It may be possible for a perpetual committee of green bureaucrats to electrify Australia with a vast but flimsy spider-web of power lines connecting consumers to wind turbines, solar panels, lithium batteries and pumped-hydro batteries. In this wonder-world, electric scooters and mini-cars will be mandated and demand rationing will be imposed.
But this costly, ramshackle UN dream-come-true will never be competitive with nearby industries in China, India and Japan using a powerful backbone of reliable low-cost nuclear, coal, gas and diesel power, decorated with bits of green tinsel to placate the energy commissars of the UN.
These Asian tigers will get their coal from Mongolia, Indonesia and South Africa, their oil and gas from the Middle East and their uranium from Asia, Canada and Africa.
To add to the pain of costly and unreliable electricity, the green despots would also close our coal mines, thus slashing export income and state and federal government tax revenue. Australia’s ability to pay for imports or anything else will be greatly reduced.
Viv Forbes, Chairman, The Carbon Sense Coalition, has spent his life working in exploration, mining, farming, infrastructure, financial analysis and political commentary. He has worked for government departments, private companies and now works as a private contractor and farmer.
Viv has also been a guest writer for the Asian Wall Street Journal, Business Queensland and mining newspapers. He was awarded the “Australian Adam Smith Award for Services to the Free Society” in 1988, and has written widely on political, technical and economic subjects.
