Tuesday, June 19, 2012

Renewable Energy has a high concentration of Bunkum


In Australia, at last the Federal Coalition is looking at the underlying cause of the continual hike in electricity prices, which is due to the mandated uptake of Green/Labor energy supply (solar and wind) regardless of cost, to meet the 20% renewable energy target by 2020.

So what's the big rush? Why doesnt the Coalition push to amend the legislation by simply changing the target date to year 2200? This gives another 200 years to develop any technologies, and in the meantime we use cheap power from our huge coal and lignite deposits, which are sufficient to last hundreds of years without looking for more.

Rumblings in the Coalition are increasing on this matter. So far, cautious Tony Abbott, Coalition leader, says that most people saw generating renewable energy as an important issue requiring Government support and subsidy. Therefore the Coalition goes along with this idea. Very true! HOWEVER, when such an important issue as energy generation is based on lies and eco-religious bunkum and is causing enormous and undesirable distortion of the Australian economy, the time has come to be brave and rectify matters. The idea of amending the RET legislation by changing the target date to year 2200 is a gentle way of returning to energy sanity.

2 comments:

  1. Well, actually, as even The Australian will reluctantly point out, the vast majority of the price rise (esp. in NSW) comes from the need to invest in ageing infrastructure. It's a sudden rise over the next few years because prices have been kept artificially low due to a lack of ongoing investment, which means that the companies now need to spend billions upgrading a network that's starting to fall to pieces.

    As "green schemes" have been a part of power bills now for the last decade, why are people screaming about them only now?

    And why is it so wrong to invest in renewable energy resources? Regardless of whether one "believes" in anthropogenic causes of climate change or not, the other side-effects of fossil fuel resources are well documented. Pollution of air, water, and soil; sickness directly related to smog caused by said pollution, mining, degradation of our agricultural land ... and the small fact that resources WILL run out. How selfish does this generation have to be to think "we'll just use it all up because it's just too hard to think of another way of doing things". Selfish, short-sighted, stupid, and lazy.

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  2. Hullo infoaddict
    Thank you for your constructive comments.
    I see no point in building wind farms which at best operate at 30% of rated capacity and because of their intermittant dribble of electricity they have to have 100% backup from conventional power sources which in South Australia is expensive gas and cheap coal.
    Some of the problems are explained in Caldwell's article, "The Myths of Renewable Energy" at http://bit.ly/kQzH7x
    Renewable energy is good stuff at the right price, especially hydropower. Wind and solar power are a great waste of tazpayers money thru subsidies. If this is what you want then go for it, but don't expect everyone else to help you pay for it.
    We have enough coal resources for power production to last several hundred years without looking for more. Modern coal power stations operate with few problems in regard to pollution. Also, CO2 emissions are NOT pollution but valuable free fertilizers for our countryside.
    You can not operate heavy industry with power from renewable energy sources such as wind and solar. These energy sources are best forgotten for the time being, like for the next 100 years.

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