The great gas con: there are cheaper, cleaner alternatives

Just how long can the Australian government and the gas industry continue the charade that there might be a solution to the surge in domestic gas prices? And what will it take before big business consumers follow the lead of households and smaller commercial and industrial customers and invest in their own cheaper and cleaner alternatives?

Gile Parkinson.

In Canberra on Thursday, as yet another “gas summit” hosted by prime minister Malcolm Turnbull ended without a “fix” to soaring gas prices, the Energy Users Group was complaining that one industrial customer in Queensland was being hit with a new gas supply contract at the usurious price of $23/gigajoule.

Frankly, it beggars belief that Australian industry is even bothering to ask for cheaper gas prices, when there are obviously cheaper alternatives available – for both electricity and for industrial gas users.

An Australian Renewable Energy Agency report last year identified how biogas, geothermal and solar thermal alternatives could provide industrial heat at the equivalent of $5/gigajoule – less than one-quarter of the price being asked for gas now. Why aren’t they embracing these patently cheaper and cleaner alternatives?

Read Giles Parkinson’s story on RenewEconomy - “The great gas con: there are cheaper, cleaner alternatives.”