Tim Blair: Time to focus on the war on coal

NOW that we’ll all soon be able to get gay married, maybe it’s time to examine another pressing social issue. Such as how difficult it might be to hold a same-sex wedding ceremony when there’s no electricity, writes Tim Blair.

NOW that we’ll all soon be able to get gay married, maybe it’s time to examine another pressing social issue.

Such as how difficult it might be to hold a same-sex wedding ceremony when there’s no electricity.

After all, nothing would be worse than a sudden blackout at the crucial moment of a solemn same-sex ceremony.

In the confusion of darkness, who knows what accidental betrothals might occur.

A bewildered priest might unintentionally wed a man and a woman.

We live in a curious time, when social progress on one front is occurring simultaneously with raging regression on another.

We’re all for seeing the light on marriage equality and against actual light provided by any sources other than those most costly and unreliable.

Tidemann artwork (with apoloties to K. C. Green)

The war on coal is far more damaging and destructive than any campaign opposing the postal survey on changing the marriage act.

Even if the survey had not returned a substantial Yes vote, gay couples would still have retained every legal right thus far obtained. But the war on coal is diminishing our right to dependable and inexpensive electricity.

It’s taking us back to an era when electricity was a luxury.

Back in the late 1800s, wealthy Sydney households took to installing electricity generators — mainly for novelty evening illumination, since no electrical appliances existed.

A few fancy joints also enjoyed gas-powered ovens and such, while common folk could only hope for an occasional stray beam from the city’s dimly gaslit streets. Coal changed everything.

On July 8, 1904, Lady Mayoress Mrs S.E. Lees turned a key at Sydney’s first power station, a majestic coal-fired apparatus out Pyrmont way.

“I have much pleasure in switching on the electric light for the city of Sydney,” Mrs Lees declared, as the power produced by five mighty Babcock & Wilcox chain grate boilers was sent to 343 street lamps throughout the inner city.

“I trust it will be a boon to the citizens and an encouragement to the enterprise of the City Council.”

Tim Blair. Picture: John Fotiadis

Old lady Lees wouldn’t have such an easy time of it if she tried to pull a similar earth-dooming stunt in 2017.

She’d likely be slapped silly by Adani mine antifa and other progress opponents. God only knows what might happen if the Lady Mayoress volunteered her opinions on Middle Eastern country shoppers and any same-sex shenanigans.

More than a century after that brilliant breakthrough, Mrs Lees’s grand democratisation of power is under threat. As every household and business in NSW is aware, average electricity bills keep growing and growing.

They are running way ahead of inflation and wage increases. If power bills were Australian Test scores, we’d never need to regain the Ashes. England wouldn’t get near us.

Among other factors, the surge in power charges is driven by the continuing rush to renewables, which must be a great comfort for those already enduring debt-related blackouts.

In the name of saving the planet, we’re sending Australians to the wall. Let’s celebrate, equality fans: those suffering electricity debt are from all faiths and backgrounds. They’re just poor.

Well, that’s the price you pay for following fashion. Coal may be as cheap and effective as always but, as any renewable energy enthusiast will tell you, it’s so 1904.

Back in electricity’s earliest Sydney era, evening illumination led to unanticipated changes in style. With faces so much clearer to the eye, ladies of the time “had to learn new make-up techniques,” historian Sandra Jobson noted in a speech marking the centenary of Sydney electricity.

“Fashions changed too because of the brighter light. Shot taffeta became all the rage because it reflected the new electric light.”

They’ll be dolled up in hi-vis vests and phosphor face paint this summer if feared power outages occur. Down in Victoria, the state Labor government is planning to follow South Australia’s lead by running diesel generators in order to prop up the electricity network.

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Nothing says “clean green future” quite like fossil-fuelled generators, such as can be heard chugging away outside your poorer African villages.

And once were heard from the parlour rooms of 19th-century Sydney toffs. Over in Germany, lumpenfrau chancellor Angela Merkel is distracted from her attempt to convert Germany into Lakemba with lederhosen by a similarly ruinous renewables program.

“In electric generating capacity,” the Wall Street Journal reports, “renewables are now running almost even with traditional fuel sources.

“Yet much of that capacity is wasted — only one-third of Germany’s electricity is actually generated by renewables. Berlin has invested heavily in wind and solar power that is easiest to generate in parts of Germany that need the power the least, especially the north. Berlin will need to spend another huge sum building transmission lines to the industrial south.

“The other costs relate to providing electricity when the wind doesn’t blow and the sun doesn’t shine, which is often in Germany. The traditional plants needed to fill in the gaps are overwhelmingly fired by coal, on which Germany still relies for roughly 40 per cent of its power.”

Good old coal to the rescue. Still, just as soon will be the case in Australia, same-sex marriage is legal in Germany. So there’s that. Too bad we’re headed for the dark ages on everything else.