Via Reneweconomy: The Australian Energy Market Operator, in a ground-breaking study, has confirmed that the cheapest and smartest replacement for the country’s ageing coal capacity will be in solar, wind and storage technologies. In the long awaited release of its Integrated System Plan, AEMO says much of Australia’s coal capacity will retired by 2040 because
Via the AFR: Big business, energy companies industry groups have called on the Turnbull government to allow future governments to be able to adjust the emissions reduction target more often than every five years to ensure Australia meets its international climate targets. With the Energy Security Board finalising the design of the National Energy Guarantee
Via The Guardian: The Queensland and Victorian governments will be hit with a new television advertising campaign in an effort to persuade them to torpedo the national energy guarantee at a critical meeting in early August. The activist group GetUp has combined with Greenpeace to bankroll what it describes as hard-hitting television advertisements targeting the
From Bartho today: It is a measure of the complexity of the issues, the scale and number of the deficiencies and the difficulty of responding to them that the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission’s inquiry into energy affordability has come up with 56 recommendations. It is also a pointer to the convoluted nature of our
Via The Guardian: Businesses have been forced to pay back almost half a million dollars to 616 workers following Fair Work ombudsman audits of the hospitality industry in Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane that found 72% of businesses had breached workplace laws. Fair Work inspectors visited 243 businesses on Victoria Street in Melbourne’s Richmond, Glebe Point Road
The shoe is on the other foot for a change with a Chinese company (recently listed Contemporary Amperex Technology – the world’s largest EV battery manufacturer) announcing a new factory in Germany yesterday. From Bloomberg: CATL and the state of Thueringia in central Germany Monday announced a plan to build a 16-gigawatt lithium-ion plant close to
The ACCC is breathing fire, via The Australian: The competition watchdog has called for radical reform of the National Electricity Market to bring down prices, claiming the gouging of households and business consumers has reached an “unacceptable” level with widespread abuse of market power by the larger energy companies. Recommending the most significant shake-up of
There is nothing capitalism abhors more than an area of excess profitability. A demonstration of such is the superboom underway in east coast solar, charts via Domainfax: Whether public or private, carbon pricing works and the gas cartel delivered a doozy.
I’ve been a lone voice on this as usual but no more. Via The Australian: A spat over gas prices has erupted between the Andrew Forrest-backed consortium planning to build Australia’s first import facility and Santos as concerns grow that the domestic producer may be forced to shelve its controversial Narrabri project in gas-starved NSW.
Via The Australian: Malcolm Turnbull is facing pressure from both sides of politics to establish a royal commission into retail electricity pricing, with the Greens to table a bill for a wide-ranging inquiry amid a push by Coalition backbenchers for the Prime Minister to launch an investigation into the conduct of power companies. The Greens
Via AFR: Last year the combined power of batteries installed by Australia’s 1.8 million solar rooftop homes and businesses and grid batteries such as Tesla and Neoen Australia’s 100 megawatt Hornsdale Power Reserve in South Australia was 246 MW, a report by Chief Scientist Alan Finkel says, citing the Greentech report. That was well ahead of Germany and
For some time now I have been describing China’s “impossible trinity”, the difficulty it faces in managing capital flows, currency value and interest rates as the US Fed tightens while it slows. Goldman today mulls what its options are: In the past week we met with investors in Guangzhou and Shenzhen, and the tone remains
It’s a strange row that we hoe on energy. Via the AFR: Renewable energy generated nearly 19 per cent of national grid power in the year to June 30 and is on track to meet the Turnbull government’s emissions target without the National Energy Guarantee, a new report says. New wind and solar generation being
Via The Australian: Energy Minister Josh Frydenberg will meet pro-coal Nationals MPs and visit a coal-fired power station in a tour of marginal Queensland seats as he comes under pressure from the minor Coalition partner to underwrite three new baseload power plants. Mr Frydenberg will meet Nationals MPs Michelle Landry and Ken O’Dowd — two
Via the AFR: Tony Abbott has called for Australia to withdraw from the Paris climate accord and torpedo the National Energy Guarantee, prompting some conservative colleagues to label the former prime minister an increasingly sad and isolated figure. Mr Abbott, who as Prime Minister in 2015 committed Australia to reducing its greenhouse gas emissions 26-28
There is a problem with think tanks. It is that they come from old money. This ensures that they operate within the bounds of the excepted political thinking. And yes, this does rather undermine their only reason for being. A great example is a new report form the Grattan Institute on energy. It’s sheer lack
Via The Australian: The Nationals have drawn up a set of demands for Malcolm Turnbull, headlined by the creation of a fund of up to $5 billion that would deliver government money for new baseload generators, including coal-fired power. Deputy Prime Minister Michael McCormack was charged with raising a set of “discussion points” directly with
Disrupting an industry as monolithic and conservative as passenger cars was always going to be a hard proposition, but for Elon Musk and Tesla its been easy to predict the constant bad press and naysayers. Musk famously predicted that Tesla would start pumping out more than 5000 Model 3 cars each week by the end
Emissions trajectories are out of control, via The Guardian: Australia’s emissions over the past year were again the highest on record when unreliable data from land use and forestry sectors are excluded, according to new data from NDEVR Environmental. If the country’s greenhouse gas emissions continue on their current trajectory, Australia will miss its Paris
From pathological liar, Josh Frydenberg today: When the Coalition came to government in 2013, it was bequeathed an energy mess. Retail prices had doubled, having increased each and every year, the renewable energy target had ballooned to 45,000 gigawatt hours and we were saddled with the destructive carbon tax. Since then we abolished the carbon
by Chris Becker It’s crunch time for the oil cartel as they attempt again to shore up their own individual fiscal black holes by fiddling with the supply/demand curve of black gold. Both Brent and WTI crude prices rallied throughout the latter half of 2017 before a correction in early May this year. WTI: Brent:
The one great thing about capitalism is that it abhors any area of excess profitability, unless of course it is distorted by policy, as in the case of nearly every Australian “market”. But at least we can say today that one such area of rent seeking is under sustained attack, via the Australian Energy Market
Via The Guardian: The former prime minister Tony Abbott has flagged crossing the floor to oppose the national energy guarantee, joining fellow conservative Craig Kelly, who telegraphed a similar threat three weeks ago in an interview with Guardian Australia. Conservative critics of the policy are attempting to ratchet up internal pressure on the energy minister,
Never mind the appropriate divisions of public policy and private business. Never mind market integrity or rules. Never mind science or evidence-based policy. The Coalition energy loons are in town. We begin at the top with Josh Frydenberg and the AFR: A deal struck in late 2015 by AGL Energy under its then relatively new
Via Domainfax: States and territories that slash greenhouse gas emissions will likely do the heavy lifting while others would be allowed to do less under the Turnbull government’s update of its signature energy plan. Energy analysts raised concerns about the latest updated National Energy Guarantee, with one describing it as a “Frankenstein’s monster” rather than
Via Domainfax: Cuts in power sector emissions are unlikely to be maintained, while those from the transport sector will continue to climb in the absence of mandatory standards, according to analysis by The Australia Institute. “From now on … electricity emissions will fall much more slowly” if not remain flat, Hugh Saddler, an energy analyst
Andrew Forrest’s new east coast gas play is just another disastrous chapter in Australia’s gas monstrosity. Via AFR today: AIE is the sponsor of not one of but three separate plans to import LNG for sale into domestic gas markets. Forrest has involved himself though his privately owned energy play, Squadron Energy. He was introduced
By Leith van Onselen It’s a question I have often pondered. With the Turnbull Government confirming that the Adani Carmichael coal mine will not receive NAIF funding, Australia’s largest rail freight company – Aurizon – stating that it will withdraw its application for a federal government loan to build the rail corridor, as well as
Straya has dodged a bullet thanks to STO management: The Santos move to reject Harbour Energy’s $US14.4 billion offer and to disengage from further negotiations arrived a stunning and unexpected blow to the ambitions of its US private equity pursuer. Santos was scheduled to be the gas fired boat that would carry to Harbour on
It’s all bodice ripping, hair pulling and hysteria now, at The Australian: Craig Kelly, backed by Tony Abbott, called for the competition watchdog to be given new powers that would make it “crystal clear” that closing down a essential service utility when there were “other options”, such as selling to another player, was anti-competitive behaviour.
