Opinion
One of the signs of cultist thinking is the ability to fervently believe any number of obviously contradictory ideas at once. For instance, that a cult leader is an all-knowing prophet, while at the same time his or her consistently failed prophecies are still true. When it comes to cultist thinking, the Climate Cult is leaving even the looniest Moonie in their dust.
For instance, we’re constantly hectored that the world is rapidly “de-carbonising”, that even China is rapidly “transitioning” to “renewables” which don’t produce evil greenhouse gases, for a cheaper cost than fossil fuels. At the same time, we’re finger-wagged that greenhouse gas levels are surging to perilous levels — while our electricity bills just keep skyrocketing. If the cultists were right, neither should be happening. Yet, there they are.
Another obfuscation is the phrase ‘Levelised Cost of Energy’, used to suggest that solar and wind are cheaper, but this is true only when they are producing electricity in optimum conditions, for example when the sun is shining and there are no clouds, and when the wind is blowing at the right speed. LCoE calculations do not mention the subsidies, without which the house of cards would collapse. Nor do they tell you that on top of the subsidies, your electricity bill includes the inescapable cost of all the different back-ups needed to keep power flowing 24/7, instead of around 40 per cent at best – with back-up provided at the moment by fossil fuel-powered generators which they want to close ASAP. Adding more renewables does nothing to keep the lights on at night when there is no wind, so where will the back-up come from then?
Besides the eye-watering cost, both financial and environmental, of building vast fields of glass and aluminium, and whirling blades of bird-death, there is the even more staggering cost of building an entirely new grid for it all. This is because “renewables” tend to be built a long way away from where the electricity is needed (and conveniently out of the sight of the inner-city Greens and Teal voters).
Then there is another, much better-hidden cost problem – the low energy density per square metre of the land required to capture the discontinuous and diffuse energy from the sun and wind. Rates are chargeable on the land area occupied. But with renewables, the cost is carefully massaged out of view. To illustrate, let’s compare solar, wind and nuclear power generation land use.
Hinkley Point nuclear power station in the UK is rated at 3.2 GW and covers 430 acres (174 hectares), whereas the equivalent power-producing solar factory would cover 130,000 acres (52,600 hectares) and an equivalent land-based wind installation would need 250,000 acres (100,000 hectares), not including the land needed for the power grids to get the electricity to market.
Hinkley Point, like any nuclear plant, can produce >90 per cent of its rated output 24/7; solar panels can average around 20 per cent of their land-rated capacity – when the sun shines – while wind turbines can produce up to 50 per cent of their land-rated capacity when the wind blows at the optimum rate. You don’t need even basic maths to tell you that on a ‘power output per day, per acre of land’ basis, renewables are a non-starter.
Strangely, too, the green ninnies who yammer endlessly about “reduce, re-use, recycle” and the wickedness of “planned obsolescence” forget all of that when it comes to their sainted “renewables”.
A nuclear, coal or gas fired power station will easily last for 60 years but solar panels, which can be destroyed by hail, will be lucky to last for 20, and where will the old panels go? As for turbine blades, again 20 years seems to be the lifespan. They are disposed of by cutting them up and burying them in fields.
The Climate Cult also like to bang on about the “environmental cost” of fossil fuels. If a single kangaroo gets squashed by a mining truck, there they are, chaining their little selves to the mine gate.
Yet, wind farms in Tasmania are licensed to kill dozens of endangered wedge-tail eagles, every year. Without nary a peep of protest (to his credit, hoary green Jeremiah, Bob Brown, has recently cottoned on that wind farms may not be that great after all). But Brown, like the rest of the Cult, is all-but silent on the vast swathes of bushland being bulldozed to make way for “renewables”.
They say it is the price we must pay to save the planet, but will the planet be liveable when so much pristine wilderness has been lost? Yes, under certain circumstances, sheep may safely graze under solar panels where soil moisture is retained and the grass is greener, but these are very small exceptions and do nothing to reduce the cost of power derived from such an unreliable, intermittent source.
The Conservative Woman
But, hey, how else are they supposed to charge their EVs with a clean conscience?