"It should not be the taxpayers' responsibility to fund incompetent management or noncompetitive industries."

That's all that needs to be said. There is simply no justification for government trying to get involved in trying energy cheaper, except by stopping anything they're doing now to make it dearer.

One of the ironies of the whole global waming hoo-haa is here we have governments telling us themselves that their own involvement in energy policy in the last hundred years - promoting coal-fired power stations - is the greatest mistake and catastrophe in the history of the world. And they want to use that as a pretext for even more thorough-going government control of energy and everything else? Out, bumblers!

If the complaint of the renewable energy industry is that government is making it hard for them by subsidising or otherwise protecting or molly-coddling coal-fired power, that is a valid argument for removing those subsidies; but it's not an argument for any intervention intended to favour renewables

If you want to send fossil fuel based industries broke, a good way of doing so is to force them to use more expensive and less reliable renewable energy.

There is, however, more merit in the author's suggestion that the rising impact of grid upgrades on electricity bills merits examination for possible over-charging.

The RET cannot be justified on rational arguments. The costs are huge and the benefits - climate damages avoided - are nil. It makes no difference to global emissions. Any emissions avoided in Australia are replaced elsewhere as we force high energy intensive manufacturing industries to move out of Australia.

The RET is adding up to 14% to residential electricity costs and up to 30% to the cost of energy for largest industrial consumers.

Regarding catastrophic climate change:

1. The estimates of climate sensitivity seem to be coming down (most likely ETS down from 3.2 C in 2007 (AR4) to about ? in 2013 (AR5); 1.8 C for recent analyses based mostly on observational data to 3 C based on models (not sure if these are both mean or median).

2. The impacts of GHG emissions may be much less than most analyses to date suggest. The impacts of global warming to 2 C above the current global average temperature to be net positive, and perhaps even to 4 C (excluding the cost of energy). If the real cost of energy is greatly reduced in the future (which is plausible) global warming may be net beneficial to beyond 3 C.

3. The risk of a sudden, rapid, large climate change seems to be much a more significant issue to be analysing than the curves being produced in the GCMs and used in the IACs.

4. Most of the advanced economies are back-pedalling from their carbon restraint programs: e.g. carbon pricing and policies to favour renewable energy.

5. The IPCC’s credibility is reduced. Climate scientists credibility is reduced. Scientists’ credibility is reduced.

6. The most highly respected scientific journals (e.g. ‘Nature’ and ‘Science’) and the peak scientific bodies like RS, NAS and the Australian Academy of Sciences (AAS) have suffered damage to their credibility.

Oh god!

For as long as I can remember economists have been preaching "economies of scale", "get big or get out" & a hundred other such slogans.

The death of car manufacturing in Oz has proved them right for once.

Now we have this bloke wanting to make power generation a cottage industry, with every tin pot factory generating it's own power. It wouldn't be a ploy of an alternate energy industry that has failed anywhere it is not tax payer subsidised, would it? They'd love a new stupid law, forcing industry to buy their useless trinkets.

What we need is government out of the second guessing game, forcing us all to pay for fool windmills & solar panels, trickling minute dribbles of power into the system at ridiculously exorbitant prices.

We would again have the cheapest power in the western world, if we could get these con men out of it.

and no mention of nuclear. As John McEnroe use to say 'you can't be serious'. The sooner Abbott and co junk all this 'renewable ' energy con the better our country will be. We have already been fleeced billions.

The RET is as appropriate as saying 20% of electricity must come through purple coloured wires. Surely the objective is the least cost generating mix that meets reliability and CO2 criteria. If electricity retailers want to buy wind power, now a mature industry, then let them do it without any quota system. That way we'll know it has earned a place in the mix on its own merits.

With solar export from the customer's premise the electricity reseller should be able to offer the same price they pay to the big generators. That price would be low on a cool sunny day but high around sunset or in overcast weather. The price would factor in the need to maintain steam pressure and standby readiness by the big thermal generators. The early supporters of the RET said it would be temporary but they've since fallen silent on that point. Time for it to go.