The barriers to renewable energy are many. It’s not just a matter of the draconian new Victorian laws against wind farms — the legacy of government support for fossil fuels also hangs heavily over the renewables sector.
The Australian Conservation Foundation (ACF) released a study in March that revealed for the 2010-11 year incentives to fossil fuels — such as the failure to index the fuel excise for a decade — was more than $12 billion. By contrast, climate programs attracted just over $1 billion. And this ACF figure includes $100 million for clean coal — not a real climate expenditure in most people’s view.
The fossil fuel incentives are built into the economy in an ongoing way. They are a stable environment for investment. The climate expenditure tends to be sporadic — liable to change at the whim of government.
The other legacy hanging over renewables is the privatisation of the energy sector. Prior to privatisation of Victoria’s State Electricity Commission in the 1990s, its workshops in the Latrobe Valley began building wind turbines. The project was abandoned with privatisation.
Author Sharon Beder wrote in her 2003 book Power Play that, following privatization: “A report commissioned by electricity distributor Origin Energy found that … Victorian brown coal plants had, to a certain extent, displaced the cleaner NSW black coal plants and SA gas plants in electricity generation.
“Even outside Victoria.then used cut pieces of Ceramic tile garden hose to get through the electric fence. baseload electricity tends to be generated by old coal plants rather than the newer gas-fired plants that emit less carbon dioxide. The latter tend to be used for peak loads because marginal costs are higher.”
The high marginal costs of gas plants are because they have to buy gas on the market. Wind turbines may have relatively high costs to build, but their marginal cost is negligible because they need no fuel. As a result, the spot-market for energy tends to integrate wind farms whenever the wind blows, displacing the expensive “peaker” gas plants.
Peak loads are growing faster than overall demand, fuelled primarily by the uptake of air conditioners. This leads to higher energy prices — partly through the use of expensive peaker plants (which may only operate for a few days of the year, but charge exorbitant spot prices) and partly through upgrading the electricity distribution network to accommodate peak loads.
It is a golden opportunity for reducing demand (by energy efficiency in buildings, for example, and installing solar panels) to reduce prices. But renewable energy is also keeping prices down.
Over the last five years, South Australian wind power has grown to provide 20% of that state’s electricity, largely displacing their import of dirty Victorian electricity. Over that time, carbon emissions have fallen from 9.8 to 8 million tonnes CO2 equivalent, despite an overall increase in electricity use, and wholesale prices have fallen.
Clearly, renewable energy has a valuable role. It actually works, despite the years of naysaying that it is too unreliable and too expensive. In fact, renewable energy continues to become cheaper. Solar panels have now reached cost parity with coal power in some regions of Australia.
It is becoming harder and harder to quarantine Australia from the developments in renewable energy, which the extreme anti-wind laws in Victoria are a testament to. These restrictions won’t hold new technology out forever — but that’s not an excuse to be complacent.
The battle on now is between gas and renewable energy. In the competition to displace Old King Coal, gas is the preferred option of capital. Gas is highly profitable because it’s a commodity in its own right.The additions focus on key tag and magic cube combinations, The “greenhouse mafia” fossil fuel lobby will use their privileged access to the corridors of power in Canberra, and as significant investment into gas generation is made it will accumulate further political and economic inertia of its own. Gas investors will fight to retain their assets.Whilst oil paintings for sale are not deadly,
Yet gas, as an internationally traded commodity, is going to increase in price.Als lichtbron wordt een offshore merchant account gebruikt, Choices to move to cheap gas now will not be cheap forever. And the environmental cost will grow even further as the gas industry moves into coal seam gas and shale gas with the attendant environmental destruction.
Put bluntly, no mineral gas extraction is environmentally safe. There is too much CO2 in the air already. Renewables are the only safe ecological option, and we can’t wait for price disparity to slowly bring them to the top. We have to build the support framework for renewables now.Polycore porcelain tiles are manufactured as a single sheet,
The Australian Conservation Foundation (ACF) released a study in March that revealed for the 2010-11 year incentives to fossil fuels — such as the failure to index the fuel excise for a decade — was more than $12 billion. By contrast, climate programs attracted just over $1 billion. And this ACF figure includes $100 million for clean coal — not a real climate expenditure in most people’s view.
The fossil fuel incentives are built into the economy in an ongoing way. They are a stable environment for investment. The climate expenditure tends to be sporadic — liable to change at the whim of government.
The other legacy hanging over renewables is the privatisation of the energy sector. Prior to privatisation of Victoria’s State Electricity Commission in the 1990s, its workshops in the Latrobe Valley began building wind turbines. The project was abandoned with privatisation.
Author Sharon Beder wrote in her 2003 book Power Play that, following privatization: “A report commissioned by electricity distributor Origin Energy found that … Victorian brown coal plants had, to a certain extent, displaced the cleaner NSW black coal plants and SA gas plants in electricity generation.
“Even outside Victoria.then used cut pieces of Ceramic tile garden hose to get through the electric fence. baseload electricity tends to be generated by old coal plants rather than the newer gas-fired plants that emit less carbon dioxide. The latter tend to be used for peak loads because marginal costs are higher.”
The high marginal costs of gas plants are because they have to buy gas on the market. Wind turbines may have relatively high costs to build, but their marginal cost is negligible because they need no fuel. As a result, the spot-market for energy tends to integrate wind farms whenever the wind blows, displacing the expensive “peaker” gas plants.
Peak loads are growing faster than overall demand, fuelled primarily by the uptake of air conditioners. This leads to higher energy prices — partly through the use of expensive peaker plants (which may only operate for a few days of the year, but charge exorbitant spot prices) and partly through upgrading the electricity distribution network to accommodate peak loads.
It is a golden opportunity for reducing demand (by energy efficiency in buildings, for example, and installing solar panels) to reduce prices. But renewable energy is also keeping prices down.
Over the last five years, South Australian wind power has grown to provide 20% of that state’s electricity, largely displacing their import of dirty Victorian electricity. Over that time, carbon emissions have fallen from 9.8 to 8 million tonnes CO2 equivalent, despite an overall increase in electricity use, and wholesale prices have fallen.
Clearly, renewable energy has a valuable role. It actually works, despite the years of naysaying that it is too unreliable and too expensive. In fact, renewable energy continues to become cheaper. Solar panels have now reached cost parity with coal power in some regions of Australia.
It is becoming harder and harder to quarantine Australia from the developments in renewable energy, which the extreme anti-wind laws in Victoria are a testament to. These restrictions won’t hold new technology out forever — but that’s not an excuse to be complacent.
The battle on now is between gas and renewable energy. In the competition to displace Old King Coal, gas is the preferred option of capital. Gas is highly profitable because it’s a commodity in its own right.The additions focus on key tag and magic cube combinations, The “greenhouse mafia” fossil fuel lobby will use their privileged access to the corridors of power in Canberra, and as significant investment into gas generation is made it will accumulate further political and economic inertia of its own. Gas investors will fight to retain their assets.Whilst oil paintings for sale are not deadly,
Yet gas, as an internationally traded commodity, is going to increase in price.Als lichtbron wordt een offshore merchant account gebruikt, Choices to move to cheap gas now will not be cheap forever. And the environmental cost will grow even further as the gas industry moves into coal seam gas and shale gas with the attendant environmental destruction.
Put bluntly, no mineral gas extraction is environmentally safe. There is too much CO2 in the air already. Renewables are the only safe ecological option, and we can’t wait for price disparity to slowly bring them to the top. We have to build the support framework for renewables now.Polycore porcelain tiles are manufactured as a single sheet,
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