“... and the other was that the NEG wouldn’t mean lower prices.” The only people who disagree with that are Turnbull, Freydenberg and some coalition MPs. Last night, Freydenberg was still saying that the NEG would lower prices by $500 a year. Oh, and a couple of idiot journalists in the Financial Review have claimed that electricity prices have ALREADY come down because of renewable energy. I don't understand, then, why my 'cents per kwh and supply charges have stubbornly stayed where they have always been. Just getting bigger discounts on you account balance does not mean prices have come down - which they definitely have not.

What these 'experts’ are doing is lying to the 80% of Australians an are not-interested-in-politics and who too lazy to investigate the the lies. The rest of us just slip through the cracks.

Someone needs to fact check John Quiggin because his risible rhetoric included statements like the taxpayer wasn' paying for renewables when every boy and his dog knows the taxpayer is on the hook for all the subsidy schemes that got these things on our rooftops anyway.

And as you say, Graham, if renewables were the answer, why is China with its brown coal, coal fields are building more new coal-fired power stations. Even if we can argue they are contributing to climate change and the dire straights many of our farmers now find themselves in?

That said and set aside, due diligence has to inform us that new coal-fired power stations are not the answer, but nuclear-powered ones, which don't spew CO2 into an already CO2 rich atmosphere, are?

Not traditional nuclear operating at (explosive) pressures of 150 atmospheres and above, but MSR and thorium, which is four times more abundant than uranium and is the most energy dense material in the world! Moreover, MSR operates at normal unpressurised atmospheres, as does the water jacket around it, preventing neutron leakage.

Further, these things can be tasked with burning other folks nuclear waste and for a fee of annual billions in walkaway safe MSR's, where the payoff could be retail energy prices as low a 2 cents per KwH. (Robert Hargreaves)

As for thermal coal? It still has a future as fuel, as cooked to release usable methane as a cleaner transport fuel!?

And for the alternative bitumen, we could also create allowing us to retain the 26 + billions we now fork out for fully imported foreign fuel, creating many onshore jobs here as we transition to this cleaner fuel/alternative road surface/industrial lube etc.

And the residual carbon residue from all that may be able to underpin a brand new, highly profitable, carbon-based, synthetic graphene industry?
Alan B

Renewable energy efforts being expensively applied in Australia are being totally cancelled out by rapid increases in Chinese and Indian coal use.

In addition to the sharp rise in China's thermal power capacity in the first graph - here is an INDIAN graph showing a sharp rise in coal fired power plants through to 2025 http://www.researchgate.net/figure/Growth-of-Indian-coal-based-thermal-power-plants-in-MW-1971-2025_fig1_320258131

We are all in one environmental world - with the largest energy uses like China and India having the greatest impact. There is no plastic bubble of environmental goodness covering Australia.

China and India couldn't care less about any deluded moral example Australia is trying to set.

Some Victorians are refusing to turn on their heating, scrimping on food and taking showers at local charities to save money on soaring power bills, according to a disturbing new report….news aug 2017.

Let's just ignore the facts, while arguing the facts?

Graham Young,
Your own work is in dire need of some fact checking, as many of your claims are based on myths. Admittedly very common myths that are regarded as fact by much of the population, but still objectively false.

"Professor Quiggin claims the appropriate rate of return on the network should be the government bond rate. That is nonsensical"

COUNTERINTUITIVE DOES NOT EQUATE TO NONSENSICAL!

Though IMO it's not the most sensible figure, it's much much much more sensible than the current arrangements which allow the financiers to make a huge profit at everyone else's expense.

"The government bond rate is the rate at which the government borrows. If the network return was that rate there would be no profit to the government and no cover for the risk they would be taking in providing the network."

THERE IS NO RISK!

At least there is no risk to the owner of the poles and wires. It would all be passed on to the electricity consumers whether or not they're also slugged with the cost of unnecessarily high interest.

"It would also discourage investment in the network as the government would be likely to get better returns elsewhere."

THE GOVERNMENT IS NOT A CORPORATION!

The main benefits to government are not the direct profit made, but rather the induced economic growth and resultant increase in revenue from taxation.

Having pointed out the crucial difference, I will also add one relatively trivial quibble: if government policy were to borrow at the bond rate and trying to get the best return, the amount they'd borrow would be far higher than what they actually borrow at the moment.

I could go on further, but I'd like to see your response to these points first.

India and China can ignore everything including D Trump's tariff walls. And our moralising!

What they won't be able to ignore are power prices as low a 2 cents per KwH. Or tax reform that creates an effective 8% company tax.

Nor cooperative capitalism that beats the pants of both public and other private enterprise models.

Because that combination rolled out here in our own triple economic whammy. Will undercut their coal-fired economies.

And as our newly turbocharged economy cuts into their export-dependent economy, they will have no other choice but abandon much more expensive coal-fired power.

Someday, somebody in our parliaments will have pollies with desk adorned with signs that read, it's the economy stupid. And should we be led by men and women of vision, able to set aside business as usual politics and petty difference!

Then set their sights a lot higher and for we Australians ahead of foreigners or accompanying pecuniary interests?

And finally understand, it's not about them and their financial prospects but the folk they're elected to FAITHFULLY serve, to the very best of their ability!

Time to face facts as opposed to continuing to flog, politically expedient, dead horses!

For mine that should mean a complete cleanout with all the virtually useless, no hopper incumbents tossed out, but particularly those unable to unite behind their leader, but occupy their time, time we pay for, snipping at their leader the more moderate members of the party and almost every new idea?

Like ideas that would turn a dead heartland into our most productive and drought-proof farmland. In the sure and certain knowledge, the next boom will be the food boom and where we and near neighbour are uniquely positioned to take full advantage of. Always providing we still own our own economic sovereignty and are allowed by our political masters, to decide our best future and prospects!?
Alan B.