Five silly government initiatives have created “The Big Nanny Gas Bubble”. The first foolish policy forced electricity suppliers to generate a proportion of their electricity from gas. This increased the demand and price for gas.
Naturally, gas producers applauded.
The second silly gas policy promoted and subsidised the replacement of electric heating appliances with gas appliances.
Naturally, gas producers applauded again. So did appliance retailers.
The third bad idea from Big Nanny was a law mandating 20% of electricity be generated from “renewable energy”. The perverse consequence of this policy will be to force the construction of a parallel universe of gas fired power stations to prop up the green generators when the sun don’t shine or the wind don’t blow. This will create more demand for gas and further increases in gas prices.
Naturally, gas companies applauded again. So did Green Energy speculators and Chinese manufacturers.
The Fourth gas wasting scheme is the Ration-N-Tax Scheme from Big Nanny in Canberra. This scheme penalises production of one “greenhouse gas”, carbon dioxide, but not the main one, water vapour, which comprises more than 90% of all so-called greenhouse gases. This policy punishes coal more than gas, even though they both are hydro-carbon fuels which produce the same two greenhouse gases when burnt.
Naturally, gas companies applauded again.
Every one of these actions increased the costs of electricity and gas. Consumers did not applaud.
The fifth stupid gas policy attempts to hide the effects of the other four by proposing export embargos and price controls for domestic gas.
Suddenly, gas producers did not applaud.
Governments should repeal all these destructive interventions and allow producers and consumers to discover that combination of fuels and technologies that best satisfy their values and needs.
Keep Big Nanny out of the energy china shop.
Viv Forbes, Chairman, The Carbon Sense Coalition, has spent his life working in exploration, mining, farming, infrastructure, financial analysis and political commentary. He has worked for government departments, private companies and now works as a private contractor and farmer.
Viv has also been a guest writer for the Asian Wall Street Journal, Business Queensland and mining newspapers. He was awarded the “Australian Adam Smith Award for Services to the Free Society” in 1988, and has written widely on political, technical and economic subjects.
