Energy-illiterate leaders exposed on renewables folly

Chris Uhlmann writes in The Weekend Australian: “In an electricity system, the term for a catastrophic event is cascading system failure. It begins with an initial fault, which amplifies through the grid and ends in a widespread blackout. The lights can go out in a minute.” (“The astonishing cost of net zero”, 16-17/11) And that’s what is in store for us on a regular basis under the Albanese government’s plan to have the system dominated by more than 80 per cent of renewables, propped up by a bunch of short-duration batteries and prohibitively expensive pumped hydro within six years.

Uhlmann says electricity is civilisation’s nervous system; without it, everything will collapse. “What is happening,” he says, “is akin to conducting a proof-of-concept experiment on an incubator with a child inside.” Little wonder no other developed country is touching the renewables-plus-storage model with a barge pole. Energy Minister Chris Bowen constantly spins the line that renewables are cheap. But we only have to look at the escalating cost of energy since renewables gained a foothold in the system to know his claim is fraudulent. And the tragedy is that to enable Labor’s intent to have weak, wildly unpredictable, weather-dependent renewables running the show, our coal-fired powered stations are being shut down, despite the fact that for generations they have been delivering supply that perfectly matches demand, every second of every minute, 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

Dale Ellis, Innisfail, Qld

The articles by Bjorn Lomborg, Chris Uhlmann and Chris Kenny in The Weekend Australian more than cover the energy imbroglio in this country. Kenny’s article goes so far as to suggest that Australia will have to go all out on nuclear for reliable, dispatchable power. But I think future baseload power in Australia will be delivered by coal. Why? With Donald Trump in the White House the concepts of global warming leading to imminent extinction will be entirely disregarded.

Fortunately, Australia still has many coal-fired station locations. They’ve all been built with a coal infrastructure, and are connected to the grid accordingly. Moreover there are, as we know, plentiful supplies of coal. Admittedly, many are close to end of life. But if the inordinate amount of money being thrown at other harebrained schemes were directed to this end, we would come up with a practical, pragmatic solution.

Jim Campbell, Fairlight, NSW

Chris Kenny and Chris Uhlmann made much sense on climate change in The Weekend Australian. However, Anthony Albanese’s climate expert, Energy Minister Chris Bowen, seems not to have studied year 8 physics or social science at high school, where the solar system used to be studied and total costs had to be considered. In particular, wind is a very inefficient form of solar energy, let alone the seemingly inexhaustible cost of renewables.

Tony Shannon, Brisbane, Qld

Chris Uhlmann convincingly argues what many of us have known for a long time, that the political class and the bureaucrats who advise them are energy-illiterate, ruled by virtue-signalling not facts. When the person in charge of overseeing the renewables superpower fantasy, Daniel Westerman, argues that a massive 15GW of gas-fired capacity will be required by 2050 to securitise a renewables-dominant grid, only to be contradicted by Energy Minister Chris Bowen, who argues that fossil fuels have no role to play in our energy system, and Climate Change Authority chairman Matt Kean, who argues that people calling for the inclusion of gas are only “trying to stop renewables”, you know that virtue-signalling has taken precedence over pragmatism, with the Australian public being treated as guinea pigs in the most irresponsible and cruel way.

Ron Hobba, Camberwell, Vic

Little has been written about the aspects of renewables that outline the technical aspects of electrical grid stability. In Chris Uhlmann’s article, it talks about the issue of system speed (aka frequency), and emphasises, for the first time I have seen, how critical it is as a measure of stability. There must be a minute-by-minute, watt-by-watt balance between generation and load (whatever the nature of that load). It is a pity our energy ministers have not had to run an electricity grid before they started meddling with it.

Steve Neunhoffer, Geelong, Vic