woolman wrote:

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I don't understand why it is ok to divert more water from the Murray River when farmers are having water rights taken from their food growing businesses.

Solar and wind wont make additional water. 

Neil

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 "If" it happens, the water will be recirculated so no loss to river flows.

One (small) matter I didn't include in my summary of Snowy 2.0's its capacity. Snowy Hydro claim that it can deliver 2000 MW for a week, or something like that. Whatever it can deliver,that is WAY above a battery installation which typically can deliver hundreds of MW, and only then for periods of maybe 1 hour. That would normally be enough to get a gas turbine started up to make up the lost generation which caused the hiccup in the first place. BUT - the batteries will only last maybe 20 years, whereas Snowy 2.0 and other Hydro equipment typically last at least 70 years. Snowy 2.0 is an investment for the future - a long-term investment at that.

Snowy 2.0 will not release any more water to the Murrumbidgee and Murray river systems - most of the snowmelt is currently being effectively used (some water gets dumped down the Snowy River, rendering it useless for irrigation further west). Pumped Storage schemes drop the water through the turbines at peak load times, and then pump the water back up the hill at off-peak times. Being able to control the pumping loads, if there is a major outage of a transmission line or a generator, the operators can open the circuit breakers to the pumps, resulting in an immediate availability of hundreds of MW being available to the grid. This reduces the need to have extra generation,available to serve as backup, should a major generator or transmission line fail in service.

In Wales (UK), there is a pumped storage scheme called Dinorwig. It is a pure pumped storage scheme - there is no inflow to the upper reservoir other than what is pumped up to it. The scheme is 1500 MW total, and it can on-load 1150 MW in 10 seconds, if there is a major disruption to the electicity supply grid. To ensure stability of the grid, it is usual to have a machine running on standby - not putting any power into the grid, but being synchronised and spinning at speed-no-load, ready to take up a load instantly, if and when a major generator or transmission line develops a fault. Basically, if the largest generator on the grid is 500 MW, you need 500 MW to be available to cover the loss of the machine. I was told by the operators at Dinorwig that the scheme paid for itself, even if it never had to make up for a lost generator. Simply being available meant that standby (thermal) generation was not required., Snowy 2.0 will provide this cover.  Snowy 2.0 will be a major asset to the country's electricity grid. Yes - it is expensive, yes - the project has been mis-managed, but it will be a major factor in future generation stability. The original $2 Billion estimate was given by Malcolm Turnbull. No doubt he was relying on information from someone else - he is not that brilliant, but he should have checked his facts before spouting off. This $2 Billion figure forms the basis of ridicule now. A figure of $6 Billion would have been a more realistic figure, and even that would be  blown out by a factor of 5 now.

Yeah you do.

I asked AI to make the post readable.

DMaxer, stop the insults and contribute factually, not emotionally.

From Leif van Onselen: The former Turnbull Coalition government initially announced that the Snowy Hydro 2.0 pumped-hydro scheme would cost $2 billion and be completed by 2021. The government later increased the cost estimate to $6 billion, then to $12 billion by 2023. In October 2025, the government-owned Snowy Hydro confirmed that the projects costs would easily exceed its $12 billion budget. A nine-month cost study by independent building experts was initiated to determine the full extent of cost overruns and delays.

The Victoria Energy Policy Centres director, Bruce Mountain, and energy executive Ted Woodley estimate that the Snowy 2.0 project will now cost about $42 billion in total. This includes direct construction costs of $20 billion, transmission infrastructure costs totalling $12 billion, and interest charges of $8 billion over 15 years.

Mountain and Woodley argue that Snowy 2.0 had always been a dreadful idea, describing it as one of the biggest disasters in Australian infrastructure. They suggest that a royal commission into the project may be justified. According to Dr Mountain, successive governments failed to respond to what he sees as a project that was obviously flawed from the beginning. He argues that a properly independent investigation has always been needed and believes there is a strong case for a royal commission.

Mountain also noted that Snowy Hydro 2.0 now employs about 50% more workers than originally budgetedroughly 3,000 additional staffearning an average of $250,000 annually, with powerful unions including the CFMEU and ETU involved. He criticised the projects high cost, environmental impact, and limitations as a storage system that cannot be quickly recharged like batteries.

Concerns have also been raised that the federal government has attempted to conceal the true cost of Snowy 2.0 by using off-budget vehicles and blocking freedom-of-information requests. Former ACTU President and federal Labor MP Jennie George similarly criticised the lack of transparency, arguing that the true cost of the renewable energy transition has been deliberately obscured through accounting practices and the separation of interconnected costs.

George contrasted this with the NDIS, where costs are clearly outlined in budget papers. She argued that much of the spending on renewable projects is hidden from public view, despite taxpayers underwriting many of these initiatives. She added that governments committed to accountability and transparency should fully disclose the actual costs involved, and suggested that vested interests would not pursue such projects without the certainty of government backing.

The estimated cost of the 2,000-megawatt Queensland Borumba Pumped Hydro project has also risen by $4.2 billion to $18.4 billion, with completion now not expected until at least 2033. As with Snowy Hydro 2.0, costs are likely to continue rising.

More broadly, Snowy Hydro 2.0 and Borumba are presented as examples of the wider costs associated with the renewable energy transition. Pumped hydroelectric projects do not generate net new energy but instead act as storage systems for excess renewable energymainly solarproduced during the day. Battery storage, along with distributed solar and wind generation and expanded transmission networks, also involves significant expense.

Because renewable energy sources are weather-dependent and intermittent, additional infrastructure, storage, and backup generation are required. This includes maintaining dispatchable hydrocarbon-based generators to ensure reliability when wind and solar output falls.

As a result, Australian consumers face rising energy costs, both directly through higher power bills and indirectly through taxes that fund renewable energy subsidies and major infrastructure projects like Snowy Hydro 2.0. The argument concludes that policymakers should be more transparent about the true costs and trade-offs involved in Australias renewable energy transition.