The author has a background in economics.

He also wrote: "Risks do not lie with the party best placed to manage them."

So far, so good.

The author should realise that the electrical power industry was formerly a collection of imperfect engineer-managed monopolies, with all the inevitable accusations, some true, others not, that accrue to monopolies. Top of the list was that the former SECV, ECNSW, ETSA, SEQB and HECT were inefficient, and they probably were. But now we know, through escalating bills, that those inefficiencies were less evil that the profit-taking, risk avoidance and denial of responsibility for outcomes that the current many players have inflicted on us all, large and small. Even BHP is complaining that their needs aren't being met by the current system. Plus miscellaneous smelter proprietors, One Steel and a host of industry associations, many of whom signed an open letter last week seeking reform.

We need to re-think the failed lawyers' and economists' NEM/AER system and return to something that places reliability and capacity above (mainly foreign) shareholder profit and populist, magical green thinking that drives wildly subsidised unreliable generators and spawns political agendas while ignoring their impact on the system as a whole.

Nationalising isn't the answer, but the discussion should still primarily focus on finding something that prioritises reliability and capacity.

When talking of storage remember the formula;
S = C X (N + 1) Where C = Required plant for one day; S = Installed plant
and N = the number of sequential overcast & still nights.
N being decided by politicians.

The one common factor that has threaded its way through the multiple failures starting with the collapse of bendy foreign-supplied power poles on a windy night in SA to the loss of power along the East Coast is the involvement of greedy pigs in the private sector plundering the power supply to maximise their profits. Australia even needed the sayso of Mr Greed on the far side of the world to be given the nod to switch on a gas fired power plant to keep the lights on.

For the nation to have control of its energy security will require total public ownership of the generation and distribution of electricity. Anything less and expect continued instability and skyrocketing prices.

First chance to stop the rot will be to vote the Barnett-Hanson government out of office on March 11 to halt the plunder of Western Power through sale to private owners.

The obvious answer to storage that copes immediately with surges and slumps simultaneously and immediately, is catalytically assisted heat decomposed Hydrogen?

And used in industrial grade fuel cell assemblies to provide instant on demand backup or base load power and for days on end!

A private power company has built and operates for profit, an extremely large solar thermal (molten salt) plant in the california desert.

And given economies of scale and the aforementioned (fluoride/thorium) molten salt, competes more than favourably with coal on price (3 cents per kilowatt hour wholesale) or baseload power.

We have desert regions that are good for little else and where the sun shines for 360-1-2 days a year!

So very large scale solar thermal is a viable option that competes with coal, except on fuel costs, where it beats it hands down!

The government can wait until hell freezes over for our international competitors come down here and do it for us, or bite the bullet and roll out cooperative endeavor enterprises they fund and facilitate as competing for market share, 40 hectare solar arrays. Plus hydrogen production facilities.

That together, end the dog's breakfast we call our (foreign controled and operated) National grid.

After all if we can make endless cheap as chips hydrogen, it can't be too hard to pipe it to our homes to power then via fuel cell assemblies. And in a single solution end blackouts, overhead system failures and most distribution losses.

And too big as an idea or concept for our lacklustre waste of space, political establishment/jaw flappers to comprehend, let alone, oversee a can't lose, government funded and facilitated rollout of cooperative enterprises.

As the best bang for our buck and most efficient private enterprise model, minus all the negative gold plating/price gouging in favor of live or die, bona fide commercial competition!

The endless talkfest blameshift/excuse making must end, to be replaced with can do action!
Alan B.

EmperorJulian

Ho hum, ignorant marxoid drivel.

If your assumptions are right, why not vest all productive activity in government? According to you, this would be more economical, because profit proves waste, correct?

JB says, "....the discussion should still primarily focus on finding something that prioritises reliability and capacity."

Agreed, as well as meeting emissions standard that grow more stringent over time. Coal plus CC, nuclear, and RE together with its thermal backup, must meet this standard.

Further, there should be NO subsidies, NO technology off the table, and a carbon price (including on fossil-fuelled backup emissions).

Standards regarding recycling/decommissioning (in the nuclear case based on an enlightened understanding of the health effects of radiation, not the baseless LNT model), should be paid to the State by all generators of electricity, commensurate with the working life of their plant.

As much as the above goes against my desire to immediately cease addition of more main-grid RE and focus on the one true solution to CAGW, the compromise of killing it slowly could begin.