August 28, 2017 / 4:16 AM / 2 days ago
Reuters Staff
SYDNEY (Reuters) – Australia could adopt a clean energy target by the end of the year, heeding the call of national energy providers and scientists as a means to cut carbon emissions and cap soaring power prices.
Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull said the government was “carefully considering” the recommendation by the nation’s chief scientist Alan Finkel as a way to ensure affordable, reliable and cleaner power.
“We’re certainly aiming to make a decision by the end of the year,” Turnbull told Australian Broadcasting Corp.
Finkel in June led a list of recommendations presented to the government aimed at ending a decade of political warfare over climate policy, meaning coal-fired power generation using carbon-capture technology could potentially be used alongside gas and renewable sources such as wind and solar.
Energy companies argue they need long-term policy certainty to invest in new power generation and bring down electricity bills – and the key to unlocking that was to roll out a national clean energy target.
The government is awaiting a report from the Australian Energy Market Operator, which Turnbull labeled “a critical thing” before moving to decide on a target.
“First, we need to be satisfied as to what the gap in baseload power is going to be over the next five and 10 years,” he said.
Read the rest of the story here.
HT/Greg Woods
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Every government official in Australia should be forced to watch “The Road to Abilene”, and come up with plan B, what actually works.
For those who have not yet worked it out by looking at his photo, Malcolm Turnbull, Australia’s fearless leader, is an idiot. Unfortunately, the leader of the opposition who is likely to replace him at the next election is also an idiot. The voices of the sensible people in Parliament are not being heard in the debate.
There has been debate at Federal level? Bugger me!
Not likely we should get the one-two from the High court soon. They will highly likely knock down the same sex marriage ballot because it’s spending tax payer money without a bill of parliament. Then they will likely rule all members referred to it as being ineligible to be elected, despite Malcom saying it won’t happen. We will then see a tit for tat start where up to 20-30 members will all be ruled ineligible because there are a pile who are actually in breach on paid government relationships. We haven’t even started with that part of the section yet. Australians may care to watch a constitutional lawyer view on it
http://www.abc.net.au/news/programs/national-press-club/2017-08-30/national-press-club:-george-williams/8856740
So I am looking forward to not having a working Parliament until at least December at about which time a few power blackouts will kick in. Got popcorn anyone.
Yep Turnbull is a deluded, narcissistic idiot. The alternative, Bill Shorten is an opportunistic tool of the unions. We are soooo f***ked.
Agree Mike, lack of choice in political candidates is going to destroy Australia. We have Labour and then try hard Labour, no centre right conservative party at all. Turnbull has pushed more traditional conservatives towards new or fringe parties. The liberal vote should collapse next election.
Turnbull forgets he was in the Govn’t that started this “clean energy” boondoggle with renewable energy targets (RETs) in 1991. And we trust him now? The next federal election is in 2019, and his seat is under threat. PM’s don’t like poor polling in Aus, forget poor governance.
You must mean 2001 as Turnbull was not in politics in 1991. That original RET was to achieve 2% renewable energy. Labor under PM Rudd-a-dud-dud increased this to 20% in 2009.
May have been even later for Turnbull. But I know it was Howard in 1991 that set, as you state, that initial 2% RET.
The clean energy thing is just another virtue signal to the chardonnay set. The real issue here is energy supply. We have had 3 coal fired power stations close or reduce capacity, with NOTHING to replace it. We will have black & brown outs this summer. Some conservative politicians are pushing for a new coal fired plant, but facing the inevitable backlash from the ‘true believers’. I suspect that when these black & brown outs happen and affect everyday peoples lives, then these people will have an opinion and probably voice it whereas they didnt necessarily have an opinion previously.
Mark it wont make a bit of difference. The Labor and Green parties will all chime out that the power losses are all due to unprecedented demand caused by global warming/changing/manipulating and the stupid media will put it on the front pages and we will stumble on onwards and downwards.
Remember, it was Malcolm Turnbull who said it didn’t matter what party or what Ideology he supported, as long it was a path to the Primeministership.
Proven to have NO principles.
The SA issue is simply stated: – a grid without sufficient inbuilt stabilizers.
– They have blown up (!) one large baseload station – Playford http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/state-politics/demolition-job-on-last-coalfired-power-station-in-south-australia/news-story/81ebdd28c75a0e677fff8d1da0fbc957
– wind blows only sometimes – http://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/mining-energy/lack-of-wind-blows-out-south-australia-power-costs/news-story/4ba33127cece152d31ffe202cbe09ab4
– Interconnects to VIC are limited and will trip out (islanding SA) for self-protection – capabilities here http://www.aemo.com.au/-/media/Files/PDF/Interconnector-Capabilities-v2.pdf At 460 plus 220 Mw nominal capacity, this is well under 50% of average SA demand. For instantaneous data, see http://www.aemo.com.au/Electricity/National-Electricity-Market-NEM/Data-dashboard#nem-dispatch-overview
– VIC has closed Hazelwood (coal-fired) so has diminished the dispatchable generation capacity formerly available to SA – http://www.heraldsun.com.au/business/hazelwood-power-station-closure-costs-victoria-875m-in-lost-royalties/news-story/d00a50894b2387fe0e7d24d6726be572
– black-start capabilities (needed but failed in last September’s state-wide black system event – see final report here http://www.aemo.com.au/-/media/Files/Electricity/NEM/Market_Notices_and_Events/Power_System_Incident_Reports/2017/Integrated-Final-Report-SA-Black-System-28-September-2016.pdf) are supplied by contracted-in SRAS (mainly CCGT ).
– AEMO’s final report (P8) states ‘Requirement for a minimum number of on-line synchronous generators in SA.’
– Online means dispatchable (wind is not)
– Synchronous means synchronised to or capable of controlling grid frequency (wind power converters can follow but not control grid frequency)
– Minimum Number means sufficient inertia (mechanical or synthetic) to keep rate-of-change-of-frequency (RoFoC) within set bounds, and to ride through voltage and other (e.g. power factor changes) grid disturbances.
SA is the poster-child/crash-test-dummy for political will over-riding engineering considerations and grid capabilities. It’s latest stop-gap is (gasp!) diesel-fuelled turbines…https://stopthesethings.com/2017/08/15/south-australias-renewable-energy-fiasco-wind-powered-state-to-run-on-diesel-fuelled-jet-engines/
Plus a 150MW (nameplate) thermal-solar rig https://stopthesethings.com/2017/08/21/south-australia-sublime-one-day-ridiculous-the-next-premier-set-to-squander-1-2bn-on-solar-thermal-boondoggle/ for a mere billion or so (by the time it’s built).
When back in the time of PM Rudd, the then opposition l leader was Turnbull. He agreed with all that Rudd was saying about Climate change.m Then he was rolled by Tony Abbott who said that “It was all a loqd of crap’. Then later when Abbott was OM the marginal seat MP’s paacked and Turnbull took over again.. So now we have a Green government..
Regarding the chief scientist, , he was never asked to explain the properties of the gas CO2, so his report is a Green ceompromise..
Never mind when the lights start to go out, , first in South Australia , sanity will l finally emerge
Michael.
“Sanity will finally emerge.”
Why? The public seems to believe that the more renewable sources of energy—wind turbines, batteries and solar arrays—there be the cheaper the energy becomes. Wrong-headed it may be but there it is. And all political parties in South Australia agree.
Turnbull and Liberal/National Party (equiv to Republicans in US) would have dearly loved to curb RET and renewable incentives but he is caught between the proverbial rock and a hard place.
On the one hand the opposition in Labor and Greens (equiv to Democrats in US) want to be cleaner than clean mud with a target of 50% renewable. They, with a handful of independents, control the Senate which is required to pass all Federal legislation. Further the State Govts are mainly Labor and have direct control of power supply and the extraction of underground gas.
The other crunch rock is that Turnbull is stuck with the Paris accord. Such is Angela Merkel’s new international cooperation that the French threatened Oz when it seemed we might not ratify COP 21.
Trump can thumb his nose at the Europeans quite unlike Oz which is more vulnerable with its much smaller population and economy. I note the French did not threaten Trump nor that the US would be made to “pay” if it pulled out of the Paris Accord.
The best Turnbull can do is force the renewable industry to provide its own backup; Finkel recommends something like 1.5 hours of power backup – tokenism. Green ideology permeates most of the sound waves, particularly the national broadcaster, the ABC. Turnbull on a rare occasion let fly at the ABC the other night (on another matter) so it is not that he is unaware of the damage this renewable junk is causing Oz.
Subsidizing inefficient renewable energy is economic vandalism. Oz is simply forced to play this bizarre game of weakening itself in line with Europe. Bear in mind this was led by Obama! Be thankful the US escaped Hillary.
He should cancel all renewable energy targets and aid. The greens and the left are banging on about it is the cheapest form of electricity generation – why would they need 20 billion a year to support them?
He has no power to cancel anything along the lines you suggest. Ask Pr Trump how easy it is to achieve his agenda. Oz is no different with checks and balance in the political system.
I still say that Turnbull is a Green in his thinking, he is certainly a left wing. LiberaL, similar to Don Chip who founded the Australian Democrats, whereas Abbott is hard right , similar to the right wing of the US Rep. party.
If Turnbull had any backbone he has only to ask the Chief scientiswt to say if in fact that CO2 is a good gas, essential for all life on this planet, , and the while silly “House of Cards” will come crashing down.
Michael.
Turnbull is a nightmare scenario as a right wing PM for Australia. He comes from the eastern suburbs of Sydney (read very wealthy and very green), he has always been in favour of renewables and lost his position due to this.He quietly agrees with almost everything the left wingers bang on about.
The guy is also a gutless PITA with about the same weight of balls as a chicken. Today he seriously stated on TV that Australia will come to the aid of America if they invade Nth Korea, as if the USA needs our aid?
The country has gone from $40M + in 2007 to half a trillion of debt since the labor party and then the Liberals came in. The left wing argument is 1/2 a trillion dollars in a country of 24 million is nothing compared to Europe or the USA. Pathetic arguments. We will be begging for reliable power in 10 years.
And we have billionare types like Dick Smith who says Australia will have a population of 100million, all Asians. Xenophobic much Dick? 100million people doing what exactly? There is an ever shrinking employment/industrial base as it is.
Opening up the north of Australia with irrigation, industry, transport network etc would make Australia a major supplier of high quality food to the Asian region.
I for one would have no issue with a massively increased Asian population.
Just keep the Islamist out !!
Turnbull “right wing”? Seriously? By your own subsequent reasoning, he’s as mad green as. Always had been. Through gritted teeth he holds the line on border protection only to save his skin from a revolt by the conservative faction. He’s quite simply a waffling, dithering, zero-principled dud led by the nose by a nightmare Labor Opposition.
I’m thinking of immigrating to North Korea , at least their Glorious leader doesn’t pretend not to be a commie dictator .
“Clean Energy Target” (CET) is simply a new name for the existing “Renewable Energy Target” (RET). In keeping with Australia’s commitment to the Paris agreement, the RET is 25%.
Whatever the number is, the effect on global temperature will be essentially zero. Indeed, Finkel himself conceded to a Senate inquiry that the effect would be “nothing, no effect”. So, by any sane reasoning, any RET or CET greater than zero, quite simply bonkers.
Yet, with Monty Python logic, Finkel himself recommended a CET of 42.5%. PM Turnbull, an appalling dud leader, is stupid and green left enough to adopt it. Opposition Labor’s RET is 50%. Tweedledum and Tweedledee idiots. Peas in a madhouse pod. God have mercy on Australia.
The man’s an idiot. Who’s he trying to placate; not Australians who don’t want him or his green energy. Of course the alternatives are worse so bak to my question?
Why is an energy provider concerned with “carbon” and imploring the government to do “something”? Money. Otherwise, it continues to make affordable, reliable energy with miniscule climatological impact.
95% of Australian politicians are brain dead if there brains where made of dynamite they wound not be enough to blow there hat off , NEXT WEEKS WEATHER REPORT for our ski fields https://www.ski.com.au/weather/janesweather.html up to 100cm of snow could fall on a already deep base
The big question is when Bill Shorton becones PM, a certainty at present, will he do a Bob Hawke and knowing as did Bob where all the Labour bodies are buried, will he forget his talk of 50 % renewables and do what needs doing,. Coal fired power stations and back to government ownership of energy. Sadly the market has failed this country, so lets go back to what worked, especially here in SA, the Electricity Trust were wonderful at providing cheap electricity.
Michael.
Average electricity price in Australia should be 1/4 current average price.
Malcolm answers to Black Rock Investments and allied funds; the globalist green energy cartel.
Australians are too busy or too uninformed to realise AU cause of expensive electricity.
Green globalists are stealing our money and displacing our industries and there’s nothing we can do about it.
Issue hasn’t reached crisis point so expect more manipulation and talk about lowering prices; all fake.
We’re moving our new coating line to China because electricity is our largest production expense,
Three years ago when we started line construction energy was affordable; not now so we’re out of here.