Will Mad King pull the gas lever?

Over at Shits and Giggles, the excellent Bruce Robertson makes a good point about gas:

Gas usage for electricity generation in Australia dropped by 47% between 2012 and 2022 and is expected to drop a further 34% by 2030, when Australia’s need for gas for electricity generation will be 4% of forecast production on the east coast. The predicted 76 petajoules of gas-generated electricity in 2030 will represent a third of the peak in 2014. These are not the delusions of some ratbag green leftie who writes for P&I, they are the projections of the Australian Energy Market Operator (AEMO).

This is the effect of the gas the cartel upon the local market. It is an effective carbon tax upon itself, generating its own demise.

However, there is a problem. Accompanying less gas usage is a rise in its power to disrupt electricity prices because it is the marginal price setter in the National Electricity Market. More from the first iMSM article to notice Australia is mid-energy shock already:

A surge in the price of gas will intensify concern among Australia’s manufacturing sector – the country’s dominant domestic users – and leaves the country vulnerable to a repeat of the chaos seen last year when the energy market operator was forced to intervene to prevent blackouts.

Gas in Australia is typically used as a so-called peaker, with plants fired up when demand is strong in the evening and on cold mornings. But with a spate of coal power stations offline in 2022, gas plants were running around the clock.

Energy Edge managing director Josh Stabler said that Australia was susceptible to upheaval this winter.

Well, we may not have seen chaos yet but we’ve certainly seen its close cousin as electricity prices roar to the highest in the world:

Thanks to the gas cartel that has violated Albo’s $12Gj price caps amid silence:

As the ACCC noted in March, all that was needed was for the gas cartel to provide the spot gas it is sitting on:

Since it has not supplied it, and prices have gone barmy, one can only presume that Resources Minister Mad King will pull the lever on the Australian Domestic Gas Security Mechanism on July 1st. Or not, given her terrible record of industry capture.

This is the paradox, less coal and gas means greater reliance upon the latter until enough power storage is built to knock gas out as a source of firming power.

Which is nowhere in sight.