It will take a while to go through Victorian Government’s climate change white paper, so I won’t try to pronounce judgement the quality of the individual actions proposed. At first glance, shutting down part of Hazelwood is a good start. Replacing it with new-build coal – even if the emissions intensity of the replacement is half that of Hazelwood – not so great.
One thing that seems clear from the document, though, is that Brumby and Victorian Labor have come to a rather different judgment to federal Labor on the politics of climate change. Aside from targeting a headline reduction in CO2 emissions greater than the national average (which is, admittedly, easier to do when your electricity is currently generated by burning carboniferous mud and running the resulting lukewarm steam through National Trust classified turbines), the document strongly calls for a price on carbon.
It seems odd – given that Victoria is ground zero for job-displacing action if there’s a carbon price – that the Victorian government is keener on stronger action than federal Labor, which we’ve agreed is particularly concerned about New South Wales and Queensland in the upcoming election. And it’s not like Victoria doesn’t have prominent denialists – Andrew Bolt, possibly the single most prominent explicitly denialist voice in the mainstream media, is a Victorian. Why the difference?
Impossible to truly say. Doesn’t it always come down to internal polling?
Or maybe Vics are just better governed, and listen to their public service?
Thwaites was a strong believer in real action on climate change, Brumby never much so. The opposition in Victoria are overall pretty moderate sorts.
Abbott (I think – someone anyway) was in my radio this morning claiming that closing down some of Hazelwood would cost jobs. It’s great that he’s such a vocal champion of the working man, and that makes me breathe easier about Work Choices, but he’s obviously forgotten that most of those jobs he’s so eager to protect were lost forever when Kennett sold Victoria’s electricity to his spiv mates.
It’s black Saturday re-visited. A category 5 cyclone drifting far south toward Brissie or a destructive winter storm cell hitting Sydney’s eastern suburbs might do the same thing north of the border.
Thanks, Robert Merkel. I saw that headline and thought “wow”, went to sleep off a headache and woke to find the post up.
Is it a bold and statesman-like move from usually cautious Brumby?
Is it meant to demonstrate that Gillard, a fed, can get cooperation from a state government, any state government, unlike her predecessors?
Or has Brumby undercut Gillard, regardless of any impact on the fed election, intent on his own election strategies for later?
As to closing down power stations, there has to be some care with this. Latrobe is a populous region and it would not do to leave the region dangling without some sort of plan for it in coping with transitions resulting from the cessation of feeding of mud thru a fed era relic, as Merkel seems to put it?
Paul, there’s quite a lot in the policy about jobs in the Latrobe Valley.
As David noted, employment is already a fraction of its peak due to the privatization of the 1990s.
I live in Melbourne and ‘Close Hazelwood’ has been a major campaign of the Greens here. I wonder whether internal polling by the ALP has shown major shifts to the Greens and this is one way to neutralise this issue.
I am not that enthusiastic. If Brumby said he was going to
close down all 1600MW of Hazelwood in stages by 2015 by acquiring the assets from International Power for a specific sum and progressively replace each of its units with Brayton cycle units also for a specific sum and had set aside a budget to do that and the associated contracts then I’d say well done him.
Some vague announcements about targets for renewables and getting money out of the Feds to close down 25% when his predecessor said it coukld run until 2031 doesn’t inspire me.
You’re a hard woman to please, Fran.
Well I’m a schoolteacher. We start with outcomes and measure performance against them. We’re obsessive about the adequacy of outcome specifications and the extent of compliance with them.
I’ve spent quite a bit of time teaching VET and going to inservices on defining elements of competency and ensuring adequacy of assessment tools and that does tend to reinforce my pickyness.
Well I’m a schoolteacher.
Nah, it’s because you’re a Spart.
Fran, I’d be really, really amused to hear lines like that used by an interviewer with any politician. Especially a labour one, and especially a current or former Munster of Ejumificaseywhatsit. Not that I have a particular dislike of La Gillardine, but to see her facing the sort of questioning that she’s imposed on her employees would be outrageously funny.
Best of all would be the munster in question coming up with the targets and measurable outcomes.
“Houston, we have progress!”
The positivity of Julia Gillard is associated with this very strongly!
Let us look forward to a decade of Labor at the very least!
*** Go Julia and the competent womans touch! ***
Truly, “HUZZAH!”
Sam says:
moz, said Munster would just say, with slightly patronising smile:
‘Well Kerry I’m not going to go into that sort of detail on your show, much as you’d like me to. That sort of detail is part of the consultation process moving forward, and I don’t think it would be in the interests of this process to reveal the details on national television.’
But isn’t the voting public entitled to know?
‘All will be revealed in due course, Kerry. In this election the Australian public faces a clear choice….’
You have inflicted targets and measurable outcomes on the teaching profession so why shouldn’t you come under similar scrutiny?
‘Well Kerry (intensifying smile) I come under the scrutiny of the Australian people, and of course it’s entirely appropriate that teachers achieve targets and deliver measurable outcomes and that these are transparent. This is why we delivered this transparency through the My Schools web site and I particularly proud of our achievements in this area. Parents are for the first time receiving important data allowing them to make informed decisions…’
Adrian, I’m sure she would. I just wonder whether anyone could push her into an abbotism. Next question would obviously be “are you arguing against the right of ordinary Australians to make an informed decision on polling day?”
My sort of political interviews are more revealing but strangely less popular with politicians than the current ones. There’s ABC TV footage around of me winding up a right-wing radio host on air just by actually answering his questions calmly and reasonably while he lost the plot. If I can know what I’m talking about, why can’t the blimmin’ PM and APM? It’s not as though I’ve ever held an important role where the primary means of accountability is intermediated by the bought media.
I think she’s too skilled to be pushed into an ‘abbotism’, but you never know.
I’d just like the interviewers to actually follow up on answers to questions and politely refuse to accept the BS answer. Too often it’s as though the interviewer has a list of questions to get through and barely listens to the answer, let alone ask follow up questions.
If the Vic govt were genuine about renewables and closing Hazelwood, they would commission one or more solar thermal plants to replace the base load supplied by Hazelwood, but there is not a mention of solar thermal. Instead, the Vic government’s push to make it the “solar state” is merely to subsidize solar panels at the domestic level with maybe a few factories thrown in. Pathetic really.
I wonder if Brumby’s got an eye on The Greens’ chances in lower house seats in the November state election. I haven’t been following it closely, but I think I remember seeing there are a few where they’re in with a chance. Can anyone enlighten me further?
Silkworm said:
I visited this hulk as part of my “Whinery tour” of brown coal-fired power in the Latrobe a few years back. It was due to shut in 2005 and is symbol of our greed, consumption, fear, Ludditism and climate apathy. Simon Crean’s intention to export brown coal to Vietnam is a further insult.
Kim @ 18, there are 3 inner city Labor seats in some danger to the Greens. Internal polling has another 2 looking a little rocky. I reckon that’s the main thing exercising Brumby’s mind at the moment.
Though its possible that bushfires, as Pablo mentioned earlier, a potential massive loss of farmland in the north and north west of the state and increasing costs of supplying water also disturb his sleep.
His plan really only looks good because there’s so little happening in any other part of the country. He deserves a couple of claps for being the first incumbent pollie in the country to see the opportunities in firm climate action but he’s only sticking his neck out as far as he needs to go to secure first place.
There’s plenty that’s admirable in the package but nothing that actually meets the climate realities:
- 20% by 2020 when the science calls for 25-40%. While legislating it is good, there’s no guarantees we’ll get there.
- solar feed-in tariff to drive 5% solar by 2020 also good policy but on some estimates would provide only 100 MW by 2015. Its instructive that the 2015 target is 500GWh, while 2020 is 2500GWh. Taking a punt now and hoping for the best later. And would these be baseload stations that could prove the technology for an Alcoa to want to move to it? Again, no guarantees.
- only replacing 2 of Hazelwood’s 8 generators, one of which is broken anyway because they haven’t been bothering to maintain them properly. And then only if the feds come to the party. Could do better.
- useful contributions on efficiency, establishing a carbon exchange, support for business innovation. Shows they’re trying out lots of approaches which is good thinking. When you’re the first one genuinely giving it a go here, you don’t know which lever will work.
So, 6/10 for mine. And probably as far as you could expect a state premier to go with the feds being such extraordinary blockheads.
@21 – Thanks for that, Aussie Oskar.
From the document:
At 100% availability the 2014 target implies roughly 5mWe and at 2020, 285mWe of solar of installed capacity. Bear in mind that Hazelwood supplies 140+ times the 2014 figure (based on 86% availability) and 28 times the 2020 figure. Hazelwood supplies about 27% of Victoria’s stationary energy.
Perspective folks … and let’s actually see if we get there. Personally, I doubt it.
Fran, no one is suggesting that Hazelwood can be replaced by that toe in the water on solar.
The Environment Victoria report showed that both the peak summer capacity of 1179MW and the annual output of 10,301 GWh can be replaced by bringing forward wind and gas investment that is already on the table, plus boosting energy efficiency (such as the electric hot water replacement prog in the white paper) and demand management. This can be done by 2012 with the right incentives.
Clearly, the right incentives are not all going to be provided by the state, thus the pitch to the feds. Interestingly, another white paper proposal is to bring large emitters, ie power stations, within regulation which I think would be designed to strengthen the bargaining hand of govts in negotiations around closure prices.
Except Aussie, that that EV report was deeply flawed. Realistically, a straight swap for CCGT would be the cheapest abatement option per tonne abated. Throwing in wind simply pushes the price of abatement up without greatly increasing it.
The clunker we need to scrap is Hazelwood
As wilful says: “The opposition in Victoria are overall pretty moderate sorts.”
There’s the key. They’re not climate change deniers. They’re not going to run a scare campaign on great big new taxes, to an electorate where a majority is either unwilling to pay anything for climate change to be addressed or is at most willing to pay less than $10 a week. Therein lies the difference between what the Victorian Government is able to put in place as policy and what the Federal Government can.
And a note here, that the electricity supply in Victoria is fully privatised, so the Government is not going to be building new power stations of any description, they’re going to be setting mandatory RETs and letting the private sector build the power stations.
Anyone able to give a potted version of the Hazelwood mine/ Princes Highway dangerous liason?
Wouldn’t be that ‘International Power Hazelwood’ (91.8% owned by bastard corporate grandchild of Thatcher’s 31/3/1990 ‘privatisation with extreme prejudice’ of the Brits’ Central Electricity Generating Board, coincidentally the same date that Trafalgar Sq was overflowing with the Anti Poll Tax riots, a bit like Cairo today perhaps?) has been digging holes and tunnels where they shouldna’, without due geoengineering care and attention would it? And thus liable for fixing it up?