Energy Minister Angus Taylor is clearly living on another planet, divorced from the reality around him, and whether deliberately or not, oblivious to the credible work of others.
Thursday’s technology road map has a nice cover page but just why would a Liberal minister even think of laying down suggested technologies, when all he needs to do is set an emissions target and let private enterprise come up with the solutions?
Instead Tayor would prefer to established the technology options before setting the target, which is a classic case of the cart coming before the horse.
At the end of April the Australian Energy Market Operator released its integrated systems outlook for renewable energy, but if the energy minister was aware of the document his technology options paper was apparently oblivious.
To be fair, AEMO is just looking at the electricity market and the technology plan is looking across every sector of the economy including agriculture, transport and manufacturing.
But Taylor is banging a different drum to every state government on electricity and in the process condemning the country to a continued vacuum in energy policy.
To compound the problem Neville Power, the hand-picked head of the government’s business advisory commission, has been backing the east-west gas pipeline being advocated by former West Australian premier Colin Barnett.
The pipeline would cost $5 billion plus and would need federal government backing because private companies could not justify the investment.
It would deliver gas to the east coast at around $8.50 to $9 a gigajoule, which translates into electricity prices about 10 times that level.
The first question is, why bother?
NSW and Victoria have blocks on gas exploration which would potentially provide cheaper gas.
Power’s old boss, Andrew Forrest, wants to build an east coast storage facility which would offer more flexibility and potentially lower prices.
AGL is looking at something similar.
AEMO says Australia already has the technical capacity to operate the national grid mostly with wind and solar, and the capacity will increasing from 17 gigawatts to 27 in 2025.
Battery power would be needed as a back-up to increase reliability and stored hydro has a similar ability, as does gas.
The federal government has offered money to develop all of the above, which is welcome.
But how much better would be it be to simply lay down an emissions target and let the market plan towards it.
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