Yesterday
Coal power on comeback trail as wind, solar falter
Electricity generation from coal has surged for the first time in nine years, wrecking emissions cuts and hammering home the disarray of Australia’s energy transition.
- Angela Macdonald-Smith
This Month
- Exclusive
- Emissions
NSW coal power stations put on notice over CO₂ limits
The new licence conditions come amid a resurgence in coal power generation in the state and across the National Electricity Market in the June quarter.
- Angela Macdonald-Smith
- Opinion
- Paris Agreement
Energy transition will cost much more than politicians are pretending
The brutal reality is that taxpayers and consumers will be on the hook for much higher costs under a renewable or nuclear energy system.
- John Kehoe
Why overseas money is pouring into Australian green energy
The country’s electricity generation sector is being radically reshaped, and there is hardly a household name among the big participants in solar, wind and batteries.
- Angela Macdonald-Smith
RBA inflation target challenged by power prices
Other areas of the economy will need to offset the impact of higher than expected power prices to keep inflation within target, economists say.
- Angela Macdonald-Smith and Ronald Mizen
Labor appoints former NBN boss as nuclear head
Mike Quigley has been appointed as the head of the federal government’s peak nuclear organisation.
- John Kehoe
Power prices to surge amid sluggish rollout of clean energy: UBS
Wholesale power prices could be almost 50 per cent higher than last year, the investment bank’s analysts warn, as renewables project development has stalled.
- Angela Macdonald-Smith
June
RBA deputy talks up renewable energy potential
RBA deputy Andrew Hauser has talked up Australia’s potential to be a world leader in solar, as the nation debates the best energy mix to achieve net zero.
- Updated
- John Kehoe and Joanne Tran
Nuclear power would do little to reduce need for renewables: report
The task of reaching a net-zero emissions power sector is “Herculean” but can be done without nuclear.
- Angela Macdonald-Smith
Nation’s first renewable energy zone wins approval
The Central-West Orana infrastructure project is intended to drive up to $20 billion in private investment in solar, wind and storage projects.
- Angela Macdonald-Smith
Energy transition lights a rocket under law firms
Law firms are streaking ahead of the broader economy, adding partners as deals return and the energy transition offers decades of lucrative work.
- Maxim Shanahan
Powering our energy future
The Australian Financial Review and Ausgrid hosted a roundtable exploring the role of electrification in our transition to net-zero.
- Updated
Nuclear out in cold in $122b power grid plan
The energy market operator says work needs to start on another $3.4 billion of transmission lines in its latest $122 billion plan to transform the power grid.
- Angela Macdonald-Smith
- Updated
- Gas crisis
Labor delivers all-clear for $1b Rinehart-backed Senex gas project
The decision to grant environmental clearance for the Atlas development brings to an end an approvals process that has lasted almost two years.
- Updated
- Angela Macdonald-Smith
- Opinion
- Opinion
Coalition’s taxpayer-funded nuclear con a road to ruin
We estimate that the fiscal damage would be in the order of a minimum $100 billion “nuke builder” tax, but likely considerably more given the international experience.
- Tim Buckley and Annemarie Jonson
CEO pay goes green, but details lacking on performance measures
It’s one thing to set CEO remuneration based on climate change goals; it’s another to be able to properly measure them.
- Anthony Macdonald
- Opinion
- The AFR View
Mackenzie’s climate change
It shouldn’t surprise to hear the head of a global oil company talking his own book. But it’s no use pretending that the decarbonisation transition is more difficult and more costly than many imagined.
- The AFR View
- Opinion
- Opinion
Culture war is driving Coalition’s plan to stop renewables rollout
The first auction of the Capacity Investment Scheme has received more than 40 gigawatts of project registrations, showing there is a strong pipeline of renewables ready to go with the right policy settings.
- Chris Bowen
Keating labels Dutton ‘a charlatan and climate change denialist’
The former prime minister accused the Coalition leader of seeking to “camouflage” his “long held climate denialism” in an industrial fantasy of nuclear energy.
- Ronald Mizen
Rio Tinto punts on British start-up to plug renewables gap
The mining giant joined a $575 million investment round for Highview Power, which says its storage technology can firm renewable power.
- Hans van Leeuwen