to its target.

What about coal fired power? Well they take about 8 years to build, would be well over twice the coat of renewables and their units would still break  regularly down because the climate is getting hotter. It is not  dispatchable either  as they take about 30 minutes to either start or close down.

Gas too is too expensive to be competitive  but they are almost dispatchable so it can be used to assist the grid.

Nuclear is simply stuffed as John Quiggin points out.

Australia has a bright future if it embraces the challenge of climate change. We can only hope the government succeeds.

Two things I should have added. some time ago the CSIRO looked at the history of energy and found that given that there would be a lot fewer days when renewables were curtailed in production. Bear in mind the past does not guarantee what occurs in the future.

The other was a very long time ago when I was in my third year of university I wrote an essay on electricity pricing in NSW for a subject called industry economics. The common theme of articles I read was no-one understood why NSW had so many coal fired  power stations. As john quiggin pointed out much later it led to incredibly cheap off peak pricing because of the excess supply.

The reason for so many power stations was that their units broke down a lot and the Premier at the time ( nifty Nev) said no blackouts. Thus we had far too many power stations and for  most of the time a hhuge oversupply of electricity!