Well, I’ll be buttered on both sides! The ABC is almost telling the truth about “renewables”!
No, they’re not telling the truth about the massive pollution in developing countries caused by mining and manufacturing components for windmills and solar panels. And no, they’re not telling the truth about the complete inadequacy of wind and solar to meet the energy demands of even a moderately advanced economy. Nor are they telling the truth about the devastation wreaked on natural vegetation and wildlife by wind and solar farms.
None of these inconvenient truths is about to trouble the consciousness of an ABC luvvie. Our billion-plus a year of taxes can’t buy that sort of honesty.
But, for the first time in living memory, the ABC is actually, kinda-sorta, almost, admitting that “renewables” are ruinously costly.
Australian consumers have been told to brace for big hikes in their power bills after a watchdog revealed the true costs of overhauling the grid to deal with the renewable energy transition.
Do you mean, “renewables” are going to send power bills skyrocketing, the same as they have everywhere else? Whodathunkit? It’s almost as if, like socialism, you don’t get different results no matter how many times you try the same thing.
Why do they cost so much? It’s not just that wind and solar are spectacularly inefficient means of generation. It’s because their inherent unreliability places enormous — and costly — stresses on grids that are designed to run on steady input power. Renewables which spike and then sag back to a bare minimum of supply cause grids to rapidly break down.
Hence why regions with significant renewables penetration are plagued with, not just horrendous increases in power prices, but frequent blackouts.
Economic Regulation Authority chairman Steve Edwell […said] it was also a sign of what was to come around the country, where poles-and-wires companies face a race against time and a huge increase in costs to make sure they can keep up with the energy transition.
I’m pretty sure we all know how it’s going to pan out.
In just WA alone, meanwhile, consumers will have to shoulder the cost of at least an extra billion dollars, just to shore up the grid in that state.
But even that isn’t enough for the renewables troughers.
Matt Rennie, a partner at Brisbane-based renewable energy consultancy Rennie Partners, said he agreed with the need for increased spending on networks but doubted the ERA’s decision went far enough.
“It means there is a cost to climate change. And it means there is a cost to global electrification. But these costs can’t be avoided.”
ABC Australia
Of course, they can be avoided: stop this lunatic rush for inefficient, exorbitantly expensive “renewables”, all in the name of a “crisis” which doesn’t exist.
But then, how would troughers get their hands on all that sweet, sweet money?