Reality and renewables

Environmental

No electricity generator, even the nearly-sanctified intermittent renewables is really clean and green. Intermittent renewables do not cause emissions in operation and are like nuclear in that sense. All generating types require mining to acquire the necessary specialized, critical and scarce minerals and materials for the manufacture of their facilities. This results in environmental degradation, sometimes permanent.

The energy capture requirements of renewables requires a large footprint on land and sea, due to the diffuse nature of the energy being captured. Given that most solar panels are made in China where coal-fired power stations, with emissions, are still being built, their energy being required to manufacture panels and wind turbine parts, so the solar panels and wind turbines are not so clean and green as first appears. For capturing sun or wind, large-scale renewable facilities are in competition directly with other uses of the land, the sea and the spaces above it, including farming, fishing, wildlife welfare and photosynthesis (to store carbon and produce oxygen).There is also the landscape deterioration with solar and wind turbines and long-distance transmission lines. Queensland has banned used solar panels going to landfill, now that the earlier ones are reaching the end of their lives. What will we do with used solar panels that cannot be recycled? Nuclear waste can be a problem, but renewables have their disposal problems too. To discard assessing nuclear out of hand because of its waste disposal problems is just as inconsistent as ignoring the disposal problems with solar panels and wind turbines.

Environmental degradation is the price we have to pay for electricity independently of the type of generator or facilities. Simply dismissing a potential generating source on the basis of environmental damage alone is biased cherry picking, devoid of reason.

Conclusions

Clean, green electricity from sun and wind as a replacement for dirty, polluting, greenhouse-gas-producing brown and black coal is a feel-good thing and is seductive. Sadly, it is divorced from technological and economic reality. Renewables, although they have their niche applications, can lead us along a dangerous path away from reality. The cost to produce electricity just when the sun shines and the wind blows is a cost far, far distant from that in incorporating renewables into an electricity utility. This is a well-hidden cost and perhaps not well understood by many. Attempts to construct an all-renewable electricity utility have failed because of the ruinous capital costs associated with the replication and redundancy of renewable generators required in an attempt to provide electricity on demand. This is entirely due to the weather dependent intermittency of these generators. The renewables enthusiasts do not factor in some or all of the costs arising from intermittency and consequent redundancy when considered in the context of an electricity utility. These costs are easily overlooked but they are very real and change the energy landscape.

The main economic beneficiaries from renewables are the miners, manufacturers and local constructors, not electricity consumers. China manufacturers the most solar panels and perhaps some parts for wind turbines, and use dirty coal as an energy source. No net zero here, in one of the world's most populous countries which produces a significant proportion of global fossil fuel emissions.

Weather dependent intermittent generators cannot produce electricity on demand. Having a number of different intermittent generators and in widely spaced locations partly compensates but increases the costs enormously. Some dispatchable generation is indispensable in a functioning electricity utility. Also, intermittent renewables are not as clean and green as at first appears. Virtue signaling does not improve our living standards nor help reduce global emissions (when we are exporting coal).

Ignoring the limitations of the intermittency of renewables will be costly to the Australian taxpayer. We were promised a $275 reduction in annual electricity costs. Instead we have ongoing increases and inflation. There is no hope of change of policy as there is too much political capital involved. No one ever wants to admit they were wrong, especially as it can affect re-election chances.

What society requires is affordable, dispatchable electricity generators that can be on tap when required, and turned off when not needed, generating carbon-free. At the present state of technology nuclear is the only electricity generating type that meets these conditions. Australia should, without delay, encourage investigation and investment in nuclear options with careful monitoring and regulation, to the betterment of our electricity supply and economic well-being. This is a far better strategy than blindly installing renewables without regard to their financial and environmental costs or effectiveness, especially given the lack of success (all-renewables grid) abroad. It can be seen as an irresponsible waste of taxpayers' money. It would be better invested in hospitals and education than in a renewable energy superpower flop.

The Australian public is being led down a dangerous path with a net zero obsession with renewables. Renewables are not "cheap" nor are they so green. Australia will no longer be the Lucky Country. The proponents of "cheap" renewables will be gone while the taxpayer will continue paying the enormous bill for this folly.