Another trip down the rabbit hole

This will only mask the problem. It doesn't matter who directly bears the loss, in the end, it will be the taxpayer either in taxes or electricity tariffs, the losses will still be there, and they will be worse if Mr. Bowen is successful in pulling in more unreliable generators without storage.

A sensible person would slow down the implementation of renewables until storage was in place. This would mean ditching the government's fantasy commitment to 82 percent by 2030.

The only form of grid-scale storage that is commercially viable is pumped hydro, but we are looking at the end of this decade to the beginning of the next before there is much of that available.

Timelines will probably blow out-after all, Snowy 2.0 was supposed to be operating by now.

Taxpayers bear the cost

There is also nothing in this package to accelerate the uptake of network capacity, which is also sorely needed.

Still, this accelerated policy may not have as big an effect as the government intends.

Each project has to bid for government support, and the terms and conditions will vary depending on the project. The guidelines require the projects to be well-advanced, and the government has indicated it wants as short a contract as possible.

When you're venturing hundreds of millions to billions on an energy project you generally want to know what the parameters are at the planning stage, not halfway down the track.

Rent-seeking capital is international, and there are probably better deals elsewhere.

Unfortunately, before the scheme fails the government may have squandered a lot of taxpayer money.

We don't know how much the scheme will cost-Mr. Bowen says this is commercial-in-confidence-so with this lack of transparency, the government could be tempted to spend up in a "whatever it costs" attempt to meet their arbitrary targets and get re-elected.

Mr. Bowen takes a shot at nuclear in his media release announcing the CIS: "The same [Liberal-National Party] that had 22 failed energy policies in government now has none-just a risky all-in bet on small modular reactors that are unproven, too slow, and too expensive."