Busting the urban myth of cheap, clean green energy
When we were growing up as kids, we believed in magic. For example if we put a wisdom tooth under our pillow we would expect the Tooth Fairy would come during the night, take the tooth and replace it with a coin.
As we grew up we discarded such notions as the Tooth Fairy. We also learnt that nothing in life is done by magic, and that there was no such thing as a `free lunch’.
We realised that everything had to be paid for. When dining out and even if I didn’t have to pay for my lunch, especially at the work Christmas Party, someone paid for it – usually my immediate boss or supervisor.
It seems today that some folks believe that renewable energy is environmentally friendly and has a very small carbon footprint –if at all. Many people think because a thing is renewable – especially in terms of power generation – it doesn’t emit CO2 emissions in operation, that it must be –ipso facto - `clean and green’.
Some folks seem seem to think that giant wind turbines and solar panels magically appear and transport themselves from overseas to our country then magically they install themselves at a various of remote locations. These turbines are good for the environment it is alleged.
However Australia imports most of its wind turbines from China, importing these monsters is hurting our balance of trade to begin with. What of manufacturing? A two-megawatt windmill contains 260 tonnes of steel requiring 170 tonnes of coking coal and 300 tonnes of iron ore, all mined and manufactured by fossil fuels.
Then these turbines have to be taken to the docks then shipped by large ships to Australia, then transported to various remote sites around the country.
Turbines in the 1 to 2 MW range typically use 130 to 240 m3 of concrete for their foundation, that’s a mighty lot of concrete. Then there’s the infrastructure, access roads have to be built and power lines erected to link each turbine to the grid.
Then these the ongoing maintenance costs. A gearbox on a turbines usually gets replaced every 18 months.
A coal fired power station lasts about 55 to 60 years on average but the average life of a wind turbine (Europe) is just 12 years. When a turbine has come to the end of its productive life the nacelle has to be re placed, or sometimes they are often left where they stand, or dismantled at great cost and placed in landfill as they can’t be recycled. During their active life wind turbines are destroying wildlife, mostly raptors and bats, and if you happen to live to close to one, there is the incessant problem of noise even if a person lives more than one km away. Wind turbines can only work between certain speeds, usually about 5kms to 60 kms and if the wind is blowing stronger they are switched off.
Are wind turbines pollution free?
Short answer - no. The boom in renewable energy has spawned a serious unintended consequence with the release of large quantities of the world’s most potent greenhouse gas into the atmosphere - Sulphurhexafluoride (SF6).
But it doesn’t seem that if politicians and ardent environmentalists are aware of the huge problem being caused by the move to so called `clean green energy’. The proliferation of wind farms has been the release of large quantities of SF6.
Sulphur hexafluoride is 23,500 times more warming than carbon dioxide and is widely used to make not only wind turbines but solar panels and the switching gear needed to run more complex electricity systems.
The increase of Sulphurhexafluoride in Europe has seen the release of emissions equivalent of putting an extra 1.3 million cars on the road.
Just maybe building more base-load coal fired power stations - might be the best thing for the planet after all.
The warming potential of SF6 was identified in 2008 by Scripps Institution of Oceanography, which said what had been hailed as an environmental success story could turn out to be a public relations disaster for solar.
Scripps says SF6 is difficult to break down and roughly 60 per cent of what goes into a switch’s vacuum chamber ends up in the atmosphere.
The latest research from Britain is that levels of SF6 in the atmosphere are rising as an unintended consequence of the green energy boom. According to the BBC, just 1kg of SF6 warms the Earth to the same extent as 24 people flying Londonto New Yorkreturn. It also persists in the atmosphere for a long time, warming the Earth for at least 1,000 years.
Of course is an environmental impact of green energy, there is no such thing as a free lunch. Wind turbines and solar panels require manufacture usually done in a fossil fuel driven facility and then transported by fossil fuels, not to mention the on going maintenance which involves the use of fossil fuels.
Subsidies
Of course the classic argument is that once up, wind turbines and solar panels supply free energy. Not so fast, both wind and solar energy requires ongoing maintenance and will need to be totally replaced down the track. Currently renewable energy sources such as wind and solar receive subsidies of around $3 billion a year and will do so up to 2030 to ensure Australia reaches its Renewable Energy Target. On a per megawatt hour basis, solar received the largest subsidies with $214, followed by wind on $74, while generation from non-renewable sources such as coal were 30 cents per megawatt hour.*(1)
If all the massive subsidies provided by both State and federal governments were removed, so called green energy would not be cheap and it’s doubtful if companies would build them in the first instance. But because preference is given to renewable power which forces the temporary winding down of base-load power from coal fired power stations (making them uneconomic), and coupled with the massive subsidies paid to install and run them - and only then - does it make economic sense to build and operate renewable energy.
Going down the `green energy’ path will undermine the economic prosperity of Australia. In the years to come the folly of going with renewables (wind and solar –even with batteries) will become manifest and the reality hit home that green energy simply can’t supply the power to run a modern expanding economy.
Let’s be clear, Australiais replacing a proven, reliable `fossil fuel’ base-load power system with a vastly inferior green energy system which can only supply intermittent power. Wind farms operate, at best operates, around 30% of rated capacity. So 70% of the time where is the energy going to come from if all coal fired power plants are retired?
A coal or gas power station has a life of about 50-55 years whereas, wind turbines has a production life of between 7 years (offshore) to 12 years (land) and solar panels of around 20 years.
If people think solar and batteries are the answer, they are mistaken. The truth is any modern economy needs fossil fuel power. Any thought of going Net Zero by 2050 is sheer madness. Are our politician’s crazy?
By going green Australiais sleep walking into economic chaos.
Renewables Verses fossil fuels
In South Australia, $800 million was spent on solar with battery storage which it was stated would deliver an average 37MW of electricity, this compares with the 210MW gas plant currently being built for $295 million.
The total 25 year costs of the SA solar facility are $12.5 billion dollars which includes consumers paying $3.7 billion as subsidies. In contrast, total running costs of the gas plant would be $4 billion with consumers paying zero subsidies directly.
For $4 billion South Australia could have built a 1600MW high efficiency low emission (HELE) coal plant supplying base-load power and with an operational life of 50 years. (Hazelwood was 1600MW)
China, India, Indonesia, Turkey, Japan, and Russia are building hundreds of coal-fired plants but not coal rich Australia because of the millstone we have hung around our necks called the ‘Paris Agreement’.
Fossil fuels supply base-load power unlike wind and solar which only provide only intermittent power-even with battery storage. Therefore going green is not a particularly smart or a desirable thing to do, but before this can be done we have to convince the electorate first.
This country needs to be getting into `fossil fuels’ - NOT getting out of them.
Conclusion
There is no such thing as `clean green energy’. All electrical generation equipment has to be manufactured, transported and then installed somewhere –there are no exceptions. There are no free lunches.
Over one trillion dollars has been spent by nations around the globe on climate change policies with no discernable impact on climate. In the meantime, CO2 levels have continued to rise and contrary to consensus science expectations, temperatures have gone sideways and are in fact declining as we enter Sun cycle 25.
Despite the massive amounts having been spent on renewable energy and climate change mitigation – yet CO2 levels continue to rise (currently (13/4/2022) 420ppm – it was 370ppm back in 2,000).
So why the rush to push the transition to renewable energy? Our naïve politicians have no idea of the negative impact of their renewable energy policies are having on the economy.
In 10 years time when the evidence becomes abundantly clear that the so called `climate emergency’ is finally exposed as a scam and then the dodgy science of global warming will finally be called out, but sadly in the interim billions of dollars will continue to be squandered on trying to achieve the unachievable.
Can mankind really control the climate? Remember the obsequious couriers of King Canute?
De Omnibus Dubitandum” – Question Everything!
