Gottiboff is up to his usual businessomics drivel.
The doyen of ALP energy policy, Martin Ferguson, has called for a gas-driven power station in the Latrobe Valley in a direct policy confrontation with current Energy Minister Chris Bowen.
When Ferguson made the declaration, he would not have known three weeks later shadow Minister for Energy Ted O’Brien would announce a Coalition policy which would aim to change the economics of erecting gas-fired power stations in Australia.
…Once gas power is included in the Capacity Investment Scheme, the economies of constructing a gas power station are transformed because there is a contracted regular income.
…When it comes to sourcing gas, the most obvious is the vast deep underground gas deposits in Gippsland measured by Exxon and assessed by top US gas evaluators. But, further drilling is required and this cannot take place until Lily D’Ambrosio is removed as Victorian Energy Minister by the ALP government or if the state Coalition wins the next Victorian election in 2026.
…Research by the Frontier group shows, compared to gas importing facilities operated year around, Beetaloo gas for industrial use would be substantially less expensive in both NSW and Victoria compared to using importing facilities in Port Kembla and Geelong.
…Ferguson says if there is a problem sourcing gas for a Latrobe Valley power station, it would be possible to efficiently use brown coal to produce the gas.
The truth:
- Marn is not a doyen of anything beyond national apostasy.
- There is no conclusive evidence of the extent of Gippsland gas reserves. That needs to be sorted out.
- Brown coal to gas conversion usually produces hydrogen and the process is ultra-filthy unless carbon capture and storage is used which makes it ultra-expensive.
- Beetaloo gas may be cheaper than imports but it is not cheap at $10-16Gj and exposure to exports via Darwin ensures no price relief for the East Coast.
But, before you conclude Gottiboff is bad, behold the evil triptych of the Grattan Institute, LNP and SMH:
The Capacity Investment Scheme was launched by Energy Minister Chris Bowen last year to encourage private companies to build energy projects.
In return, the companies are guaranteed their project profits will be supplemented by the Commonwealth if they don’t reach a predetermined threshold.
…Grattan Institute energy program director Tony Wood supported the inclusion of gas in the scheme to cut greenhouse gases from the energy grid.
“We can have a certain amount of gas, and reduce our emissions dramatically from where they are now,” Wood said.
We can have abundant gas now via domestic reservation that breaks the gas export cartel.
The structure of the CIS is explicitly designed to promote renewable technologies with falling cost curves to ensure cheaper costs in the future don’t deter investment today.
Only corruption or idiocy would include gas in it. To wit, the Grattan Institute and its gas cartel sponsor, Origin Energy.
If this comes to pass, all Australians will be publicly subsidising the East Coast gas cartel to produce gas and while publicly subsidising themselves to consume gas, both at extortionate prices, for our own super-cheap energy transition resource.
We will be double-subsidising the theft of an incredible natural advantage, so middlemen hand it to our worst enemy in China, crippling our economy in the process.
I find it difficult to imagine a nation so stupid as to treat itself in this manner, let alone doing so right after a generational inflation shock that the same cartel explicitly caused.
We are most certainly corrupt but, worse, as a people, we are retarded.
