Aussie Energiewende

Energiewende is used to describe German national strategy for transition to a climate-neutral energy system, including closure of nuclear plants and coal mines, policies in favour of renewables, etc.

The Aussie version of Energiewende looks decidedly different. Since May 2022 the Federal Environment Minister has approved ten new coal mines or expansions with 2,449 million tonnes of lifetime emissions.  Hundreds of new gas fracking wells are approved for Queensland and likely in the Northern Territory.  Most production will be exported, along with their greenhouse emissions.

The gas story is weird. Australia is the world’s second largest exporter of liquified natural gas (LNG), mostly shipped out of Gladstone in Queensland, but apparently we are facing a gas shortage for domestic consumption. The 50 year old offshore platforms in Bass Strait are coming to the end of their reserves, which successive Federal governments failed to notice. Meantime all the other gas fields were developed for export, with contracts to protect their comfortable profits.

The Commonwealth government has recently tried to carve out some of that export gas for domestic use, but previous governments also failed to think about pipelines to get the stuff down south. And apparently that’s now too expensive to construct. So the new genius solution is to construct terminals in NSW and Victoria to import LNG from overseas. No kidding.

Meantime, we’re told endlessly that our so-called cost-of-living crisis has a large component of energy cost to households, and that Albo promised to reduce annual bills by $275 next year. 

Recent analysis by the Australia Institute of our duopolistic retail electricity sector points to the real culprits and puts that part of the ‘crisis’ in perspective – here are the key findings:

• AGL makes $755.01 profit yearly per customer for household electricity and Origin $595.25. 
• AGL makes $414.04 profit yearly per customer for household gas, and Origin $417.57.
• June 1995 to June 2024 electricity prices increased more than twice the rate of inflation.
• In the same period gas prices increased at three times the rate of inflation.
• For every $100 of an AGL customer’s electricity bill, $35 is profit, $34 goes to network costs (using poles and wires), $15 goes to “other costs” (such as advertising) and just $12 is spent generating electricity. $4 covers depreciation and amortisation.
• Households pay more than double what AGL and Origin charge business for the same unit of electricity.
• Households pay 3.2 times more for gas from AGL than business, and 2.5 times from Origin. 

“A clear case of price gouging by AGL and Origin, who are the Coles and Woolies of the energy sector”, said David Richardson, their senior researcher.

“In the case of AGL, the data shows that just 12% of what consumers fork out goes to generating electricity. So, any claim that high fuel prices are responsible for the huge increase in electricity prices just doesn’t stack up.”

“Just last week, the Australian Energy Market Operator revealed a record number of Australians are now on hardship plans to pay for their power and gas. At the same time, AGL and Origin are raking in billions of dollars in profits. Australian consumers are being ripped off at a time when they can least afford it.”

“Between them AGL and Origin made more than $3 billion in profits last year. Privatisation has made these monsters where market forces should never have been applied.”

Off-the-grid out here in the bush, we don’t pay any electricity bills at all. Our modest 1.4kw solar system with lead acid batteries (see below) is still powering along. After ten years, touch wood. But I’m feeling my fellow Orstralians’ pain from such gross political mismanagement.

P.S. The Federal Opposition’s recently announced looney nuclear strategy will be denounced here soon, after some special investigations are completed – we’re on an Energy Bender, so stay tuned.