SA renewables crisis goes viral

In his recent insightful article in Townhall, Paul Driessen calls it how it is "Insanity and Hypocrisy Down Under". Our energy chaos has made it to the world stage!

What do you call the willful destruction of the quality of life of your own citizens without any measurable benefit from your actions? Insanity! Our State, and to some extent our Federal, governments have sacrificed energy security and price in favor of tokenistic emissions targets. Targets that, even if met, will not make one iota of difference in the temperature of the planet in 85 years. Insanity. Shutting down coal fired power stations in Australia and exporting the coal to be burnt overseas. Insanity! State governments setting renewable energy targets so onerous that continuous supply is unlikely. Insanity! The very same state governments preventing further exploration for new natural gas resources that could provide low emission base-load energy. Insanity!

Yes Driessen called it - Insanity. It is hard to argue otherwise.

The best that can be said for our insane energy policies is that it has given some warning to the rest of the world. If you follow the same renewables-uber-alles policies you will end up with spiking energy prices and blackouts, with the consequent burden on citizens and industry.

You have been warned.

Time to scrap RET

Today's article in The Australian by Maurice Newman "The ever-receding mirage of cheap renewables just faded from view" provides a sobering review of the consequences of ideological climate action. The consequences of decisions made when Climate Change was the "greatest moral challenge of our time".

The results of policies enacted just a few years ago are having some inconvenient consequences. In Europe and Worldwide the hysteria that led to aggressive retirement of fossil fuels in favour of renewables has gone into reverse with some 1500 coal fired plants planned or under construction today.

For Australia there is a stark reality; higher energy costs and blackouts. South Australia the champion and trailblazer of renewables has had a rude awakening. Without sufficient base-load power there will be blackouts. Even if the inter-connector could magically provide back up base-load power whenever it was required, the cost would always be high. Suppliers would always charge a premium giving priorty to their long term contracts, and only surplus energy would be made available to the 'spot' market. Given the intermittent nature of renewables this rise in costs was predictable and inevitable. Perhaps battery storage will, over time, help to address this, but it is very much at an experimental stage, while South Australia needs real solutions today.

Australia was once the envy of the world, with abundant cheap energy to power its industry and even to export. Today with its national Renewable Energy Target (RET) as well as even more ambitious, ie fool hardy, state government targets, this has all changed. The RET has distorted our energy markets. It is no longer economic to maintain or invest in new fossil fuel generation if no one is willing to commit to long term supply contracts. Our aging coal fired plants are being phased out, decreasing base-load capacity and increasing prices. The impact is on all industry through higher costs and uncertainty of supply. All this for no measurable reduction in global CO2 emissions. Australia is crippling its economy for symbolism.

It is time the government bit the bullet and scrapped the national RET and let the markets operate to provide the abundant low cost energy that gave Australia its kick-start in the industrial era.