How could any electricity or energy policy be contrary to an energy law? Easy. Just make energy democratic. Forget about engineers and technologists. They are soooo 20th century. Vote for your favourite kind of energy. Don’t know what ‘energy’ actually means? Don’t worry. No-one sitting in any parliament in Australia could offer a definition or explanation. Sun is beautiful. Wind is beautiful. Coal is black and dirty. Oil is, well, really oily. Gas is frackin’ awful. Nuclear? Please don’t say that word in polite company. There we have it. Public opinion is all that counts. And the end result? Well, we are so far away from the proclaimed end (solar and wind comprise less than 1% of Australia’s total energy) that no-one can really feel now what things will be like then, with 100% renewables. But you can bet it will be ugly.

The SA Labor government is made up entirely by idiots; the SA Liberal opposition is something similar. The sooner we are rid of state government,the better.

If renewables could stand or fall, without subsidies and against any or all other carbon free competition? Then they could make a meritorious case.

Currently they are the power that the poorest subsidise with outrageous electricity charges! Charges that force our Grandmothers, you know those funny old folk who sacrificed their possible careers to stay at home as the unpaid hired help that did it all!

To go without winter warmth or hot showers, as they tremble with cold, often in overpriced shoe boxes, then fry through summer heat waves that prematurely bump them and equally vulnerable infants, off!?

with the interminable summer heat waves that assures us that climate change and heat waves occurring in an ice age? Is very real!

For these folk and the grief stricken mums cradling dead babies, all to real!

The only case for renewables is the fact that they're carbon free! The lifespan of solar voltaic is just 25 years? Wind farms 50, with some maintenance?

A thorium reactor on the other hand, may with a little routine maintenance and modest refurbishment peculate away for 100 years, using a fuel type that's cheap clean and abundant!

So much so that just that existing in the soil, could power the entire world for a thousand years for coffee money and thousands more if we start to mine igneous rock!

Separation from soils is simple and as raw mineral, needs no enrichment and less radioactive than a banana.

Get on U tube and the many highly credentialed experts who will lay out the history, the cost and who have the most to fear from the rollout of CHEAP, CLEAN, SAFE abundant energy!? Certainly not our Grannies shivering in decrepit dumps or ruins with roofs, nor the small army of infants due to be fried alive, as it were, during the very next enduring heat wave!?

Where a hopelessly overloaded system burns a few dozen really important transformers? Which will hopefully shut down the airconditioners of many moribund dreamers forcing their mad hatter ideological imperatives on us; and our consequently, dying by degrees economy!
Alan B.

I don't disagree with the article but I should point out that SA's present troubles with renewables are not due to any explicit state policy. None of the states subsidise wind farms. The Federal Renewable Energy Target seems to have resulted in a lot of farms in SA. Why?

I asked this question for another article and one poster offered the thought that it was windy in SA.. well its windy in most states. A more likely explanation is that the state has a lot of open areas, so the planning restrictions of other states are not a problem, and the land is cheaper (a lot is arid or semi-arid).

As for the Queensland target, meeting it would require considerable investment. I suppose it would be technically possible to achieve it as it has been almost achieved on isolated grids such as King Island in Bass strait, but an enormous cost. The King Island system (which still uses diesel) cost in the realm of $100,000 for each person on the island to set up..

Hi Mark,
yes, of course you're right about the geographical considerations in SA. The same considerations apply to the wind farms in NQ that Stanwell set up and couldn't operate successfully with the technology they used. NQ has some particular challenges as well, relating to weather generally.

I must reiterate that the technology is rapidly advancing in both wind and especially solar PV. Expect the base cost of rooftop solar to come down by perhaps a third or more over the next 5-10 years. This is due to both the improvements in technology and the cost of tooling being recouped.

I'm not familiar with the King Island example, but presumably the business case was soundly based on replacing diesel with renewables, resulting in a lower cost over time.

Capital cost is not the only consideration.

I think SA was the first to go large on wind power due to favourable winds in the mid north (Snowtown, Hallet etc) coupled with tit for tat energy exchanges with coal powered Victoria. A bit like Denmark and Norway. However their cheapest Pt Augusta baseload couldn't compete with a 9c per kwh subsidy for wind power.

I agree the main driver should be emissions targets not politically preferred technologies. Hopefully reliability and affordable cost will fall into line once low carbon is required. It follows that continuance of the RET is double dipping though based on overseas experience renewable energy interests are likely to insist on continued favouritism.

Now the Vics say they will shut down brown coal in favour of wind and solar that leaves gas fracking or a lifeline to black coal fired NSW as SA's salvation. Batteries will store just minutes worth of energy at state demand level, not days. We are told nuclear is a non starter, kinda weird in light of Maralinga and huge uranium deposits. The exodus of jobs and people could mean reduced industrial power demand for SA.