![\"Election](\"https:\/\/www.solarquotes.com.au\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/03\/sa-election.jpg\")
<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
On Saturday the 17th of March South Australians will head to school, church, the RSL, or where ever their local polling booth happens to be\u00a0to cast their ballot in the state government election.\u00a0 I’ve already received the piece of colored\u00a0 paper I’m supposed to bring with me so I can vote.\u00a0 It’s very different from the good old days in Queensland when the only paper you needed to make your vote count was brown and in the form of a bag full of cash.<\/p>\n
Fortunately, these days Australia is fairly free of cash in a brown paper bag style corruption.\u00a0 I know many people will find that statement hard to believe, but the fact is there are politicians who are quite happy to watch the world burn for free.<\/p>\n
I have been told that politicians have personalities, but I am not going to delve into that.\u00a0 Politicians are mostly\u00a0people who thrive on conflict whereas I thrive on rolling my eyes at people who thrive on conflict and so we never really see eye to eye.\u00a0 Mainly on account of how my eyes are usually rolled so far back they can see the contours of my brain.<\/p>\n
What I am going to do in this article is look at the energy policies of the 6 largest parties contesting the election and see how they compare.<\/p>\n
The parties and how many electorates they have candidates in are:<\/p>\n
There are also some independents and members of very small parties but I am going to do democracy a disservice and ignore them.<\/p>\n
While the differences between parties are naturally accentuated at election time, all politicians in Australia are united in\u00a0that not one of them knows what it means to create a job.\u00a0 From the way they talk you’d think jobs are magically created by politicians cutting ribbons at opening ceremonies and if they didn’t release the employment trapped inside those ribbons then no-one \u00a0involved in the project would have worked another day in their lives.<\/p>\n
What actually determines the level of employment in an economy is a bit more complex. But I am not going to go into it because I know just enough to know that I don’t know enough to explain it to you.<\/p>\n
![\"South](\"https:\/\/www.solarquotes.com.au\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/03\/labor.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
First up the incumbents.\u00a0 Labor has been in power since 2002 and in that time South Australia has gone from next to no renewable energy to having half the electricity generated in the state come from wind energy and rooftop solar power<\/a>.\u00a0 This makes Labor look like stalwart champions of renewables<\/a>.\u00a0 But while they have done some things to help renewable energy, for the most part they have simply not gotten in the way while the state’s high wholesale electricity prices<\/a> and the national Renewable Energy Target did the heavy lifting.<\/p>\n But this is no longer the case.\u00a0 They now really are stalwart champions of renewables and this is entirely because Tony Abbott decided that he wanted to be remembered for his opposition to renewable energy1<\/a><\/sup>.\u00a0 Under him, the Federal Government continually attacked South Australia for simply having renewables and the attacks have continued under Turnbull.<\/p>\n Remember what I said about politicians thriving on conflict?\u00a0 Well, SA Labor has gone from taking a mostly hands off approach and simply enjoying the new investment renewables were bringing into the state, to putting on boxing gloves and coming out swinging like a wind turbine, hitting with the force of a thousand exploding suns.<\/p>\n In the past year SA Labor has:<\/p>\n One year ago I wrote we shouldn’t build the big battery<\/a> because spending the money elsewhere would cut emissions more.\u00a0 My focus was on reducing emissions as quickly and as efficiently as possible, but Labor went ahead with the battery because their focus was on winning the conflict.<\/p>\n SA Labor states the Australian Energy Market Commission (AEMC<\/a>) says South Australian households will have an average decrease of $300 in annual electricity bills over the next two years thanks to lower retail electricity prices resulting from expanding renewable capacity and increased electricity market competition.<\/p>\n Labor says they will give $48 million in incentives to extract more natural gas in South Australia.\u00a0 I don’t know the details of the plan, so maybe there is something in it that will stop me from thinking this is completely insane, but I doubt it.<\/p>\n Australia is the 12th largest producer of natural gas in the world.\u00a0 It is the largest exporter of liquid natural gas5<\/a><\/sup>.\u00a0 Australia doesn’t need state money to produce more natural gas. Further, because South Australia is now linked to international markets any extra natural gas production will only be exported and will do next to nothing to lower domestic prices.\u00a0 It makes no sense at all.<\/p>\n Labor boasts about having a hydrogen roadmap.\u00a0 I hope they are also releasing a bell bottoms and frisbee roadmap too. Hydrogen is so seventies it has wood paneling on the sides. \u00a0Prime Minister Abe may have visited from Japan and shown interest\u00a0in hydrogen but that isn’t the same as having a trade deal lined up.<\/p>\n Hopefully this roadmap only means Labor won’t get in the way of any hydrogen developments or maybe just give it a little nudge as they did with wind power.\u00a0 Hydrogen may end up an important store of energy in the future, but the economics of it aren’t looking good at the moment6<\/a><\/sup>.\u00a0 My impression is the hydrogen roadmap is simply an indication SA Labor is open to business investment in that area. It is not likely to be a large sink of money.<\/p>\n The SA Greens have a big stand out policy which is their target of 100% renewable energy by 20257<\/a><\/sup>.\u00a0 Now that’s impressive and that’s how you win conflicts.\u00a0 You aim high and you fight until you reach your goals and you never ever surrender.<\/p>\n But this is where I get picky and say that’s not necessarily the most efficient way to reduce emissions.\u00a0 It would make more sense to get South Australia to 90% renewable energy, then put our money and effort into getting other states to 90% renewables before making the final push to 100%. \u00a0Or it may be cheaper to go 99% renewable then suck the CO2 emissions from that final 1% out of the atmosphere and sequester it.<\/p>\n My obsession with doing things efficiently is probably why I’ve never been offered the leadership of a major political party despite my dashing good looks.\u00a0 But if I had to choose between 100% renewable electricity by 2025 or 70% renewable electricity for decades to come, I would take the 100% option.\u00a0 Moving so quickly may result in some extra cost, but we are far richer than most of the world’s countries and we can easily afford it.\u00a0 If necessary I will slightly reduce the tonnage of my annual chocolate intake to help pay for it.<\/p>\n The Greens have many policies of the type that freaks who are in favor of a stable climate are likely to approve of.\u00a0 These include:<\/p>\n They say they want to encourage battery installation by homes and businesses but don’t give details of what the encouragement will consist of.\u00a0 At this time batteries are not a cost-effective method of reducing greenhouse gas emissions and will usually raise emissions<\/a>.\u00a0 So I hope they don’t intend to go overboard on battery subsidies.<\/p>\n On one page on their site they say they will build an interconnector with NSW while on another they say they will consider it.\u00a0 But if they are going to have a strong focus on energy storage that will reduce the\u00a0need and economic case for that new interconnector.<\/p>\n SA Best is Nick Xenophon’s Party.\u00a0 Their website<\/a> automatically starts playing video when you go to it which is an odd choice for a political party.\u00a0 I only got internet that can handle such bandwidth this year.\u00a0 I hope they realize how many people in South Australia still have atrocious internet access.<\/p>\n SA Best supports building the solar thermal power station north of Port Augusta and Xenophon helped secure<\/a> a $110 million dollar loan at 3% interest for the project by supporting the federal government’s Company Tax cut.<\/p>\n SA Best is in favor of renewable energy but their site makes no mention of wind power which now provides over 40% of the electricity generated in the state.\u00a0 This is probably because Nick Xenophon isn’t very fond of wind power9<\/a><\/sup>.\u00a0 In the past he has said it causes health problems, but no medical study has ever produced evidence that wind farms have negative health effects on humans.<\/p>\n Xenophon now appears to realize he has mostly lost this conflict and says:<\/p>\n “Wind power is here to stay, it is an important part of our renewable energy future but they need to be built in a way that minimizes community impact.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n This statement still worries me because in Victoria they used to have laws supposedly\u00a0“minimized the\u00a0community impact” of wind power making it possible to build piggeries and gas fracking wells much closer to homes than wind farms.\u00a0 These laws restricted\u00a0wind power development \u00a0in a state where almost all generation is from coal despite a vast amount of evidence that burning coal results in negative health effects.<\/p>\n To lower electricity bills for South Australians SA Best says they will:<\/p>\n They say this will cut household electricity costs by around 10%.<\/p>\n Nick Xenophon agrees with me that retail electricity plans are too confusing and should be simplified<\/a> so it’s nice to see we have a common interest we can build a relationship on if we ever start dating.<\/p>\n SA Best says they will consider reserving 15% of the natural gas produced in South Australia for in-state use to lower its price if wholesale electricity prices haven’t fallen by 20% in two years time.\u00a0 I’m not sure 15% reservation would be enough but the amount could be adjusted as required.<\/p>\n Personally, I think it would be more efficient to simply sell the gas and use the money to stop using so much gas, possibly by building or converting an existing generator into a synchronous condenser<\/a> to provide spinning reserve if other methods aren’t considered sufficient for grid stability.\u00a0 But that’s just me and my efficiency fetish.<\/p>\n\n
Labor Claims $300 Reduction In Electricity Bills<\/h2>\n
Labor’s Natural Gas Insanity<\/h2>\n
Labor’s Hydrogen Roadmap To Maybe Nowhere<\/h2>\n
The South Australian Greens<\/h2>\n
![\"South](\"https:\/\/www.solarquotes.com.au\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/03\/greens.jpg\")
<\/p>\nThe Greens Have Plenty Of Green Policies<\/h2>\n
\n
SA Best<\/h2>\n
![\"SA](\"https:\/\/www.solarquotes.com.au\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/03\/sabest.jpg\")
<\/p>\nSA Best Wants To Lower Electricity Bills<\/h2>\n
\n
SA Best Will Consider Gas Reservation<\/h2>\n
The Dignity Party<\/h2>\n
![\"Dignity](\"https:\/\/www.solarquotes.com.au\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/03\/dignit.bmp\")
<\/a><\/p>\n![\"Australian](\"https:\/\/www.solarquotes.com.au\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/03\/bern.jpg\")
<\/p>\n