Crikey sums it up: Taylor far from electrifying. There was considerable fun to be had on the weekend with the government’s and News Corp’s attempts to attack Labor’s electric car plan. Bill Shorten’s claim that electric cars could be charged in 10 minutes was seized on by News Corp to attack him, while Scott Morrison accused Shorten of wanting
Via The Australian: Energy Networks Australia warned in a submission to the Senate’s recent electric vehicle inquiry that growing numbers of EVs, combined with the nation’s flat energy pricing structure, could worsen energy peaks and exceed the capacity of low-voltage networks. “Australia’s distribution networks were not designed for any significant uptake of electric vehicles and
God save me from the AEMO: The Australian Energy Market Operator’s (AEMO) latest analysis finds that supply from existing and committed gas developments is expected to provide sufficient resources to meet demand in southern and south-eastern Australia until 2023. However, additional sources of gas supply are required to address a forecast gap in meeting long-term
Via the AFR: The centrepiece of Labor’s plan to reduce carbon emissions – a baseline and credit scheme for the nation’s top 250 emitters – appears doomed with the Coalition opposed to the entire policy and the Greens hostile towards several elements, including letting companies offset emissions by buying international carbon permits. If Labor wins
Via The Australian: Bill Shorten will impose an aggressive pollution cap on industry and business if elected, in a bid to meet Labor’s ambitious climate change targets, and will push for half of all new cars sold in Australia to be electric within a decade. On the eve of the federal budget, the Opposition Leader
There are reasons to be optimistic. More infrastructure is coming. But there are other, more powerful forces, that make it a worry. We know steel demand is being dented by the manufacturing recession and weak car demand. But the big one is realty. It always is, constituting 30-40% of steel consumption. This is a problem
Because that is its plan. The ACCC confirmed yesterday that the gas cartel is still taking the major piss, via The Australian: Gas prices on Australia’s east coast are set to fall this winter, potentially providing some relief to long-suffering manufacturers and heavy industry, according to data from the competition watchdog. Domestic gas prices may
The problem with being insane is that you become self-satirising. You’re own behaviour exits so far outside accepted norms that it becomes a comedic reassertion of the same. We had one recent example of this in the Scummo & Co defense of Paedo Pell. But that it small fry compared to today’s debacle as School Strike
The RBA was out last night discussing climate change and posted the following chart of energy costs which confirms our view that it is game over for coal: These numbers are largely in line with our numbers on electricity costs from various sources and since it has been over a year since I last
Via Damien Boey at Credit Suisse: Overnight, RBA Deputy Governor Debelle delivered a speech about climate change, and its implications for economic policy. Some key points are as follows: Climate change affects the agricultural sector of the economy. While agriculture is becoming less significant from a GDP perspective, food prices are still a major driver
The reason why is obvious at The Australian: Coal-fired power generation would fall by 60 per cent within the next decade to meet Labor’s 45 per cent emissions-reduction target, leading to the likely closure of more than half the existing east coast plants, according to independent expert modelling. The closures would bring an end to
No real surprise. Via The Guardian: The multinational mining giant Glencore spent millions bankrolling a secret, globally coordinated campaign to prop up coal demand by undermining environmental activists, influencing politicians and spreading sophisticated pro-coal messaging on social media. An investigation by Guardian Australia can reveal the covert campaign, dubbed “Project Caesar”, was orchestrated by world-renowned political operatives
By Leith van Onselen The man that once waved a lump of coal around parliament has announced a $2 billion Climate Solutions Fund to reduce Australia’s emissions. From The ABC: Prime Minister Scott Morrison will today launch a new pre-election climate change policy, pledging $2 billion for projects to bring down Australia’s emissions. The Climate
Via EnergyQuest at the AFR: One third of Queensland’s new $84 billion LNG export industry is likely to be forced to close down by 2025 due to shortages of coal seam gas reserves and the need for shipments to be diverted to local users, according to a detailed analysis of the sector. The findings by
by Chris Becker While the headline looks bad at first glance, there’s still a lot of good news for renewable energy investors and energy consumers with the Bloomberg New Energy Finance annual report out this week. Global clean energy investment totaled $332.1 billion in 2018, down 8% on 2017; last year was the fifth in
By Leith van Onselen The impossibility of Australia meeting its emissions target has been laid bare by lecturers at Deakin University. From The Conversation: In signing the Paris Climate Agreement, the Australian government committed to a global goal of zero net emissions by 2050. Australia’s promised reductions to 2030, on a per person and emissions
by Chris Becker Aussie Aussie Aussie! Another record for the ages with the Bureau of Meteorology revealing that 2018 was the third hottest year on record, with global temperatures in 2018 to be the fourth-warmest year on record since 1880 (2015-2017 being the warmest): Drought prevention and relief, plus water security issues have never been more important, but
Via Platts: A total of 16,900 MW of U.S. power generation capacity retired in 2018, according to S&P Global Market Intelligence data, far more than the 11,569 MW retired in 2017. Coal-fired capacity made up nearly 70% of the capacity retired in 2018, totaling about 11,800 MW, despite efforts by the Trump administration to ease regulations
Via the AFR: Gas producers are privately voicing reservations about proposals that would require them to report on sales contracts, reserves and export prices, worried that the measures intended to increase transparency in the under-pressure east coast market could put them at a commercial disadvantage. The recommendations, released by the national competition regulator and the
by Chris Becker Those crazy Norwegians! Saving money from a sovereign wealth fund and then investing in their future with huge incentives to electrify the transportation grid. It’s not like they spend over $42 billion a year importing oil to power their cars like Australia – which has less than two weeks of strategic reserve
by Chris Becker From Commsec’s latest report: Crude oil’s sharp fall since October is helping to put some extra coin in consumers’ pockets, in the form of falling unleaded petrol prices. Aussie motorists on the East Coast are enjoying the lowest pump prices in 15 months as the discounting cycle continues. According to MotorMouth and
Released into the holidays as usual: Australia has a target of reducing emissions to 26 to 28 per cent below 2005 levels in 2030. The current estimate is that cumulative emissions reductions of 695 Mt CO2-e (26 per cent reduction) to 762 Mt CO2-e (28 per cent reduction) will be needed over the period 2021–2030
Yes, it’s gas cartel gouge time once again. After the treasonous ACCC did nothing again yesterday on the gas market, the cartel is making hay charging Aussies $11Gj spot prices across the eastern seaboard while Asian prices are in the $9Gjs. Meanwhile, according to the disastrous ACCC, contract prices are: …offered and agreed in mid-2018
The ACCC was out with its gas market update yesterday and not once, not once in a 120 page document, did it mention the word “reservation”. Despite this hilarious chart: 71% of east coast demand is the gas export cartel. If we held just 10% of that back then all our energy problems would be
From QLD Resources today: Queensland has given the green light to a new Surat Basin based project which will see more gas made available for the domestic market. “Last month I announced that a joint venture between Santos and Shell had won the right to explore for gas in Surat Basin – gas which will
Via Nature: Policymakers have less time to respond than they thought. Governments need to invest even more urgently in schemes that protect homes from floods and fires and help people to manage heat stress (especially older individuals and those living in poverty). Nations need to make their forests and farms more resilient to droughts, and
Yes, it’s back. The east coast gas cartel is once again charging Australians more for their own gas than the Japanese, Chinese, Koreans or anybody else that happens along. Via the FT: Liquefied natural gas prices in Asia have hit a six-month low as warmer than normal winter weather and forward buying by Chinese importers
Via Domain: ExxonMobil has made a final investment decision on its Bass Strait gas project, which will bring more gas to Victoria in the next five years. The decision backing the West Barracouta field, located off Victoria’s shores, boosts ExxonMobil’s Gippsland Basin output. Exxon did not disclose the volumes but this gas is not for
Via the US Studies Centre: Australia and the United States have much in common: liberal, democratic institutions; technologically advanced, largely open economies; growing populations; demanding infrastructure; and above all, abundant energy resources. But with respect to energy, Australia and the United States are on radically different paths. Australia faces an energy crisis, stressing households and
Via the AFR comes Australia’s BCA head and chief energy wrecker, Grant King: “In the last four terms of parliament, two under Labor and two under Coalition governments, we have lurched from one extreme to the other in terms of policy outcomes,” Mr King said on Monday night. “The most recent idea from government has been
