The Clean Energy Debate: New Sky News documentary lifts the lid on renewable energy

A new Sky News documentary will lift the lid on renewable energy, and reveal why nuclear power is the answer to Australia’s energy challenges.

Getting up close and personal with Australia’s energy challenge is a fascinating and daunting experience. That is what I have done over the past few months, visiting sites, and talking to experts about the energy and climate goal of net zero green house gas emissions by 2050.

Activists and politicians often tell us this will be an easy task, full of “green jobs”.

But they are spinning a big lie – on current technology, using renewable energy and storage, it simply cannot be done.

Peering up at wind turbines you hear the blades cut the air and the generators whirr. But other times they stand motionless, silenced in the doldrums, producing not a volt of electricity.

On the edge of the Hay Plain you can squint across a million gleaming panels at Australia’s largest solar farm. But as the landscape turns crimson at sunset, the panels are done for the day.

A reactor – used for research and nuclear medicine – has operated safely at Lucas Heights, on the southern fringe of Sydney suburbia for seven decades. Picture: Supplied

People love renewable energy, and why not? If we could power our electricity-hungry lives on endless, clean sunshine and wind, we would not want to bother with anything else.

But take an evening ferry to Sydney’s Darling Harbour, walk Melbourne’s Southbank after dinner or watch sunset in Perth’s Kings Park, and the lights of the cities tell you our thirst for energy is relentless, day and night. We expect power when we need it, and renewables just are not reliable.

The only renewable power that is not intermittent is hydro. But you need mountains and plentiful water, which is fine for New Zealand or Norway, but in Australia, apart from Tasmania and the Snowy scheme, hydro just will not cut it.

And batteries are not the answer. We could spend $19 billion building more than 200 of those “world’s biggest” batteries that they built in South Australia, and it would power our national grid for just one hour.

Sky News anchor Chris Kenny at Lucas Heights. Picture: Supplied

To see how much the world needs and values energy I went to the Hunter Valley and Newcastle where mines, trains, conveyor belts, and ships work relentlessly to export 160 million tonnes of coal a year, fuelling China, South Korea and Japan.

As if to highlight the futility of climate gestures, the port infrastructure runs on 100 per cent renewable energy – probably saving the amount of emissions produced by a couple of dozen of the 1.6 million railway trucks of coal they shift annually.

So, what is the answer? Well, it is literally under our noses.

Australia also exports uranium, and it generates enough emissions-free power overseas to make up for our annual carbon emissions. Yet we refuse to use this safe, reliable and emissions-free energy ourselves.

A reactor – used for research and nuclear medicine – has operated safely at Lucas Heights, on the southern fringe of Sydney suburbia for seven decades. We plan to run nuclear submarines too; so our aversion to nuclear energy defies logic.

If we want reliable energy without greenhouse gas emissions, nuclear is the answer. I have spoken to prominent environmentalists here and overseas who have come to that conclusion.

Going Nuclear – The Clean Energy Debate hosted by Chris Kenny, airs on Monday October 25 at 8pm AEDST on Sky News Australia.

Originally published as The Clean Energy Debate: New Sky News documentary lifts the lid on renewable energy