29 April 2024
Topics: Grattan Institute report into renewables
EO&E
Chris Kenny:
I want to get back to our national energy self-harm. A new report has come out today from the Grattan Institute showing that, guess what, hey what, the Federal Government is stuffing up this so-called energy transition, this transition to renewables. Jonathon Duniam is the Shadow Environment Minister, he’s a Senator for Tasmania, joins us from Hobart. Good to talk to you, Jonathon. This Grattan Institute report is unsurprising, except that, you know, it’s generally a kind of a green-left think tank, the Grattan Institute. They’re all on board usually for this renewables transition, and they’re saying hang on a second, it’s not going well. We’re going to run out of electricity.
Senator Duniam:
Yeah, Chris, good to be with you. And I’ll tell you what, when the left are rounding on themselves and starting to, as you say, sound the alarm bells, you know something is really wrong. But it is rather becoming embarrassing. But the problem is, it is such a serious issue. We’ve been belling the cat on this for a long, long time, and common sense dictates that you have to bring on and maintain reliable, cheap, baseload energy that can be turned on at the flick of a switch. That’s how our grid survives. But to put all your eggs in one basket, as this Government has been with their rollout of renewables at any cost, no matter what it takes is, as the Grattan Institute themselves, this green-left leaning think tank, it’s going to end in disaster, blackouts and, of course, who’s going to invest here if you can’t get reliable, cheap energy?
Chris Kenny
Yeah, look, it it’s a no brainer and it’s great to see the Grattan Institute finally waking up to this because we just can’t get enough renewables in place, can’t get enough storage, can’t get enough transmission. It’s all going to cost a motza along the way as well, so we’re going to pay more for the electricity when it is available. What’s the answer though? I mean, obviously the coal fired power stations that we need for now need to be kept online longer. We also need more gas fired electricity to fill in the gaps, and you’re going to need that, even if you were to form government tomorrow in the Coalition, you would need to do both those things to actually get us, power us, long enough to get nuclear power in place.
Senator Duniam:
Look, that’s absolutely right, Chris. We can’t deny the fact that we’ve gone so far down this road that we do need to ensure that we do have reliable energy on demand. That does include gas, particularly coal, extended life of some of those generation facilities, but trying to bring on more gas for domestic consumption and energy generation. We need that and so, certainly, that’s something we’ll have to be looking at is ways we can actually work with producers on ensuring that we can generate what we need here as we do work our way through the nuclear answer to cheap, reliable energy. It is important, but the way Labor are going about it, nothing is going to happen that is in any way good for our country. Failing on their targets and they’re failing on Australians.
Chris Kenny
Yeah, it is very dire indeed. Thanks for joining us, Jonathon.