Forget fighting old battles. The renewable energy target is bad policy, but there is no use spending political capital trying to change it. Instead, Malcolm Turnbull should announce a stand on the future of electricity generation.
What was once a given - a cheap and reliable supply of electricity - is no longer. And, if the Greens get their way, it will never return. The Prime Minister has to argue for efficient coal generation, and make bankable guarantees of new investment when old stocks retire.
In October last year, the Senate started an inquiry into retirement of coal-fired power stations in Australia, to report in March this year. The Greens and a swarm of mouthpieces in NGOs and universities took this as a signal that there should be a transition to non-renewables. Ah no, it is not.
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Take Australian National University researcher Frank Jotzo's submission. "Replacing coal-fired power with carbon-free alternatives is essential to help decarbonise the economy. Australia's ageing coal-fired power fleet can be replaced by a predominantly renewable power supply." Thanks, Frank, but who wants to decarbonise the economy?
Lowering CO2emissions does not require decarbonising the economy. Jotzo, like many others, has taken the "deep decarbonisation" brief that reads: Destroy the coal industry and replace it with renewables (and damn the consequences). Jotzo and the "deep decarbonisation" crowd have to patch together 10 different forms of renewable sources to achieve their dream of making Australia entirely reliant on renewables.
He admits that reliance on these is "subject to assumptions about technological development and the evolution of technology costs". In other words, he hopes it comes to pass.
Jotzo admits "the overall average costs of power supply in this scenario increases". But that is OK, according to Jotzo, because "the increase is compensated for by greatly improved energy efficiency". But some of that energy efficiency comes from "the electrification of transport and energy use in buildings and industry, emissions savings in industry and agriculture and carbon sequestration on the land". In other words, not from renewables.
In deep decarbonisation, we change the entire economy to suit yet-to-be-invented renewable technologies and pay a higher price for gains, much of which we can have by other means. Meanwhile, in the real word, coal is burned for electricity. Southeast Asia doubled the size of its economy between 2000 and 2013, and, as a consequence, electricity generation tripled.
The International Energy Agency projects electricity generation will almost triple again from 2013 to 2040. And "coal is expected to overtake gas to become the No 1 fuel source for power generation in the coming years".
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Australia's efforts at deep decarbonisation would be completely useless. Fortunately for greenhouse warriors, there is a sensible path. In the real world, countries are deploying high efficiency, low emission coal technologies to meet their emissions targets under the 2015 Paris Agreement.
There are 725 HELE units in place in Asia, with another 1150 planned or under construction.
According to the Australian government's 2015 energy white paper, our nation has an oversupply of electricity generation, and the largest portion of our power is generated by coal-fired power stations, three-quarters of which are operating beyond their original life. The reason many of these plants are limping on is because renewables are being forced into the grid.
As the white paper says: "The policy of encouraging investment in renewable energy through the renewable energy target in a period of weak demand has contributed to Australia's excess generation capacity."
The white paper estimates that new generation capacity is not needed before 2023. But to build new coal-fired power stations, which the system needs, takes some years.
In other words, new entrants need some certainty now. The consequence of the RET is that the risk of building new power stations is too high, the returns too tenuous: the higher the proportion of renewables, the more precarious the life of coal-fired power, the less likely new investment.
Labor's 50 per cent renewable target may as well be 100 per cent because the damage is just as great. The system cannot operate without coal-powered base load. Australia begins to look like South Australia.
There are issues around the standard of emissions required of new power stations and carbon capture and storage technologies, and this is where Turnbull has to step in and create certainty.
Current policies are deterring investment in more efficient and lower emissions plants. Once the old plants are retired or electricity demand increases sufficiently, Australia will need investment in coal-fired power.
Keep the lights on, Malcolm: voters will reward you.