Essay by Eric Worrall
First published JoNova; If you fell for the government propaganda that renewables are the cheapest form of energy, the Guardian will help set you straight.
Here’s the truth: energy transition is hard. Not everyone gets a pony
Jobs will change, communities will be affected, but we have a shot at rising to the challenge of global heating
The climate crisis has long been defined by its lies: From the original sin of science denial, to Tony Abbott’s confected carbon tax panic, to the latest yellowcake straw man. But the most damaging porky of all might be that the transition to renewable energy will be easy.
Government messaging has propagated this myth, vacillating between the torpid technocracy of targets, acronyms and megawatt hours and the sunny spin that promises “a cheaper, cleaner energy future!”.
Both gloss over the hard truth that fundamentally changing the way Australia produces, shares and uses energy is hugely disruptive, particularly in the regions where new infrastructure is earmarked for land and sea.
…
When asked to rank energy sources in order of cost, renewables are rated the most expensive. Fossil fuels are seen as a cheaper solution, while nuclear is preferred by those who don’t support the transition anyway.
These findings are hardly surprising, the result of higher electricity bills as global prices for fossil fuels soar. Energy companies, like all big corporations, clip the inflation ticket and roof-top solar incentives are phased out.
…
When US president JFK announced the project to reach the moon within a decade in 1962, he famously proclaimed he was doing things “not because they are easy, but because they are hard”.
Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/apr/23/renewable-energy-transition-australia-labor-government-net-zero
Peter Lewis kind of glosses over the fact The Guardian has been doing its own myth propagation when it comes to the cost of renewables;
The cheapest reliable energy system to meet Australia’s climate targets? Solar and wind, no question
Graham Readfearn
Fri 1 Sep 2023 11.39 AESTThere has been a lot of commentary about how to measure the cost of renewables – but much of it misses the point
If you’ve been reading or watching any rightwing media of late, you will have heard some extraordinary claims being made about the cost of renewable energy and the transition away from fossil fuels.
The opposition’s energy spokesperson, Ted O’Brien, suggested the Labor government could be “wilfully lying” about the “true cost” of the energy transition, while others have questioned the evidence that solar and wind are the cheapest forms of power.
In the Australian, two columns claimed to have uncovered a fatal flaw in how the cost of solar and wind gets compared with coal, gas and the currently-illegal nuclear.
There is a lot to unpick – but not because any true scandal has been uncovered.
…
The LCOE metric shows clearly that solar and onshore wind are easily the cheapest forms of electricity right now. But Lehmann, and critics she quotes, say it’s misleading because it does not account for the cost of adding transmission lines and storage to the grid that enable those renewables.
…
Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/commentisfree/2023/sep/01/the-cheapest-reliable-energy-system-to-meet-australias-climate-targets-solar-and-wind-no-question
A little humility, a mea culpa, I mean I would have accepted an apology from The Guardian for sometimes unintentionally misleading readers.
But I doubt we’ll get any of that from The Guardian. They seem to be set on sailing straight from singing the praises of “the cheapest reliable energy system”, to blaming misconceptions about the cost of renewables on lying politicians.
And that talk of moonshots – that certainly doesn’t sound like the cheapest option.
I wonder how green politicians feel about being thrown under a bus by journalists?
We’re never going to find out, because at the rate this political transformation is going, pretty soon it’s going to be difficult to find any politician who admits they supported renewable energy. Renewables will turn out to be a ghastly mistake, which nobody was responsible for.
LCOE stands for Levelized Cost of Electricity
Yep, the Cost of Energy is far more than just the cost of fuel. And low density fuel may be cheap fuel but its useless for a modern society…and prohibitively expensive to harvest
“Guardian: Politicians “Propagated the Myth” that Renewables are Easy”
The usual nonsense that this is the Guardian speaking. It isn’t. They published an opinion piece by Peter Lewis. Who? He is the chairman of Essential Media. They are a firm that makes its revenue by promoting cases for clients, And this is written all over this opinion piece.
Here is the context for the moonshot quote. It is from a meeting of ministers, and doesn’t seem to be promoting the idea that it will all be easy:
“Last month a number of federal ministers – including the treasurer – hosted the rock star of social innovation Mariana Mazzucato who advocates for the organisation of government resources around bold long-term objectives that she calls “moon shots”.
When US president JFK announced the project to reach the moon within a decade in 1962, he famously proclaimed he was doing things “not because they are easy, but because they are hard”
When was that meeting for those of us mot familiar with Australian politics?
I’m quoting Eric’s source.
It was a speech at Rice University in Texas. Google “We choose to go to the moon”
Oops, wrong meeting.
Trouble is grid scale wind and solar.. without 100% back up by fossil fuel, hydro or nuclear, isn’t just difficult….
IT IS IMPOSSIBLE.
Your stupid nit-picking is meaningless gibberish, as usual.
Current electricity production in East coast of Australia
NSW… 86% coal and gas, 8% hydro
Vic… 80% coal and gas.. 15% hydro
Qld… 89% coal and gas.. 7 5 hydro
Wind and solar are providing BASICALLY NOTHING !!
Apart from hydro where it is possible….
RENEWABLES ARE A TOTAL JOKE.
An absolute waste of time resources and our money.
Only a total fool would think otherwise.
Or someone whose opinions are bought and paid for.
Actually, I did have something like that at the end of my comment, then removed it..
… so yes… bought and paid for shills.
Shills who know the reality, but deliberately LIE …
It was less than a year ago that Nick was preaching about how cheap renewable power is, after all, the wind and sun are free.
Now here is, all but declaring that nobody ever made such a claim.
Mr. Stokes make a lot of claims that aren’t true.
It’s not just that they are wrong, but that they change over time, even reverse.
Not the Guardian Australia speaking , just an opinion piece ?
Yet if this was Guardian Britain this would be a heresy and if an opinion editor published it he would be hanging from the lampost in the street by now , strung up by the staff journos.
Yes, it is by Peter Lewis, and you’re right, its not a Guardian editorial. But its also not just an opinion piece in the way such a piece might be if it appeared in the Telegraph (for instance). The Guardian is like the NY Times, its staff do not permit pieces or authors who question the Guardian orthodoxy. As Susanne Moore and Hadley Freeman found out the hard way.
The Guardian did not always use to be like this. Back in the 1950s it was a genuinely liberal paper. But certainly since Rushbridger, and under the present editor, Viner, its become the house publication of the left fringe of the Labour Party.
Moore, for instance, was driven out by the harassment of her colleagues because of very mild skepticism about the far reaches of trans ideology, and because she didn’t support Corbyn. An harassment which as it became public resulted in the usual pile-on threats of death and rape. Not from her colleagues, I hasten to add. They confined themselves to circulating a mass signed letter denouncing her political incorrectness.
No column doubting the existence of the climate emergency or global heating would be permitted.
So, its not a Guardian editorial. But its not just a column either. Comment is not free in today’s Guardian. C P Scott has been spinning in his grave for the last several decades.
So what are you saying? The article is there. Are you saying the Guardian really has changed its view?
The Guardian is dancing over and back over the line in the hopes that if and when renewables fail for whatever reason, they can always say, “we told you so”!
An element of that, yes, but its more a case of blaming the population for their foolish disbelief in the party line. And what it recommends to solve that problem, in veiled terms, is a sort of coercion.
No, read it carefully. Its the party line still, just a plea to sell it better and to be prepared to use government powers to override or set aside markets. And the same stuff about the ‘urgent and existential challenge of climate change’, and the same assumption that moving to wind and solar is a big part of the solution to it.
The Guardian will never publish anything which contradicts the party line. The Guardian’s party line has not changed. It will not publish such a piece, and its writers’ clique will drive out any columnist who tries to submit such pieces. As it did Suzanne Moore for not adhering punctiliously to the party line on trans ideology and Corbyn. And there are other less publicized cases.
The piece is dancing around ‘try something different’ while not casting any doubt on the party line on the problem and the solution. It largely defines the problem as being one of public opinion, have to sell it better.
There is no existential problem from climate change. And if there were, wind and solar will not solve it. That is a point of view you will never read in the Guardian, and you certainly don’t find it in this piece.
So what’s new in Peter Lewis’ article?
In early 2008, candidate Obama told the San Francisco Chronicle that “under my plan … electricity rates would necessarily skyrocket.”
The strain is reaching the point where even the ideologues who run the Guardian feel the need to allow editorials that don’t adhere completely to the previously declared dogma.
This is the piece you need to comment on:
https://notalotofpeopleknowthat.wordpress.com/2024/04/24/wind-power-scarcity-data-analysis/
That and the Royal Society piece on storage.
Whether there is a climate crisis or not, this is not going to work.
Does the UK Guardian ever publish opinion pieces from strong climate skeptics?
Short answer – no, long answer – never
I love the way Nick calmly glides past the meat of the article, to criticize an extreme triviality.
The really odd thing is how it only matters whether the piece is directly from the editors of the paper, vs. an opinion piece that they just happened to publish, when Nick disagrees with the opinion.
I’m not sure Nick does disagree with the opinion, and I’m pretty sure the piece is not the Guardian or the author backing off from renewables.
On the contrary, the piece is assuming there is a climate emergency and that moving to wind and solar is a viable and essential way of tackling it. It then goes on to propose how to deal with the real problem, which it considers to be voter dissent.
You’re not suggesting that our Nick is nitpicking?
Still, got to love their hyperbolic “global heating” mantra. It’s almost May. I’m listening to the dawn chorus and the tractors as I write. Spring has supposedly sprung. However, I must make note that I’ve had frost in the garden every morning for the last week. An English spring, there is nothing quite like it. When’s it going to warm up?
Funny isn’t it? Global Warming never seems to occur where people actually live.
6C
No wonder they’re calling 16C. a heat wave.
Luxury. The highest temperature expected in Glasgow today is 12C.
Warmer than London
In Glasgow, 12C is pretty nice when there is no wind and the sun is shining. I was sitting in the garden in my deckchair..
You noticed that too?
If you were living on the summit of Greenland in January you would be really appreciative of Global Warming™. It has increased a mighty 10C in the past 70 years. Where else can claim such an impressive increase?
Yes I’m still waiting for spring to arrive with a bit of warmth. I still have to protect plants in my greenhouse and polytunnel from frosts.
It only feels chilly because it’s been so ridiculously warm since mid January.
April mean CET is still running warmer than average.
Not in London
My energy bill doesn’t lie.
Like I said, just your perception, you’ve got used to it being exceptionally warm. Reality is mean April temperature for London is currently about 1.5C above average.
No,it’s below average and that is a fact.
Not according to Accuweather. Here’s their data. Where’s yours!
https://www.accuweather.com/en/gb/london/ec4a-2/april-weather/328328
Every individual location is the same or cooler. However don’t fret, once the data is adjusted and an average calculated, we will still prove that over all it’s warmer.
Go easy! The Grauniad was on the wrong side on the Cass review
“Government messaging has propagated this myth, vacillating between the torpid technocracy of targets, acronyms and megawatt hours and the sunny spin that promises “a cheaper, cleaner energy future!”.”
”A cheaper, cleaner energy future” … hmmm … where have I heard that before? Oh yeah! On the constant barrage of PG&E advertisements that my massive rate increases are paying for … to tell me they’re actually “saving” me money. FJB and FPG&E and F the CAPUC
It is absolutely true that the transition to solar and wind was easy – look at all the subsidies wannabe providers received without required to give any serious guarantees.
When a numbskull has proffered such easy riches the serious charlatan has many other games to play with politicians struggling to look good with the virtue signals without ever having to face awkward questions like – how much is this transitions going to cost for like for like generation and what extras need to be added in? But why was nuclear dismissed so readily as the true replacement for other fossil fuel forms of baseload generation – e.g. gas and coal. The answer lies in the long term weakness of support for nuclear generically in Europe with France the big exception. Britain was once sold on nuclear but the creepy downside was always there and was never dealt with by our useless media outlets especially the nastiest of the nasties the BBC.
If wind and solar were promoted as too good to be true value for money – free energy which, with new technology, could, potentially, replace existing baseload generators – then will they too go the way of nuclear to be shunned for their dark side – the huge cost of safety, maintenance and replacement?
And when we get to that place with on and off shore sites what then? Will it be a return to the best of old habits like efficiency in use of materials and fuels and a lot of quickly erased political references to wind and solar (and who made them) facilitated by an obtuse use of what passes as AI?
After all isn’t this precisely what is happening with COVID-19 right up to the abuse and corruption of judicial inquiries and the loss of integrity in many of our professions?
We really are up the creek and sinking fast with not a sailor in sight.
“We really are up the creek and sinking fast with not a sailor in sight.”
Will a drunken sailor do? I offer my services–although I’m really a Naval aviator and not actually a black shoe. However, I can spell “ship,” if that helps.
Story tip
Ilham Aliyev, the strongman president of Azerbaijan, used his platform at the Petersberg Climate Dialogue in Germany on Friday to declare the presence of fossil fuels in his country a “gift of the gods” and declare his intention to expand Baku’s exports to Europe.
https://www.breitbart.com/environment/2024/04/26/united-nations-climate-summit-host-azerbaijan-oil-gas-gift-gods/
The CoP should be a giggle
“…the strongman president of Azerbaijan” is right. Actually, a father/son act. I worked for dad in the mid ’90’s for all of 4 months. Came home in disgust, Azeri oil fields are even worse than the average FSU oilfield trash can. I actually agree that they were a “gift of the gods”, (i.e., The Imaginary Guy In The Sky), but they weren’t treated that way. Most of the $ went to the top – you can walk down certain streets in Baku and see bejeweled women walking bejeweled dogs. Most of the clean ups will never occur….
In other words, both leaders were typical socialists.
Since they actually “socialize” very little of the oil wealth, no. Unlike the undeniably “socialized” Norwegians. Their oil and gas ops have been first class for over 40 years. They also have plenty of cash put away for oil and gas asset retirements – unlike the much less “socialized” UK and US.
You get the occasional somewhat critical article in the msm not because they will ever admit they were flat out wrong but, because of popular backlash about blatant lies they want to deflect eyes from the truth and rather talk about ‘sacrifices’ we all have to make to reach the promised land ie, indulgences to get to net zero in 2050 in order to avoid armageddon. And even though you get these articles now and then it is still full steam ahead despite reality bites. Because you know, we have to overcome these obstacles, have Faith and cross the desert, take whatever comes our way and move ahead. That’s also why the likes of pope Frances are well,… pontificating.
And the accelerating legal laws put in place to chain the people and institutions to the green road with no escape. Put people in positions of power to steer the ship towards the end goal. Lies upon lies upon misleading presentations and keep people in constant fear.
It is pretty clear: fascism is here. It’s our duty to resist.
Reminds me a little of city folks believing that farming is simple and easy.
Farming? Who needs farmers. I get all my milk and veggies from the grocery store.
I have watched both seasons of “Clarkson Farms” and not only is farming simple and easy it is hilariously funny.
The bigger the tractor the better.
Never forget the first rule of sanity
It gives them click revenue.
Guardian grows revenue but reports £21m loss
https://pressgazette.co.uk/media_business/guardian-revenue-growth-2023-international-investment/
They, like every other mainstream media outlet, cannot go bankrupt fast enough.
The zealots there would probably work for nothing if the crunch came.
“Wages – we doan need no stinkin’ wages”
It isn’t politicians fault that they are ignorant. It’s impossible to know everything about everything.
Two sets of people who claim to be experts say different things, politicians (and most people) choose to listen to the things that they wish to be true.
All the fake experts have to do is make a subject seem sufficiently complicated so that normal people have to refer to experts rather than develope their own understanding. And then produce detailed analytics to make themselves appear to be experts.
Marc Jacobson is one of the best fake experts in this area. His studies are useless garbage with no relationship with reality. And they are widely referenced. When a team of scientists pointed out his errors (y’know, because science) he sued them personally for defamation.
It isn’t politicians fault that they are ignorant.
So, who do you blame? The Universities? The schools?
It is always an indicator when people go on the personal attack after being confronted with pushback on scientific grounds. Instead of replying in a rational way using data points to counter counter arguments they often straight away go personal, especially if they feel they can get away with it. Michael Mann being just a case in point but some posters on this platform as well i am sorry to see.
If your argument/position is solid and backed up by data it should be able to stand on its own and be scrutinized/criticized and be transparent. BUT, if you are fighting a war and want to destroy your enemy using every dirty trick in the book you’ll feel justified in your actions. Then it’s politics, win or lose.
“Renewables will turn out to be a ghastly mistake, which nobody was responsible for.”
As for the whole CoVid circus and not safe, not effective mRNA juju.
Some say the lawyers, I say the journalists.
The transition continues as the truth becomes apparent, everything the green blob tells you is a lie, The Guardian has led the way in proclaiming wind and solar were the cheapest and now they are trying to gaslight people.
are their readers really dumb enough to fall for it?
See also:Nick Stokes
Story Tip
Doesnt this confirm what Happer has been saying forever?
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2666496823000456
Success has many fathers, failure is an orphan.
The highest cost of electricity is Federal, State, County and Municipal taxes. In essence they are the “Wolf in Sheep’s clothing” collecting money for the government. Fuel is near the bottom of the list of expenditures. Changing from the most expensive fuel to “Renewables” will only increase your electric bill.
The companies share of Social Security, and Medicare. Vehicle tax and Road tax for the fuel. Every pole, High Voltage Transmission line Tower and the wires on them. Every Building, structure, property improvement is taxed to the max which is then 40 – 50%+ of the number called “kWh Usage and Service Charge.” In some states a Sales tax is added. That computes to $100 of the $175 of the “Total Services” line of your bill. Coal, Oil, Nuclear or Natural Gas are less than 20% of the part which is not TAX. Adding wind and/or solar means doubling the Infrastructure, e.g., Poles, towers, buildings, batteries, etc. which means doubling your TAXES.
Do the math. Most Annual Reports are on the interne. Read them, look at the Financial Section.