Another day, another energy superidiot.
Opposition Leader Peter Dutton has insisted he is not a “zealot” for nuclear, but wants to ensure Australia can deliver “affordable energy” as he touted the Coalition’s plans during an address at The Advertiser’s Future SA.
Speaking at the event on Friday, Mr Dutton highlighted the “core” issue of energy prices in the state, citing the default market rate of “56 cents a kilo” per hour.
“It’s killing the economy, and it’s not just Whyalla – it’s 27,000 small businesses who have closed their doors over the course of the last three years,” he said.
“It’s a key part of why families are feeling the pressure when they turn up to an IGA or a Coles or a Woolworths and they’re taking items out of their supermarket trolley and putting them back … so energy is the economy.”
Whyalla is a blast furnace, not electric arc. While its costs have undoubtedly risen with power prices, this will be marginal.
Whyalla has died from Chinese steel dumping, not energy costs.
Worse, nuclear will not fix SA’s energy price. Even if it builds a nuclear reactor, gas-fired power will still set the marginal cost of electricity.
It’s not renewables that have driven up the price. It is gas.
This should be particularly galling to South Australians, given they have plenty of gas.
Over 5000 km of pipelines have been laid from the Cooper Basin to gas markets in eastern and southern state capitals and to the liquids load out facility at Port Bonython. Over one million residential, commercial and industrial customers in South Australia, New South Wales, Australian Capital Territory and Victoria are directly supplied from South Australia.
But guess what happened? South Australian gas titan, Santos, overbuilt a QLD LNG export terminal and began shipping Cooper Basin gas to China instead.
Prices went nuts for both gas and electricity in SA.
For Peter Dutton to tell South Australians that he will fix their bills with a nuclear plant built in twenty years while he intends to gut bill rebates and the Australian Domestic Gas Security Mechanism just as LNG imports begin is incredible levels of misinformation.
Dutton should be demanding Santos leave SA gas in SA. So should the SA government. The entire East Coast needs blanket reservation on 15% of supply plus an export levy to keep the price down.
Other than that, the only thing that can cut SA energy bills, and all of the East Coast for that matter, is a Ukraine peace that releases Russian gas into Europe to crash the Asian LNG import price.
