Abbott orders the wind to stop

To go by profits, circulation and stock price, few with more intelligence than marquee Fairfax Media columnists, which is to say the vast bulk of Australians, can now be bothered diving into the bizarro universe of an editorial cadre determined to present the world as they would wish it, not as ex-readers who must endure the costs and consequences of Age and SMH opinionistas’ pet and ceaselessly promoted causes know it to be. Inspired by Energy Minister Josh Frydenberg’s latest contortion to lower power prices without ruffling the rent-seekers living large on renewable subsidies, opinion page solon Peter Hartcher this morning addresses the National Energy Guarantee and informs his paper’s few readers of the winning record of wind farms and solar sites:

… this week the Green Energy Markets’ project-tracking database concluded that projects already built, under way or subject to tender would add 9691 megawatts of renewable energy. In other words, Australia’s electricity sector has already beaten its anticipated [Paris] target 12 years ahead of time.

Well how about that, all of 9691 megawatts of clean, green, Gaia-loving electricity! Trouble is, that figure exists on paper and only on paper, not at the socket in your skirting board — not reliably or even often, at any rate.

A click on the chart atop this post will render it large enough to examine in explicit detail the actual sources of Australia’s electricity as of five o’clock on Friday. Go here and you can check how badly renewables are doing at any given moment. As Hartcher would have you believe the wind’s failure to blow is yet more of Tony Abbott’s perfidy, there is little point in embedding a link to his latest column. It would only encourage him.

Rather, visit Andrew Bolt’s blog via this link or the one below and read his summation of a speech delivered last night by Kevin Andrews. The theme of that address: Liberals have lost the voters’ confidence.

At the top of the list of people’s concerns are population increases and energy sustainability. Faced with congested roads, inadequate public transport, high housing prices and soaring electricity costs for individual households and businesses, Australians want government to provide clear responses to these challenges.

They are bewildered at the disconnect between national policies for example, to increase immigration, and the struggle of the states and territories to build vital infrastructure. They are dismayed by governments that refuse to use the vast reserves of coal and gas we possess – and sell to other countries – while subsidising unreliable, costly renewables with billions of dollars.

Oh, by the way and worth noting are Hartcher’s companions in Abbott-bashing. The notion that the Frydenberg NEG is a thing of exquisite intelligence and great commercial beauty is everywhere today, along with the meme that Abbott is out to wreck it for no better reason that sheer bloodymindedness.

One can guess the PM’s handlers were working the phones yesterday, with the punditocracy’s hacks keen as ever to take their calls and, of course, their dictation.

— roger franklin

Read More