Peta Credlin: Forget climate panic. The energy emergency is here

The climate zealotry that the Morrison government was meant to stop is getting out of control, putting Australia’s energy supply at risk, and with it, the economy, writes Peta Credlin.

Other than being there to keep Labor out, admittedly no bad thing, you’ve got to wonder if the Morrison government is losing its way, at least when it comes to keeping its election promise to end the climate zealotry that has put Australia’s once enviable energy supply at risk.

Quite rightly, this is the question many supporters were asking this week when the government, out of the blue, suddenly announced an extra $1 billion dollars for the Labor-created Clean Energy Finance Corporation (CEFC) and then promptly added that it couldn’t invest in coal-fired power stations; even though new ones emit 30 per cent less carbon dioxide and even though the big problem in our energy system is too much unreliable renewable power and not enough baseload power.

There’s something not right when a Liberal government can spend billions on the Snowy 2.0 pumped hydro scheme but can’t find a single dollar for a feasibility study into more coal-fired power, even though it promised one during the election; and then, bizarrely, pours even more money into giving cheap finance to the wind and solar farms that are putting the whole system at risk.

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(And don’t even get me started about putting a billion dollars of taxpayer funds into a body that backs projects that commercial players won’t touch, and only exists because Julia Gillard needed to buy Bob Brown’s support in the hung parliament and the Coalition was actually elected in 2013 promising to scrap it.)

Wind turbines at Starfish Hill Wind Farm near Cape Jervis on South Australia’s Fleurieu Peninsula. Renewables might suit some purposes but coal is still necessary for the heavy industry that underpins our economy, writes Peta Credlin.

Now, the stated reason for the cash injection was the need to get more reliability into the system but the way to do this is not to build more interconnectors and more batteries. These giant extension cords running between the states still need coal fired power stations to plug into because batteries are never big enough to keep the lights on and factories going (and industry means jobs). The only way to have more reliability is to stop building even more generation that’s dependent on the wind blowing or the sun shining, and to start replacing the ageing fleet of 24/7 coal-fired baseload power. Given that political risk has spooked the private sector and the climate cult has captured the Labor Party, this is the essential job of a Liberal government but it seems they’ve funked out – despite Resource Minister Matt Canavan’s reported forceful attempt to remind his Cabinet colleagues.

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If renewable energy really is the best and cheapest form of generation – as the boosters claim – why does it need a government bank offering subsidies in order to be viable? Consumers are already subsidising wind and solar through the renewable energy certificates that power companies are forced to buy and through higher prices generally as the preferential treatment given to renewable power destroys the economics of baseload power. Why should mums and dads have to support soft loans too – when no one else gets them?

Resources Minister Matt Canavan has reportedly been a forceful proponent of traditional energy sources in Cabinet – and even in the Prime Minister’s office. Picture: AAP Image/Glenn Hunt

A glance through the Clean Energy Finance Corporation’s most recent annual report highlights the utterly self-important, virtue-signalling uselessness of this body. Last year, it invested about a billion dollars into the (mostly foreign owned) extra solar and wind power that’s increasing power bills and making blackouts more likely as well as half a billion dollars into energy efficiency projects.

For instance, Woolworths (which has just been exposed underpaying staff) got $30 million from the taxpayer bank towards the installation of energy-efficient lighting and refrigeration, and solar panels in supermarkets.

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More than $200 million was put into social housing projects for “improved insulation, LED lighting, energy-efficient appliances, smart meters and solar installations”.

Why do we need a government bank to fund business to cut its power bills? What’s a government bank doing giving loans to some of the biggest corporations in the country?

Down it goes. A 200-metre chimney stack at what was South Australia’s last remaining coal-fired power station comes down in Port Augusta, November 2018.

Forget the ‘climate emergency’ claptrap, Australia has an energy emergency coming. If you’re prepared to pay enough, you can run households and maybe even large buildings on renewable power and batteries. But what you can’t run on renewable power and batteries is heavy industry and the jobs it sustains. Given we are a high wage country in a region that isn’t, reliable and affordable electricity was always our trump card. But now, for how long? It won’t be all the Morrison government’s fault if a big player like the aluminium industry shortly announces that it’s leaving Australia. But the Morrison government will be to blame for not recognising the problem and taking stronger action to deal with it.

Originally published as Peta Credlin: Forget climate panic. The energy emergency is here