The Right continues to lie about climate change

Scott Morrison, PM of Australia, fondling a lump of coal in Parliament

This time in Australia, where there is a federal general election in 2 weeks.  The right-wing "Liberal" party commissioned a fossil-fuel economist to "cost" Labor's policy.  Using absurd assumptions he came up with the required answer: hundred of billions.  Trouble is, his analysis was rubbish.

35% of Oz's emissions are from electricity generation. Snowy Hydro recently stated that it could source green electricity for $40/MWh, and "firmed" green electricity for $60 or $70/MWh (presumably $60 for wind and $70 for solar, since you need more storage to "firm" solar). "Firmed" electricity is generation with enough storage added to mimic the output of a baseload coal/gas/nuclear power plant.

By comparison, 3 years ago wind without firming cost $60/MWh and solar $70. That's how rapidly the cost of renewables is falling. Snowy also said that the fuel cost alone of coal is $56/MWh. Just the fuel. Not maintenance, not repairs, not staffing. Just fuel. The wholesale price of electricity varies from day to day, hour to hour and state to state, but $80-100/MWh would be a reasonable average. So even "firmed" renewable electricity generation is cheaper than the electricity costs of the existing coal-based grid. That's without even considering the continued declines in cost in solar, wind and storage.

On top of that, our fleet of coal generators is aging, and will anyway have to be progressively retired over the next 20 years.

Meanwhile, electric vehicles will reach "sticker price" parity with petrol vehicles in 2022 for big cars and 2025 for small. Transport emissions are another 18% of total Australian emissions.

The moral of the story is that cutting emissions by Labor's target of 45% by 2030 won't cost us anything because we will be replacing clapped out fossil fuel equipment with new, cheaper, green generation and transport. There will be no cost to the economy. In fact we will benefit from ever cheaper electricity.

I still don't know why the Right is so misinformed about climate change and the cost of renewables.  Maybe it has something to do with "contributions" from the fossil fuel industry.