Peta Credlin: Climate obsession makes our power more unreliable

As Australia braces for a power price surge and energy instability, it’s clear that green energy is not the answer, it is the reason we’re in this mess in the first place, writes Peta Credlin.

The “perfect storm”, that new Treasurer Jim Chalmers says is about to hit your power prices and availability, has actually been brewing for years and should surprise no one.

For more than a decade, Australia’s power system has been run, not to make electricity more affordable and reliable, but to reduce emissions.

Putting more and more renewable energy into the system inevitably makes power more expensive – because there has to be back up when the wind doesn’t blow and the sun doesn’t shine.

And it’s now making our power supply less reliable, because the climate obsessions that have stopped us building new, more efficient coal-fired power stations have also stopped us opening up new gas fields.

In the absence of very large-scale battery storage, wind and solar power is inherently intermittent; yet a modern economy absolutely requires 24/7 electricity.

Power prices ar about to surge. Picture: Andrew Henshaw

Hence an increasingly renewables-dependent power supply is necessarily an increasingly gas-dependent one because, unlike coal-fired power stations which take time to crank up, the gas can come on immediately when the wind fails or the sun disappears.

Europe’s energy crisis didn’t start on February 24, when Russia invaded Ukraine.

It started before Christmas, when a prolonged wind-drought, coupled with the usual grey European winter, meant that renewable power simply wasn’t available.

Soaring demand is what sent gas prices through the roof and put massive pressure on supply – long before Putin’s tanks crossed the border.

And this is what first caused Britain to bring back old coal-plants, and the Germans to rethink closing their nuclear ones.

AEMO, the Australian Energy Market Operator, was scrambling this week in response to our deep cold snap, with rationing inflicted on big power users (“demand management” is the euphemism) and threats to invoke bans on gas exports.

Energy Minister Chris Bowen. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Martin Ollman

But don’t think these are just extraordinary measures for extraordinary times. This is the new normal – at least for the Western countries that have gone big on climate zealotry, including Australia where we have installed renewable energy, in per capita terms, faster than anywhere else – although not for places like China and India which still put a higher priority on having cheap, reliable coal-fired power than on cutting emissions.

At every step in this process, countries like ours have been promised that more renewables would mean cheaper power.

That’s turned out to be a great green lie. In fact, household power bills have doubled over the past decade and are set to keep soaring because the more renewables there are in the system, the more gas
back-up that’s needed; and higher demand for gas is coming just as the green movement insists that there can be no new gas exploration and no new gas production.

Over the past two decades, coal has gone from supplying 80 per cent to just 55 per cent of Australia’s total electricity. Wind and solar have gone from nothing to 25 per cent. And gas has gone from 10 per cent to 20 per cent because that’s the best way to “firm” the power supply as the wind drops or the sun goes behind a cloud.

With the new South Australian Labor government doubling down on the hysteria by declaring a “climate emergency”, Australia’s gas dependency will only grow.

New Environment and Water Minister, Tanya Plibersek after bewing sworn in with the Governor General David Hurley. Picture: Andrew Taylor

Paradoxically, the Greens used to favour gas because it was much cleaner and much less emitting than coal. Then they decided that it was just another fossil fuel to be demonised and banned, no less than coal. Last week, left-dominated councils in Victoria started a big push to ban homes using gas heaters, gas cooktops and even the humble barbecue. The Victorian Labor government has long banned new gas projects and even gas exploration – not just fracking, but exploration for gas supplies that don’t need fracking.  In every state, green activism has made bringing-on new gas projects harder, like the Narrabri project in NSW which is still four years away from being operational.

Driving all of this is a much bigger aim than just reducing emissions. In the end, it’s the whole capitalist system that the deep Greens are against. Having failed to persuade us to abolish capitalism in the name of equality, they’re now enlisting the public’s environmental concerns for the same Marxist ends.

Likewise, the last big new coal mine to open in Australia – Adani in Queensland – had first to suffer through a decade of protests, blockades, boycotts, and action in the courts from publicly funded green activists.

Coal-fired power plants are breaking down more often because none have been built in Australia for the past 15 years – not because coal is too expensive but because of the political risk inherent in long-term fossil fuel investment, and the fact that players like banks, via activist shareholders, won’t finance them.

A freight train transports coal. Picture: David Gray

Despite the obvious, new Energy Minister Chris Bowen insists that tackling this crisis of expensive and unreliable electricity means even more wind and solar power.

But more green energy is not the answer, it is the reason we’re in this mess in the first place. It’s time to ask ourselves what’s more important: reducing emissions or keeping the lights on? Because we can’t have both – unless, of course, like France, we’re prepared to use nuclear power.

Even the ‘extinction rebellion’ zealots admit that their climate apocalypse is not till the end of the decade. Unfortunately, the energy apocalypse is here now.

I know which one should be our first and immediate focus. And it’s not the 1.3 per cent of global emissions that Australia is responsible for. It’s the 100 per cent of our power supply that’s essential for modern life.

Stable crown in good and bad times

The Queen’s platinum jubilee this weekend has focused attention on a wonderful woman and a remarkable institution. On her 21st birthday she told Britain, her other realms and the wider Commonwealth that her whole life would be dedicated to our service – and for the subsequent 75 years she’s been entirely true to her word.

Between 1954 and 2011, the Queen visited Australia 16 times and from her first visit, involving more than 70 cities and small towns, set the tone: down-to-earth, yet elegant; approachable, yet uplifting.

In times of crisis, most recently during the pandemic, she’s had just right words of comfort and inspiration. After 9/11 she observed that “grief is the price you pay for love”. And not once has she strayed into political partisanship.

Queen Elizabeth II. Picture: Daniel Leal

New Prime Minister Anthony Albanese did well to light one of the thousands of beacons in her honour and to acknowledge her “enduring, inspiring presence of calm decency and strength”.

Of course, just a few days ago, the new government also swore-in an assistant minister for the republic meaning he hopes to bring the “enduring” to an end and doesn’t see a need for a continuing “calm decency and strength” in public life when in fact, we’ve never needed it more.

Right now at least, thanks to the monarchy, there’s a part of our system of government that’s above and beyond politics. In our case, it’s the governor-general and the

state governors, always distinguished Australians, who are there for us in good times and bad, as well as the Queen herself. And when needed, they’ve been a safety valve against politicians wanting to go beyond the Constitution.

For me, I’d much rather have a Queen’s representative, chosen like a judge; ahead of a president, elected like a politician or picked like the Australian of the Year.

That’s because the Crown, in our Constitution, is much bigger than individual that wears it and the very fact it has provided unparalleled stability is why we should be very wary of changing it.

Originally published as Peta Credlin: Climate obsession makes our power more unreliable