Alternate uses for $600 million

If the government was serious about energy policy for the country as a whole and the need to cut emissions then Climate Emergency Action Alliance–Vote Planet has the following suggestions for how to spend $600 million:

• Using this money to go towards improving the two-way transportation of power throughout the national grid to ensure that power produced by small PV is not wasted because the grid can't handle the load.
• Using the money to increase the return for premises that have solar panels, giving a market signal that it's worth putting panels on and so providing an incentive to the private sector to collect the extra power that's being produced in a battery of some description (lithium ion, stored hydro, flow battery).
• Improving and duplicating the Bass link to Tasmania, and the other links within the eastern grid to allow a greater sharing of load and to allow Tasmania to become the battery of Australia.
• Beginning a joint venture to construct a DC cable to WA, thus giving incentive to the WA solar market to take advantage of the time difference and to provide cover for the evening peak in the east.
• Construct a solar thermal plant in South Australia thus creating not only power but a skills base for a new form of power generation that could be sold around the world.
• To be put into research because there's no need for a gas fired power plant anyway.
• Developing an electric car industry here.

By David Lughermo