Scott Morrison says closing coal power stations will drive up electricity prices. Is he right? | Graham Readfearn

A more unequivocal statement would be hard to come by. But is Morrison right?

Last weekend it emerged that tech billionaire Mike Cannon-Brookes and Canadian asset management company Brookfield had launched their extraordinary takeover bid for energy generator and retailer AGL.

The AGL board knocked the bid back, and now the Cannon-Brookes consortium is weighing up its next steps.

But first, what does Cannon-Brookes want to do?

AGL has three large coal-fired power plants that currently emit about 40.5m tonnes of CO2 a year, according to data from the Clean Energy Regulator.

He says the consortium has $20bn to spend to replace the electricity generated by the coal plants with renewable energy and storage, saying confidently this would lower prices, not lift them.

From a climate change perspective, the broad challenge facing governments around the world is to get off fossil fuels as quickly as possible.