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Caroline Lucas MP rightly points to “a cocktail of threats” to the environment from leaving the EU (A ‘green guarantee’ could stop Brexit ruining our environment, theguardian.com, 13 February). She neglects to mention her own role in bringing on these threats: the vote she cast to hold the EU referendum in the first place. In her statement to the Commons on 9 June 2015, when the EU referendum bill was under review, she pointed to the EU’s many environmental protections; called nonetheless for its “radical reform”; noted that achieving this “by walking away from the EU makes no sense at all”; and then, along with hundreds of other pro-remain MPs, invited the voters to walk away. It was a classic muddle of cross-purposes all too familiar from the left on Europe.

At the time, Lucas could have demanded, or at least suggested, that the likely environmental and other costs be specified and advertised to the public ahead of any Brexit vote. Instead she agreed to a simple in/out vote with no further conditions. So perhaps she means to say that the “real fight starts now”?
Jeff Smith
Brno, Czech Republic

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Scientists have uncovered the first evidence of live births in the group of animals that includes dinosaurs, crocodiles and birds.

The rich, diverse communities of trees in the Amazon are the result of species spreading over the vast area over geological time, a study suggests.

Conservationists hope second group of 14 scimitar-horned oryx bred in captivity will help repopulate original habitat in Chad

A group of scimitar-horned oryx, an antelope declared extinct in the wild, have been reintroduced to their original home on the edge of the Sahara desert.

Fourteen captive-bred animals were released in a remote area of Chad and joined a first group reintroduced in August 2016, conservationists from the Zoological Society of London (ZSL) said.

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French photographer Gabriel Barathieu has been named this year’s winner for his ‘balletic, malevolent’ dancing octopus, while British winner Nick Blake captured a lone diver among the otherworldly sunbeams of a Mexican cave

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Scientists think they have found the explanation behind sounds generated by bees

Scientists previously believed these remote areas of the sea were untouched by human contamination.

Owner of proposed Carmichael coalmine say they’ll take ‘all steps available’ if supporters of Galilee Blockade obtain confidential information from company

Adani has threatened legal action against an activist group that is encouraging its supporters to infiltrate the miner by signing up for jobs with its proposed Queensland mining project.

A law firm acting for Adani wrote to the Galilee Blockade on Tuesday to signal it would take “all steps available to it” should the activists obtain confidential information from employees.

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South Downs, West Sussex The buzzard raises its wings and lifts its talons up towards the kite, which responds and the two clash

Dark shadows tumble across the hillside. The clouds are being hurried along by the wind, and the rain is subsiding. A chattering flock of linnets bounces from hedge to hedge, across the shining, wet chalk track in front of me. In the middle of the field is a brown shape, like a large mound of mud. It shifts its position every few minutes. Looking through binoculars, I see it’s a brown hare, hunkered down in the ground, its long ears flat against its head and over its back, munching the grass. It shifts its position again, still chewing, but always scanning the horizon.

A buzzard swoops in and lands a few metres from the hare. It struggles, flapping hard, as if trying to hold on to the ground in the wind, and then it lowers its wings. It has caught something – a small mammal, presumably – but I can’t see what it’s mantling in the grass. It begins to eat, snatching at the prey with its bill. The hare sits up, still chewing, and watches the buzzard.

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In 1999, Australians were paying some of the lowest electricity prices in the world. Now they are among the highest. What went wrong?

Back then, the electricity network in the southern and eastern states of Australia had just been reformed to create a regional wholesale market, called the National Electricity Market. Some states – Victoria and then South Australia – privatised their industry. All states then progressively deregulated their retail electricity markets, and transferred the regulation of their remaining network monopolies to two quasi-federal regulatory agencies, the Australian Energy Regulator and the Australian Energy Markets Commission.

These reforms replaced the state governments’ electricity commissions – derided by some as Soviet-style relics – with what was purported to be a dynamic new arrangement of competition and private risk-taking.

The reforms were bolstered by reports by the Industry Commission (now the Productivity Commission) predicting that even though electricity prices were already low, they would fall further as the pressure of competition drove the industry to become more efficient and customer-focused.

The exact opposite happened. The sector’s productivity has declined sharply after tens of billions of dollars were spent on network infrastructure - particularly substations – that are not used at anything like their full capacity, even at the peak of an Australian summer.

But the failures are not just in the regulation of networks. Our retail markets compare very unfavourably with those in other countries, and our wholesale electricity markets seem to be cornered regularly – most recently in South Australia on February 8, where a lack of available generation led regulators to cut the power to some 90,000 customers.

Besides not being cheaper, the system is also no greener or more reliable. The amount of greenhouse emissions per unit of electricity produced has shown little change, and as South Australia has shown, the system can’t always keep the lights on.

Australia is blessed with a surplus of every conceivable energy resource and no shortage of technical and managerial skill. How did it come to this?

Passing the buck

The common factor underlying these failures is accountability. Officials use the phrase “all care and no responsibility” to describe the situation in which politicians become as skilled in finger-pointing as they are in showing empathy for those suffering through power blackouts.

The latest manifestation of this is the mis-characterisation of Australia’s electricity problem as one of renewables versus fossil fuels. In this view, the solution is to turn back the clock to last century’s high-emission technologies (such as coal), despite the clear risk to the private sector of doing so.

What can sensibly be done to get us out of this mess? The real problem is not renewables – it’s poor governance.

Fixing governance problems is hard, but it’s clear which direction we should take. It needs to be made obvious who should be strung up when things go wrong, or covered in glory when they go right. This clarity will in turn deliver the accountability needed to anticipate and solve problems, rather than the buck-passing and blame-dodging we’re seeing now.

The state model

There are lessons to be learned from other comparable federal countries, including Germany, the United States and Canada. They too have regional power markets and retail competition, but they have avoided the bickering between federal and state governments seen in Australia.

Their electricity networks (except interconnectors) and their retail markets are overseen by the states and provinces – as used to be the case in Australia.

When accountability is clearly established, we will know where the buck stops when the lights go out or prices become unaffordable. But under Australia’s current quasi-federal system, there is an irresistible temptation to point fingers and obfuscate if things go wrong.

Politicians past and present created this problem, and they must now rise above it. The immediate task is not to tinker with existing institutions, but instead to make some fundamental changes.

The starting point should be to recognise that electricity supply is the province (under our Constitution) of the states and territories, not the Commonwealth. It would be better to get on with fixing our own back yards than idly waiting and wishing, often without good reason, for “national coordination”.

We should reassign oversight of networks and retail markets back to the states and territories, as used to be the case. Regional transmission interconnection and market operation should continue to be federally coordinated, but the primary responsibility for pricing and reliability must rest with the states. The states might choose to delegate the oversight of various issues to central entities, but these entities must be clearly answerable to those states under the terms of their delegation.

In some respects these will be major changes, and in others, mainly a change of mindset and orientation. But for too long now we have been pushing a model of governance that does not reflect our constitutional responsibilities, and is at odds with the approach adopted in other federal countries.

It has failed and it is time to change. Other nations’ experience can give us confidence that if we make changes we can look forward to vibrant electricity markets that actually work in customers’ best interests.

Bruce Mountain does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond the academic appointment above.

Guidelines on battery storage installation delayed after concern they amounted to effective ban on lithium-ion devices inside homes.

SA energy minister warns dismantling state RET would succeed only in killing "dispatchable, baseload" solar thermal.

It now seems clear that rooftop solar played critical role in easing pressure on the grid during heatwave in eastern states, and moderating prices. But solar households got paid a pittance compared to the coal and gas generators.

With Hazelwood set to close, Andrews government unveils $5m scheme to install solar PV, hot water at 1,000 Latrobe Valley homes.

Phase one of plans to turn disused Queensland gold mine into massive solar and pumped hydro storage project reaches financial close.

Head of one of Australia’s largest coal plant operators says nation's shift to renewables "a reality" that must be addressed.

Entura is partnering with engineering and infrastructure company RCR Tomlinson to deliver Pacific Hydro’s 30MW Yaloak South Wind Farm in Victoria, Australia.

The repeated bouts of warm weather this season could push the Arctic to a record low winter peak for the third year in a row.

Who could forget the energy “crises” that affected electricity supply across south-eastern Australia last year.

‘They are going to get a surprise and I am worried about them,’ says Catherine Tanna, joining push for transition to renewables

The boss of one of Australia’s largest energy suppliers says she is worried about customers’ power bills after the latest heatwave in the country’s south-east.

Energy Australia’s managing director, Catherine Tanna, has joined the push for a transition to newer forms of energy, saying bipartisanship is needed to draw up a national energy policy. The company operates sites including the Yallourn plant in the Latrobe valley, a brown-coal power station in Victoria that supplies nearly a quarter of the state’s electricity.

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