How sustainable is renewable? A view from the centre

A slice of the Ivanpah Solar Farm, one of four large solar forms opened in California in 2014 and at that stage the largest in the world

PART ONE OF A SERIES

You can’t really blame the NT Government for wanting two bob every which way when it comes to the torturously complicated issues of power, energy and climate change.

In the lead-up to the Territory election, Chief Minister Michael Gunner has been spruiking the benefits of fracking for gas, endorsing the longer-term vision of massive solar farms in the Barkly and launching a policy to position the NT at the forefront of renewable hydrogen development. Meanwhile his government has committed to reducing its carbon emissions to zero by the year 2050.

Luckily for most Government members, they’ll be either dead or non-participant by 2050. But even in any shorter term (say between six months and 30 years) that you care to nominate, what will actually come to pass is another matter.

The opponents of hydraulic fracturing have mounted an effective campaign against the perceived dangers of the process as well as the economic viability. The anti-fracking package includes the promise of “renewables” and the reminder that gas is a fossil fuel which will contribute to global warming both in the extraction of it and the burning of it. Because its focus is primarily on the negative, it doesn’t feel it has to address the environmental costs and hazards of solar panels, wind turbines power and batteries. This, in some ways, is understandable, unless we concede that progress is not always a choice between good and evil, but a matter of establishing the lesser of evils and what good might accompany it.

The widespread infatuation with the concept of renewable energy has allowed it to escape scrutiny among its adherents. I was once one of them, so I can understand the basis of this love affair with the hidden power of sun and wind. In the eighties, before solar became truly fashionable, I wrote numerous articles underlined by my conviction that solar power was the way of the future. Gradually it began to dawn on me how costly and inefficient solar would always be, except perhaps in niche locations such as Alice Springs. Now, I wonder if I am the only one to question the benefits of supplying Singapore with power produced by the “world’s biggest solar farm”, proposed to consume 15,000 hectares near Tennant Creek and backed by billionaire investors Twiggy Forrest and Mike Cannon-Brookes.

Just to be clear, I’m not talking about economic benefits for the NT, which might actually make some money and score some jobs out of this project, while of course overlooking the environmental damage caused by ripping up an area of bush the same size as greater Alice Springs.

Perhaps there will be a few others who have second thoughts after more have seen the Michael Moore documentary Planet Of the Humans, now that it is again available on Youtube. But perhaps there won’t be, if the powerful renewable energy lobby can persuade people that the adored Mr Moore has either sold out to the fossil fuel industry or has become a reactionary old bastard and henceforth should be ignored. Its attempts to simply badger Youtube into taking the documentary out of circulation, led by Gaslands director Josh Fox, have fortunately failed after it was originally taken town for several weeks. Still,  I haven’t noticed SBS snapping it up the way it has just about every other documentary Moore has produced.

Dissing Moore because he has become a fossil fuel fan is a challenge, however, as Planet Of the Humans makes no apologies for oil or gas, and apparently fully subscribes to the belief that human-produced carbon dioxide is a dangerous substance. What distinguishes this environmental hard-sell from productions like The Inconvenient Truth or Gaslands is its proposal that the “cure” for carbon-based industrial production — so-called renewable energy — may be actually worse than the disease.

Dave Richards

More about Moore and renewables under the spotlight in part two