Radical plan proposes power generators pay to close dirty coal competitors

EXCLUSIVE: Academics suggest scheme that would slow sector's emissions without expensive government subsidies or need for carbon price

Power generators would be forced to pay for the closure of a competitor's dirty brown-coal fired plant under a radical plan that could help Australia slow the continued increase in electricity sector greenhouse emissions without a carbon price or expensive government subsidies.

The idea - from Australian National University academics Frank Jotzo and Salim Mazouz - offers the government hope of meeting the long-term emission reduction targets it will promise in Paris and provides the energy sector with a solution to the problem of oversupply that has forced the mothballing or under-use of less polluting types of generation.