{"id":218452,"date":"2025-10-16T19:28:12","date_gmt":"2025-10-16T19:28:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/218452\/"},"modified":"2025-10-16T19:28:12","modified_gmt":"2025-10-16T19:28:12","slug":"chris-bowen-is-in-denial-about-renewable-energy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/218452\/","title":{"rendered":"Chris Bowen is in denial about renewable energy"},"content":{"rendered":"

China has cut off nearly all exports of rare earths, over which it has built a monopoly<\/a>. Rare earths are critical in the production of not only renewable energy, but also within the wider technology and defence industries.<\/p>\n

This shows how the world has become an even more dangerous place.<\/p>\n

China\u2019s market control over critical minerals adds another dimension to the implications stemming from the Australian government\u2019s debilitating energy policies. This includes the deliberate destruction of coal-based energy competitiveness. In doing so, the government has guaranteed Australia\u2019s de-industrialisation in a world where an increasingly powerful and belligerent China is an adversary.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, trying to power minerals-processing with moonbeam energy denies Australia a role as an alternative rare earth supplier.<\/p>\n

We\u2019ve seen a continued procession of key industrial facilities being closed or subsidised as a result of the government-imposed toll of high-cost energy.<\/p>\n

Last week, Glencore\u2019s Mount Isa copper smelter<\/a> snagged a massive subsidy that may or may not be sufficient to see it remain operating. Rio Tinto could close the Gladstone coal-powered generator (Queensland biggest) as early as 2029<\/a>. That generator, which is crucial to the Boyne Island aluminium smelter, is operating below capacity due to increasing supplies of subsidised wind and solar having priority despatch.<\/p>\n

The Federal Coalition Member for Flynn, Colin Boyce, said:<\/a><\/p>\n

\u2018The Gladstone Power Station [\u2026] supplies approximately 80 per cent of its power production to the alumina sector, also the port of Gladstone, and the general heavy industry in Gladstone. So hypothetically, if that were to happen in 2029, that would be devastating for the industry. It highlights the fact that the whole energy policy the government is pursuing, at the moment of 82 per cent renewable energy by 2030 and indeed 100 per cent renewable energy by 2050, you cannot run the fourth-largest coal terminal in the world at Gladstone and the two refineries and alumina smelter on wind turbines and solar panels. It\u2019s just simply not feasible.\u2019<\/p>\n

At the same time, the Queensland government announced a step back from the previously planned closure of its coal-powered electricity generators. The new Queensland electricity plan also involves government funding to facilitate 400 MW of new gas generation in the short term and over 10 times this much over the long term. Queensland had already canned the extravagant $30 billion pump storage schemes previously on the cards.<\/p>\n

But, oblivious to wind\/solar\u2019s high cost and unreliability, Commonwealth Climate Change and Energy Minister Chris Bowen announced an acceleration of the program, whereby the government buys, at inflated prices, intermittent wind and solar energy and batteries under the so-called Capacity Investment Scheme (CIS). Purchases under that scheme are eventually to comprise 32 Gigawatts \u2013 coal supplies half of Australian current supply with 23 Gigawatts of capacity. On the most optimistic assumptions, it would cost more than a year\u2019s GDP<\/a> to provide batteries to support renewables in a Net Zero emissions regime. And that\u2019s even before factoring in the transmission a renewables-based system would need.<\/p>\n

Not only are wind\/solar facilities worthless, but their presence in the market actually imposes costs by forcing the closure of the lower cost and more reliable coal generators. Predictably, Minister Bowen\u2019s response to the Queensland government\u2019s retreat from closures of fossil fuel generators was to ask it to explain why it disagrees \u2018with the warnings of independent bodies that have consistently said that unreliable, ageing coal is driving up bills for all Australians, including Queenslanders\u2019. Of course, the so-called independent bodies are government-controlled or subsidy advocates; claims that wind\/solar are cheaper are blown out of the water by cross-country correlations of prices and the renewables share of energy markets.<\/p>\n

The travails of Rio\u2019s Gladstone Power station (the biggest in Queensland) and hence the Boyne Island smelter are shared widely. Already all Australia\u2019s nickel smelters have had to close in the face of Indonesian competition using cheap coal-generated power.<\/p>\n

Australia\u2019s three other aluminium smelters are also under threat.<\/p>\n

Tomago in NSW produces nearly two-fifths of Australian aluminium. Energy makes up more than 40 per cent of its operating costs. Its supplier is AGL\u2019s Bayswater coal power station, which is due to close by 2033. Energy contracts run to the end of 2028 after which costs will double under present settings.<\/p>\n

For its part Victoria\u2019s Portland<\/a> smelter, located far away from power stations as part of the Cain Labor Government\u2019s industry policy, has compensatory subsidised low-cost power. Following escalating generator costs (partly driven by increased royalties) it has had an additional Commonwealth\/state subsidy since 2021 that expires at the end of next year. The smelter uses 10 per cent of the state\u2019s electricity supply.<\/p>\n

Completing an aluminium quad-calamity is Rio Tinto\u2019s Bell Bay<\/a> plant in Tasmania. This uses a third of Snowy Hydro\u2019s \u2018green energy\u2019 but has no power contract beyond the end of this year. The Marinus link from 2028 will bring a fourfold increase in Tasmania\u2019s electricity export capacity to the mainland, where it is to perform \u2018battery of the nation\u2019 duties. This involves balancing the subsidised wind\/solar that is replacing coal. Once Marinus is completed, the smelter will no longer have a captive power source.<\/p>\n

Unfortunately, short of closing down the windmills and solar facilities, the roll-out of subsidised renewable energy has left Australia with no clear options for restoring the nation\u2019s previous low-cost reliable electricity supply. As long as they reap subsidies (and with the 13 per cent of supply from rooftop solar these have been largely pre-paid) the renewables will continue to undermine the commerciality of coal and, to some degree, less-capital intensive gas plant. Government support for additional more gas plants places additional pressure on the coal plants.<\/p>\n

Faced with a similar problem, the Trump Administration has ensured that any new renewables are now subsidy-free and face planning restraints.<\/p>\n

The Administration had also proposed imposing a special tax on existing wind and solar facilities to offset the tax subsidies they had received. Those provisions were eventually dropped. But the problems created by wind and solar in the US are less than in Australia where their market share at 34 per cent is twice that of the US. If Australia is not to be saddled with 20 years of high-cost electricity resulting from two decades of the subsidies to renewables, provisions like those canvassed by the Trump administration will need to be implemented. But for the time being the political establishment is largely in denial about the existence of the problem.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"China has cut off nearly all exports of rare earths, over which it has built a monopoly. Rare…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":218453,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[64,63,75,9616,128],"class_list":{"0":"post-218452","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-environment","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-environment","11":"tag-flat-white","12":"tag-science"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/218452","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=218452"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/218452\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/218453"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=218452"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=218452"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=218452"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}