Panic Stations: Daily Wind & Solar Shortfalls Threaten Australia’s Entire Electricity Grid

Subsidised and intermittent wind and solar infiltrate and destroy power grids like an aggressive cancer. But, unlike cancer, the cause of Australia’s power pricing and supply debacle is precisely known, and was as perfectly predictable, as it was perfectly avoidable.

The massive subsidies to wind and solar were deliberately designed to knock reliable and affordable generators off the grid. This they have done – with a vengeance. With a grid literally on the brink of collapse, the political brains trust are trying to undo what their policies were destined to do, with desperate moves to keep Australia’s remaining coal-fired power plants up and running using “capacity payments” – ie taxpayer subsidies paid to the owners of coal-fired plants as an antidote to the $7 billion in annual RET subsidies already being pocketed by wind and solar generators, that allow them to underbid Australia’s based load generators.

STT predicts that we will need to suffer a complete “system black” on Australia’s Eastern Grid (which covers Queensland, NSW, Victoria, Tasmania and SA) before politicos and the MSM finally get to grips with reality. One commentator who has had a pretty fair handle on the unfolding disaster is Chris Kenny.

Australia is in ‘an energy crisis’: Chris Kenny
Sky News
Chris Kenny
8 June 2022

Sky News host Chris Kenny says Australia’s energy crisis is a situation of our “deliberate creation”.

“So, the nation is in an energy crisis,” Mr Kenny said.

“We are short of gas for domestic use and with global demand rising, it’s too expensive, pushing up costs for industry and for electricity generation.

“And we don’t have enough electricity generation from other sources.

“We’ve closed down large coal-fired generators in most states, and renewables, of course, are intermittent.

“So prices skyrocket, supply is stretched and our political and business leaders are in a flap.”

Transcript

Chris Kenny: Big news today is that the nation is in an energy crisis. We’ve been talking about this for so long. We are short of gas for domestic use and with global demand rising, it’s too expensive, pushing up costs for industry and for electricity generation, and we don’t have enough electricity generation from other sources. We’ve closed down large coal-fired generators in most states and renewables, of course, are intermittent. So prices skyrocket, supply is stretched, and our political and business leaders are in a flap.

Jim Chalmers: This emergency is incredibly near term, and so we need to be considering, as the regulators have been, things like price caps and guarantees, and all of that are entirely appropriate.

Jennifer Westacott: Gas is the transition to net zero because those other technologies pumped hydro, battery are not at scale and at price to make that transition.

Chris Kenny: Look, it’s just a slow motion car crash, isn’t it? But yeah, we all know this, the more we rely on renewables, the more we need gas generation to firm up supplies. This is all a situation of our own deliberate creation. We have imposed policies that are specifically designed to force coal-fired generation out of the market by boosting and subsidising and mandating renewables. The idea is to disrupt the economics of coal and guess what, that has worked. At the same time state governments have been down on coal, down on gas as a replacement.

They’ve been banning the exploration and exploitation of gas resources in many basins. So with gas so expensive and not enough left around for domestic use, we could really do with some more coal-fired power, you know, the stuff we’ve been trying to force out of the market. You’d have to laugh if it wasn’t so serious. We would now love to have more of the very power source we’ve been driving out. I mean the situation is so dire now that some of the greenest politicians in the land, some of those culpable for our renewables-led chaos are now spruiking coal.

Matt Kean: However, what we can do is get our coal-fired power stations back online, so that they’re providing the bulk of the electricity at this time. We want renewables and coal at the moment providing electricity, not gas, otherwise that will continue to drive prices up right across the nation.

Chris Kenny: How about that? Hey, maybe next week we’ll see Matt Kean turn up in parliament with a lump of coal in his hand, but you know, when you consider the turmoil, it just makes you wonder, doesn’t it? Imagine if all of this was foreseeable, imagine if people have been warning for years that the push to reduce emissions and boost renewables would lead to higher prices and jeopardise our energy security.

Chris Kenny: It gives us a clue as to just how expensive and disruptive it would be to get the whole country to labor’s old 50% renewables target or the net zero emissions by 2050 target that Bill Shorten is expected to commit to tomorrow.

Chris Kenny: With so much renewable power already in place and plenty more to come, and with all the climate activism, it’ll be gas-fired power that saves the day in Australia.

Chris Kenny: More energy, more jobs, lower prices, and fewer emissions, if it sounds too good to be true, it usually is. The trouble is everywhere they try this, it runs into strife. The jobs prove elusive, the energy proves unreliable.

Chris Kenny: As a nation we’ve spent about $40 billion on this stuff over the past couple of decades, $40 billion. And so far, what we’ve got is an electricity system that’s more expensive and less reliable, and the renewables don’t even supply a quarter of our power yet. Imagine the cost and the lack of reliability we might face to get close to 100% renewable energy.

Chris Kenny: This is what we’ve come to, Coalition government policy that mirrors the aims of Extinction Rebellion. What could possibly go wrong? The green left, the environmental activists, the radical campaigners are now teamed up with the big corporates, big unions, and big financiers on a unity ticket. And as usual, working families will pay.

Chris Kenny: It’s highly dubious policy of course. It’s the sort of green energy revolution the Coalition resisted for a decade or more, but now is embracing openly in an attempt to neutralise climate change as a political issue. The trouble is we might pay a high price through energy shortages and price hikes.

Chris Kenny: Honestly, why would you listen to climate deniers like that? Seriously, on this show and from other commentators, and various experts, and even from some steadfast politicians, we have heard warnings about this for years and years and years, and yet Labor, the liberals, the nationals, the greens, and the teal team all went to the last month’s election promising net zero by 2050. What choice did voters have?

Chris Kenny: The International Energy Agency reckons we can’t get to net zero on current technology anyway, saying we can get to the 2030 targets okay, but that by 2050 almost half the reductions come from technologies that are currently at the demonstration or prototype phase. Good luck with that hey. Will it be hot rocks, hydrogen, wave power? What will deliver us to this energy nirvana? So with all this uncertainty, our entire political class signs up to these targets anyway. Common sense, frugal management, secure energy, and affordable energy have been thrown out the window for the fashionable push towards emissions reduction, and believe me, it is political fashion because otherwise we’d be serious about the one emissions free and reliable source of base load generation. Back in opposition, the Coalition are suddenly interested in that.

Ted O’Brien: It’s a conversation we have to have, and if we truly want to get real about reducing emissions, but having affordable and reliable energy, we cannot afford to have that debate without nuclear on the table.

Chris Kenny: And, the most sensible union in the country is forward leading on nuclear too.

Dan Walton: The whole fear and doom and gloom about nuclear is complete nonsense. I think it’s the rhetoric of the past, but having said that, I’ve been a big supporter and a big advocate for a long period of time.

Chris Kenny: But so far, at least Labor is sticking to its ideological position, dressing it up as economic practicality.

Jim Chalmers: The reason that I’m not keen on nuclear energy for Australia is because the economics don’t stack up. I don’t think that they have actually ever stacked up in Australia, but particularly the case, some of these cleaner and cheaper opportunities, the economics have become so compelling.

Chris Kenny: Yeah, the economics are compelling about these cheaper, cleaner options we have now, Treasurer. France might beg to differ from his assessments on the economics. 50 years into its nuclear energy conversion, France remains the energy powerhouse of Europe and is now expanding its massive nuclear programme, of course, virtually emissions free. And if our energy policy is driven by economics anyway, why don’t we remove all the subsidies, the targets, and the grants that have pushed up our renewable energy share, pushed up our prices, and destroyed our energy reliability? No, we don’t do that. Whatever they tell you, however much they all carry on this conversation within their own agreed parameters in the political world, our politicians have created an energy crisis because they have prioritised emissions reduction, prioritised climate goals over their fundamental duty to ensure we’ve got affordable, reliable energy, and the saddest joke of all is that this has done bugger all for the environment because global emissions are still rising.
Sky News