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Via the AFR:
The Turnbull government is coming under pressure to intervene to keep the massive Hazelwood power plant open in the face of increasing alarm about power shortages.
Lobby groups are believed to have approached the government in the past 24 hours seeking some form of intervention to keep the ageing power station open until a short-term replacement for its power out is found.
For God’s sake, there is oodles of spare capacity in the National Electricity Market (NEM):
The problem is it is all gas which is now uneconomic to burn:
Fix the real problem. Ban third party gas exports for short term relief. Install domestic reservation and “use it or lose it” rules for longer term.
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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.