Long Term Future of Santos, page-279

Here is an idea. How about people use less power. It doesn’t matter if it comes from fossil fuels or renewables the issue is the continual growth in consumer demand for power. There is a law of physics that states that energy can not be created or destroyed it can only change form. Heat is a by-product of most energy consumption processes. Energy consumption efficiency will never be 100% no matter what the source. The consumption of resources to provide renewable energy products is significant and has an environmental impact as well. Mining for materials for solar panels, batteries, gear box oil in the wind turbines, the list can go on. Who is going to clean up the mess when all these renewable energy products need to be disposed or recycled as they become inefficient and costly to maintain, they don’t last forever. Commercialisation of recycling is a big issue and gets no real focus or government policy support. The collapse of Redcycle is a good example. There is very little commercially viable recycling processes to handle the waste. You can collect it but if you can’t commercially process it in quantity you have a big problem. If you want to lobby somewhere, lobby for companies like RAN and LIT who are trying to develop a sustainable business model for recycling. These companies like others before will go broke if things don’t change to support these businesses. So in my view we are just moving the problem around with no progressive thought on a real sustainable future that addresses all the issues. It should be noted that fossil fuel companies are also on their own energy transformation path and have made significant investment in alternative energy sources for greener product and next generation energy supply. Energy transition will take time to get sorted end to end and everyone needs to be working together to get there.