I have a better idea ... target CO2 not any particular technology used to achieve it. That is drop the RET altogether and rely on the carbon price alone, preferably via a CO2 cap. At the same time drop all the freebies and exemptions we now see for carbon tax. Allow nuclear power in the mix. Then we'll find out just how much renewable or other technology the system is prepared to pay for. The resulting mix should be the least costly for that CO2 level.

At the moment the trend is towards gas fired generation with minor wind power. When gas becomes expensive the wind fraction may increase up to the limit of safe backup or energy storage requirements. Let wind power find its own level. PV barely helps run heavy round-the-clock industries and doesn't deserve any more artificial help. Geothermal appears to be a dud in Australia.

As much as Australia can compete head on in design there is no way that we can compete with manufacturing or the supply chain in the global arena."
With the value of the AUD, cost of living, wages, union delays etc Australia will never be able to manufacture a price competitive product.
Think of the irony in the manufacture of wind turbines.. which are constructed of ... steel... the very plants that Gillard is seeking to close down. And while I am sure they get a credit if they manufacture a clean energy item... the reality is in 5-10 years there won't be any steel manufacturers left in Australia that would make profit from providing materials for such projects.

The only truly viable, effective, high supply clean energy source for Australia is Hydro and ... sadly Australia has a green party that activity prevents any construction of such projects.

This piece acknowledges one of the big problems with the CEFC (that it doesn't allow for an increase to the 20% RET), but doesn't mention the others. The CEFC defines "renewables" to include gas-fired power . Most of the $10 billion will fund gas-fired power, not clean energy. And the CEFC is structured in a way that means its simply will not fund the real gamechanging tech - concentrated solar thermal power. It's for these reasons Beyond Zero Emissions has said the CEFC is a 'distraction, not a solution' http://media.beyondzeroemissions.org/BZE_CEFC_statement.pdf

I fear as ever that the frame of reference too often deployed in these discussions is what is out of whack, not the technology or investment infrastructure in itself.

The fatal mistake being made is in thinking that some abstract thing called 'Australia' is the national subject, with everything else its intended object. But the continent is huge. It's a 3,200 KM drive from Kununnurra to Perth alone, further than London to Moscow, and another 3,100 from Perth to Canberra. Of a land area of 7.7 million Km2, the cities take up only around 93,300, or only ~12% of the landmass and all that in the far east, southeast and lower southwest rainfall belts.

For far too long has this country been held in thrall to the few fringe cities perched there mainly around the eastern and southern coasts that sop up every little thing and leave the rest of us to carry the burden, and worse forcing the population shift to those urban areas because life inland simply becomes impossible.

Petrol and diesel have to be transported all the way back by road or ship, where the big cities pay at the pump, say $1.40 best price per litre the rest pay $1.70, and that heavily subsidised, where the only real option is to ship directly from Singapore.

Power lines across country cost over $1,000 per post. I cannot begin to imagine what the big transmission lines cost, though I agree with their interlinking to share load between the big urban centres so at least some savings can be made there.

The point does need to be made that the true costs are not reflected in retail prices because of the extent of subsidies and equalising schemes enabling some equity to be realised before even more people go broke. But that simply cannot last, especially in its hidden form as it has been for too long now.

All this has a fundamental impact, where OK all you city people do things how you want but leave the rest of us to do the things we need to do in our own regions. That means solar and wind hybrid systems (the backup gensets rarely come on anyway), already long proven as our best bet, wind driven water harvesting systems for dry periods, our own dams and catchment management strategies, and far better I think more people from Asia, African and the Middle East who know how to live sustainably in arid zones.

My concern with this new Clean Energy Finance Corporation is that it will be appropriated again by the big cities who will dictate what is to be financed and leave us again without a crumb, while we still grow all your food for you and provide all your material needs.

The only really good thing that's happened in rural and remote Australia (~88% of the landscape and that at considerable distance) in well over a century now is Western Australia's new Royalties for Regions Act 2009, in which 25% of resources royalties are required now by law to be invested in the vast inland and not the metropolitan region, and something given back finally. The only sensible direction for other states to head is precisely in the same direction.

Now we can start getting back on with the job without forever going cap in hand to the cities to jostle among all the other snouts at the trough, itself humiliating enough without all the rest of it, except that's the game being played, isn't it - humiliating people, reducing everyone to the lowest common denominator, making it look as if by doing so distant governments 'enable' people with their endless 'initiatives' - nothing more than the usual crud power play.

For the CEFC to even begin to work, the same 25% at least must be targeted to inland Australia. I agree to some extent with population density and the need to keep all those squirming masses of city people at least acceptably well fed, housed, doctored, schooled and usefully employed off setting distance, but at the same time we too have to be able to run our businesses and live our lives in passing equity with them, or better I'd suggest else there's no point anyway.

Against the opportunity through these schemes for renewed cultural and social integrity, self-sufficiency and a modicum of dignity for inland people finally, nothing else looks even remotely interesting.

Ian Lowe is dead right.
I have had occasion to differ wildly from Prof Lowe and the ACF in the past but this time he is right on the money.
The RET has been the major driver of the growth of renewables in Australia so far and the CEFC has the potential to power our energy mix a long way towards the change all rational Australians know has to come, the sooner the better. The RET needs to be considerably more ambitious but with the market headed rapidly in the right direction and $10 billion in the CEFC Australia could soon be rocketing towards the zero emissions energy economy. The potential to rort or destroy the CEFC is great. Brown Labor led by Martin Ferguson is determined to rort it and it is not perfect (see Simon Butler's comment above). The Opposition with Abbott in the vanguard is determined to destroy it but Abbott can see the political good sense of retaining the RET and has slapped down ignorant backbencher who argued it should be scrapped. Hardwick, Gibson, Sturgess and the unfortunate Peter Lang who is shunned on a couple of other sites where Global warming and renewable energy are regularly discussed don't have the imagination or the knowledge and should not be heeded. Prof Lowe's article is a [point of light in the darkly depressing Australian climate change landscape. Good on you Prof Lowe.