60 Minutes Australia 29 octobre 2017 Dans une interview télévisée, Musk soutient que la crise énergétique de l'Australie est facile à résoudre et prédit pour son réseau un avenir renouvelable adossé aux batteries.
Dans une interview télévisée, Musk soutient que la crise énergétique de l'Australie est facile à résoudre et prédit pour son réseau un avenir renouvelable adossé aux batteries.
Transcription Correspondent
Who hasn't been shocked by a recent electricity or gas bill? And who isn't infuriated that power prices have risen so sharply in a country as abundant with resources as ours? It defies logic that now some Australians can't even pay for the energy to cook a simple meal. While our fast talking but divided politicians scramble to act. Tonight, Elon Musk, the American billionaire with the brilliant mind, wants to explain how he can help fix Australia's energy crisis. And to prove his point, he's prepared to put his money where his mouth is. It's peak hour in Australia.
Commentator
I need a NOS booking.
Industry Representative
I can't.
Commentator
They want a record of it.
Politician
And we'll find out what's happening, mate.
Correspondent
Towns and cities are lighting up, public transport is on the move. And family homes are coming to life inside a control room in Sydney's west. Staff from Transgrid, the company charged with ensuring the lights stay on, work the phones.
Homeowner
The number two tie. And number three tie. 1, 2, 5.
Correspondent
Calling in power from generators all over the state.
Commentator
Half the population has dinner at 6 o', clock, irrespective, so they do it. The other half have it dinner when it gets dark.
Correspondent
But keeping Australia's massive east coast power grid functioning has never been so hard.
Grid Operator
It's a lot like spinning plates and we move from one to the other, solving problems on the power system in real time to keep the lights on.
Correspondent
And for so many Australians, power has never cost so much. People are living on yesterday's food.
Commentator
Oh, yeah, well, when I have lunch later, it won't be yesterdays, it'll be Mondays on this Thursday. Today,
Correspondent
Australia is in the grip of a power crisis, crippling costs and unreliable supply. But there's one man who can't understand
Elon Musk
why Australia is really perfect for solar power. Because it's not too far north or too far south. You could have the entire country be solar powered or some combination of wind, solar, geothermal, hydro.
Commentator
Chairs of the electric car maker Tesla Motors are up.
Correspondent
Elon Musk is the Tesla man, an American billionaire whose developers developments of electric cars and space rockets is seeing technology push the boundaries like never before. And it's all driven by his belief that if we are to survive climate change, we need to develop renewable energy.
Elon Musk
Australia could actually export power to Asia. There's so much land there that, that you could actually power a significant chunk of Asia.
Correspondent
And to prove his point, Musk is building a massive lithium ion battery powered by wind turbines in Jamestown, South Australia. The battery is designed to help stabilise the grid But Musk is also hoping it will be a light bulb moment for the world.
Elon Musk
You have to do these things that really get the world's attention, otherwise they just don't believe you. They don't think it's possible.
Correspondent
What do you want the rest of the world to see?
Elon Musk
I really want the rest of world to see that you can do. A very large scale, 100 megawatt system is really quite enormous. This is three times more than the next biggest battery in the world. That's just a giant, giant jump forward.
Correspondent
His interest in our energy crisis started last year when South Australia, a state already heavily invested in wind and solar power, was plunged into darkness, the result of a massive storm that saw the state lose power. Elon Musk tweeted headfirst into a national political brawl when fellow billionaire Australian IT whiz Mike Cannon Brooks questioned Tesla's boast that it could help solve South Australia's energy problems by building the world's biggest battery. Why did you do that?
Mike Cannon-Brookes
There was no idea of what would happen afterwards. Just more if people make big claims like that.
Elon Musk
I'd like to check if they're real. You thought I was joking because I had to check with my team. It's like, I hope I. I didn't really say something super crazy.
Correspondent
When you get a return tweet from Elon saying, yeah, what did you think?
Mike Cannon-Brookes
Just checking his kosher, you know, he said, it's going to happen, let's make it happen.
Correspondent
Right, so these are public tweets.
Mike Cannon-Brookes
But in a way that's part of what locks in the guarantee. Right. He's putting his reputation online in a public forum there that, you know, enough noise was then created around it, enough people saw that, that it was like, all right, he better get that done.
Correspondent
Cannon Brooks did a crash course in renewable energy and he quickly realised there were plenty of Australians who backed the idea.
Mike Cannon-Brookes
I got multiple unsolicited, solicited offers for tens of millions. I think we added up to more than $100 million in offers that came in. It was amazing. It was inspiring as an Australian to see people wanting to solve this problem in a real and meaningful way. And I think they're just sick of the politics on all sides and the ridiculous nature of our energy situation at the moment.
Correspondent
But Elon Musk's battery plan was mocked by the federal government.
Commentator
30,000 South Australian households could not get through watching one episode of Australia's Ninja Warrior with this big battery.
Correspondent
Australian treasurer Scott Morrison was particularly dismissive.
Commentator
By all means, have the world's biggest battery. Have the world's biggest banana. Have the world's biggest prawn.
Elon Musk
I didn't realize there was this big battle going on. I didn't know.
Correspondent
It was like Mr. Hollywood's walked into town.
Correspondent
And it's like, well, you know, do
Correspondent
maybe? But our treasurer, Scott Morrison, declared that this was just a shiny, you know, distraction and that, and that it was akin to.
Elon Musk
Well, it's shiny.
Correspondent
It is shiny.
Correspondent
It's, it's akin to the big pineapple or the big banana. It's just one of those kitsch.
Elon Musk
I'm not sure what. Wait, is that a real thing?
Correspondent
They're a tourist attraction, actually.
Elon Musk
Oh, look at my. Is it like the world's biggest banana or something?
Correspondent
Something like that.
Correspondent
Why are you disappointed by that?
Elon Musk
Oh, I think, you know that we get that all the time. It can be a little disheartening sometimes. Yeah. Yeah, sometimes, yeah.
Correspondent
Why did the government mock Elon Musk?
Politician
Well, Elon Musk's battery was a fraction of the size of the Snowy Hydro scheme. It was sold to the people of South Australia as an answer to their woes by Jay Weatherall. Whereas in reality, it is just a fraction of what that state needs.
Correspondent
Everyone is fair game in what is now a high stakes political power play. Electricity, the supply, but particularly the cost, is constantly gnawing away at the federal government and its energy minister, Josh Frydenberg. The fact is that politics has failed Australians, hasn't it? We have failed to deliver to Australians for years now an essential service.
Politician
Well, the Argy Bargie in Canberra over the last decade has not helped lower power bills. In fact, it's created the uncertainty in the market which now industry is demanding be fixed. That's why the National Energy Guarantee offers us that opportunity. For the first time in more than a decade,
Correspondent
the National Energy Guarantee aims to make the system more reliable and ultimately ease the nation's financial pain. But the savings for households are predicted to be minuscule. We have what's called power poverty. I'm seeing people who are saying, how can it be that, you know, I'm going to get a miserable 50 cents a week, perhaps, and I'm supposed to applaud that.
Politician
Well, that's just a Labor Party distraction and distortion.
Correspondent
Is that not true?
Politician
That is not true.
Correspondent
So what will they get?
Politician
They will get up to $115 a year saving.
Correspondent
And when they say a couple of hundred dollars, truly, you're out of touch.
Politician
You'd say a couple of hundred dollars reduction in your power bill means a lot to a lot of people. And it's just the start of what we are seeking to do. Under the Labor Party, your bills will go up by hundreds of dollars. That's what the modelling shows. No longer are we allowing the Labor Party to pursue an ideological approach.
Correspondent
You see, they'll hate that politicking. They'll hate you saying that because that's just more politics.
Politician
Well, the reality is that politics is a battle of ideas. Our idea is a national energy guarantee put forward by the experts. It allows for a greater role for renewables. It keeps coal and gas in the system. It makes up for the mistakes of the past. And importantly, it lowers power bills.
Correspondent
For pensioners like Brian and Fay Willett, all this talk doesn't mean much. They still have to tailor their lives around the electricity bill. Thank you. Thank you. Mostly it means meals are basic and require little cooking. Today it's a bread roll, leftovers salvaged from the local bakery. One thing we need to do is make sure we keep the curtains shut because that's going to keep the heat out. You live your life around trying to keep that power price down.
Commentator
Yeah, I've never really thought of it like that, but yes, that'd be pretty right. What do you do through winter? We did not use the heater once. We tend to use blankets. Put on two pairs of socks instead of one or wear the Ugg boots.
Correspondent
It's stuff I presume that before you took for granted.
Commentator
To some ways it feels like survival rather than living. It seems strange that life is becoming much harder as we get older.
Correspondent
More than ever, Australians are struggling to pay for their power. A record number of families are on hardship plans or deferred payments. And the rate of disconnections in most states has risen sharply. For Elon Musk learning of this growing power, poverty is overwhelming. Cost of power is making it almost a luxury item.
Elon Musk
Wow, really? I don't realize it's that expensive. Australia has so many natural resources. I mean, even if you go the fossil fuel route, the electricity should be very cheap.
Correspondent
There are Australians today wondering if they can even turn on their lights. There are Australians today wondering, well, should we go without some food?
Correspondent
That's just not something you would ever expect.
Elon Musk
I did not expect that.
Industry Representative
Hmm.
Correspondent
For Musk, it's frustrating because for him the solution is so simple and in abundance. In Australia, the whole point of renewable energy is to make for a cleaner environment and frankly, save the planet. The majority of scientists are emphatic that we're witnessing dramatic climate change and not to fully embrace renewable energy is suicide.
Elon Musk
It's necessarily true that we will live on renewables. It's just a question of when. In fact, it's in the definition that if it's not renewable, that means it's going to run out at some point and we'll have the choice of cost, collapse of civilization and into the dark ages ago, or find something that is renewable.
Correspondent
So all of this is about saving ourselves?
Correspondent
Coming up now.
Correspondent
Now, the billion dollar energy business in our own backyard. It's like hidden gold, isn't it?
Industry Representative
They call it the, the new oil
Correspondent
and how to slash your electricity bill.
Elon Musk
The battery will serve as an inspiration really to the whole world. This is possible.
Correspondent
That's next on 60 Minutes. As Australians struggle to keep the lights on, there's a billion dollar energy business buried in our own backyard. Lithium ion batteries and their ability to store renewable energy have emerged as a massive international best seller. And for Australia, that's great news.
Operator
Controller is now armed. If you hold down both of those fire buttons and don't forget to look up, then the shot will initiate.
Operator
Yep, firing now. Well done.
Industry Representative
Well, Liz, what you just fired, in three months, that'll be in China. In six months, that'll be in a battery.
Correspondent
That's extraordinary. So that, that's, that's a boom.
Industry Representative
Well, that's a bank.
Correspondent
That's a bang. But it's all part of what I think might be a boom. While our politicians, as politicians continue to bicker away about the best way forward, it seems that many investors have already decided where the smart money is. With the insatiable demand for lithium ion batteries has come a new mining boom in Australia. Western Australia is now the world's largest producer of lithium, which means that mines like this one at Mount Marion are not only helping to feed a hungry green energy industry, they're also making a pretty penny. It's not on the scale of iron ore yet, but the lithium industry is creating new wealth and along with it, new mining entrepreneurs. So this is the final product?
Industry Representative
It is. And that'll get trucked and then on a bike.
Correspondent
Chris Reid is the managing director of Neometals, a large lithium mine outside Kalgoorlie. What is the value of the lithium mining industry in Australia?
Industry Representative
Currently, the exports from Western Australia this financial year, we predict will be over a billion Australian dollars.
Correspondent
This is like hitting gold, isn't it?
Industry Representative
Well, it's, they call it the new oil and it is and it might replace it. Absolutely. I mean, half the world's lithium batteries are made in China. Half the lithium production is in China, predominantly off Australian feedstocks. For us, the next step is to
Politician
value add in Australia and make our own batteries.
Industry Representative
Look, I think one day, certainly that can be done.
Correspondent
This, in your opinion, is an electric revolution?
Industry Representative
Yeah, look, absolutely. And it's really the format of the batteries has got bigger. They're going in the phones, they're going in the laptops. Now they're in the electric motorbikes, the cars. And now we're going to. The largest format is renewable energy storage.
Correspondent
In Nevada, America, Elon Musk has a gigafactory pumping out thousands of lithium batteries in a building that only keeps growing. The batteries are to power his electric cars, but also homes, and they're already in use in Australia. So this is it.
Homeowner
This is it. This is the battery.
Correspondent
And how long does it take to charge?
Homeowner
On a nice Sunny Day from 0% charge, it might take a few hours.
Correspondent
In Salisbury, South Australia, Michael and Melissa Powney installed a battery to store the energy produced from their solar panels as part of a trial with their local energy provider. And it immediately won them over when their home was one of the few to come through the storm that blacked out most of the state.
Homeowner
I suppose I didn't realise the impact of the power cut until we came home and I think we confused the neighbours because our lights were the only ones on the street.
Correspondent
Michael and Melissa now have a one year old son, son Theo, and the expanded family means home appliances are in constant use.
Homeowner
The heater more to keep our baby nice and warm over winter.
Correspondent
The dryer because it goes through so much more, clothes and all those sorts
Homeowner
of things and the microwave, just heating up meals and yeah, it was just, you know, I'm not working at the moment, being on maternity leave, so any savings is beneficial.
Correspondent
The couple monitors their power with the latest technology.
Homeowner
We've earned just in this month, $32,
Correspondent
which helps them keep a close eye on costs. Your costs, do you think have been halved?
Homeowner
Absolutely. I think since we've had the solar system in, we would have saved thousands now.
Correspondent
Thousands. Oh, well, I guess you can't imagine what it might be like if you didn't have that battery.
Homeowner
Oh, well, we were seeing electricity bills of over $1,000 before we put the solar in, so I can only imagine what those bills would be looking like now if we hadn't bit the bullet and tried to nip it in the bud when we did.
Commentator
Can you give me an update on that, please?
Correspondent
Despite the government's proposed new energy policy, little will change immediately for Australians grappling with their power bills. And with summer looming, TransGrid CEO Paul Italiano and his staff will also be watching supply.
Grid Operator
So we have a summer peak demand driven by air conditioning. Air conditioning and air conditioning. Cooling is the biggest driver of electricity demand.
Correspondent
So when there is a blackout, do you feel you've failed?
Grid Operator
Yes. Our role is to keep the lights on. That's what we're here to do.
Correspondent
And to keep its customers cool, Transgrid will be depending heavily on coal.
Homeowner
We can run it remotely from both regions.
Correspondent
But Paul Italiano believes it is time we addressed our renewable energy options.
Grid Operator
The amount of sun, wind and wave energy that we have available to us is the envy of the world. That if we properly configured our power system, we could have a substantially greater amount of renewable energy in it. In fact, we could lead the world in renewable energy engineering.
Correspondent
So you can understand why people feel gutted. We are experiencing blackouts and we can barely pay the price. Price.
Grid Operator
No one would argue that what we are doing at the moment is considered successful.
Correspondent
Do you have solar panels?
Correspondent
Shame on you.
Politician
It's a big investment and I've got other priorities at the moment, but certainly I'm watching my power bill regularly.
Correspondent
You must be shocked.
Politician
Yeah. And we've been paying too much.
Correspondent
If Elon Musk had his way, the world would be totally powered by renewables and he'd be colonizing Mars. He is a big picture man with big plans. But it might be his push for the modest lithium battery will prove to be one of the more significant steps in this electric revolution. You have been seen as a catalyst, somebody that is showing, gosh, there is another way, and that's a great thing.
Elon Musk
People in Australia should be proud of the fact that Australia has the world's biggest battery. This is pretty great. And that it will serve as an inspiration really to the whole world as well, to say that this is possible.
Correspondent
Hello, I'm Liz Hayes. Thanks for watching. To keep up with the latest from 60 Minutes Australia, make sure you subscribe to our channel. You can also download the 9Now app for full episodes and other exclusive 60 Minutes content.