Essay by Eric Worrall
First published JoNova; If you fell for the government propaganda that renewables are the cheapest form of energy, the Guardian will help set you straight.
Here’s the truth: energy transition is hard. Not everyone gets a pony
Peter Lewis
Jobs will change, communities will be affected, but we have a shot at rising to the challenge of global heating
The climate crisis has long been defined by its lies: From the original sin of science denial, to Tony Abbott’s confected carbon tax panic, to the latest yellowcake straw man. But the most damaging porky of all might be that the transition to renewable energy will be easy.
Government messaging has propagated this myth, vacillating between the torpid technocracy of targets, acronyms and megawatt hours and the sunny spin that promises “a cheaper, cleaner energy future!”.
Both gloss over the hard truth that fundamentally changing the way Australia produces, shares and uses energy is hugely disruptive, particularly in the regions where new infrastructure is earmarked for land and sea.
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When asked to rank energy sources in order of cost, renewables are rated the most expensive. Fossil fuels are seen as a cheaper solution, while nuclear is preferred by those who don’t support the transition anyway.
These findings are hardly surprising, the result of higher electricity bills as global prices for fossil fuels soar. Energy companies, like all big corporations, clip the inflation ticket and roof-top solar incentives are phased out.
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When US president JFK announced the project to reach the moon within a decade in 1962, he famously proclaimed he was doing things “not because they are easy, but because they are hard”.
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Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/apr/23/renewable-energy-transition-australia-labor-government-net-zero
Peter Lewis kind of glosses over the fact The Guardian has been doing its own myth propagation when it comes to the cost of renewables;
The cheapest reliable energy system to meet Australia’s climate targets? Solar and wind, no question
Graham Readfearn
Fri 1 Sep 2023 11.39 AESTThere has been a lot of commentary about how to measure the cost of renewables – but much of it misses the point
If you’ve been reading or watching any rightwing media of late, you will have heard some extraordinary claims being made about the cost of renewable energy and the transition away from fossil fuels.
The opposition’s energy spokesperson, Ted O’Brien, suggested the Labor government could be “wilfully lying” about the “true cost” of the energy transition, while others have questioned the evidence that solar and wind are the cheapest forms of power.
In the Australian, two columns claimed to have uncovered a fatal flaw in how the cost of solar and wind gets compared with coal, gas and the currently-illegal nuclear.
There is a lot to unpick – but not because any true scandal has been uncovered.
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The LCOE metric shows clearly that solar and onshore wind are easily the cheapest forms of electricity right now. But Lehmann, and critics she quotes, say it’s misleading because it does not account for the cost of adding transmission lines and storage to the grid that enable those renewables.
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Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/commentisfree/2023/sep/01/the-cheapest-reliable-energy-system-to-meet-australias-climate-targets-solar-and-wind-no-question
A little humility, a mea culpa, I mean I would have accepted an apology from The Guardian for sometimes unintentionally misleading readers.
But I doubt we’ll get any of that from The Guardian. They seem to be set on sailing straight from singing the praises of “the cheapest reliable energy system”, to blaming misconceptions about the cost of renewables on lying politicians.
And that talk of moonshots – that certainly doesn’t sound like the cheapest option.
I wonder how green politicians feel about being thrown under a bus by journalists?
We’re never going to find out, because at the rate this political transformation is going, pretty soon it’s going to be difficult to find any politician who admits they supported renewable energy. Renewables will turn out to be a ghastly mistake, which nobody was responsible for.
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