Peter Lang writes for Brave New Climate, Barry Brook’s blog. His letter is included below.
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Dear MP,
Other countries are realising that renewable energy is a massive waste of tax payer funds and has no, or negligible, effect on CO2 emissions [Note 1].
Just when Australia decides to increase giving consumer and taxpayers money to the wind industry, governments around the world have decided enough’s enough and are cutting or eliminating subsidies to the grossly inefficient green power generators. Here are some recently reported examples:
Spain cuts subsidies to wind and solar
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSLDE6611YR20100702
Italy cuts subsidies to wind and solar
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704629804575324282074870288.html?mod=WSJ_Tech_LEFTTopNews
Germany cuts subsidies to solar
http://www.businessgreen.com/business-green/news/2265976/germany-poised-phase-solar
Denmark to cut subsidies to wind
http://www.ref.org.uk/PressDetails/163
France to slash solar subsidies
http://seekingalpha.com/article/182530-european-solar-subsidy-slashing-bad-news-for-investors
Ontario cuts incentives for solar
http://www.cbc.ca/canada/ottawa/story/2010/07/07/ottawa-solar-rate-drop.html
If we want to cut CO2 emissions, renewable energy is not the way to do it. Nor is an ETS or price on carbon.
What we need to do to cut CO2 emissions is to remove all the impediments on nuclear energy. If we did remove all the impediments, electricity fro nuclear would be cheaper than from coal. Yes! Even in Australia.
This article describes the sort of regulatory impediments that make nuclear expensive where the regulatory environment is inappropriate. These are what we must avoid.
http://bravenewclimate.com/2010/07/08/tcase11/
Add to this list the many Australian Government imposed impediments and market distortions such as:
• Bans on nuclear energy
• Renewable Energy Target
• Renewable Energy Certificates
• Feed in Tariffs
• Direct government subsidies for renewable energy
• Tax incentives and other incentives for coal, gas and renewable energy
• Cost of enhancements to the electricity grid that are needed to accommodate the disruptive, erratic renewable energy generators is shared by everyone instead of being attributed to the renewable energy generators
• Sovereign risk caused by the government’s signals that it is opposed to nuclear, and also that when governments change, they renege on previously made agreements with investors (e.g. Telstra, Gunns Pulp Mill, Resource Super Profits Tax, intention to shut down, or in other ways disadvantage, coal fired power plants without fair compensation for the investors, and many others examples)
Note 1: Wind power does not reduce CO2 emissions:
http://www.masterresource.org/2010/06/subsidizing-co2-emissions/
Eclipse Now 