The more militant arm of the renewable lobby has been lying for decades, claiming that they are cheaper than fossil fuels. There is still a bit of confusion because now it might actually be true and a lot of people are reorienting.
Nothing in particular stands between Australian businesses from going the most profitable (ie, cheapest to produce in a total cost sense) form of power. The Liberals just aren't going to subsidise it.
As far as it being a free market? For infrastructure projects of that scale there's no such thing. Policy dictates what is (and what is not) economical to build every bit as much as the underlying fundamentals.
And Barnaby Joyce, the deputy Prime Minister and leader of the conservative Nationals who stand for Christian family values, holding the very same lump of coal[1]. At this time, 2017, he probably hadn't yet publically admitted to having an affair with one of his assistants - who later got pregnant[2].
If Australia's political class hadn't already jumped the shark, this was it.
[0]: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-01-14/scott-morrison-holds-...
[1]: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-02-07/barnaby-joyce-holds-a...
[2]: https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2018/feb/07/barna...
Doesn't mean they're going down with the ship. Sit down and think it through - the Liberals aren't going to waste political capital on coal if it isn't a money spinner. There isn't anything to gain. There are all of 10-15 people in Australia who are ideologically wedded to the idea of coal for its own sake.
That's not true.
The Labor (note spelling) party in AU is actively pro-coal.
Sadly most stories are paywalled - but check [0] for the gist - "Labor drops hostility to coal", "Labor backs coal beyond 2050", "AU Labor Party backs coal, gas .." and so on -- there are precious few contra-examples because, basically, the AU Labor party is pro-coal, for much the same set of reasons that the AU Liberal/National party is pro-coal.
[0] https://www.google.com/search?q=labor+australia+coal+policy
That one seems to be dated April of this year. I see I'm not alone in perceiving Labor (thanks, forgot) to be anti-coal.
They're in a tricky position, trying to placate the nearly-Greens voters on one flank and the CFMEU on the other. Which is why the Liberals are pulling political stunts like waving coal around - it is very hard for Labor to respond to. They have a nasty split in ideology there that they have to manage and it makes political sense to pressure it.
None of that represents ideological commitment to coal by Morrison. The Liberals don't especially care where the power comes from as long as it is cheap. Coal, gas, solar, nuclear. Mice in wheels fed a steady diet of sugar. They aren't going to subside environmentalists though, but that is a pro-market ideology, not pro-coal.
{sigh}
From March 2021 [0] "The Australian Labor Party will support an expansion of Australia’s gas industry" ,
From April 2021 [1] "abandon any carbon emissions reduction target for 2030" , "recommit any Labor government to continuing to support the mining giants based on the lucrative extraction of the main fossil fuels—coal, gas and oil."
From June 2021 [2] "The Labor leader will use a speech to the Minerals Council of Australia to reassure mining companies that the opposition supports the continuing export of fossil fuels." ,
And so on
> They're in a tricky position, trying to placate the nearly-Greens voters on one flank and the CFMEU on the other. Which is why the Liberals are pulling political stunts like waving coal around - it is very hard for Labor to respond to. They have a nasty split in ideology there that they have to manage and it makes political sense to pressure it.
They're not 'in a tricky position' so much as 'they are a collective of people with substantively differentiating viewpoints but a common interest in power and money' - hence the friction.
I envy your idealistic take on Scott Morrison's impartiality towards his largest donors.
[0] https://reneweconomy.com.au/labor-to-support-gas-and-ccs-alo...
[1] https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2021/04/02/labo-a02.html
[2] https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2021/jun/02/coali...
What, are solar farms banned from making political donations? Bankers can do sums, the price of electricity is common across the market. If solar is honestly cheaper then they can move fairly quickly to make more profit and afford a better class of political influence than the coal mines. That is how the game is played.
I was talking to a friend the other day about how to invest in coal mines, because I think the survivors might be in a pretty good position. But if someone has an idea for a solar plant with better margins than a coal mine then I'll invest there instead. The idea that anyone is pro-coal because they have a thing for carbon is absurd. The last 50 years have proven conclusively that not that many people care about where the electricity is coming from. Everyone cares about profit margins.
For most of the past decade, coal has been Australia's second largest resource export, after iron ore, and since 2015 has averaged around one-quarter of annual resource export values and 14 per cent of total export values (Graph 2). In 2018, the value of coal exports was $67 billion, equivalent to 3½ per cent of nominal GDP. Australia's coal exports consist of different grades of black coal: metallurgical coal, which has a relatively high energy content and is used for industrial purposes (primarily steel making); and lower-energy content thermal coal used for electricity generation.
https://www.rba.gov.au/publications/bulletin/2019/sep/the-ch...
And these corrupt cunts will be voted in again, I'm sure of it.
cough Off-topic, but... NBN cough
The two have very different cost structures, but until recently it wasn't cheaper. It's just necessary if Australia doesn't want to get any hotter.
Australia could stop emitting CO2 tomorrow and it’d have approximately no impact.