Indeed I can, Bernie.

GenCost doesn't put a single dollar figure on "firming" because there isn't a single thing called "firming" to price. It's not a standalone technology, it's a system property that emerges from different mixes of storage, dispatchable capacity, transmission, overbuild and demand response.

The cost depends entirely on the scenario being modelled.

That's why GenCost presents generation costs separately and then discusses reliability and system needs within scenario modelling rather than as a single headline number. A single "firming cost" would be meaningless without first specifying the mix, the penetration level, the reliability standard and the time horizon.

That's not the government "hiding" costs, it's the limits of aggregation. The costs are real and material, but they show up distributed across storage, networks and dispatchable capacity rather than as one scary line item. Collapsing them into a single dollar figure without those assumptions would be more misleading, not more transparent.

The legitimate critique isn't that these costs are secret, it's that public debate routinely ignores system costs altogether and fixates on generation-only headlines. But that's a communication failure, not evidence of a cover-up.

To John Daysh
If what you say is correct, then government is being dishonest or incompetent or both by not directing the CSIRO to come up with a detailed scenario of whatever energy production system they believe will be cheap, effective and reliable. By failing to give this direction to to CSIRO, they are trying to hide the total cost of Australia's future energy system in the hope that voters will remain ignorant and not chastise them at the ballot box when they (the voters) find out that billions of their taxpayer dollars could have been redirected into defense, housing, education, health or a multitude of other government services.

Your conclusion doesn't follow, Bernie.

GenCost isn't intended to be a single, definitive blueprint for "the" future energy system, and CSIRO isn't being directed to produce one because there is no single system to cost. Reliability, mix and total system cost are explored through multiple scenarios across AEMO's ISP and related modelling, not collapsed into a single politically convenient number.

What GenCost does is provide consistent, comparable input costs for the technologies. The amount of storage, backup, transmission or demand response you end up needing depends on how reliable you want the system to be and what risks you're willing to wear.

Those choices are political, not scientific, which is exactly why there isn't one tidy number to quote.

But that doesn't mean system costs are trivial or unimportant. It means they can't honestly be reduced to one "hidden" dollar figure without first specifying the system you want, the level of reliability you're prepared to pay for, and over what period of time. Pretending there's a single suppressed number conflates complexity with concealment.

So the problem isn't that voters are being kept ignorant of some secret total. It's that public debate routinely treats generation-only cost headlines as if they settle the question, when they plainly don't. Again, that's a failure of political communication (and media simplification), not evidence of a deliberate cover-up.

Bernie McMasters,
I have long suspected John Daysh of having invested in the failing present technology renewables industry & he is desperate to maintain the momentum of the Gravy Train !

Indyvidual
I agree. Daysh 'doth protest too much'. I am making a simple point: why does the government not direct the CSIRO or AEMO to devise the most likely/best scenario for Australia to reach Net Zero and then produce a costing for that scenario. Instead, Daysh seems to be denying the need for taxpayers to be told the ultimate final cost of Net Zero by saying it's political. Of course it's political and it's shameful in my view that the CSIRO and AEMO don't stand up to the political games being played on this issue and do what independent entities are supposed to do, namely, give fearless independent advice.

Bernie,

I haven't denied the need for system-level costing, and I haven't claimed it's illegitimate to ask what a Net Zero transition will cost. What I've said, twice now, is that there is no single "ultimate final cost" that can be produced independently of policy choices.

Asking CSIRO or AEMO to publish the cost of Net Zero presupposes agreement on reliability standards, risk tolerance, demand growth, technology mix, time horizon and financing assumptions. Those inputs are not scientific facts waiting to be discovered, they're choices that governments have to make.

Different choices produce different totals.

That's why these bodies model multiple scenarios rather than declare one "best" system and attach a single headline price tag to it. Presenting one number as the cost would be misleading unless all of those assumptions were fixed first, which is exactly why serious system modelling doesn't work that way.

None of that excuses oversimplified public messaging or generation-only headlines being treated as decisive. But complexity isn't concealment, and refusing to collapse it into a single political number isn't a failure of independence.