Andrew Bolt: ABC fact-checkers still peddling green fantasies

The ABC has apologised and “corrected” its fact checkers after being exposed by Dick Smith, but they still can’t help but peddle green fantasies.

Thank Dick Smith for exposing the bias of the ABC’s “fact checkers”, but also the lunacy of the politicians and activists demanding we dump coal and go all wind and solar.

Smith, the entrepreneur, threatened to sue the ABC for making him seem a fool for allegedly claiming no country could run an electricity system on just renewable energy – wind, solar and hydro power.

Wrong, raged Smith. He’d meant renewables couldn’t supply all our energy needs, not just electricity.

The ABC has now apologised and “corrected” its fact check, but … uh, oh. It’s still dishonest.

The ABC’s fact checkers were forced to apologise to Dick Smith. Picture: Nikki Short

For instance, it still insists four countries do get “100 per cent” of their electricity from “wind, water and solar” – Albania, Bhutan, Nepal and Paraguay.

Rubbish. Take Nepal. It’s electricity authority says it must “import 30-40 per cent of our electricity needs from India during the dry season”. That’s coal-fired power.

Nepal also has so many blackouts that 64 per cent of industries have diesel generators. Some 21 million Nepalese need wood or dried dung to cook.

That’s our green future?

The ABC fact-check does say, wait, California is like Australia, and as of last week it’s “been running on more than 100 per cent (wind-water-solar) for 10 out of the last 11 days for between 0.25 and 6 hours per day”.

Er, and for the rest of the time? It relied on nuclear power and fossil fuels. But needing all that backup is why renewables cost so much. California has the third most expensive electricity of America’s 50 states.

Professor Lesley Hughes is on the Climate Change Authority advising Energy Minister Chris Bowen. Picture: Martin Ollman

If only just ABC fact-checkers peddled such green fantasies. But enter the Climate Council, with a new report claiming we need an electricity supply that’s 94 per cent renewables in just six years. Easy!

It says we just – just? – have to, say, build lots more wind and solar plants, phase out coal, oil and gas; install 2 million household batteries; limit car use; cram most new homes into existing suburbs; remove gas connections; ban new petrol cars by 2035; and somehow make green hydrogen work.

Nowhere in the report’s 84 pages, does the Climate Council say how much all this would cost, or what difference this colossal spending and disruption would make to the climate. Which is about zero.

To the punchline: one of the council’s directors, Professor Lesley Hughes, is also on the Climate Change Authority advising Energy Minister Chris Bowen. How frightening. 

Originally published as Andrew Bolt: ABC fact-checkers still peddling green fantasies