No Good Ideas, Please, We're Australian - Screechingly Insane Responses To Divestment Efforts
Any time someone comes up with a progressive idea in Australia – especially if it is about climate change or clean energy – it doesn’t take long for them to get shouted down by the extraordinarily conservative mainstream media. Pity those whose arguments or actions somehow go against the coal industry. Take the recent declaration by South Australia that it intends to go to 50 per cent renewable energy by 2025, or even the decision by the ANU investment fund to dump some resource stocks from its portfolio.
The South Australia decision was completely uncontroversial, and mostly symbolic. It had, after all, already reached its previous target of 33 per cent renewables by 2020 six years early, and its 50 per cent target by 2025 will likely depend on a national RET staying in place. It is just as likely that it would get there by rooftop solar additions alone. But that didn’t stop the conservatives railing against it – over the assumed costs (South Australia has enjoyed the greatest fall in wholesale prices over the last few years, much to the chagrin of the local fossil fuel generators). The local paper complained, the local shock jock quoted some economist who said there would be so many wind turbines they would need to be spaced further apart. That was about the height of their argument.
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This, as one observer noted, puts it right up there with the Terry McCranns of the world. How dare the Greens be right about anything! The idea that coal is the only answer to energy poverty is the centerpiece of the coal lobby’s advertising campaign. Even Australia’s environment minister says anyone who disagrees is “against electricity”. It is about the only argument the fossil fuel industry has going for it, but it is a deeply flawed argument, challenged by reality.
Parity for new-build renewables is not decades away, it is now – and especially so at the “socket”, which is what consumers really care about. It is simply a matter of providing the finance (something coal has obviously been singularly unable to do for the past century or these people would not be without power). Even the conservative International Energy Agency admits renewables will be the better, cheaper and quicker way to deliver electricity to those 300 million without it, given they can do it at low cost and without the massive infrastructure. Furthermore, the IEA says coal will play an ever decreasing role – and in some of its scenarios, coal will simply not be used. The cost of this? An extra $44 trillion in upfront costs – offset by $115 trillion of fuel savings.
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http://reneweconomy.com.au/2014/no-progressive-ideas-please-were-from-team-australia-20983
