SUCH is the stress that’s already impacting the electricity network on the eastern side of Australia that it would have been a miracle if we got through Monday’s intense heat without widespread blackouts.
But it’s a picnic compared to what’s looming in this country unless the political parties stop brawling over an issue that’s far too important for political point-scoring.
And that goes for both major parties, the Greens, the Teals and the independents.
Imagine, for example, the bloody-mindedness that had to be brought to bear on the science for the Federal and State governments to initially produce an energy transition plan that didn’t include a role for gas.
Equally, on the other side, you’ve got to be cynical about the Coalition’s assessment that the cost of nuclear-based electricity will be cheaper in the long run than Chris Bowen’s mainly renewables plan when it doesn’t compare apples with apples.
Surely, it’s got to be about the science, right?
Most people support a system with as much renewable energy generation as is practicable, affordable, sustainable and deliverable in the timeframe. It should be an easy calculation to set limits on how hard and fast you can go in transition based on available technology, and if necessary, with some hard decision to be made about how long you need to keep coal in the mix and what role gas and possibly nuclear might play to keep the system stable.
Take the South Gippsland Hospital at Foster, for example, they’ve added three new generators to the energy mix at their hospital, to combat the impact of power outages. You’ll see a lot more of that in anticipation of the system becoming more unstable with too much reliance on renewables. Have they factored that in?
What the community wants and is entitled to is the truth.
Are we on track to meet both our targets for transition to renewables and our target for emissions? And will Chris Bowen’s plan, already in progress, really deliver competitively priced and reliable power?
Why not hand over both the government’s energy plan and the Opposition’s plan to an independent authority that can produce an assessment of both plans and potentially identify a combination of the two that works best?
And it will need to be done quickly with an announcement to be made soon on sites in South Gippsland to be offered up to wind turbine developers and for high-voltage transmission lines, as well as the looming Federal election, likely between March and May next year.
Coal-powered generation companies are also making plans to shut down power stations that we might still need. Perhaps it’s a good thing the election is coming up soon. There’s no time to waste.
