Very good, Lisa.

But lets’ not get ahead of ourselves.

<< The RET has enjoyed bipartisan support for over a decade. >>

Yes, but the Libs and Labs have also supported the expansion of coal mining and the expansion of population and energy consumption, at a very rapid rate.

While the RET is a step in the right direction, it could easily be viewed as an insignificant or even disingenuous attempt by both Lab and Lib to be seen to be doing the right thing while effectively just barging forth with our utter addiction to fossil fuels.

We need much more than a 20% increase in the proportion of electricity generated in Australia from renewable sources by 2020 compared with 1997 levels.

We need a holistic energy plan, and indeed a totally sustainable-society plan, which we need to work on with vengeance.

Bob Carr understands this. What a pity he isn’t at the helm of Labor and in line to become or next PM.

Alas, there seems to be no one currently in a high position in either Lab or Lib who holds views anything like these, and thus our government of either persuasion seems destined to continue to take us strongly away from achieving a sustainable society, or the largely renewable energy regime that this would require.

Total labour employment is a poor criteria.

Man hours per Giga-watt hour is an appropriate indicator of labour coast.
Coal fired power at the generator is charged at less than 6c /Kwh.

The capital payback cost for renewable energy is three or four times that.

Nuclear energy is far cleaner and safer and becoming cheaper than fossil or renewables.

Largely the excuse of high poles and wire costs is a consequence of the high cost of renewable feed in and regulating or stabilising equipment.

I would like to see a similar article to this one with its focus on Tasmania done on the NT. Even with the potential for solar energy from the Outback, the push for fracking seems to be gaining momentum. This is in a Territory which south of the Top End is mostly reliant on underground water, and a limited amount of that. The gas industry promises to "de-risk" fracking and thereby minimise the risk to aquifers, but can/will they?
Another way, it seems to me, to tackle our growing energy use is to look at energy efficiency. By that I mean not just how we use it, but how it gets to us. What percentage of generated energy is lost in the transmission from generator (of all designs) to user?

>"There are now more Australians employed in our solar industry than in our coal-fired power stations, while jobs in the Australian renewable energy sector have tripled in recent years to almost 30,000."

That is another demonstration of weant a ridiculous waste of mone renewable energy is and what its adding to our energy costs.

Using your figures it requires more labour (i.e. more money) to produce 0.2% of our electricity from solar energy than it costs to produce 80% of our electricity for coal.

And remember, every Green job (i.e subsidised) costs two real jobs in the real economy.

The authors invited to write for Opinion Online, should be selected on the basis of some expertise in the field they are writing about, not on the basis of their ideological persuasion.

The Economists has a good article explaining"Wind and solar power are even more expensive than is commonly thought":

http://www.economist.com/news/finance-and-economics/21608646-wind-and-solar-power-are-even-more-expensive-commonly-thought-sun-wind-and

Tasmania could be doing even better if the greenies had not torpedoed the dam on the Franklin.

David

A few inconsistencies here. As pointed out the 180 MW Gordon below Franklin hydro would have supplied very reliable power as that river has no irrigation demands. Now we need a dozen like it. Tasmania has low solar capacity factor due to recurring cloud cover. One person I know has 15 kw installed to get a less unreliable winter supply.

If Tas is the renewable energy powerhouse as claimed then disconnect the Basslink cable as Comalaco suggests. Keep the dams topped up as a kind of battery. Note the Basslink cable ends up at the back of Loy Yang brown coal fired station. That makes emissions well hidden but we need it in drought years. 2015 perhaps? I'm puzzled how some dams unchanged since about 1970 can claim the LGC subsidy under the RET which cuts in from 1997.

It's a bit selfish to ask both Tasmanians and mainlanders to pay more for electricity. Surely renewables should stand on their own merits particularly if there are CO2 restrictions in whatever form

Haduell; around 50% of our energy generation is lost in transmission wires, and factually, coal fired power burns virtual mountains of coal, which as many will appreciate, can do nothing other than rise in cost!
Some will argue for nuclear power, i.e., oxide reactors, even though these are at least as twice as expensive energy solutions, only ever consume around 5% of their nuclear fuel.
Which results in enormous waste of highly toxic material!
And yes, we may be able to reuse the waste in FBR? And then again and again, thereby reducing the half life of the waste, to just 300 years?
And we as an intelligent species, should be capable of storing said toxic waste for 300 years, in complete safety?
Forget that this choice is at least twice as expensive as coal and still bleeds the same amount of energy, via gold plated transmission lines!
Conversely, we Aussies are blessed with huge thorium deposits and could conceivably power the world for 700 years with thorium.
As opposed to using it here and reaping all the then economic advantages it would then confer, as the world's cheapest energy!
Thorium reactors can be mass produced and trucked on site, and their power fed into very local micro grids; that produce little or no discernible energy loss.
And during their entire service life, would be lucky to use a couple of tons of thorium, rather than the millions of tons coal fired generation requires.
And in almost inverse proportion to oxide reactors, consume as much as 95% of their fuel; with the waste being far less toxic, and eminently suitable as long life space batteries, in the increasing population of service satellites etc!
And city populations, can power their own homes etc; 24/7, with endlessly sustainable and even vastly cheaper biogas.
And always available, as long as we humans produce waste!
Rhrosty.

There are now more Australians employed in our solar industry than in our coal-fired power stations...

The author unwittingly points to the inefficiency of the solar industry. It employs more labour input than coal-fired which produces many, many times the electricity produced by inefficient, intermittent, unreliable solar, and at much less cost.

The RET was arguably the worst decision made by the Howard government . It was based on political correctness. There was no scientific or economic justification for the decision.

On the assumption that the author is no longer under the spell of the Greens, she should note that this still applies today.

There is no empirical scientific evidence to substantiate the hypothesis that anthropogenic CO2 emissions cause dangerous global warming. Consequently, there is no scientific or economic justification to maintain the RET.

Regrettably, the author wittingly supports the RET and thus supports the continuing raising of electricity prices that this will bring, and the effects of such irresponsible action -- namely, worsening operating cost disadvantage of all of our industries, reduction in employment, raising of the cost of living, and wait for it -- no measurable impact on climate change.

We do not need any more investment in-- rather subsidisation of -- solar and wind energy production, as we have more than adequate national electricity power supply to continue without it.

VK3AUU,

"Tasmania could be doing even better if the greenies had not torpedoed the dam on the Franklin."

The dam on the Franklin was torpedoed by the people that proposed it.

The site was eminently unsuitable as the underlying rock strata was unstable, being full of cracks.

As I remember from the Geological report that was commissioned by the Authority concerned the dam would not have held water and without some 7 miles (or maybe kilometres) of deep drilling and concrete being forced into the fissures the dam wall could not have been built, whatever the distance only fools would have gone ahead with building the proposed dam.