Tony Abbott’s victory as Australia dumps green energy target

Power lines in Victoria, Australia [credit: Wikipedia]

Still trying to square the circle of unreliable, expensive renewables and reliable, affordable electricity supplies. At least one backbencher is starting to get it: “The problem with solar and wind … you’ve got to have them backed up in some way, and that’s either got to be a coal-fired power station, a gas generator or some form of battery.” And making batteries to the scale of power stations is neither practical nor affordable.

The details have not officially been released, but the ABC understands Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull will argue his policy will lower electricity bills more than a Clean Energy Target (CET), while meeting Australia’s Paris climate change commitments, as the GWPF reports.

It is understood Cabinet last night also agreed to force retailers to guarantee a certain amount of so-called dispatchable power that can be switched on and off on demand, to avoid outages.

The plan will be put to the Coalition party room today and is likely to appeal to a group of backbenchers who favour coal-fired power and had opposed a CET from the outset.

The target would have mandated a certain percentage of power be generated from gas and renewable energy, but some backbenchers did not like the idea. Former prime minister Tony Abbott argued a CET was effectively a “tax on coal”.

Liberal backbencher Craig Kelly, who in July said renewable energy was killing people, said he was pleased with Cabinet’s plan for more dispatchable, switch-on/switch-off power. “The problem we’ve had in the past is we have hot days, the demand for electricity spikes, and we haven’t had enough power that you can turn on with a switch to get that,” Mr Kelly told AM.

“The problem with solar and wind, for as wonderful technologies that they are, when there’s no wind you get no electricity generation and as soon as the sun sets, you also get zero electricity generation as well.

“So as good as technologies as they are, you’ve got to have them backed up in some way, and that’s either got to be a coal-fired power station, a gas generator or some form of battery.”

Continued here.