Energy: Addicted to Waffle and Disaster Alan Moran

Like dogs with a taste for worrying sheep, politicians' destructive meddling with our energy regime appears to be a compulsion. As Australia's debacle grows ever more ruinously absurd and an election approaches, has it not occurred to them that betraying the flock invites summary justice?

Over the past year, we have seen the misnamed report into “energy security” by Chief Scientist Finkel, the ACCC’s report (“restoring electricity affordability”) — and now a new annual report by market operator AEMO.  These are in addition to a couple of dozen reviews into specific market-machinery matters and the regular reports from Code administrator AEMC, price and informational regulator AER, and AEMO. 

All these outputs derive from resources poured into government management of a sector to provide reports produced by people who are not participants in the actual supply and use of electricity.  Ostensibly, the reports are trying to undo the mistakes made by the predecessors of those currently in the regulatory chairs and their political masters, mistakes that have needlessly doubled the cost and reduced the reliability of electricity.  The market meddling, mainly the subsidising of renewables, has robbed Australia of its natural position as the home of the world’s cheapest power into the most expensive.

The latest AEMO report follows the now well-trodden path to disaster. See here for more http://quadrant.org.au/opinion/qed/2018/07/energy-addicted-waffle-disaster/