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Why won't politicians stop lying about 'reliable renewables'?

By Geoff Carmody - posted Thursday, 27 April 2017


The second starts – right now – with retaining all existing generation capacity that can be used as a stop-gap back-up source until we get better and cheaper back-up options.

It probably ends with abandoning the RET, pricing emissions consumption, and letting new technology deliver.

Is there hope for an effective response to this problem?

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Blaming others has been the across-the-board political response so far. No sign of the energy policy 'drunks' signing up to AA courses that I can see.

Indeed, current 'processes' remind me of the classic 1960 duet between Harry Belafonte and the late Odetta entitled 'There's a hole in the bucket'. Adapted to reflect the present flailing around, finger-pointing, blame-shifting, and general lack of concrete action (apart from big 'announceables' about future action, after – of course – more reviews), this classic song might read as follows:

EMISSIONS ARE RISING

(aka 'PUMPED HYPER-EXPECTATIONS')

Apologies to 'There's a hole in the bucket', Harry Belafonte, Odetta, and many others.)

Emissions are rising, dear Malcolm, dear Malcolm
The planet is warming …. is there no way out? …
Well, cut them, dear Joshua, dear Joshua, dear Joshua
As Minister, dear Joshua, that’s what you’re about.

With what shall I cut them, dear Malcolm, dear Malcolm
A price on emissions?  What will voters cop? …
Try wind farms and solar, dear Joshie, dear Joshie
RET funding, and faith …  and hope warming will stop!

But these are not base-load, dear Malcolm, dear Malcolm
They are intermittent … our lights will go out …
Well, back them with back-up, dear JF, stealth fighter
Keep black-outs ‘off-radar’ … remove any doubt.

But back-up is costly, and takes time, dear Malcolm
Such power investments our Budgets will smash …
Phil Lowe says ‘it’s not so’.  We’ll Tweet, blog and borrow
For Snowy ‘pumped hydro’, Zen batteries and gas.

Well, brown coal is cheapest, and here now, dear Malcolm
Keep Hazelwood running, it’s ready to spin …
Let Sim’s pricing probe kick reform down the road, while
more coal base-load now, and next poll I can win.

But … All coal is warming, dear Malcolm, dear Malcolm
Our ‘Paris placation’ we surely can’t dodge? …
With Pruitt’s submissions, to hell with emissions! No outages mean I stay here in the Lodge.

(Sigh)… Emissions are rising, ‘blame others’, our goal  ….
While policy leaks from … …. a bucket of holes!

I hope I am wrong. If not, blackouts, soaring energy prices, and business closures, may well be our lot.

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About the Author

Geoff Carmody is Director, Geoff Carmody & Associates, a former co-founder of Access Economics, and before that was a senior officer in the Commonwealth Treasury. He favours a national consumption-based climate policy, preferably using a carbon tax to put a price on carbon. He has prepared papers entitled Effective climate change policy: the seven Cs. Paper #1: Some design principles for evaluating greenhouse gas abatement policies. Paper #2: Implementing design principles for effective climate change policy. Paper #3: ETS or carbon tax?

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