Transition From Coal to Wind and Solar Energy is Pure Science Fiction

Whether it’s 50% or 100% as the wind and solar target, the reality strikes after sunset on a breathless evening, when neither are contributing anything at all.

As NSW One Nation Leader Mark Latham puts it, the concept of an inevitable transition from coal to sunshine and breezes – being peddled by Labor as rock solid economic policy – is pure Science Fiction.

No industrial economy has powered itself on sunshine and breezes; no country ever will. So just how Australia is meant to defy the odds is a mystery that even Professor John Robinson and the gang on Alpha Centauri would struggle to resolve.

NSW One Nation Leader Mark Latham says Labor’s policy concerning the sourcing of electricity through renewable energy was “science fiction”.

Mr Latham said how does opposition leader Anthony Albanese plan to “keep the lights on” when he is against nuclear energy, coal, and gas.

“Battery storage is still 10-40 times too expensive to be effective in the Australian context… This stuff is mega expensive and mega-unreliable,” he said.

Mr Latham told Sky News host Paul Murray “Labor stands for de-industrialisation and blackouts, he said”.

Sky News Host Rita Panahi said “in December [Mr Albanese] came out and said he was backing coal” and this year he has compared coal to “fantasy land” and “unicorns”.

Paul Murray:  Let’s talk about each way Albo, having yet another each way when it comes to coal. Roll his chat with Aunty Fran today.

Fran Kelly: You’ve just said what we need is a transition to a clean energy economy. If it’s stacked up, if industry was prepared to back it, would a Labor government support it, allow it?

Anthony Albanese: You may as well ask me, Fran, if I support unicorns because, because that’s a fact. No, no, Fran.

Fran Kelly: No, no but I’m actually, no, no. This is important because do you have a position on this?

Anthony Albanese: Fran. We have a position, which is, it does not stack up. It will not proceed. It doesn’t stack up. No private-sector operator … Fran, right now there is nothing to stop a private sector operator establishing a coal-fired power plant.

Fran Kelly: I understand-

Paul Murray: Honestly, he does have a position. It’s every position, Mark.

Mark Latham: Well, I’m sure there are hundreds of thousands of Australians who either work in the coal industry or their communities are reliant on coal income will be delighted to hear that they’re like a unicorn and somehow they’re mythical in the eyes of the alternative prime minister. But you’d have to wonder for Albanese, how do you keep the lights on. You see, because he’s against nuclear, he’s against coal, he’s against gas. Labor’s policy in New South Wales and Victoria is banning gas. So, all they’ve got left is renewables.

Now inspired by this and knowing it’s been a bit overcast and rainy in New South Wales in recent days, this morning I went to the website to find out what was actually powering up the economy. What kept my toaster going, what kept the TV going, what turned on the lights in a darkened room and it was 93% black coal, 4% hydro, 2% wind and zero solar. So, for Albanese, he had 6% of the energy supply coming from the one source that he’s relying into the future, renewables.

Now, you’ve got to understand that we’re dealing with science fiction here because this is the riskiest, dumbest thing you could ever do. To put all your eggs in the renewables basket and think this could power up a modern industrial economy. Already, Tomago, the aluminium smelter in the Hunter Valley have said they can’t survive without coal-fired power. We know from the words of the Australian worker’s union that there are businesses saying they couldn’t come to Australia because we can’t guarantee electricity supply. So, we are deindustrializing already and Albanese would make it a lot worse.

But the science fiction comes from a reliance that renewables, where the sun’s not shining, you haven’t got solar, when the wind doesn’t blow, you haven’t got wind power, that somehow battery storage will be viable. There was an analysis on the left-leaning Mandarin website that pointed out that battery storage is still 10 to 40 times too expensive to be effective in the Australian context.

Paul Murray: Correct.

Mark Latham: And the head of AGL, that’s sort of swallowed the renewables GI cordial, said that if you went to full battery storage, renewable energy supply in Australia, you would need 350,000 shipping containers, those big shipping containers, full of batteries and if you’d … these are his words, if you laid them out from Sydney to Perth, they’d go all that way and then into the Indian Ocean.

So, this stuff is mega expensive, mega unreliable. It’s science fiction and this is a blind leap of faith by a Labor Party, that used to represent workers but now stands for deindustrialization and blackouts. And one thing we do know, you can ignore totally Joel Fitzgibbon’s words because he must have no influence on the Labor Party because his leader’s now saying, “No future for coal.” And last year the deputy leader Richard Marles said he would celebrate the collapse of the global coal market.

So, Fitzgibbon counts for nothing, his rhetoric is all about his own seat and he only got active once he thought he’d lose that seat.

Paul Murray: 100%.

Mark Latham: And the Labor policy is the worst thing that could ever happen to the Australian economy.

Paul Murray: But see, yeah, Rita, I don’t know what Mark’s talking about, the host of The Bachelor said that the current technology is like an old Nokia and we should be transitioning to an iPhone. And that makes perfect sense to me. Even though the iPhone doesn’t actually do the job of the Nokia, if that analogy is real.

Rita Panahi: Well, that is quite profound. I think people who are just on the fence from hearing that analogy have completely changed their minds. Thank God, the ABC gave that very, very smart man a platform to preach that nonsense, which you know, he would have preplanned and thought of each line out and practised it. For the love of God. What I just don’t understand with Albo, I want to call him Kama Sutra Albo, he’s every position then that’s the Kama Sutra for me.

How he can keep a straight face when it was only back in December, he came out and said that he was backing coal, he was backing coal exports, coal jobs. He understood how vital it was to places where the people have a reliance on those industries. And now we’re in early Feb and he’s likening it to fantasy land, to unicorns. How is he the preferred prime minister in the polls, flip-flopping wildly like this?

It’s obviously working for him and I think as long as it works for him, trying to please everybody, he’s going to keep on doing it. He’s not being held accountable. Did Fran bring up the quotes that he said in December in support of coal?

Paul Murray: Of course not.

Rita Panahi: He gets away with it. He gets away with it. He can state wildly different positions to different journalists and he’s not held accountable for it.

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