Another DUD Turnbull idea, but he is politically wedded to it. Turnbulls back of envelope equivalent IMO.
Another NBN disaster in the making
He has to GO.
TURNBULL CAN'T ADMIT HIS SNOWY SCHEME COSTS TOO MUCH
Andrew Bolt, Herald Sun
December 21, 2017 5:35pm
Malcolm Turnbull needed his new Snowy scheme so badly for political reasons that it was clear he'd pay anything for it. He first sold it as a $2 billion plan, but now is still hot for it at anything up to six times the price: August: There’s nothing wrong with the principle of using pumped hydro as an offset to unreliable renewable power, but the way this project has emerged is a travesty of good planning.
As Turnbull explained on Monday, he floated the idea in a speech to the National Press Club in February and then went to Snowy Hydro chief executive Paul Broad. “To our delight, he said: ‘Do I have a pumped hydro storage scheme for you!’ and blew the cobwebs off the old plans.”..
Nor does it appear on the list of priority projects maintained by Infrastructure Australia...
This is being driven from the Prime Minister’s office. It is not responding to any commercial signal and is not the result of an economic assessment of need. It is instead responding to the political need for the government to be seen to be doing something about energy prices...
The idea that it could be built for $2 billion does not take account of the need to upgrade high-voltage networks to accommodate the additional power, which would cost billions more.
In fact, the feasability study commissioned by the Government back then now says the project will actually cost vastly more than Turnbull claimed just a few months ago - yet Turnbull cannot afford to admit his ideas was a turkey. So here comes another massively expensive government turkey: The full cost of Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull's Snowy Hydro expansion could hit nearly $12 billion by the time the project is built and the federal government negotiates a buyout of NSW and Victoria's stake in the scheme.
But the cost blowout, revealed in a new feasibility study, has failed to dampen the Coalition's enthusiasm, with Environment and Energy Minister Josh Frydenberg on Thursday promising the technically challenging undertaking "will go ahead and Australians will be better off for it"...
It carried an initial price tag of $2 billion but the unexpectedly complex geology of the area has contributed to the cost rising as high as $4.5 billion. Another $2 billion would be needed to build new transmission lines to get the extra power to the grid.
This process stinks to high heaven. No one can have confidence that this is a good use of borrowed money.
