Ann: Macquarie Australia Conference, page-68

Agree HC. They are definitely something we should consider. It amuses me that Australia seems to be one of the few countries in the world that thinks we can go 100% renewables. Most European countries and the USA talk about an energy mix for the future, in fact the European Union recently included Nuclear as part of its “renewable” energy mix. Some people like to quote the 2015 CSIRO report released in 2017 that says renewables are cheaper than nuclear. This report is flawed as it doesn’t report cost of transmission, nor does it take into account the rising cost of metals that are used to make wind and solar farms. I recently read an article quoting the head of a major wind turbine company based in Scandinavia. He lamented that he wished people would stop saying renewable energy is cheap. He indicated costs for components for their wind turbines were increasing substantially. Unfortunately talking about nuclear is verbotten. We still live under a 40 year hangover of the activism and decisions by Bob Hawke in 1983. Time for people to get educated about energy mix. Gas will be here for a long time largely because it will continue to prop up our renewable energy stupidity.
P.S. Later in life Bob Hawke said he favoured nuclear energy. Go figure!

From an STX perspective I think that they are well positioned to take strong advantage of energy shortfalls in both WA, and perhaps, broader markets, perhaps overseas. IMO with increasing renewable energy stupidity, gas will just get stronger and stronger. Just look at California! Just look at Germany and how they are now forced to reopen coal fired power stations burning lignite, after shutting down coal, shutting down nuclear, going down the renewable energy path, relying on more gas to prop them up. Then Putin came along and invaded Ukraine. Oops no gas to support us. I know let’s burn lignite for power and we can scientifically study the effects of acid rain. It’s got to be something out of a Monty Python script!