Cut out dirty but plentiful coal-fired power too quickly, and the blackouts crash public confidence in the whole transition. But invest in renewables too slowly, and Australia will not reduce carbon fast enough to hit its 2030 and 2050 emissions targets. The public cares about that very much, too, – and to prove it, people are rapidly increasing power demandRight now, both ends of the bridge are failing in Australia.
Energy Minister Chris Bowen can claim to have got moribund energy policy moving with the safeguard mechanism to create a partial carbon price. But it’s been at the cost of trying to exclude things. In the course ofthis week, Mr Bowen did pragmatically back gas-fired peaking and firming power. But critically, Labor-run states won’t include gas in the capacity mechanism, which is supposed to provide secure, rapidly deployable firming power to get through difficult periods.