Via The Australian: In documents submitted to the Victorian government this week, AGL said it wanted the Crib Point import terminal, 65km southeast of Melbourne on the Mornington Peninsula, operating in the first half of 2020. “Victoria, and the other states – South Australia, New South Wales and Tasmania – that rely heavily on gas
Perhaps god loves coal after all. Via Courier Mail: ADANI is to tipped to start construction on its job-creating megamine before Christmas by unveiling plans to accelerate the project, which could finally spark pay rises for Queenslanders. The Indian energy giant is preparing to sell down its interest in Abbot Point Port to finance a
Or so says The Australian: Energy producers on Australia’s east coast may escape the threat of government intervention after signalling the extension of a deal to offer uncontracted gas for domestic use before export, and agreeing to make gas available at peak demand periods for the power grid. Following meetings in Canberra yesterday, gas players
Gas market legend Mark Samter is again promoting LNG imports today, at the AFR: …The debate then hit a new low last week with Bill Shorten’s “plan” to introduce a permanent gas export control trigger that can be pulled when prices are too “high”, not just based off a shortfall like the flawed Australian Domestic
Via The Age: Victorian homeowners will be paid nearly $5000 towards the cost of household solar batteries by a re-elected Andrews government in the latest move aimed at making the state Australia’s leader in domestic-scale renewable energy. The latest promise of subsidies for small-scale renewable energy will see households who already have solar panels able
The AFR is upset about the death of the NEG: Labor will take the National Energy Guarantee or something similar to the next federal election as business and industry clamoured for certainty and new data showed power prices had jumped since the NEG was scrapped. It is understandable that markets would bid up electricity futures
As predictable as the sun, via The Australian: Queensland’s three big gas export plants are shipping at their strongest rates in seven months as global LNG prices rise to four-year highs and southern winter demand pushed Sydney and Melbourne gas prices to records last month. The spike may inform talks gas producers and LNG exporters
Via Gottiboff comes Andrew Liveras: Liveris accepts as a given that Australia wants to reduce its emissions and to honour its gas exports contracts. If it doesn’t honour those contracts it will do great long-term harm to the nation. …Liveris plan starts with the requirement that New South Wales needs to exploit its gas and
Catherine Tanna that is, at the AFR: Competition czar Rod Sims has dismantled EnergyAustralia’s reasoning that the introduction of a default retail electricity tariff will mean higher prices for most of its customers, saying that the competitive market means those customers will still be able to get discounts as big as they do now by
From The Australian comes AGL: Australia’s largest power generator, AGL Energy, has warned Victoria faces gas shortages in the early 2020s as supplies from Queensland dry up, with the problem to be made worse should Labor introduce a price trigger to limit export volumes and free up domestic supplies. …“As we move into the 2020s,
Here it is from the ACCC: Importantly, the ACCC isolated gas prices as a very particular influencer of power bills. “Another major factor in wholesale prices has been the significant shortages in competitively priced gas at a time when gas-powered generation would often be the logical source of replacement for lost coal-fired capacity. Gas prices
Random dudes think so, at The Australian: Electricity bills will soar and gas and coal-fired power stations will close if the share of wind and solar generation increases dramatically, engineers have warned after analysing the nation’s energy supply. The analysis casts doubt on Labor’s claim that a 50 per cent renewable energy target — the
The campaign against gas reservation has begun at the AFR. Santos CEO Kevin Gallagher: …Australia relies on foreign investment, but sovereign risk is rising fast. In a low-risk country, governments recognise that contracts between commercial parties must be honoured and not broken by governments favouring one party over another. In a low-risk country, governments do
At The Conversation we find joyful (24 hours late for you guys): Bill Shorten will turn the energy spotlight onto gas on Monday, proposing measures Labor says will put downward pressure on prices for manufacturers and power generators and so benefit jobs and households. A Labor government would introduce a permanent gas export control trigger
Via Domainfax on the Coalition’s climate change self-flagellation: …The policy ructions did not go unnoticed at a meeting of the European Parliament’s Committee on International Trade in Brussels, where the EU’s chief negotiator on the deal, Helena König, faced angry questions from the floor over Australia’s commitment to climate action. …In a video of this
Can it be that at the cost of the east coast energy shock and one prime minister the gas cartel’s time has finally come? Via the AFR: Senior executives from Santos, Origin Energy and Shell are set to be summoned to a meeting with federal Resources Minister Matt Canavan within two weeks ahead of a
At The Australian PM Morrison’s new energy man, Angus Taylor, speaks: “I’m focused on getting prices down while I keep the lights on. I’ve got one KPI. I’ve got one goal,” he told The Australian. …The key points of the new Morrison-Taylor plan were flagged by Mr Turnbull last week after the collapse of the
From Gottiboff: What I want to see from Angus Taylor is the truth and the whole truth. A series of state politicians, led by those in New South Wales, Victoria and South Australia, set themselves high renewable targets and began subsidising vast investment in wind and solar farms, as well as other renewable projects, including
By Leith van Onselen The Victorian Greens are at it again, warning that the ‘urban heat island effect’ risks costing vulnerable Melbournians their lives this summer and calling for mitigating policy action: Victorian Greens leader Samantha Ratnam said in her time at Moreland council, the heat island effect was a significant issue for her and her colleagues.
Via the ABC: Malcolm Turnbull’s son has lashed out at vested interests in the Queensland coal mining industry, who he says are exerting undue influence over the Liberal Party’s energy policy. Alex Turnbull, who describes himself as a keen environmentalist, studied economics at Harvard and runs a private hedge fund in Singapore. Before leaving Australia
Via Domainfax: Alex Turnbull blamed “rent-seekers” backing the coal industry for felling his father Malcolm Turnbull as prime minister, saying it’s “impossible” to vote for the Liberal-National coalition “in good conscience” because of its climate stance. “He was snookered,” Mr Turnbull said of his father’s fate. “You don’t know how hard he worked on this
Finally somebody talking sense on energy and gas. And it wasn’t the other bloke.
As a PM, if you let your country get eaten alive by rent-seekers’ devouring the fundamentals of your civilisation then you deserve everything that you get. This is the sad and sorry truth now confronting Australia’s worst ever PM, Malcolm Bligh Turnbull. The Turnbull Government has been staggeringly slow to recognise the wreckage of the energy
At The Australian today: Malcolm Turnbull will try to head off the potential resignation of several ministers over the national energy guarantee with a promise to rebel MPs that the three big energy companies will be targeted for market manipulation and deliberately inflating power prices through secret contracts. However, senior ministers have told The Australian this would not
On both sides. From The Australian: Federal government ministers are coming under pressure from colleagues to resign over the national energy guarantee in a counter-campaign by rebel backbenchers that risks further eroding Malcolm Turnbull’s authority as his attempts to win the support of wavering Coalition MPs appeared to be failing. As the Prime Minister held
It may come as a shock but the former One Steel/Arrium dog is now the birthplace of the Australian energy future, via the AFR: British billionaire Sanjeev Gupta expects to begin construction of the Cultana solar energy project which encompasses 780,000 solar panels near the revived Whyalla steelworks early in 2019 as part of a broader $1.37
Via the AFR: The Turnbull government is fast-tracking a policy to underwrite a new coal-fired power station as it seeks to win the support of wavering conservative MPs for the National Energy Guarantee at Tuesday’s Coalition party room meeting. Australian Competition and Consumer Commission chairman Rod Sims, who recommended the government underwrite new dispatchable power
Via Peter Hannam: Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull told the Queensland Media Club a month ago that his “obsession” was cutting energy bills. Climate barely got a look-in, even in a state seared by a multi-year drought that is spreading south to occupy all of NSW and is encroaching on northern Victoria. Brisbane itself was in
NEG propaganda is now as widespread as climate change itself, at The Australian: The Australian Energy Market Operator could be forced to intervene more often to prevent blackouts in Victoria, as energy users warn of extra costs in excess of $300 million if Labor states veto the national energy guarantee. Large energy users across the
By Leith van Onselen The Australia Institute’s (TAI) Climate & Energy Program has released updated analysis assessing the value and effectiveness of the current NEG using figures from the Australian Energy Market Operator (AEMO). The Analysis presents several scenarios showing much larger emission reductions and levels of renewable energy generation under the National Electricity Market
