Decarbonising Australia (updated)

John Quiggin214 Comments

I’ve been meaning to post about the Australian Energy Market Operator’s report on the feasibility of a 100 per cent renewable electricity supply system for Australia (H/T commenter Ben). In the meantime, Brian Bahnisch at LP has done a detailed summary, so I’ll refer you there and make a few points of my own.

First, this study should kill off, once and for all, claims made here and in many other places (notably, at Brave New Climate) that the intermittency of renewable electricity is an insuperable problem.[1] The AEMO is the body that manages the electricity market on a minute-to-minute basis, so it has the expertise to assess this claim, unlike the many amateurs who have tried their hands. And, since it might have to do the job, it has no reason to understate the difficulties of a renewables-based system.

Second, the estimate cost of $111 to $133 per megawatt-hour represents an increase of $60-80/MwH on current wholesale prices, or 6-8c/Kwh on retail prices. That’s much less than the increase we’ve seen thanks to the mishandling of electricity market reform. If we wound back those costs, we could actually end up with both 100 per cent renewables and cheaper electricity.

Third, although the study envisages a role for electric vehicles, it doesn’t present a full-scale program for decarbonization. But once you have a scalable, fully renewable electricity supply, everything else is comparatively easy.

Finally, if we take Tony Abbott at his word in wanting direct action to deal with climate change, this report provides him with a blueprint. If we want to, we can eliminate the great majority of domestic CO2 emissions simply by mandating renewable technology and electric vehicles. The cost would be substantial in dollar terms ($250 billion for the electricity component). But, over a couple of decades, it would be a barely detectable deduction from growth in national income.

Update As it turns out, there’s a response at Brave New Climate from Martin Nicholson. Nicholson reports on a study of his own, in which nuclear is included in the mix. On Nicholson’s estimates, this substantially reduces capital costs, a point of which he makes a big deal. But obviously, renewables have much lower operating costs and Nicholson estimates the levelised cost for his system at $124/MWh to $126/MWh. As he says:

As this is in the middle of the AEMO range, wholesale prices are likely to be similar with or without nuclear

Given that very few current-generation nuclear plants have been built, cost estimates for nuclear are speculative. The obvious inference for Australia is that we should push along with renewables, and take a “wait and see” position on nuclear, observing developments in the UK, US, France and China. If they can deliver nuclear safely and at low cost, we can add it to the mix (say, after 2030).

Sadly, I think most of the BNC readership are locked into a position that nuclear must be the answer, which requires them to believe that renewables won’t work. Even a comprehensive demonstration that renewables can deliver a 100 per cent solution at a cost comparable with optimistic estimates for nuclear isn’t going to shift them.end update

fn1. This is part of a rhetorical manoeuvre aimed at pushing the conclusion that nuclear is the only feasible zero-carbon option. Once it’s admitted that 100 per cent renewable electricity is feasible, nuclear advocates need to present a case based on comparative costs. In the Australian context, it will be very hard to make that case, given the need to set up a complete nuclear infrastructure from scratch.

Young people these days

John Quiggin23 Comments

Apparently, a new survey shows that Millennials (more precisely, US high school students interviewed between 2005 and 2007, and therefore born in the early 1990s) are lazy and entitled. More precisely, as textbook worker-consumers are supposed to, they would like nice stuff, but not if they have to work long hours to get it. I’m too bored to link to it, but you can easily find it.

The best that can be said for this kind of thing is that it relieves the monotony of boomer-bashing. Apart from that it is a repeat of the formulaic denunciation of adolescents that has been applied (in my memory) to Gen Y (insofar as this group differs from the Millennials) Gen X (Slackers), Boomers (hippies) and the Silent Generation (the original teenagers). Then there were the Lost Generation and so on back to the (apocryphal, I think) rant often attributed to Socrates. Only those who have the good fortune (?) to come of age in a time of full-scale war miss out on this ritual denunciation.

Gillard gets it right

John Quiggin61 Comments

Ever since the Hawke government announced the “Trilogy” commitments in 1984, promising no increase in the revenue and expenditure shares of national income, Australian politics has been, in effect, a conspiracy of silence about the central issue of economic policy, that of the appropriate balance of private and public expenditure. The steady growth in demand for services like health and education has ensured that no reduction in the public sector share has been feasible, while the market liberal dogma enshrined in the Trilogy has prevented any increase.

In retrospect, it’s striking that Hawke’s commitment came just after the reintroduction of Medicare, funded (in part) by a levy on all incomes. Medicare’s success has made it politically untouchable. On the other hand, it has been assumed (though without much supporting evidence) that any increase in taxation (not matched by offsetting cuts) is politically impossible.

The Gillard-Swan government was, until yesterday, ruled by this doctrine. With their unfortunate habit of making categorical commitments out of aspirations, both Gillard and Swan had repeatedly ruled out a levy to fund the National Disability Insurance Scheme (by contrast, “conservative” state premiers like Newman were happy with the idea) But, as a recent Grattan Institute report has made clear, there is no way of meeting the needs for health and education without a substantial increase in revenue (as well as cuts in low-priority direct expenditures and tax expenditures).

So Gillard has announced a proposal for a 0.5 percentage point increase in the Medicare levy, raising $3 billion a year. Abbott has equivocated so far, but has stated his support for the NDIS, which leaves him no honest options except to go along.

If we could achieve consensus on paying for improved services through higher taxation in this case, we might finally have a serious debate about what, as a community, we are willing to pay for.

Costello Report: first look

John Quiggin36 Comments

The full version of the Costello Commission of Audit Report has finally been released, along with the Newman government’s responses. As it turns out, the “Interim” report was the Commission’s last word on most of the big issues, such as the state’s debt position and fiscal outlook. The Final Report consists of

* A general discussion of the role of government, which is just a restatement of the market liberal orthodoxy of the 1980s and 1990s, proposing privatisation, competitive tendering and contracting and so on
* The specific claim that Queensland can deal with the problem of rising demand for health, education and similar services in coming decades by permanently raising the rate of productivity growth in those sectors.
* Detailed discussion of all areas of government activity.

Of these, the second is the important one. The fact that productivity grows more slowly in human services than in other sectors of the economy, and that this implies relative growth of the public sector, has been known since the work of Baumol in the 1960s. This pattern is unlikely to be changed by the kinds of measures being proposed by the Commission.

Some electricity links

John Quiggin21 Comments

The Australia Institute has a report out making the point that the growth in the administrative and marketing costs of electricity companies, following the reforms of the 1990s, has added more to electricity prices than has the carbon price.

Also, the Centre for Policy Development has a nice piece on solar PV coming out soon. Look for it.

Finally, here’s a piece I wrote for the The Economic and Labour Relations Review in 2001. Conclusion over the fold. I think it stacks up pretty well, certainly compared to the gushing praise for reform that was commonplace at the time.

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MRRT

John Quiggin34 Comments

I appeared at a Senate inquiry into the Minerals Resource Rent Tax yesterday. Given the virtual certainty that the tax will be abolished after the election, I tried to focus on the future. Here’s my opening statement

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