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The issue in oz, is that energy investment by power companies is locked in with decades long contracts - raising power prices for everyone. But investment by in

by cam_l 2mo ago

The issue in oz, is that energy investment by power companies is locked in with decades long contracts - raising power prices for everyone. But investment by individuals is subject to bait and switch. Most people bought in with the expectation of a 12-15yr break-even, but the dropping feed in prices, and increase in grid costs have meant that break-even will probably never materialise. Meanwhile, we keep paying excess costs for power companies to produce dirty power, and subsidise mining companies to sell off our gas and coal overseas, without even getting a benefit through taxes or royalties (or barely any). Makes sense people are kind of pissed off about this (even if their reasoning is batshit-skynews-crazy).

hahahaa 2mo ago
EV, Battery, Solar, Heat pump, Amber. Maybe be give it a tech abbreviation like HBASE? :) Ok this may squarely be in the upper middle class and up for now but prices will come down and change everything. Almost to the point of off grid being feasible for suburban and rural areas at least. Then build solar and wind farms and batteries and hydrogen production/consumption for base load. Edit: changed to inc. solar
- perpetuallunch 2mo ago
  Why? Why should Australians continue to tolerate a government that gives half our gas exports away, and exports at least as much coal as it uses. But not build any modern tech coal and gas for cheap reliable base load and load following power? And nuclear too, we export all the uranium we mine, and at least some of that to nuclear armed states. Yet prohibit both on our own soil. Why must we continue to be told we should, ever increasingly, rely on a) energy technologies that have proven to be more expensive and unreliable, and b) unproven technologies with unproven costs. Fortunately there are other political options on the table. Queue the continued downvotes for a reasonable comment that offers an option contrary to the received wisdom.
  - hahahaa 2mo ago
    I am up for nuclear actually. And some gas as backup but not base. I just thing that global warming is a threat and every country needs to combat it.
  - Turskarama 2mo ago
    The thing you're missing here is timelines. The reason renewables are expensive is because it requires a grid upgrade to make it work, whereas replacing the old coal generators with new ones wouldn't so much. The kicker is though that once that upgrade is done, maintaining it will be very cheap whereas fossil fuels will continue to get more expensive (both sticker price and the cost of dealing with climate change). It's not like installing more fossil fuels halfway through helps either, we can't use coal to eliminate the duck curve without massively overbuilding it for a huge up front cost. We would need to build enough of it to cover when there is no renewables... which would be enough to never use the renewables at all. There is a lot of evidence in fact that we have _already_ reached the point where just going all in on renewables is cheaper. People like to point to the last 40 years or so to say fossil fuels are cheaper but that was a time when the rate of new power generation wasn't very high and most power stations had already been built. We are at a point now where just about all of our coal power stations need replacing, and actually doing that would be more expensive than the renewables roll-out. As for nuclear, the average cost to install and run it _in countries with existing industry_ is also higher than renewables. Despite the costs renewables are actually the cheapest method to get power, even if you add in all the extra associated costs. If you're actually interested in reading up on this then I can suggest going through the GenCost report https://www.csiro.au/en/research/technology-space/energy/Electricity-transition/GenCost https://www.csiro.au/en/research/technology-space/energy/Ele... Of course if you think the CSIRO is full of paid shills then this won't help, but you should probably have a hard think on who is actually spending the most on lobbying money, which you can also look up quite easily.
  - xbmcuser 2mo ago
    Today, building new solar, wind, and batteries is cheaper than building new coal or gas plants, let alone the fuel costs. Building new coal and gas would actually be stupid. Running older plants without caring about pollution might be cheaper in the short term, but not by much. And what do you mean by "new technology"? We've had solar power for over 50 years and wind power for centuries. Australia was a pioneer in grid-scale batteries over a decade ago with Tesla. Even if you wanted to build gas and coal plants, where would you get the turbines? There's a massive shortage, with deliveries supposedly 5 to 7 years away that is even before the current AI based demand surge. Nuclear will also take decades to build. The only fast, cheap option left is solar, wind, and batteries. Which can be up and running in under 12 months.

by cam_l 2mo ago

hahahaa 2mo ago

EV, Battery, Solar, Heat pump, Amber. Maybe be give it a tech abbreviation like HBASE? :) Ok this may squarely be in the upper middle class and up for now but prices will come down and change everything. Almost to the point of off grid being feasible for suburban and rural areas at least. Then build solar and wind farms and batteries and hydrogen production/consumption for base load. Edit: changed to inc. solar

perpetuallunch 2mo ago
Why? Why should Australians continue to tolerate a government that gives half our gas exports away, and exports at least as much coal as it uses. But not build any modern tech coal and gas for cheap reliable base load and load following power? And nuclear too, we export all the uranium we mine, and at least some of that to nuclear armed states. Yet prohibit both on our own soil. Why must we continue to be told we should, ever increasingly, rely on a) energy technologies that have proven to be more expensive and unreliable, and b) unproven technologies with unproven costs. Fortunately there are other political options on the table. Queue the continued downvotes for a reasonable comment that offers an option contrary to the received wisdom.
- hahahaa 2mo ago
  I am up for nuclear actually. And some gas as backup but not base. I just thing that global warming is a threat and every country needs to combat it.
- Turskarama 2mo ago
  The thing you're missing here is timelines. The reason renewables are expensive is because it requires a grid upgrade to make it work, whereas replacing the old coal generators with new ones wouldn't so much. The kicker is though that once that upgrade is done, maintaining it will be very cheap whereas fossil fuels will continue to get more expensive (both sticker price and the cost of dealing with climate change). It's not like installing more fossil fuels halfway through helps either, we can't use coal to eliminate the duck curve without massively overbuilding it for a huge up front cost. We would need to build enough of it to cover when there is no renewables... which would be enough to never use the renewables at all. There is a lot of evidence in fact that we have _already_ reached the point where just going all in on renewables is cheaper. People like to point to the last 40 years or so to say fossil fuels are cheaper but that was a time when the rate of new power generation wasn't very high and most power stations had already been built. We are at a point now where just about all of our coal power stations need replacing, and actually doing that would be more expensive than the renewables roll-out. As for nuclear, the average cost to install and run it _in countries with existing industry_ is also higher than renewables. Despite the costs renewables are actually the cheapest method to get power, even if you add in all the extra associated costs. If you're actually interested in reading up on this then I can suggest going through the GenCost report https://www.csiro.au/en/research/technology-space/energy/Electricity-transition/GenCost https://www.csiro.au/en/research/technology-space/energy/Ele... Of course if you think the CSIRO is full of paid shills then this won't help, but you should probably have a hard think on who is actually spending the most on lobbying money, which you can also look up quite easily.
- xbmcuser 2mo ago
  Today, building new solar, wind, and batteries is cheaper than building new coal or gas plants, let alone the fuel costs. Building new coal and gas would actually be stupid. Running older plants without caring about pollution might be cheaper in the short term, but not by much. And what do you mean by "new technology"? We've had solar power for over 50 years and wind power for centuries. Australia was a pioneer in grid-scale batteries over a decade ago with Tesla. Even if you wanted to build gas and coal plants, where would you get the turbines? There's a massive shortage, with deliveries supposedly 5 to 7 years away that is even before the current AI based demand surge. Nuclear will also take decades to build. The only fast, cheap option left is solar, wind, and batteries. Which can be up and running in under 12 months.