When investors cry for certainty, what they really want is “no risks” and “your money”
The renewables industry only exists because of government largess. What the government giveth, so can it sucketh.
Now that the bountiful wheel of the Turnbull government is turning slightly toward other beneficiaries, the Australian renewables industry are holding crisis meetings. Feel the entitlement! Sophie Vorrath reports in RenewEconomy on the green industry disappointment with the NEG — (the theoretical new Australian plan for Weather-Management-with-Socialist-Electricity-Grids.)
The government is still picking winners, it’s just different winners:
NEG will block renewables, favour hydro and big retailers
Oliver Yates, head of UPC Renewables:
Yates said that setting emissions compliance cost on a path to zero could “pull the carpet out” from under existing solar and wind energy investments and actually stop future investments. “This is very bad for our industry and very bad for the nation as a whole, as this orderly investment and orderly transition towards using new generation assets is required.”
And – “as a banker” – Yates also warned against the mentality that the NEG could be legislated now, and tweaked later, under a future Labor government, or a more enlightened Coalition.
According to the Smart Energy Council, no one in Australia knows more about renewables finance than Oliver Yates. Boy is this industry in trouble.
“It is impossible to invest on the assumption of election results,” he said.
Dear Oliver, coal investors and everyone else, have been doing it for decades. It’s called “risk”.
“You cannot explain to your board, when you’re asking them to put money into a transaction, that the structural price of power could bounce around wildly, depending upon the outcomes of various state or federal election campaigns.”
The problem is not that governments and voters may change their minds, it’s that they should never have been messing with this market in the first place.
There is more than one path to “certainty”
Yates again:
“The only way that we can get certainty… is if the federal emissions level set within the NEG is around 50 per cent for the electricity sector.
No. No and double No. We get far more certainty with the free market where the price, demand and need for green electrons is zero, and the certain profits are nothin’. Since the effect of CO2 has been minimal for the last 500 million years, the price of CO2 will trend toward its true value. This is the kind of certainty that will last until the Sun goes supernova. We’ve got the next billion electoral cycles covered. How long will your bubble last?
Shovel it on with a spade:
“I can ensure you that no investor ever anticipated that the electricity sector would only reduce its emissions between 26-28 per cent by 2030.
Then, shovel it on with a Front End Loader:
“That outcome, that little level of emissions reduction will be a shock to the financial markets, and actually it’s a shock to many of us who are concerned, deeply, about climate change.
“Diddums”. Do your homework. The government’s role is not to save investors who make stupid decisions from being shocked that the government is only hoping to achieve what it said it would aim for. Investors who read skeptic sites know the right level of emissions reductions is zero. They know that CO2 doesn’t control the climate, and that renewables aren’t competitive. They knew grid prices would rocket, households would hurt and voters would run.
PS: If you are a sophisticated investor who does understand risk, and can see a great opportunity coming by helping to capitalize on snowflake investors who face some reality shocks, check out Cool Futures. Things are steaming ahead with an international team coming together. I’ll need to update the info I posted previously. David and I have an interest and are involved in this — see the Risk, Disclosure and Disclaimer on that post.
PPS: A rare event coming — I’ll be speaking at in Sydney with Ian Plimer in a few weeks at the Friedman18 conference. Join us! You can get a 10% discount with the code Nova18. See an amazing line up of speakers this year on May 25-27 in Sydney.