Essay by Eric Worrall
When will politicians take the hint?
Most Australians don’t want speedy transition toward clean energy
Staff Writer | April 12, 2024 | 6:06 am Energy Australia Oil & Gas
Most Australians support the country’s transition towards a clean energy power grid but don’t want aggressive change.
A recent survey conducted by CSIRO, Australia’s national science agency, and the Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water, found that most people in the country support a move towards an energy system that relies more on renewables but 47% prefer a moderate-paced and 13% a slow-paced transition scenario. Faster and more extensive change was the choice for 40% of respondents.
In terms of priorities, 82% of surveyed Australians listed energy affordability among their top three concerns, whether or not they were struggling to pay bills.
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Overall, responses were similar between metropolitan and regional communities. However, people living out of town in regional areas were more negative towards the transition.
“The survey showed that most Australians supported the energy transition, but opinions varied about the rate and extent of change. Many Australians held generally moderate attitudes towards living near renewable energy infrastructure, suggesting a broad willingness to support, or at least tolerate, the development of solar farms, onshore and offshore wind farms, and associated transmission line infrastructure,” senior social scientist on the project, Andrea Walton, said in a media statement.
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Read more: https://www.mining.com/most-australians-dont-want-speedy-transition-toward-clean-energy/
The referenced CSIRO survey is available here.
People do want clean energy, but they don’t want disruptive changes which increase their power bills. Not increasing power bills is the top priority. So all politicians need to do is figure out how to deliver a Net Zero transition which doesn’t cost anything.
The energy self reliance issue is an interesting priority, scoring highly on the 1st, 2nd, 3rd and 4th preferences. Not having to import energy was supposed to be one of the top selling points for renewables, but Australia has such vast reserves of fossil and nuclear energy, we shouldn’t be importing anything anyway. In addition, almost all of the renewable kit being made in China is a bit of an embarrassment for energy self reliance advocates. The Aussie government recently announced subsidies for kickstarting solar manufacturing in the middle of an unprecedented global glut in solar panels, which I suspect tells us all we need to know about what metric they are using to decide national policy.
Obviously the solution to a zero cost Net Zero transition is nuclear fusion. The Net Zero transition will happen just as soon as affordable power generating nuclear fusion makes it easy.
Any minute now…
So all they need is a cheap dispatchable emissions free generation source and everything will be fine. Whatever happened to unicorn farts and fairy dust?
We already have one… It is called COAL. !!
Only real emissions from a modern coal fired plant are H₂O and CO₂, both of which are totally necessary for the survival of all life on Earth.
ps image in NSW, Qld and Vic electricity production for 48 hour before 13th April.
I could update it for today, but it would look very much the same.
and see last 2 days SA has been sucking off Vic , not so sunny and no wind…oopsie
“Only real emissions from a modern coal fired plant are H₂O and CO₂,”
Plus … Ash & SO₂; both can be easily captured & used.
Yep. We just want Big Biz and Big Gummint to get on with the cheaper planet saving electricity we’re promised. What’s their problem and why are we getting screwed with the power bills?
Why isn’t there a priority for INCREASING Australia’s CO2 emissions ?
Or ignoring all the CO2 based climate junk completely.
The Green Blob does not really believe their global warming models are a priority, otherwise they would support nuclear power. Wind and solar cannot produce wind and solar products, so the net emissions for them are definitely nonzero.
I really believe the Green Blob does not want a practical solution, based on a combination of nihilism and fundraising from other Luddites.
The Green Blob wants their climate models to use as a stick to beat the ignorant and small-minded over the head to encourage obsequious agreement! They could care less about the environment, endangered species or human civilization! Their only priority is funneling as much taxpayer wealth and power into the hands of their corporate/billionaire overlords as quickly as possible.
Just ask Nick or Rusted Nail which of the sociopaths or malignant narcissists they support most in their efforts to achieve Godhood; I’m sure they have their hero’s stats memorized, like we used to memorize the back of baseball cards as kids!
“the energy transition”
You cannot ever transition from reliable COAL and GAS to unreliable wind and solar.
The whole idea is total idiocy.!
‘When will politicians take the hint?’
Only after their foolishness causes disasters that threaten their re-election. Hopefully sooner rather than later. Applies at a minimum to AUS, UK, BRD, CA, and NY. US Biden is out this year anyway on elderly mental impairment grounds.
‘US Biden is out this year anyway on elderly mental impairment grounds.’
I envy and admire your optimism on this. Any Republican presiding over the mess the US is currently in would be polling in the lower quartile, if not single digits. Yet Biden seems to be even with, or slightly ahead of, Trump in many polls. As an electorate, we’ve either become too stupid or too immoral to deserve / maintain a limited-government republic.
A lot depends on how much trust you put into the polling agencies.
I’ve been paying attention to national elections for some 50 years now. Up until 2020, when the actual votes were counted, the Republicans always did noticeably better than the polling would have led you to believe.
I’ve noticed the same thing. The 2016 election trashed the reputations of polling groups. They’ve tried to get closer to reality lately but I still think their is too much bias in the questioning and sample groups.
I think most pollsters are trying to build momentum for leftist candidates.
when they get voted out
I think most of us are missing the big picture. These are not stupid people. They have a very specific plan that requires the general population to buy into the CAGW pseudoscience. The politicians have no intention of backing down from the CAGW narrative. It’s all an excuse to force draconian control over the “useless eaters” (i.e., us). They don’t care what their citizens want or what the science actually says. Just look at Oxford, England and how they ignored their citizens’ opposition to their first steps toward making it a “15 minute city.”
And they have no intention to “transition” to renewables. Their goal is to drastically reduce access to ANY form of energy by ELIMINATING private vehicle ownership, etc. The politicians of most large cities and many smaller cities have already signed on to this plan. See the stated plans of the C40 cities here: https://c40.my.salesforce.com/sfc/p/#36000001Enhz/a/1Q000000MdxA/V3QLW6RLSz3O1N7QGaBkJC_ezIfKteg_zgIe5o57GFI (Especially look at the section starting on P. 66.)This is supported also by the WEF who state: “You will own nothing and be happy.” And here’s the list of all the cities that have committed to their goals: https://www.c40knowledgehub.org/s/cities-race-to-zero-public?language=en_US Is your city on this list???
And why is this move to steal our freedoms and liberty funded by the wealthiest and most powerful elites on the planet??? It would be very naïve to think it’s because they really care about the planet when they have demonstrated so openly that they only care about money and power.
Everyone wants to go to heaven but nobody wants to die.
I was wondering why Australia’s national science agency was busying itself polling the public on essentially socio-political topics.
Then I read “[blah, blah, blah] senior social scientist on the project, Andrea Walton, said in a media statement.”
Ahh…I see. It’s that kind of a national science agency then, is it?
You’ve got to remember, the CSIRO are the same people who in 2001 stumbled across the secret of turning any viral pathogen into the ultimate biological warfare virus, 12 Monkeys levels of lethality, then immediately went out and told everyone how to replicate their work.
CSIRO is far from an independent science group. It has morphed in a similar way as NASA. From mostly a scientific/engineering group to a woke arm of socialist government.
They have similar mission statements – support UN fantasies. They are dependent on government support for almost all the hot air they produce. Very little of their work produces commercial outcomes.
The weather/climate models they produce jointly with the BoM are hopelessly inept. Once seasonal weather reporting in Australia had a 50% hit rate. But they now constantly forecast hotter and drier and are more often wrong than right.
Australia is wasting an extraordinary amount of capital on projects that are endorsed by CSIRO studies.
on the strength of BoM projected weather being warmer. Im starting to get extra wood more jumpers n wooly socks ready
The fact that they have a “Senior Social Scientist” tells you all you need to know about how far CSIRO has fallen into the mire of anti-science wokeness.
from:
https://www.aemo.com.au/energy-systems/electricity/national-electricity-market-nem/data-nem/data-dashboard-nem#nem-dispatch-overview
From:
https://www.nem-watch.info/widgets/reneweconomy/
Now get one from NEM-watch on a windless night. 🙂
COAL RULES !!! Thank goodness we still have coal.
Notice how little energy SA uses compared to the eastern states.. and it still can’t provide for itself a lot of the time.
Great how renewables can fullfil all of it at once.
Yes, renewables are certainly full of it.
I didn’t know you could be so sarcastic.
delusional !
The left has been taught to believe, that so long as they want something hard enough, it will happen.
They never have, and the real world data shows that there’s no chance of them doing that in the next few hundred years. By that time, maybe someone will have invented shipstones.
“When will politicians take the hint?” Never. The river of taxpayer money has to be cut off and they need to be voted out of office. That’s the way the system works.
and we rural folk are less supportive because?
its OUR land and areas trashed with the unreliable eyesores
The message needs to be out there that there is no alternative to long term efficient energy generation fuels e.g. coal, hydro, gas, nuclear and to suggest otherwise is one lie too many.
Solar and wind are deeply flawed technologies and are not going to clean up humanity’s many wasteful excesses one iota. Gas, nuclear and coal are reliable and efficient and many many times less harmful to our environment than solar and wind.
How many times do governments of all persuasions need to hear that we the majority of people are really not at all worried about global warming / climate change / climate emergency / climate crisis / green energy etc etc etc.
Again, the UN’s 7-million person worldwide survey about the most high-priority concerns that people have in their lives today rated “Action On Climate Change” a distant LAST of the 16 main concerns.
https://about.myworld2030.org/my-world-2015/
Recently the Canadian Federal Government ran a face book post asking people to calculate their personal carbon footprint. I responded that I was determined to double mine for the health of the planet. I was pleasantly surprised to find that the majority of the respondents were of the same mind. Only one reacted negatively to my comment so I whacked him with a few facts and he shut up, The Feds are totally out of step with the population, it would seem the same is true of Australia
Clean energy? Given what’s involved in producing and installing these self-declared “green technolgies” does not warrant the moniker clean.
The reasons for consumers’ reactions are simple: they associate action to reduce emissions as being likely to raise their living costs and cause more inconvenience while having little or no effect on reining in the mythological “climate crisis”. In addition, they suspect strongly that the whole business of taking more aggressive climate action is nothing more that a government ploy for raising taxes and green products producers’ strategy to force people into having to buy overpriced, supposedly environmentally-friendly goods. And in the end, the climate will continue to do what J.P. Morgan once said about the stock market: it’ll fluctuate.