Energy executives say gas market – not windfarms – to blame for South Australia's woes | Environment | The Guardian
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Yeah I'm still trying to work out how people can say cheap renewable power is responsible for fossil fuel generators bidding up the price on the power supply market. Next time we lose at cricket I suppose it will be the fault of people who prefer to play football.
The coal trolls are the least of the worries with regards to wind energy. This wind farm backs on to our farm and I just wish they would hurry up and build it. All the arguments put forward by the nimbys in the article are pure crap. The country there is perfectly suitable for wind farms being on the western edge of the first range of hills. The farmland that the locals are complaining about has been colonised by sifton bush after being flogged for many years as marginal sheep country and then sold off for hobby farms.
I reckon Rye Park deserves a small nuclear reactor in their backyard for complaining.....
Recommendations to slash turbines at Rye Park | Yass Tribune
Regards,
Tote
Have to love media running an article from one company blaming another for not selling it something cheaper. I have to ask will AGL sell it to their costumers for less than it costs them to buy it?
I will state straight up I work for a major oil and gas producer. Not one that sells to AGL.
Our world might not be perfect but companies will sell if the market is there. No different to any business no matter what size. I think sometimes this point gets missed.
Talking of the gas market, it perhaps should be pointed out that the gas fields that everyone is complaining about exporting gas from would not have existed without the export market. The domestic market is simply not large enough to support the combination of exploration, long lead times and capital costs of exploring for and developing these known gas resources. Gas resources that could be developed fairly cheaply and rapidly from unconventional fields such as coal seam gas have been stopped by various state governments due to pressure groups.
Some of the fields that are just now being developed were found or at least strongly suspected forty years ago, but delineating and developing them was not possible from a financial point of view until there was a customer(s) who would sign up for enough gas for long enough and at high enough price for anyone to raise the money needed. Even today, domestic gas suppliers are unable or unwilling to plan far enough ahead to make this sort of commitment, ultimately because their customers won't wear the costs involved. One of the reasons for this is that energy from coal can be developed rapidly (at least given the power station already exists) and there has never been any shortage of coal - known resources can supply existing production for many centuries.
As far as the "massive profits" that are "sent overseas", it perhaps should be noted that several of the major energy suppliers are Australian listed companies, including the world's largest mining company - and as anyone familiar with the stock market can note - if you want security or high profit, don't invest in mining companies; bank stocks have far outperformed miners in all respects. That's where the windfall profits are!
Yes, I believe Peter Beattie stimulated the gas industry by requiring 15 percent of Queensland's electricity to be generated by gas, which put a viability floor under the industry.
AEMO is now warning of electricity shortages in SA and NSW unless more gas is used there to generate electricity.
The problem isn't renewables, it's a lack of gas generation because it's going overseas.
Gas supply shortage will threaten nation's power supplies, AEMO forecasts - ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)
No, the gas shortage is not because it is being sent overseas. It is being sent overseas because, unlike domestic buyers, the overseas customers were prepared to enter into supply contracts that were 'bankable'. The reason for this failure on the part of domestic suppliers was because neither their customers nor the state governments were prepared to pay what this would cost. As you point out, the Qld government provided the certainty of a sellers market by requiring 15% of their power to be gas. And not stopping exploration and development for gas!