Recommendations on the future of the Renewable Energy Target from a controversial review panel with vested fossil fuel interests shouldn’t be taken seriously says the Climate Council.

“The biased review panel unsurprisingly recommends phasing out or abolishing the small and large scale targets which threaten the strangle hold of highly polluting coal and gas producers,” said Climate Councillor Tim Flannery.

“Well I can tell you who does like renewable energy - the 10% of Australians who generate their energy from their solar panels and the 21,000 people who have good Australian jobs in renewable energy. They will all be gravely disappointed by this flawed process.”

“For a panel led by someone that has a lack of understanding of the scientific basis of climate change the results are hardly surprising.”

“Clearly the process has been highly flawed. There was already an independent body tasked with reviewing the Renewable Energy Target, the Climate Change Authority. Unfortunately a Panel was convened with a number of people with a well-known history of working closely with the fossil fuel industry.”

“It is crucial that reviews like this are independent and at arms length from those with a vested interest. The public cannot have confidence in this process as vested interests are simply too close to it.”

The panel was led by self-described climate skeptic and former Director of Caltex Dick Warburton.

“The uncertainty in the energy market that has been brought on by this process is preventing investment in Australia’s energy future. It’s lamentable that over the last year or so most of the large scale investment in renewable energy has dried up,” said Prof Flannery.

The Renewable Energy Target is an enduring part of Australia’s energy policy surviving five election cycles. Renewable energy targets are used by 140 countries around the world to grow renewable energy.

“The Renewable Energy Target has helped enable over 1 million homes to put solar on their roofs, reducing their bills, employing Australians and helping the environment. It would be a great shame if it were wound back in any way,” said Prof Flannery.

read more : http://www.climatecouncil.org.au/biased-ret-review-panel-has-no-credibility-says-tim-flannery

I have heard of policies being abolished because they are failing, but it is a rare thing for a policy to be abolished because of its success. Unless, of course, those recommending its abolition don’t believe in the thing it is successfully doing.

The renewable energy target (RET) – according to its official website – is supposed to “reduce emissions of greenhouse gases in the electricity sector, encourage the additional generation of renewable energy through financial incentives, and ensure that at least 20% of Australia’s electricity supply will come from renewable sources by 2020.”

According to the Abbott government’s review of the target, it is a roaring success on every one of those measures.

If the RET continued in its current form it would reduce emissions by an additional 299m tonnes of carbon dioxide by 2030 – the equivalent of taking around 100,000 cars off the road. So that’s a tick.

And it has encouraged $20bn worth of investment in renewable energy, with $15bn more in prospect if it continued as planned. Another tick.

It was intended to meet a target of 41,000 gigawatt hours of renewable power by 2020, but because electricity demand fell in a way that had not been anticipated, this was set to represent around 28% of the Australian market.

Originally the government said the review was needed because this overshoot meant the cost of power was rising.

Read more: http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/aug/29/the-ret-may-be-a-success-but-thats-exactly-why-its-on-the-coalitions-hitlist

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This is why, Tony Abbott set up a "royal Commission" into the Home Insulation program, which for all accounts and compared to private enterprise — was a RESOUNDING SUCCESS.  Only the pissy MMMM would poopoo this program because they were told to by their master the neo-fascist capitalists (Australian CONservative who call themselves "liberals") that it was not working. It did work and provided employment and cash flow at the time when most other economies in the world were tanking. Many of which are still tanked.

This Home Insulation programme annoyed the crap out these neo-fascist because instead of the banks and the rich cashing in, everyone benefited from it... Our Turd-in-Chief hated that and as soon as he got into power (by default with a big push from the MMMM led by Uncle Rupe), he decided to "prove" that the programme was crap... He won't succeed, should the commissioner be fair and observant.

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The scheme’s purpose was to inject $2.8 billion into a vulnerable economy. This was achieved. Most of that quantum had been already disbursed or allocated to remediation when the program was terminated in February 2010. Virtually all of it ended up precisely where it was intended — in Australia’s steadily growing economy.

In lauding the effectiveness of the stimulus packages, economist Joseph Stiglitz noted, regarding waste:

‘Of course, we should strive to ensure that money is spent as productively as possible, but humans, and human institutions, are fallible, and there are costs to ensuring that money is well spent. To put it in economics jargon, efficiency requires equating the marginal cost associated with allocation (both in acquiring information about the relative benefits of different projects and in monitoring investments) with the marginal benefits. In a nutshell: it is wasteful to spend too much money preventing waste.’ [3]

The fourth quarter of 2008 had seen a sharp reversal in Australia as in the rest of the developed world, with negative GDP growth for the first time since 2000. Unemployment surged from 4.6% in December 2008 to 5.7% in March 2009.

It was absolutely critical that the looming recession be halted. As shown earlier, this was accomplished extraordinarily well via the HIP and, later, the school buildings scheme.

The NSW Coroner also noted that:

"The secondary objective was to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by making Australian houses more energy-efficient." [31]

This, whilst not the main aim, was achieved as well, with minimal waste overall.

Read more: http://www.independentaustralia.net/life/life-display/hip-royal-commission-submission-part-6-what-inefficiency-and-waste,6833

Yesterday, the findings of the Renewable Energy Target Review were announced. Deputy editor Sandi Keane says the axing of the RET was a carefully orchestrated plan by the Abbott Government to appease its paymasters, Big Mining.

ONLY AN IDIOT with enough sawdust between the ears to bed an elephant could imagine the Renewable Energy Target (RET) could survive with two fossil fuel lobbyists and a pro-nuclear climate skeptic* presiding over its farcical "Review".

The RET’s penalty for committing grievous bodily harm to mining profits was instant death by firing squad or slower death by hanging (reducing it by 60 per cent), as Infigen Energy’s Miles George described it on ABC News 24.

Who better to fudge the facts and confect a business argument to shove the RET where the sun don’t shine than former Caltex head, Dick Warburton and his two anti-renewable side-kicks Shirley In’t Veld (former head of WA’s biggest coal generator, Verve Energy) and Matt Zema (head of the Australian Energy Market Operator).

And to be sure that the modelling was massaged to get the Abbott Government’s pre-determined outcome, the job was given to consultants to the fossil fuel industry, ACIL Allen. Allen’s last controversial attempt to wind back the RET in 2012 using dodgy figures sparked a deservedly angry response from the industry and community alike.

There is little doubt that this clumsily orchestrated attack on renewable energy was to appease the Coalition’s paymasters, Big Mining. Remember the old adage: 'If you take the King's shilling, you do the King's bidding' (in this case, King Coal).

It explains the apparent “take-over” of the levers of power in Canberra by powerful vested interests.

read more: http://www.independentaustralia.net/environment/environment-display/abbotts-pre-prepared-ret-review-does-the-business-for-big-mining,6830

A solar farm that has been billed as Australia's largest has officially opened at Royalla, south of Canberra.

The Royalla Solar Farm was developed by a Spanish company, is made up of 83,000 solar panels and has the capacity to power more than 4,500 ACT homes.

The ACT Government said it was the first large-scale solar farm to be connected to the national electricity grid.

Environment Minister Simon Corbell said it was an important step towards achieving the ACT Government's target of 90 per cent renewable energy for the territory by 2020.

"Over its lifetime the farm will save over half a million tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions," he said.

"This is a nation-leading project. This is the largest operation solar farm in Australia to date.

"It is expected to generate an average 37,000 megawatt hours of renewable energy each year for the next 20 years."

The project is owned by Spanish company Fotowatio Renewable Ventures (FRV) and the opening was attended by the Spanish foreign minister Jose Manuel Garcia-Margallo.

read more: http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-09-03/royalla-solar-farm-opens-south-of-canberra/5716500

My apologies to Spanish people... The upside-down exclamation mark at the beginning of olé turns into an i when posted... Bum... But congratulations to the Spanish Foreign Minister for showing the way to the morons in Canberra, not the ACT, but in that house of mostly mad men on the hill... My Spanish is a bit rusty but am still able to read papers...

Canberra (Australia), 3 sep (EFECOM).- El ministro español de Asuntos Exteriores y de Cooperación, José Manuel García-Margallo, inauguró hoy en Canberra la planta solar Royalla Solar Farm, construida por la empresa española Fotowatio Renewable Ventures (FRV), la mayor instalación de este tipo que existe en Australia.

García-Margallo, de gira por varios países de Asia y Oceanía, llegó hoy a Canberra para inaugurar esta planta, situada a 23 kilómetros al sur de la capital australiana.

La planta, con una superficie de casi 50 hectáreas, tiene una capacidad de 24 megavatios y generará energía suficiente para abastecer a unos 4.500 hogares de la zona, evitando la emisión de 950 toneladas de CO2 al año.

García-Margallo estuvo acompañado por el consejero delegado de Fotowatio, Rafael Benjumea; el embajador de España en Australia, Enrique Viguera; el ministro australiano regional de Infraestructuras, Medio Ambiente y Energía, Simon Corbell; y el director general de Medio Ambiente y Dirección de Ordenación del Gobierno del Territorio de la capital australiana, Dorte Ekelund.

El ministro destacó la satisfacción de ver cómo empresas españolas construyen "en la otra parte del mundo" una planta solar, la más grande de este tipo que opera en Australia.

http://www.expansion.com/agencia/efe/2014/09/03/19869190.html

Australia’s investment in renewable energy projects has slumped below that of Algeria, Thailand and Myanmar, new figures have shown, with the sector “paralysed” by the government’s review of the Renewable Energy Target.

Just $193m was invested in new large-scale clean energy projects in the third quarter of 2014, according to Bloomberg New Energy Finance. Investment in the year to date is $238m.

This represents a massive 70% slump on 2013 investment and has resulted in Australia slipping from the world’s 11th largest investor in clean energy to 31st in 2014.

This ranking is below Algeria, Myanmar, Thailand and Uruguay. By comparison, Canada has invested $US3.1bn in large clean energy projects so far in 2014.

The slowdown in renewable energy investment is pinned squarely by Bloomberg on the government’s review of the RET, which mandates that 41,000 gigawatt hours of Australia’s energy comes from renewable sources by 2020.

A recent review of the RET by businessman Dick Warburton found that although it has created jobs and driven investment, it should either be suspended or shut down completely.

read more: http://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2014/oct/03/australias-investment-in-renewable-energy-slumps-70-in-one-year

is there another way to express the horrid thinking going on in the mind of the Liberals (CONservatives) and their advisors than to say that Dick W is showing enormous stupidity and pigheadedness? I can't think of any other way... but.

And did I mention that in regard to investments in sciences, with our ignorant bundle of ignoramuses at the helm of this Abbott regime — with no science minister for the first time in 80 years of Australian governments and plenty of cash for chaplains in public schools — Australia now ranks way down on the "30 best advanced economies" something like 28, barely in front of Albania (? if my memory is correct) and Greece...

Effing idiots!... See hypocrisy at top...

A Senate Committee was told the total cost of the review was $587,329. That figure does not include the salaries of the staff on the secretariat or overheads such as IT and accommodation.

Mr Warburton received fees in the order of $73,000; Mr Fisher $39,900; Ms In’t Veld, $43,900; and Mr Zema, $29,700.

Clean energy representatives were shocked by the panel’s appointment as chief advisor and modeller of ACIL Allen, a consultancy seen as close to the fossil fuel industry, and whose highly contested research formed the basis of the coal industry’s attempts to dismantle the RET in 2012.

They refused to include in their modelling the benefits of renewable energy – including the health benefits, job benefits, and the network benefits – which the panel dismissed as “too hard to model” and little more than a “transfer of wealth”, presumably away from the coal generators and network providers.

ACIL Allen were paid $287,468 for their modelling

We also have seen Christopher Pyne’s National Curriculum Review which cost $283,157 to tell us we need less Indigenous focus and more Judeo-Christian, less creativity and more rote learning, and less about progressive reform and more about business.

Kevin Donnelly and Ken Wiltshire appointed 16 external experts to make contributions, including Barry Spurr, each of whom were paid $8250 for their reports.

This government’s intentions are clear. They have bypassed government departments and statuatory bodies, ignored expert advice and the results of previous reviews, to pay hundreds of millions to consultants, vested interests, and party hacks to produce the results that endorse their stated policies or that damage the previous government.

The government's Climate Change Authority has questioned the efficiency and effectiveness of the Emissions Reduction Fund, the centre piece of the Coalition's controversial "Direct Action" climate policy, and says the scheme is unlikely to deliver on long-standing emissions reduction targets.

The authority, charged with providing independent advice on climate-change policy, warned the Emissions Reduction Fund (ERF) risked paying large amounts to polluters for emission reductions that would have happened anyway.

It also said the ERF alone is unlikely to deliver the promised 5 per cent reduction in emissions by 2020. The authority has also recommended against changing the Large-scale Renewable Energy Target which covers wind and other big generators. This contradicts the advice of a hand-picked government review panel, chaired by businessman Dick Warburton, which recently called for the target to be dramatically scaled back.

On Monday the authority released a review of the Carbon Farming Initiative (CFI) which was last month expanded to become the Emissions Reduction Fund (ERF). Participants in the CFI were rolled into the new fund which now covers all sectors of the economy. Under the ERF the government will spend $2.55 billion to purchase emissions reductions through auctions. The authority said the ERF "has become the spearhead of the government's climate change policy."

But the review found the Carbon Farming Initiative was "administratively intense" and that this had resulted in relatively high transaction costs. It warned the new ERF retained much of the "administrative intensity and complexity inherent" in this type of scheme where credits are assessed on outcomes against pre-determined baselines.

"In such schemes there can be no certainty that the credits awarded to participants always relate to emissions reductions which are genuinely additional to those that would have occurred in the absence of the scheme," it said.

The authority said the size of the ERF increased the risk of waste.

read more: http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/direct-action-climate-change-authority-questions-the-efficiency-and-effectiveness-of-emissions-reduction-fund-20141222-12c7wt.html

See toon and article at top... Now that the carbon pricing has been repealed "as you promised", bring it back, Tony, "as you should"...