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https://reneweconomy.com.au/coalition-to-dump-environment-from-grid-objective-in-latest-bizarre-thought-bubble-on-green-energy/>
"Just a word of caution to our readers at this early point: Please, do not try
to make sense of the federal Coalition’s energy policies, as far as we know
them. They seem to be a random collection of bizarre suggestions from a group
of people whose collective understanding of energy markets might comfortably
sit on a sixpence.
The latest policy thought bubble has come from Ted O’Brien, the opposition
energy and climate (at least we think that’s in his portfolio, but it is
getting hard to tell).
His latest suggestion, according to a story published in the Murdoch “flagship”
newspaper
The Australian on Wednesday, is to walk back last year’s inclusion
of the environment, known officially as “value of emissions reduction” as part
of the National Electricity Objective.
Many readers will remember how environment was suddenly stripped from the NEO
by the Howard government in the late 1990s as the design of the then new
National Electricity Market (NEM) was finalised. Its absence cruelled efforts
to replace high polluting fossil fuels with cleaner and smarter energy
alternatives.
It was finally included in early 2023, with the full agreement of all state and
federal ministers, and it is not surprising that the current Coalition
leadership would want it removed again, given their determination to keep
burning coal for as long as they can, and to burn more gas as well.
But O’Brien’s reasoning took on bizarre proportions in [the]
The Australian
article. He seems to be under the misapprehension that the VER is included in
the Australian Energy Market Operator’s Integrated System Plan, the 25 year
blueprint for a green energy grid hated by the Coalition and the nuclear lobby
that pulls its strings.
He accuses Labor of introducing a carbon price by stealth. “One of the problems
with Labor’s approach to electricity is that it’s been secretly applying a
shadow carbon price, which acts like a carbon tax in system modelling to make
coal look far more expensive than it really is,” O’Brien said.
“Once you add that in, you make uneconomic projects look economic and our
existing coal fleet looks really expensive.”
Just for the record, the VER is not included as a cost in the ISP, although
AEMO does note the value of emissions reductions of having more renewables. Nor
is the VER a “carbon tax” that will be added to consumer bills, as O’Brien
claimed. It is a way of calculating the value of an investment, not its cost.
The big concern about the suggestion to dump environment and climate concerns
from the NER is that it seems to confirm that the Coalition’s push for nuclear
power has little or nothing to do with emissions reductions, but is all about
extending coal."
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
