Essay by Eric Worrall
The details of the 47% emissions cut bill are sparse. The bill does not include any mechanism or funding for enforcing emission cuts.
Australia’s climate change targets will become law. What happens now?
Here’s what we know the new bill means for climate action and what happens once we have legislated targets
Adam Morton Climate and environment editor
Fri 5 Aug 2022 03.30 AESTThe Australian House of Representatives has passed the country’s first climate change legislation in more than a decade. The main part of the previous bill – an emissions trading scheme, introduced by the Gillard government with the support of Greens and independents – was repealed by the Coalition under Tony Abbott in 2014.
Here’s what we know about what the bill means for climate action, and what happens once the country has legislated emissions targets.
What does the climate bill do?
The climate bill enshrines into law two national greenhouse gas emissions targets: a 43% cut below 2005 levels by 2030, and a reduction to “net zero” by 2050.
…
The bill requires the climate change minister, currently Chris Bowen, to give an annual statement to parliament on progress towards the targets. Bowen has likened it to the annual Closing the Gap statement.
What doesn’t the climate bill do?
It doesn’t include a mechanism or funding to cut emissions from electricity, industry, transport, agriculture or other parts of the economy.
…
Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2022/aug/05/australias-climate-change-targets-will-become-law-what-happens-now
Those ongoing capacity payments;
Why including coal in a new ‘capacity mechanism’ will make Australia’s energy crisis worse
Published: June 21, 2022 1.07pm AEST
Authors
Tim Nelson Associate Professor of Economics, Griffith Universit
Joel Gilmore Associate Professor, Griffith UniversityAustralia’s electricity generators would be paid extra money to be available even if they don’t actually generate any energy, under a new mechanism proposed by the federal government’s Energy Security Board (ESB).
Controversially, the ESB has recommended all generators be eligible for the payment, including ageing coal-fired generators that are increasingly breaking down.
The proposal comes after federal and state ministers last week requested the ESB advance its work on a “capacity mechanism … to bring on renewables and storage”. The ESB says a mix of generators is crucial for the mechanism to be effective, guaranteeing energy supply to the grid.
So will this capacity mechanism lower energy prices for households? Probably not, because it includes unreliable coal-fired power stations, and consumers are likely to pick up the cost when the plants ultimately fail.
…
Read more: https://theconversation.com/why-including-coal-in-a-new-capacity-mechanism-will-make-australias-energy-crisis-worse-185404
Going by their speeches it is possible Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese actually believes the green revolution will now proceed with minimal government help, other than the installation of a few new power grid lines. The risible funding they’ve allocated for battery backup suggests they have completely misunderstood the magnitude of the renewable intermittency issue.
For now at least, the Albanese government is giving our near end of life coal plants cash to stay open in the form of capacity payments (see above), to prevent the lights from going out.
The Albanese government can’t even promise greens they’ll stop permitting new coal mines – maybe they have realised they need the coal tax revenue to fund their social programmes.
Energy storage is the real showstopper for Albanese’s green transition plans.
The government’s readiness to impose harsh price caps and force operators to provide power at a loss has in my opinion killed the business case for expensive backup systems like batteries.
Not that batteries were ever going to be a significant part of the solution, around $6 – $20 trillion AUD of batteries are required to backup the Australian national grid for 7 days, depending on how many people buy an EV, and expect to charge it from the national grid.
262232GWh per year / 365 x 7 x 1000000 (convert GWh to KWh) x $1200 per KWh battery cost = $6 trillion
If you assume a battery lifetime of 10 years, that $6 trillion is just the start – the government also needs $600 billion per year to maintain the $6 trillion battery pack.
You can obviously play with these figures, the worst part of the wind failure which helped cause last June’s power crisis lasted 1.5 days rather than 7 days. But longer outages are possible. In 2017 South Australia experienced wind drought which lasted two months.
Snowy 2, our showpiece pumped hydro system, the big hydro battery which is supposed to make green Australia possible, will lose 40%+ of the energy it stores. The distance between the upper and lower reservoirs is too great for efficient storage and retrieval. Even the deep green Sydney Morning Herald recently described Snowy 2 as a White Elephant.
There are hydroelectric options which have been proposed for the far North, huge tropical river systems which currently empty into the sea. But the cost of installing and maintaining thousands of miles of cable, to transport the electricity to where it is needed, and the cost of building and maintaining all the hydro infrastructure which would be required has so far been a showstopper. And of course the government would face a lot of political blowback for flooding river watersheds full of endangered species.
The Green Party deserves some blame for this charade. I don’t agree with his politics or green ideas, but I was actually starting to think Green Party leader Adam Bandt might have some political principles, when Bandt pushed back against this nonsensical bill – until he caved and waved it through.
Prime Minster Anthony Albanese, if you genuinely want to reduce emissions, if you truly believe in your green transition, just get on and do it. Lets have our Brandon moment. Do something significant to reduce emissions, like shutting down all coal exports and domestic coal use.
WUWT would applaud the courage of such a decision. Of course we would also report all the blackouts, business failures and financial blowouts which would inevitably follow.
You are mistaken. Bandt wanted more reductions but acquiesced to less. He’s a total loon with no redeeming features.
He’s also ugly and his mother dresses him funny.
Teal Independent (of the unofficial Party of Independents managed by Climate200 and supported by GetUp activist organisation), Zali Steggall MP, when asked about the huge losses of revenue if coal mining and exports were stopped, as she and her colleagues are demanding along with their Greens colleagues, answered that a super profits tax on Australian businesses was the solution.
Funny how she thinks there can be profits when the government forces them to sell at a loss.
Did she think that this will be medicos and lawyers as well?
When industry can’t function due to no energy and the Green Economy is reduced to everyone giving everyone else haircuts, I believe tax revenue will be *ahem* sparse.
That’ the nearest to a communist solution I have heard for years. These Teals haven’t got a clue about economics, engineering or science, they are one one thought wonders-Save the Planet is their only meme. Nothing else matters!
Of course they have no solutions to any of the real problems facing Australia.
Please do not cast aspersions on Moira Bandt, Alexy, it’s not fair. Adam Bandt actually baby-sat my sons a couple of times when they were growing up.Adam came across as quite a pleasant teenager. I think the rot set in when he became a Trotskyist at University.
I’m only interested in the present, after all, that’s when I live. I read that Stalin was a nice seminarian, too.
I’m not a fan of Adam Bandt, far from it, as a politician he appals me.
Eric
On the musical badge theme I reckon you need one of Elbow harping
I think it’s meant to be Nero fiddling while Rome is burning.
Elbow has just announced that he is going on a holiday after becoming Prime Minister in May 2022, he said that he has not had a holiday this year.
And told ABC radio that Deputy Prime Minister Marles will be acting Prime minister while he is on leave.
During late 2019 and repeated often afterwards Opposition Leader Albanese criticised Prime Minister Morrison for going on leave to Hawaii during December 2019 bushfires, ignoring that bushfire control is a state government responsibility, and failed to acknowledge that the acting Prime Minister was on duty at the time.
I would suggest a cruise around Taiwan and the Taiwan Straits.
I think this is actually unfair to people who have schizophrenia, not joking. People, ARE voting for this silliness without the burden of mental illness.
There are lots of things to call Albo, but schizophrenic is nonsensical. Please change the title if possible.
no it fits! albos and the greens ideas are as out of touch with reality as someone suffering schizoid issues
A newly elected government that had just 2 oblique references found within a variety of other bullet points in all of it’s 30 stated policies – that won just 33% of the primary vote – has now settled the Australian WAR on Climate, without detail or mechanism.
They have also moved on entrenching RACISM into Australia’s constitution so that they may pass laws, that they do not need to change the constitution to make.
All Woke, All the time – But don’t worry about any of the details, because they are looking at the BIG PICTURE.
My only advice is – that if you cannot live with less, learn how to live of the land & if you do manage to live long enough … learn Chinese.
You can always vote ‘NO’ on the referendum.
I intend to vote NO, we are all Australians and we have democratic voting right regardless of our ethnic background.
“In May 1967, after 10 years of campaigning, a referendum on Indigenous recognition in the Australian constitution was held.
The lead-up to the poll focused public attention on the fact that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders were treated as second-class citizens.
Nearly 91 per cent of the electorate voted to amend the constitution. This change meant that Aboriginal people would be counted as part of the population and acknowledged as equal citizens, and that the Commonwealth would be able to make laws on their behalf. This was seen to reflect public recognition of Aboriginal people as full Australian citizens.”
The Break Up of Australia is a good book on the topic. Well written and excellent research by a bloke named Keith Windschuttle. Recommended
My first election and I voted YES. I didn’t realise then that that would make me a second-class citizen.
Those concerned by the move for Constitutional change for indigenous folk will benefit from a series of top class short essays on the web site of Quadrant Online over the last couple of months
In particular, Quadrant Editor Keith Windschuttle, historian, has studied the matter in depth. See a sample at
Ethnic Blackmail to Change Australia’s ‘Racist’ Constitution: Part Two – Quadrant Online
and the latest, today’s, at
How to Give Away Half a Continent – Quadrant Online
I would vote NO for the Government not to waste ‘$50+ Million asking a constitutional question that they already have an answer to in Section 51’.
$50+ million can relieve an awful lot of suffering in vulnerable (both Aboriginal and Non-Aboriginal) communities.
Instead it will be ATSIC Mk2 (on steroids) and the corruption will be forever entrenched under the Australian Constitution…
Even the Aborigines used to say that ATSIC stood for “Abbos Talking Shit In Canberra”.
And, “the air conditioned Aborigines”.
ATSIC was of course abandoned, closed down, after widespread corruption and lack of governance was discovered by auditors and Federal Police investigators.
The Howard Coalition Government closed ATSIC down. And by the way, ATSIC was established without needing a referendum, no change to the Constitution required.
Referendum
We had one of those… they’ll never give us another one!
Or to any individual part of the UK.
DM polls had 73% and rising voting NO
Or learn to sing.
Monty Python – I Like Chinese (Official Lyric Video) – YouTube
The Ying Tong song probably wouldn’t be acceptable?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ying_Tong_Song
So, signing the IPCC Paris Agreement after the 2015 Paris Conference, April 2016 and later in November 2016 ratifying that Agreement was not good enough, with a 2030 target?
2015 was a hot and dry year for Australia .. yet, peer reviewed science has proven that even in these conditions Australia absorbed far more CO2 than Australians emitted (by around 70 megatons).
Australia is and has always been a ‘net zero carbon’ economy – signing up to targets in Paris was actually just virtue signaling to do some additional ‘heavy lifting’ for the problem emitters.
For that meaningless act of virtue – Australia was then attacked by those same emitters as being a pariah for not setting up even more ‘heavy lifting’ for them.
The 1967 Referendum to change the Australian Constitution is now misrepresented as to give aborigines the vote. This is quite wrong. They were always able to vote from 1901, the date the Federation was formed.
The purpose of the Referendum was not stated clearly at the time by the Federal Government. They produced material enticing voters to vote “Yes”, but in essence they did not produce more than one sheet of paper on how or why to vote “No”.
Watch out for this crooked trick if a next time around should happen. Geoff S
The Indigenous in SA, NSW, VIC, ACT, NT and Tas all had the vote on Jan 1st, 1901.
WA and QLD did not afford the natives a vote – but the Constitution penalized them (for not doing so) by reducing their federal representation.
1967 repealed this penalty and cemented the ‘right for vote’ for these QLD & WA people … who had already been granted their vote by those states in 1965 and 1962, respectively.
The other substantive 1967 change was a simple proposition that the Federal Government be able to make laws regarding Aborigines, as it could for every other race.
The current government wants to install a ‘Voice’ over Parliament, and offers no detail as to how any of it would work…
Australia has a brand new Labour Government. For some indication of how well the current blush of Labour performs in the Antipodes, take a look at the last 5 years next door in New Zealand – which has been a train wreck of underperformance, and complete inability to achieve anything of consequence. Latest debacle – distribution of a cost of living handout, which managed to miss 800,000 people altogether, but did pay large numbers of dead people, and at least some who have not been resident in NZ for 20 years.
The only thing they have managed to achieve is a looming division of the population along racial lines, attempting to elevate an indigenous elite to a position of Aristocratic privilege, with enormous political clout based solely on birthright. A Labour government!
It’s a ‘Labor’ government, not ‘Labour’.
Why does their party logo then follow the Queen’s English and not American?
It is Labour in UK English… which I think Australia follows?
(I think we invented it, so we are right!)
The citizens of the UK have dual spellings and pronunciations of the word “shite”
As it was a gift to the World and with no copyright people can use and abuse the English Language as they see fit.
Except, in Australia, the Labor party (in it’s creation) deliberately wanted to show it was not an offshoot of the English Labour party.
Yes, but I was specifically talking about New Zealand Labour Party
Colonialist
Wrong again
https://www.alp.org.au/
One good thing about having no Prime Minister is the government is in limbo.
There might even be some hope?
“The Conservative Party leadership contenders “seem to be competing on who can propose the stupidest and most dangerous climate policies”, the Green Party has said, after the candidates said they would boost fossil fuel projects and limit renewables.”
https://www.independent.co.uk/climate-change/news/truss-sunak-energy-policy-environment-green-party-b2137576.html
Albanese has only just got his feet under the desk
The linked article is all about irrigation, assuming sufficient water supply hydroelectric also needs suitable topography to provide the potential.
There are few suitable dam sites in northern Australia except perhaps downstream from the headwaters of rivers on the Kimberly Plateau or in North Queensland.
Eric,
The Climate Change Bill was passed by 89-55 in the House of Representatives.
The Independent Member for Fowler,Dai Lee, abstained from voting on the Bill because she was unconvinced that there was a climate emergency and there was no costing on the Bill.
Exactly.
Although Labor took the “Powering Australia” policy to the election and obtained a mandate for it, they claimed it would cost the public Nil while the true cost based on the UK experience of legislating Net Zero 2050 in 2019 is north of £1.4 trillion (A$2.24 trillion).
I understand that no obligation exists for a Regulation Impact Statement,RIS,( including estimated cost impact) to accompany the Bill on introduction for First Reading.
However the Cabinet approved the Bill before it went to the House.
Within the Prime Minister and Cabinet (PMAC) is The Office of Best Practice Regulation (OBPR).
See https://obpr.pmc.gov.au setting out the Government’s impact analysis framework to “ ensure high quality analysis underpins all major decisions of government.”
Is a RIS required for the Cabinet?
“A RIS is mandatory for all decisions made by the Cabinet.This includes proposals that affect individuals – regardless of whether the proposal is minor or machinery in nature or is non regulatory.”
While the PM may exempt a RIS in rare cases, it is important to know if this process was followed or abused.
Was there a Cabinet RIS and did it indicate the cost of the Bill?
I will query this with my local (Labor) member.
The climate change aspect of “Powering Australia” was only one bullet point of a half dozen under that particular policy & where the other bullet points were not ‘dependent’ on any ‘climate change’ action – so not much a mandate at all.
When there is no proper cost benefit analysis with a government’s climate plans expect climate lunacy.
“will this capacity mechanism lower energy prices for households?”.
Actually, it could. If the electricity generators are paid enough money to be available, then they would have an incentive to do proper maintenance. That would make them more productive and more reliable. If only they could also be run as the baseload for which they were designed and built, then, assuming that the savings would not be squandered on more renewables subsidies, there absolutely would be lower energy prices.
oh you mean run the system as it USED TO run?
properly without the scams of pv and birdshredders
gee what a NOVEL idea;-)
Actually, the capacity mechanism does look like a first step in this direction. The political challenge is to make it look like a novel idea.
Nope.. definitely not….Lets have a look at what has been happening over the last 15 or so years… Back in 2007 there was virtually NO RE in the east Australian electricity grid. Most power was provided by coal, both black in Qld, NSW, and brown in Vic.. SA had coal burners too, but not sure where they sourced it from.. Tassie had some good hydro, and of course, there was also some generation of hydro from the snowy mountains scheme and scattered other opportunistic sites. The coal generators ran 24×7 and averaged >80% of their “name plate rating, allowing for downtime and some throttle back at low consumption times. GAS burning quick start/stop peaker plants helped out for the morning and evening peaks, and off peak tariffs shifted consumption to allow the coal burners to power thru the night. Then RE started contributing to the grid.. Solar, as we know, adds NOTHING to the evening peak and very little, if any, to the morning peak. As a result, it effectively “white-anted” the coal generators by displacing the generation of coal based electricity for solar, when it was present. This had a huge impact as it grew over the years by displacing coal GWh, but as capital and operational costs remained the same, decreased profits etc. As older coal generators reached their end of life and were turned off, AND the move to less carbon intensive GAS, the gas turbines began to take a larger share of the generation capacity…. at a greater cost than coal …so here we are 15 years later, NOT replacing coal burners, accepting power from RE, when it suits the generators to supply (sun shines and wind blows), with any new dispatchable capacity being built, being of high cost gas turbine (meant for peaking, NOT as base load…)and as so many other nations are doing the same, find ourselves WITHOUT cheap gas.. The Cheapest, most reliable fuel is the “not suitable for export” coal that we burn, for about $40/Mwh… With RE, think of the capital costs… NOT just for the RE equipment, but the “over-installation” one needs to mke up for SOME of the intermittent factor, then you have STORAGE costs so that Solar CAN contribute to the morning and evening peaks (estimated at around $200+/MWh)…. PLUS, when that’s all exhausted, (low wind periods, overcast skys due cyclones/ wet weather etc) we STILL need to revert to backup supplies, more capital costs….and some running costs… On top of all that, one must be able to MANAGE and CONTROL the network…a much harder task than it was in pre RE days…. NOPE… never going to be cheaper on this path…..
A good summary but here’s a pro unreliables fan take on where the current NEM grid has to go according to the climate changer view-
Ministers to put environment back into energy market rules in landmark move for renewables | RenewEconomy
Read between the lines and you can clearly see the statutory Energy Security Board tasked with keeping the mess together has essentially washed its hands of any ‘capacity mechanism’ design and has handballed the problem back to State and Federal Energy Ministers. Basically you don’t like our best guess (which naturally has to prolong dispatchable coal generation) then it’s all yours Ministers.
In the absence of them being able to come up with a reasonable rules based system then they’ll be left dealing with every new generation/transmission proposal on a case by case basis. That aint no way for any elected politician to run sensible Govt as the NIMBYs and lawyers will have a constant field day as will the media. There has to be a compromise rules based ‘capacity mechanism’ and only the impotent are pure with that. What’s more the system design is urgent if not for the 43% reduction whipping boy they’ve set themselves then for the real probability of greenouts with heat wave summer aircon.
Reading between the lines with the ESB and before that AEMO market intervention you can see that Australia’s 5 State NEM grid is a very important crash test dummy here. That’s because of its size and reach plus the large penetration of unreliables to date. What Putin’s escapade in Ukraine has done is bring the NEM grid’s longer term problem into intense focus and where it goes from here is of international interest. The virtue signallers and their politicians are about to live in interesting times as the professionals closest to the impending train wreck are increasingly passing the buck to them.
It should be a very interesting ministers’ meeting next week. At least they will agree on the new proposal to put environment and emissions back into the electricity market objective and rules. If nothing else, that should prevent a repeat of the farce that we are currently witnessing.
“Makes little sense:” ESB’s capacity market farce leaves projects in a financial hole | RenewEconomy
Lots of ESB ‘capacity mechanism’ critics banging on but no alternative rules based system you’ll note and over to you Ministers.
The only existing technology that would allow reductions in CO2 emissions is nuclear, and the Greens are even more opposed to that.
Predictably and to the denial of the indoctrinated, we’re all getting the same results from green-ness.
Population of Australia aprox 25 million population of the world is 8 billion! I don’t think one needs a Phd to see the absurdity of it all even with the difference in standard living and industrialization around the world.
Making idiotic claims like this should be grounds for automatic failure to promote and tenure. A couple of academics would then have an opportunity to find new challenges.
The unfortunate thing is that cash to keep coal plants open will make the future of fossil fuels even more tenuous unless the cash or some portion of it is used for critical maintenance.
Yrs ago when Bill Gates was flogging his plans for nuclear power, he did make an accurate stmt. “Solar & Wind are intermittent. It is impossible to have enough battery storage for a city like Tokyo” It will also be impossible for Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide etc. ie There will always have to be backup for wind & solar in areas where Hydro is not feasible.
When the turbine fans (no pun intended) claim renewable energy is cheap they fail to comment on why then incentive subsidies to shareholders are needed. They fail to acknowledge that removal and replacement costs are incurred every 20 years on average, and the cost of the “firming” back up generators, storage, transmission lines to main grid.
Ignoring the vast areas of land required for wind or solar commercial installations.
And Capacity Factor, the fans prefer to refer to Nameplate/Installed Capacity and never compare that with power station performance.
Prof Michael Kelly of Cambridge University (Fellow of The Royal Society and of The Royal Academy of Engineering) has calculated that the 100MW Adelaide Battery installed at a cost of £45m in 2018 would power the emergency wards of Addenbrookes Hospital in Cambridge for 24 hours on a single charge. Those wards make up 30% of the total wards in the hospital.To keep the emergency wards running for a week would require several such batteries.
Back up today is provided by 2 diesel generators that can run as long as fuel is available and cost £250,000
https://www.thegwpf.org>content>uploads>2022>03>Kelly-Net-Zero-Progress-Report