Aidan,

No risk at all, what bollocks, there are always risks such as plant failure, strikes, etc. As for privatisation, the price of power in Victoria dropped significantly after privatisation. The Hazelwood power station was a textbook case. After privatisation, a professional management was put in place that essentially halved the workforce and dramatically improved the reliability and output of the plant.

Shadow,
When I said there was no risk, I was referring to the owner of the poles and wires. Whatever happens, there's no financial risk to them because the cost will always be passed on to consumers.

However, thinking about it a bit more, I concede there are two theoretical exceptions:
firstly the 'death spiral' where they overcharge consumers so much that more and more people decide to go off grid. Highly unlikely because of economies of scale, but not completely impossible. Secondly, gross mismanagement - they could overpay their shareholders so much that they don't have the money to meet their financial obligations. Again highly unlikely - indeed I'd class it as fanciful were it not for the historical British example of Railtrack.

It appears Victoria's electricity privatisation did decrease prices - a result not replicated in the other states. Do you know why Hazelwood was being operated so inefficiently prior to privatisation and whether it had always been like that?

Graham,

If you look at what is happening all around the world, you might notice dramatic climate divergences from normal. Yes, today and many past months these divergences have been and are impacting millions of people and billions of dollars of infrastructure.

Do you understand what is happening today in much of Australian farming? Do you care? How about we’ll over 70 fires in NSW, and Qld, and Vic, during this winter? Can you visualise the strength of 500 fires in BC in Canada? Do you turn your back on Arctic fires in Sweden? Greece? And much, much more.

Do you care?

This is Climate Change writ large.

Oh, and numbers of lawsuits against FF industries by youth groups in the US are having success!

Your comments on renewables versus coal are rediculous without taking CC into account. Regardless of your organisations sponsors, CC must be the driver of electricity generation planning.

The fact that you cannot, or will not, address CC, renders your comments worthless.

You could run education sessions for your organisations sponsors.

Tony153, whether climate change is real or not is irrelevant.
Watch the eroei of oil and coal and its decline over the last 100 years.
Wind and solar it is now realised can never provide reliable supply
of electricity. We are faced with the longer time necessity of a change
to nuclear energy, uranium or thorium. Fusion is still 50 years away.

Just stop flogging a dead horse.

The purpose of government investing in infrastructure is when:

1) The infrastructure will generate public good in excess of the value of the asset, and,
2) Private enterprises cannot or will not build run and maintain this infrastructure cheaper than the government.

As private enterprise can and does build and run power plants cheaper than the state, there is no justification for the state to get involved beyond providing oversight.

Tony153

Firstly the lawsuits against fossil fuel companies are not doing well, in fact, they have been tossed out.

http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2018/06/us-judge-tosses-climate-lawsuits-california-cities-says-science-sound

Secondly, Graham has not challenged the concept of Climate change only the wildly incorrect claims by a renewables advocate. The problem with CC crusaders such as JQ is that they are perfectly willing to sacrifice the good in favour of the perfect.

HELE plants using black coal emit about 50% of the CO2 of the existing plants, and nuclear emits zero. Until it is possible to build cheap and reliable storage, renewables will be going nowhere.