The modelling is, however, in the word of Labor and climate experts, complete garbage, which shouldn’t be surprising because Fisher himself has made much money since leaving his post at ABARE doing reports on behalf of the fossil fuel industry, and the Minerals Council of Australia in particular.
Fisher, however, insists he did this report with no funding. (See below).
Still, little of the detailed assumptions underlying his conclusions have been revealed by Fisher in his latest update, apart from his assumptions on “storage” and “back-up”, which he puts at around $200/MWh.
These assumptions are important because his critics say he is grossly inflating the cost of abatement.
His estimates on the cost of storage are about three times more than the cost of “firming” revealed by Snowy Hydro and ignores reports from the CSIRO, the Australian Council of Learned Academies, the Australian Energy Market Operator, the Energy Networks Australia and any number of other researchers that show the level of storage needed up to 50 per cent renewables is minimal.
