Albo’s cowards have leaked their grand plan for energy and it is more than a little ridiculous:
Chris Bowen and state energy ministers will speed up the rollout of renewables, gas-proof Australia and minimise electricity market shocks under a national plan focused on slashing emissions.
The strategy, expected to be signed off by energy ministers during a six-hour meeting in Canberra on Friday, will commit to accelerating a whole-of-system plan for the National Electricity Market and driving investment in modern power networks.
The federal, state and territory governments will also endorse gas market reforms giving the Australian Energy Market Operator greater oversight over producers and powers to procure and store gas in facilities across the east coast.
…The energy meeting comes after Santos on Thursday announced it would build a new pipeline delivering gas from Narrabri to Sydney and the southern states following warnings from the competition watchdog about record gas shortfalls next year.
Energy ministers will also fast-track work on the Energy Security Board’s post-2025 electricity market reforms, headlined by the development of a capacity mechanism requiring retailers to lock in energy supply from generators in advance.
Mr Bowen, the federal Minister for Energy and Climate Change, has made clear the mechanism, which would secure reliability in the grid ahead of the exit of coal-fired power stations, would be consistent with the government’s emissions reduction targets and commitment to renewables and new technologies.
AEMO’s integrated systems plan released in June flagged a nine-fold increase in grid-scale wind and solar capacity, a tripling of firming capacity including dispatchable storage, gas-fired and hydro generation and a five-fold increase in solar.
…The $1.2bn Hunter Gas Pipeline would establish a second route to southern markets for Queensland gas, flowing from Wallumbilla down to Newcastle and near the Narrabri facility.
“At a time when the ACCC is forecasting domestic gas shortfalls, our Narrabri project, which is 100 per cent committed to the domestic market, will inject new supply into southern domestic markets and put downward pressure on gas prices for NSW businesses, manufacturers and families,” Mr Woods said.
…Ahead of releasing the updated ADGSM trigger in coming weeks, Ms King said natural gas was the “ally” of renewable energy as it filled the void of intermittent wind and solar.
…“We want a sustainable and ongoing system of gas supply for the domestic market while also honouring the arrangements companies have in place with international partners.”
This is all sound and fury signifying nothing:
- This broader transformation was already baked in by the competitive advantage of renewables. This is not a plan so much as it is an acknowledgment of reality and pollies seeking to take the credit.
- The Santos Narrabri project and pipeline have a number of issues. The first is that the cartel has overrun the NSW government’s 16 environmental safety conditions meaning local opposition will mount and accident risk is inherent in the millions of tonnes of carcinogenic salts that will pile up as NSW is Swiss-cheesed. The pipeline itself could be useful but it will be owned by the cartel so they’ll make sure we all pay for it. Moreover, 100% of Narrabri gas being reserved is perfectly useless in the context of no broader reservation because the cartel can arbitrage its portfolio of assets and deplete gas from other local sources for export. The Senex Energy announcement yesterday for more QLD gas to go to Asia via Santos fits this bill perfectly.
- The AEMO gas reserve might be occasionally useful but it adds to demand at the margin so will if anything lift prices.
- Nothing done above will solve the energy crisis for at least three years and probably five.
- There will be no energy security for our export partners (that is, China taking 71% of the gas as it declares war on Taiwan from Canberra) unless the cartel is broken and Australian energy security is restored.
As you can see this so-called “plan” is more like a smokescreen because it does not address the core issue of the criminal gas cartel that is rorting everything and everybody in sight. It makes our energy ministers look like monkeys dancing around the cartel organ grinder.
As for Mad King, she is now a walking, talking gas cartel propaganda service. This suggests a dubious character, poor judgment, and soft corruption, if not worse.
All we need to do is to break the criminal cartel with $7Gj price-triggered domestic reservation. That is plenty high enough for Narrabri and all of QLD gas. Victorian too if it comes to that.
Canberra’s cowards have created a natural energy monopoly and now they must regulate it like one with the old-fashioned “cost plus” model traditionally used on utilities.
Anything short of that is literally economic suicide.
