Green energy packs its bags

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ScreenHunter_29 Oct. 16 14.49

From the AFR‘s Chanticleer today:

Contrary to popular opinion, leading businessman Dick Warburton does not have any pre-determined views about the future of Australia’s $20 billion Renewable Energy Target scheme.

While it is reassuring he is determined to be completely impartial in his rapid fire review of the RET scheme, Warburton makes it clear in an interview with Chanticleer that there will not necessarily be a grandfathering of existing arrangements.

….That helps explain why the renewables industry is starting to be priced for a disastrous outcome that could wipe out billions of dollars in existing investments and see a wave of bankruptcies and restructuring.

…Chief executive Miles George says…“Our business would fail, along with most other wind farms in Australia”.

…Weaven’s broader point is that with the plan to scrap the carbon tax and the uncertainty surrounding the government’s Direct Action policy, there is no new investment in any form of energy generation in Australia at the moment.

Markets clearly disagree that Warburton has no view. Add to this the recent story about the mothballing of gas plants:

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Up to $4 billion worth of gas-fired power stations are in danger of being “stranded” as gas prices explode and the renewable energy target pushes extra generation into a grid already oversupplied with excess power, a new report has found.

It says this could cause investors to slash maintenance spending on older generators, potentially threatening future power supplies.

We’re headed into a broader capex cliff, not to mention climate change itself, and our pollies are busy pushing the energy investments of the future into the sea.

About the author
David Llewellyn-Smith is Chief Strategist at the MB Fund and MB Super. David is the founding publisher and editor of MacroBusiness and was the founding publisher and global economy editor of The Diplomat, the Asia Pacific’s leading geo-politics and economics portal. He is also a former gold trader and economic commentator at The Sydney Morning Herald, The Age, the ABC and Business Spectator. He is the co-author of The Great Crash of 2008 with Ross Garnaut and was the editor of the second Garnaut Climate Change Review.