Australia’s conservative Liberal-National Prime Minister Tony Abbott has given insights into his thinking on renewable energy with comments linking its effect to his views on the country’s carbon price laws.
According to a report published by The Australian Financial Review newspaper Mr Abbott has declared as similar the effects of carbon pricing and Australia’s Renewable Energy Target (RET) on power prices, giving the strongest indication yet he may seek to weaken the scheme.
According to the newspaper, Mr Abbott, whose government next year plans to review Australia’s target of 20 per cent renewable energy by 2020, says renewable energy is expensive and hamstrung by a lack of storage options.
At the same time he said yesterday in an interview on Sydney radio station 2GB: “We’re taking this review very seriously and one of the things that we’ll be looking at will be the impact of renewable energy on power prices.
“Not only is the carbon tax adding about nine per cent to everyone’s power bills and we’re going to get rid of that as quickly as we can, renewable energy targets are also significantly driving up power prices right now,” Mr Abbott added.
Mr Abbott also voiced very sceptical views of the development of wind power saying: “If you drive down the Federal Highway from Goulburn to Canberra and you look at Lake George, yes there’s an absolute forest of these things on the other side of the lake near Bungendore.
“I absolutely understand why people are anxious about these things that are sprouting like mushrooms all over the fields of our country.
“I absolutely understand the concerns that people have.
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And I also understand the difficulty because while renewable power is a very good idea at one level, you have got to have backups because when the wind doesn’t blow and the sun doesn’t shine, the power doesn’t flow.
“So this is an obvious problem with renewable energy in the absence of much more sophisticated battery technology than we have right now.”
Mr Abbott’s views run against those expressed by energy experts, who suggest shifting to 100 per cent renewable energy is both technically viable and affordable.
Studies by the think tank Beyond Zero Emissions, and subsequent studies from the Australian Energy Market Operator and University of New South Wales confirm the technical feasibility of renewable energy.
In terms of cost, the 100 per cent renewable energy system is cheaper than the fossil fuel based business-as-usual approach.
His remarks have also drawn concern from the renewable energy sector with Andrew Thomson, managing director of Acciona’s Australian wind farms, saying the renewables sector needed certainty.
Mr Thomson said “the possibility of fundamental changes to the policy itself do little to create confidence in the energy market”.
He added that regulatory uncertainty undermined efforts to attract global capital and expertise to the sector.
One Response
Has anyone ever heard anything coming out of Abbott’s mouth that is even half intelligent. I would be interested, perhaps he is only being reported as a numskull and he is actually a smart guy