Revealed: Bowen’s ‘nuclear maths’

[u/GreenTicket1852]

https://www.theaustralian.com.au/nation%2Fweaponised-the-public-service-chris-bowens-nuclear-prediction-arithmetic-revealed%2Fnews-story%2F096e838220d987bf6c5fa67afcf0bbc4?amp

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[u/GnomeBrannigan]

Frontier Economics managing director Danny Price – whose firm recently released commissioned modelling of the ­Coalition’s nuclear energy plan and had previously advised parties on either side of the political aisle on energy policy – said Mr Bowen “dreamt up his own method” to assert the Coalition’s nuclear energy plan would result in energy shortfalls in a “half-arsed” way that produced a “meaningless bunch of numbers”.

The temerity of this guy, of all people, to complain about the numbers.

[u/Harclubs]

Frontier economics are a joke, nearly as funny as Dutton's nuclear "policy". Their numbers are non-sense and their attempt at smearing others for using methods they themselves employ is pathetic.

[u/GreenTicket1852]

Paywall

Mr Bowen in September last year said “detailed government analysis of (Australian Energy Market Operator) forecasts show the Coalition’s plan … will result in massive supply short­ages over the next decade”.

The Department of Climate Change and Energy now says what it did was “not an analysis of the Coalition’s nuclear energy proposals” but an “assumption-driven calculation”.

Those assumptions, it said, were provided by Mr Bowen’s office. The department, in a response to a question on notice during Senate estimates, revealed those five assumptions about the Coalition’s energy plan and its calculations.

It was commissioned in Aug­ust, before the Coalition released details about its nuclear policy.

Mr Bowen, on the back of those calculations, asserted the Coalition’s energy plan would “result in a staggering 49 per cent gap between demand and the supply available to meet it”.

Frontier Economics managing director Danny Price – whose firm recently released commissioned modelling of the ­Coalition’s nuclear energy plan and had previously advised parties on either side of the political aisle on energy policy – said Mr Bowen “dreamt up his own method” to assert the Coalition’s nuclear energy plan would result in energy shortfalls in a “half-arsed” way that produced a “meaningless bunch of numbers”.

Opposition energy spokesman Ted O’Brien accused Mr Bowen of “weaponising the public service” and the department’s testimony showed “Labor lacks any intellectual argument against the Coalition’s plan”.

“Chris Bowen has decided to weaponise the public service by unfairly instructing them to do a calculation based on his own flawed assumptions about the Coalition’s plan and then packaging it up for the Australian public as if it is the calculation of the department itself, as if it’s departmental modelling, but it’s not departmental modelling,” he told The Australian.

“This is Chris Bowen’s imagination to achieve a political end and exposes how shallow his thinking is about Australia’s energy system. This reveals the lack of detail on the part of the minister when it comes to planning for Australia’s energy system.”

Mr Bowen, when contacted for comment, told The Australian, “in the absence of any meaningful detail from Peter Dutton, the government provided analysis in September”.

“It has taken the opposition some five months to respond – that does not bode well for their nuclear build timelines.

“Peter Dutton’s dodgy nuclear costings don’t include a plan for cheaper power bills and is based on much less electricity demand. If they are wrong about that, there will be a massive supply gap. Either way, it’s Australians who will pay for this reckless nuclear scheme.”

Separately, a spokeswoman for Mr Bowen said “Australians deserve an energy plan backed by experts that brings down bills, cuts emissions and secures our power grid for a growing economy – and that’s what the Albanese government is delivering”.

Mr Price said the assumptions and calculations were … just a meaningless bunch of numbers made up by some stupid assumptions.”

On the other hand, Grattan Institute energy program director Tony Wood said he thought the assumptions were not “particularly unreasonable”.

“It was fair enough for Bowen’s office to put out those positions, and it was fair enough for O’Brien to respond in the way he did,” he said.

At the time Mr Bowen requested calculations from his department, there were unknown details about the Coalition’s policies such that Mr Wood said he “would have probably said more or less the same thing back at the time” as the assumptions from Mr Bowen’s office.