ACCC rejects coal-fired power support claims

Competition chief Rod Sims has dismissed suggestions a landmark energy report he issued on Wednesday backed government support for coal, as Coalition figures used the claim to push public subsidies for a new coal-fired power plant to solve Australia's energy crisis.

ACCC chairman Rod Sims.

Nationals MPs latched onto a key recommendation that new “firm” generation capacity be underwritten by the government to support new entrants by giving them a long-term guarantee that Canberra would buy electricity to help them secure finance.

"It is technology neutral and if you are interested in affordability best to stay that way," Mr Sims said. "It's not targeted at baseload power and it's not targeted at coal.”

Read the story from The Age by Eryk Bagshaw - “ACCC rejects coal-fired power support claims.”

The truth about soaring power prices: wind and solar not to blame

Separate events, different states, alternate days.

A vocal but powerful minority argues coal is the future,
 but that's simply not the view shared by the power generators.

Between them, however, competition kahuna Rod Sims and Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull last week demolished an old chestnut about renewable energy: it is not the cause for the recent spike in electricity prices.

In fact, according to both, it has had very little impact.

For the past decade or more, we've been bombarded with the message from a vocal but powerful minority within Parliament and the broader community that the switch to renewable energy has made Australia uncompetitive, crippled our industry and driven power prices higher.

The real issue is that, fundamentally, they don't believe climate change is real or that humans have adversely affected the planet.

Having spent so long denying science and rejecting the overwhelming body of evidence, they're now being forced to ignore economics; that renewables have become a cheaper longer term power source.

Coal is the future, they argue.

Read the ABC News story by Ian Verrender - “The truth about soaring power prices: wind and solar not to blame.”