Fix gas, fix everything

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All we need is a proper gas reservation regime on the East Coast to supply our own super cheap gas to ourselves ahead of giving it all away to China, and this goes away:

The energy industry has hit back at a proposed system allowing state governments to seek temporary extensions for [coal] power station closures, claiming it would disincentivise renewable energy investment.

Gas would supplant coal as the firming power source as renewables roll out and batteries catch down in price.

All we need is a proper gas reservation regime on the East Coast to supply our own cheap to ourselves ahead of giving it all away to China, and this goes away:

ANZ chief executive Shayne Elliott has lashed the slow pace of planning approvals for Australia’s rollout of renewable energy projects and indicated the economy is at a “turning point” as expectations grow for interest rate cuts later in 2024.

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Cheap gas gives the certainty of reliable firming power to turbocharge renewable investment.

All we need is to keep a tiny portion of our own cheap gas on the East Coast (about 15% of what we ship to China, which doesn’t need it and onsells loads of it to Europe at a profit half the time) and the following will, happen:

  • an instant cure to all political climate wars;
  • an instant cure for a cheap and reliable low-carbon energy grid;
  • the instant reversal of the offshoring of manufacturing supply chains;
  • an instant cure for inflation and high-interest rates, killing households.

Fix gas, fix everything.

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Instead, we have a resources minister with a long history of gas corruption, giving money away for profoundly irrelevant nickel.

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.