Warmair,

Wind power is more expensive than coal power. That's why we have to mandate it and pay a subsidy of about $40/MWh. Plus you have to add the cost of back up generation and extra transmission and grid stabilisation. These costs are passed on to the consumer as higher electricity prices

You should also understand that 1 unit of wind energy does not abate the emissions of 1 unit of fossil fuel generation. In fact, wind is around 50% effective at abating emissions from the generators it displaces. So the abatement cost with wind power is about double what the proponents claim. Furthermore, the effectiveness declines as the wind energy proportion of total electricity generation increases: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0301421513007829.

The BREE AETA report gives the latest projections of the cost of electricity by technology for Australia. http://www.bree.gov.au/sites/bree.gov.au/files/files//publications/aeta/australian_energy_technology_assessment.pdf
LCOE in $/MWh:
New black coal, super critical = $89
Nuclear = $97
Wind = $117 + back up +, extra transmission + grid stabilisation
Gas backup (OCGT) = $211
Geothermal = ~$200

You can see a rough comparison I did of the additional electricity generation and transmission costs to produce electricity with 90% reduction in CO2 emissions with two options: 1) mostly renewables or 2) mostly nuclear - see Figure 6 here: http://oznucforum.customer.netspace.net.au/TP4PLang.pdf

Warmair, if you're right that wind power is cheaper than coal, and no less reliable, then surely there's no need for any policy to promote it?

Jardine
In a fair world there would be no need to promote wind power, but the world is not fair.

The coal fired units in Australia are subsidized in various ways, such as paying next to nothing for their coal, and often not the commercial rate for the clean water that they need to run their turbines, nor do they pay anything to pollute the air with a variety of noxious chemicals which have been shown to cause large numbers of people health problems. Thats all without even considering the probable damage that they are doing to the climate.

It has become abundantly clear to me that the coal interests are lobbying hard to eliminate all forms of alternative energy precisely because it has the potential to reduce their profits.

Liberal states have passed anti wind farm legislation, for example some areas of Victoria have had blanket bans placed on wind farms and if you live within 2 Ks of a proposed wind farm you can pretty much veto the project, but on the other hand Queensland has just passed legislation that makes it much harder to object to any mining project in your area.