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Jumpin’ Jack Flash? It’s ‘bout gas, gas, gas!

By Geoff Carmody - posted Friday, 12 May 2017

Policy alternative 'announceables' such as 'pumped hydro', if feasible, at best, take many, many years to bring on line. Whither energy reliability (even regardless of cost) in the meantime?

Without gas, or coal, what can we draw on, right now, as base-load back-up for intermittent renewables?

Lots of diesel generators, maybe?

It's clear, right now, that:

Electricity unreliability and high cost are political and economic killers.
Reducing emissions by reducing economic activity will prove unsustainable.
Government policy needs to take this into account.
At present, it doesn't.

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About the Author

Geoff Carmody was a director of Geoff Carmody & Associates, a former co-founder of Access Economics, and before that was a senior officer in the Commonwealth Treasury. He died on October 27, 2024. He favoured 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?