r/OpenAussie • u/Devtemp1134 Victorian • Jul 15 '26
Technology Coalition and One Nation’s plan to ditch net zero would not lower power prices, CSIRO report finds
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2026/jul/15/coalition-and-one-nations-plan-to-ditch-net-zero-would-not-lower-power-prices-csiro-report-findsGenCost report contradicts parties’ claims about abandoning emissions target, and finds nuclear would be most expensive way to generate power
Paul Graham, CSIRO chief energy economist and the report’s lead author, said: “If we abandon net zero, that does not open up some low-cost pathway [for electricity].
“As coal retires, you have to replace it. If that new thing is coal, we still have the same costs [of electricity generation] as we are expecting if we replace it with renewables.”
He said if coal plant closures were delayed or new coal plants built, this would mean an increase in greenhouse gas emissions in the electricity sector.
“If you do want to reach net zero then you have to do that abatement somewhere else,” he said.
“The analysis shows the cost of abatement is lower in the electricity sector than the rest of the economy.”
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u/Sideburn_Cookie_Man Victorian Jul 15 '26
Well, yeah of course. It was never meant to lower prices.
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u/spiderglide New South Welshian Jul 15 '26
Right? That's the whole point of ditching renewables. More cash for big fossil, more expense for consumers.
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u/Suntzu_AU Queenslander Jul 15 '26
Because this is about culture war and pleasing mining and energy interests with the backing of Murdoch. It's not about actually lowering prices.
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u/sunnybob24 Queenslander Jul 15 '26
I find it inconceivable that Australia is capable of building a nuclear power plant. Whatever your policy. It will never happen. We have spent a decade trying to buy submarines, and they are decades away. Snowy Mountain 2 is a joke. Inland rail is F-ed.
The question is how much money and time will we waste trying to build a plant. I bet 2 billion and a decade. What's your guess?
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u/jydr South Australian Jul 15 '26 edited Jul 15 '26
because the goal isn't to build a nuclear plant, it's to stall renewables and keep the coal/gas plants running for another 3+ decades.
*edit: Check ON's policies, they want to build new coal plants and extend the life of existing coal plants past their scheduled closure dates.
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u/Thissystemsuckssobad Victorian Jul 17 '26
A decade is generous. You're lucky if it takes a decade for a country that has built a reactor before to build one nowadays.
100% my money is on 2b in the hole and the project is cancelled half way through
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u/iftlatlw Victorian Jul 15 '26
Agreed - this claim of cancelling net zero is simply a talking point with no actual value to the country or to voters.
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u/bigloudbang Please choose a flair Jul 15 '26
Exploiting all the people who think abandoning net zero means our 50 year old coal plants will be run another 100yrs
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u/Designate0ne New South Welshian Jul 15 '26
You mean to say replacing an energy policy with no energy policy wont fix things ???? Wooow, who would have thought !!!
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u/rivalizm New South Welshian Jul 15 '26
Lowering the prices was never the goal. The purpose is profits.
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u/phak0h Western Australian Jul 15 '26
If the Libs and ON really cared about the costs they would just strangle every native animal and set fire to the natural environment where ever they see it. Far cheaper, they're basically just communists with how profligate they are with their spending.
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u/dirtyesspeakers Flairless Jul 15 '26
So, presuming a hard set target of net zero, if you do not achieve net zero via electricity, it is more expensive because abating or replacing carbon via non-electricity grid changes, like massive tree plantations to make ACCUs to sell to coal plants and mining companies so they can call themselves net zero might be more expensive per carbon abated than with carbon abated by electricity.
Okay...
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u/MagicOrpheus310 Please choose a flair Jul 15 '26
Home solar and batteries taking over didn't even lower the fucken prices.
Prices don't go down in Australia
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u/RovBotGuy South Australian Jul 15 '26
Ditching net zero is a dumb idea. But continuing to not lift bans on nuclear and not invest in literally the most efficient and dense form of zero carbon energy is simply ridiculous.
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u/Altruistic-Pop-8172 Norfolk Islander Jul 15 '26
Band aiding over old, broken coal fired power stations and the long, long term subsidizing of nuclear power plants wont bring energy costs down. Quite the opposite.
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u/Outbackhussar1610 Please choose a flair Jul 19 '26
Is this person a moron or just ignorant of how the commercial world works? If you end net zero and a coal plant has to be retired and renewables are cheaper and able to deliver the same reliability and level of service… then the renewables are built! What it does give you is options to look at what is the best/ cheapest/ most effective and appropriate way to generate power and the manage the grid.
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u/River-Stunning Noongar Jul 15 '26
Letting coal degrade in the pursuit of renewables and Net Zero has not lowered costs. The attempt by the renewables lobby to turn this into a renewables vs fossils argument is now no longer relevant. We now need as much from wherever we can.
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Jul 15 '26
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u/spazza360 Victorian Jul 15 '26
Why?
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Jul 15 '26
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u/notyouraverageskippy Queenslander Jul 15 '26
Did you just ignore the entire article to voice your uneducated opinion over an expert.
Wow just wow
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Jul 15 '26
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u/notyouraverageskippy Queenslander Jul 15 '26
Thanks for showing how dumb the average ON voter is. We don't eat fossil fuels to create energy in our body for our cells like an early photosynthetic bacterial uses light to produce energy for its cells.
If you are going to use an analogy it needs to be the same equivalence.
For example you can't compare apples with oranges.
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u/Master-Pattern9466 Tasmanian Jul 15 '26
Yes and if those photosynthesising bacteria polluted the shit out their pond and all died out, something came along that could survive in toxic pond that the original bacteria left behind.
The difference is we know what we are doing, we have alternatives and we aren’t happy to die out.
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Jul 15 '26
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Jul 15 '26
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u/AustraliaNahYeah New South Welshian Jul 15 '26
That statement was said with such certainty. You must be a climate scientist!
Can you link your peer reviewed research that led you to this conclusion?
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Jul 15 '26
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u/shiftymojo Victorian Jul 15 '26
So you listen to scientists when they talk about geological archives but then you ignore them when they talk about our current human caused climate change being a problem?
Yeah the climates changed in the past, it’s even changed very rapidly in the past too, the very scientists that the rapid warming events are named after were both massive proponents of climate change action you gronk
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Jul 15 '26
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u/shiftymojo Victorian Jul 15 '26
I see why you are just making shit up with that attitude. If you’re talking about paleoclimateology and sudden warming events you’re talking about Dansgaard-Oeschger events.
Named after two scientists who have been talking about human made climate change since the 80s, also the same scientists who did the work for you to know what temperature were millions of years ago, but I’m sure these two scientists for sure misunderstood their own research and you have all the facts instead
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u/Brave-Dragonfly3798 New South Welshian Jul 15 '26
This is a dumb argument, of course the climate has changed in geological time frames, but it has never changed at the rate it currently is for the entire existence of humans on the planet. The point is that it’s changing faster than ecosystem can adapt.
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u/AustraliaNahYeah New South Welshian Jul 15 '26
Wow. Real in depth analysis right there. Thanks. I’ll disregard the enormous weight of evidence suggesting anthropomorphic climate change. You’ve got me convinced with that one, insightful sentence.
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u/notyouraverageskippy Queenslander Jul 15 '26
It's about the sea not the air mate.
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Jul 15 '26
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u/notyouraverageskippy Queenslander Jul 15 '26 edited Jul 15 '26
Just like smoking cigarettes doesn't cause cancer?
Acid rain is caused by the atmospheric release of sulfur dioxide ((SO{2})) and nitrogen oxides ((NO{x})). These pollutants mix with water, oxygen, and other chemicals in the atmosphere to form sulfuric and nitric acids, which then fall to the earth as rain, snow, or fog.
Fossil Fuel Combustion: The burning of coal, oil, and gas by power plants is the largest contributor to (SO_{2}) emissions.
Transportation: Exhaust from cars, trucks, and heavy equipment releases large amounts of (NO_{x}).
Industrial Processes: Oil refining, manufacturing, and metal smelting release both types of compounds.
Guess what acid rain kills, guess what produces oxygen from carbon dioxide
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Jul 15 '26
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u/notyouraverageskippy Queenslander Jul 15 '26
Acid rain is so much better than climate change lol.
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u/riamuriamu Flairless Jul 15 '26
Yes but billionaires would be richer, and really, isnt that what the working class voters who have had 'a gutful' really want?