Month: April 2017

Videocast questions?

John Quiggin11 Comments

Continuing on the multimedia theme, I did a video presentation for the TAFE section of the Australian Education Union a few weeks ago. I’ve always been keen on this as an alternative to air travel, and I got great help from the multimedia people in our faculty, but I’m still not sure how best to make use of this.

The videofile is here, but it’s 640 Mb, so I don’t suppose many people will want to download it. What’s the best way to distribute it so that lots of people can get access?

Update: Thanks to reader Peter Bayley a 58Mb version is now up on YouTube

Alternatives to Adani

John Quiggin14 Comments

Westpac’s announcement of a new policy that appears to exclude funding for the development of mines in the Galilee Basin appears likely to sound the death knell for Adani’s proposed Carmichael Mine and rail line. Westpac was the last of the four big Australian banks to announce such a policy. It joins at least 17 global banks, notably including Standard Chartered, which had previously been a major source of finance for Adani

In these circumstances, the proposed $900 million loan from the government’s Northern Australia Infrastructure Facility would involve a high risk of loss, and would therefore be an improper use of public funds. The same is true, admittedly to a lesser extent, of the rival proposal for a rail line put forward by Aurizon (the privatised business formerly known as Queensland Rail).

But if the NAIF doesn’t fund coal railways, how should its resources be allocated? And, what about the jobs promised by the Adani project that will not now be created? Obviously, these two problems are inter-related.

On the evidence of Adani’s own experts, the Carmichael project would create around 1000 jobs (despite this, the discredited figure of 10 000 jobs continues to be touted). So, the proposed NAIF loan would involve an investment of nearly $1 million of public money for every new job created. It shouldn’t be too hard to match that.

But what’s really needed is an alternative to the outdated developmentalism that has characterized not only the Adani proposal but the whole idea of a Northern Australia policy. What are the real economic and social needs of the people of the region, including indigenous people, who are directly affected by the Adani proposal? I’m planning more work on this soon.

htt

Renationalise energy

John Quiggin14 Comments

Looking at the Turnbull government’s move to limit gas exports, I can’t do better than quote Bernard Keane in Crikey (paywalled, but here’s the bit that matters)

A while back I suggested Turnbull had been “mugged by reality” on energy policy. But he’s far from the only one. All of us who have advocated free markets and the primacy of the private sector in delivering essential services have copped the same mugging; now we need to accept that liberalisation has dramatically failed in energy. A mystifyingly complex market was designed for private sector operators with the intent of freeing up government capital and driving greater efficiency. And while the Coalition’s climate denialism created investor uncertainty that proved a key factor in the crisis, it’s the relentless opportunism of industry players to game the system and exploit every opportunity to jack up prices, and Santos’ truly spectacular bungling, that has led to this. As you sow, so shall you reap. Back to hardline regulation.

I was in the minority in a recent economists poll on this topic, supporting gas reservation, though not with any great enthusiasm. My statement

Energy policy in Australia is a mess. Prices don’t reflect economic or climatic costs. Availability of some low-cost gas would obviously improve the situation here, in particular allowing an adjustment away from coal. I don’t know whether the opportunity cost of forgoing overseas sales is accurately reflected by the export price.

The policy announced by the Turnbull government amounts to a partial nationalisation, since the government has taken control of our gas reserves back from the supposed private owners. But it’s a half-baked and half-hearted step. What we need is properly national, publicly owned energy grid, in which the role of private ownership is to fill gaps left by the public.

Too cheap to meter

John Quiggin26 Comments

Reading about the UK National Grid recently, I came across the interesting concept of demand turn up. Unlike the usual form of demand side management, where users are paid to cut usage in periods of excess demand, demand turn up involves making small payments to users willing to increase demand when the supply from renewables exceeds demand.

This looks strange at first sight, but it simply reflects the fact that, once the capacity is installed, the marginal cost of renewable electricity is zero. In the short run, taking account of the costs of shutdown and startup, the marginal cost of electricity from an operating renewable generation source is negative*.

So, demand turn up is just an application of marginal cost pricing, the same as off-peak pricing for coal-fired power.

The broader point is that claims that the electricity supply system must have a large component of coal-fired to meet “baseload demand” reflects the assumption that the system must meet the demands generated by a pricing system set up for coal (or nuclear which is broadly similar).

Lest we forget

John Quiggin16 Comments

For my Anzac Day post today, I’ll quote the man most directly responsible for the disaster, describing the war of which it was a part (H/T Daniel Quiggin)

Germany having let Hell loose kept well in the van of terror; but she was followed step by step by the desperate and ultimately avenging nations she had assailed. Every outrage against humanity or international law was repaid by reprisals often on a greater scale and longer duration. No truce or parley mitigated the strife of the armies. The wounded died between the lines; the dead moldered into the soil. Merchant ships and neutral ships and hospital ships were sunk on the seas and all on board left to their fate, or killed as they swam. Every effort was made to starve whole nations into submission without regard to age or sex. Cities and monuments were smashed by artillery. Bombs from the air were cast down indiscriminately. Poison gas in many forms stifled or seared the soldiers. Liquid fire was projected upon their bodies. Men fell from the air in flames, or were smothered, often slowly, in the dark recesses of the sea. The fighting strength of armies was limited only by the manhood of their countries. Europe and large parts of Asia and Africa became one vast battlefield on which after years of struggle not armies but nations broke and ran. When it was all over, Torture and Cannibalism were the only two expedients that the civilized, scientific, Christian states had been able to deny themselves: and these were of doubtful utility.

As it turned out, even this assessment was too optimistic. The second phase of the great world war saw the end of the few limits that had been observed in the first.

To pay respect to the Anzacs and those who followed them, we should stop repeating the mistakes and crimes of those who sent them to their deaths.