Chris Bowen a great recycler of ‘cheap’ renewable energy claim
If renewable energy is the cheapest form of energy – cheaper than coal, apparently – our bills should be substantially lower, writes Tim Blair.
Opinion
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Credit where it is due. Minister for Energy and Climate Change Chris Bowen is very clearly a devoted recycler.
He’s been recycling words and repeating himself ever since Labor came to power in 2022. Put a microphone anywhere Chris Bowen and you’ll soon hear him say: “Renewable energy is the cheapest form of energy.”
A Sky News report earlier this year even calculated the remarkable rate of Bowen’s renewable repetition:
“A scan of Chris Bowen’s media archives on his ministerial website shows that he has claimed that the cheapest electricity comes from renewable energy at least once a week for the last two years.”
But just because Bowen keeps saying it doesn’t mean that it is true. Far from it, in fact.
As anyone who has regularly received power bills during Labor’s reign, the increased role of renewable energy in our electricity isn’t translating into reduced costs.
If renewable energy is the cheapest form of energy – cheaper than coal, apparently – our bills should be substantially lower than during previous all-coal eras.
But they’re not. And now The Daily Telegraph reports that the real and examined cost of building a renewables-only power grid is more than half a trillion dollars higher than the Albanese government has claimed.
Labor reckons it will cost about $122 billion to replace Australia’s predominantly coal-fired system with mainly solar and wind. But new and impressively detailed analysis from the respected Frontier Economics firm reveals the true cost of a renewable power structure will far more likely be north of $642 billion.
It should be noted that Labor itself has previously used Frontier Economics to model various policies. This summary of Labor’s staggering renewables cost comes from a fully established source.
With Labor’s expenses shown to be wildly excessive, shadow climate change and energy spokesman Ted O’Brien is on the government’s case.
“There has been a deliberate attempt to hide the real cost from the Australian people,” O’Brien told The Daily Telegraph.
Yes. And it isn’t cheap at all.
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