Letters to
the editor

Our democracy

Major party politicians have two constituencies (Jason Koutsoukis, “Exclusive: PM’s office directs lobbyists to use encrypted, disappearing messages”, December 6-12). The voter is the constituency in front of them, bombarded with advertising for a few months every three years or so, in the meantime dipping in and out of politics. Behind the major parties is their hidden constituency, the donors and lobbyists. This group freely walks the halls of power and is everywhere, all the time, all at once where politicians and their staffers work and play. Freedom of information is important, of course, and limiting its reach is a bad move and a bad look. But as long as donors and lobbyists have free rein, FOI operates in a fundamentally compromised environment.

– Deborah Scott, St Lucia, Qld

Price point

Danny Price’s attack on John Hewson (Letters, December 6-12) accuses him of “one of the poorest pieces of economic analysis” Price has seen on energy. Price then promptly confuses wholesale electricity prices, which are indeed falling, with the prices gouged by private retailers and the regulator. Apparently Hewson incorrectly claims there is a global shift to renewables. Most of the world’s energy is still fossil fuel-based, so for the time being it will remain objectively true that emissions can continue to rise despite the increasing global uptake of renewables. Establishing renewable energy is high cost. As was fossil-based generation and transmission in its infancy. Such cognitive dissonance from an economic analyst who cobbled together the sublime nonsense in support of Peter Dutton’s nuclear energy pipedream that cost him his career and the Coalition an election.

– Tor Larsen, Marrickville, NSW

Hauled over the coals

I write to clarify several points raised by Chris Wallace in her article (“Coal comfort”,  November 22-28). Wallace was transparent in her advocacy for renewables and her disapproval of fossil fuels, particularly coal, but doesn’t honest debate require hearing both sides? It was insulting to all Australians for her to invoke elitist sanctimony that only “progressives knowledgeable about the energy transition” understand the truth. Both COP30 and G20 clearly showed that there are divisions over transition pathways – are those delegates less knowledgeable? What about Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, post-G20, with his remarks on coal’s ongoing role? At the National Press Club, Chris asked me about the specific costings and uptake rates for battery-backed renewable energy. I did not obfuscate; I simply said I would gather the detailed figures for her because costs depend on land availability, transmission build-out, firming infrastructure, supply-chain pricing and consumer demand. These are complex, highly variable numbers, not slogans. She claimed that households flock to rooftop solar because it “saves money”. That is incomplete – despite generous government subsidies and incentives, financial payback often takes many years. No level of rooftop solar adoption removes the need for a strong central grid; households still rely on it for reliability. Solar and batteries are valuable, but they do not eliminate the need for system-wide investment, nor do they instantly guarantee real savings. Cost comparisons must be like-for-like. At the utility scale, CSIRO’s GenCost 2024-25 offers, at best, apples-to-oranges assessments. In that analysis, a new, critical black-coal plant is estimated to cost $111-$178/MWh, while firmed wind and solar – that is, variable renewables plus storage and transmission – range from $120-$168/MWh but with the significant costs of overbuild and shorter lifetimes of renewables and storage. On the other hand, once capital is sunk, an operating coal plant can produce electricity for as little as $40-$60/MWh. Elsewhere, Chris damned my organisation, FutureCoal, through “guilt by association”. We are apparently part of the super-funded fossil fuel lobby industry infecting Canberra. Sorry, globally we are not in the league of dollar dazzlers: generally, it is me taking the story of new, abated coal – from mining to advanced processing – around the world. Many of FutureCoal’s member companies are also heavy investors in renewables. We all want a cleaner environment and a secure energy future, but principles must operate in the real world – one where Australia keeps the lights on with coal, funds essential services through coal royalties, and depends on renewable technologies like wind turbines and solar panels, which are overwhelmingly manufactured using coal-fired power overseas.

– Michelle Manook, chief executive of FutureCoal