Bolt: Albo’s $1bn bet on solar panels destined to be another green failure

Anthony Albanese has never run a business in his life - but he is spending $1bn of your money to conquer the world with what’s set to be another green failure.

Anthony Albanese has never run a business in his life, but last Thursday announced he’d spend another $1 billion of your money to conquer the world in making solar panels.

So there was our prime minister in the Hunter Valley, touting a new Australian-made SunDrive solar panel he was sure would be snapped up by a grateful world, thanks to his new Sunshot Solar schemes of handouts and cheapo loans.

“When you have the best product, most efficient in the world, for something that will grow in demand, then we are very, very confident,” Albanese declared.

Hmm. If it’s such a sure thing, why does SunDrive need taxpayer help? Surely its mega-rich private investors – like multi-billionaire Mike Cannon-Brookes and ex-prime minister Malcolm Turnbull – have the cash themselves to pull it off?

Or, uh oh, maybe not. Just hours before Albanese promised to back solar panel makers and make us “a renewable energy superpower”, US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen warned China was already flooding the world with more cheap solar panels than we could buy.

In fact, the International Energy Agency reckons twice as many solar panels are now being made – mostly by China – than the world is using. Stockpiles are soaring, prices are plummeting, and the world’s biggest solar panel maker, China’s Longi Green Technology Energy Co, announced a week ago it would cut a third of its workers.

Anthony Albanese’s got this vain idea he is a planet saver and a great businessman. Picture: NCA Newswire /Gaye Gerard

So it’s exactly now that Albanese sinks another $1 billion into making solar panels in Australia?

I get that sinking feeling, even before I think about the other $40 billion Albanese has promised to build more green tech in Australia.

How often have we seen this circus, when a prime minister gets this vain idea he’s not just a great businessman, but a planet saver?

History should already have warned Albanese his Sunshot Solar scheme could well turn out to be yet another green failure.

Look how the Howard Government backed a wave-generator off Port Kembla, to make electricity from the energy of waves, only to have towed away as scrap.

Check how the Rudd Government spent $4 million on another wave generator, which promptly sank off South Australia, bankrupting the company that had trousered our cash.

That’s the danger when governments get into business. They struggle to separate their ideology and political agenda from the simple maths of profit and loss.

How many more examples do you want? Labor also backed a wave generator meant to power our biggest naval base, HMAS Stirling.

Anthony Albanese is giving $1bn of taxpayer money to SunDrive. Picture: NCA Newswire /Gaye Gerard

That went bung, too, despite $12 million from the federal government and nearly $16 million from the West Australian one to turn Albany into “a hub of renewable energy expertise”.

What suckers Labor are for green carpetbaggers, selling everything from “cheap” solar to miracle green hydrogen – as long as they get a handout.

The Rudd Government even believed former Chief Climate Commissioner Tim Flannery when he claimed we could “run Australia’s economy for the best part of a century” on geothermal power, by drilling down into the hot rocks at Innamincka and making steam.

It tipped in $90 million after Flannery promised “the technology to extract that energy and turn it into electricity is relatively straightforward”. Alas, it wasn’t and the project collapsed.

In fact, Albanese only had to look at the man standing next to him last Thursday, Energy Minister Chris Bowen, to realise his government isn’t great at tipping green winners.

A year and a half ago, Bowen posed next to a huge electric ute, Ford’s F-150 Lightning, to gloat he’d soon be getting Australians to buy it.

The F-150 was “hugely popular in America”, he posted, and “has a range of around 500km, can tow boats & caravans & goes like you wouldn’t believe”.

Reality check: its range is under 470km, and only for the expensive Extended Range model. Worse, the range halves if you tow a double-axle camper. Worse still, this model costs around $110,000, or 50 per cent more than the top-range HiLux, which goes twice the distance and takes just five minutes to refuel, not 45.

Anthony Albanese and Chris Bowen announcing the $1bn of taxpayer money to make solar panels. Picture: NCA Newswire /Gaye Gerard

Consumers have now worked that out, too. On the very day Bowen was helping Albanese spruik their new solar panel, Ford announced it was slashing the number of workers at the factory building Bowen’s pet Ford F-150 Lightning. Its car union said production would be cut by two thirds.

So my advice? When Albanese and Bowen flog some green scheme, hold on to your wallet.

Oh, wait. Too late. They’ve helped themselves to it already.

Originally published as Bolt: Albo’s $1bn bet on solar panels destined to be another green failure