Posts

Electrification Overhaul: The Costly Future of Australia’s Energy Strategy

, ,

Electrification is an essential component of the Albanese government’s net zero strategy. It involves turning every device that consumes energy to electric: replacing petrol cars with electric vehicles, swapping gas cook tops for electric ones, removing gas hot-water systems in favour of electric, and even making barbecues electric. Everyday Australians will bear the costs of this insanity. To me, it’s unwise to place all our eggs in the electricity basket when we are reimagining our grid to depend entirely on weather-dependent generation. Yet, to the government, such heresy is “disinformation.”

Achieving electrification will require a massive upgrade to our electricity transmission network to meet the higher demand, especially from electric vehicles. However, even this alone will not achieve electrification, as there just isn’t enough generation capacity from wind and solar to ever meet the heightened demand. Consequently, the government is pursuing companion strategies.

First, people will be incentivised to purchase wall batteries to go with their rooftop solar systems, which will connect to the grid. To manage evening and morning peak demand, the government plans to draw power from these batteries, restricting users from operating power-intensive appliances like air conditioners and pool pumps.

If you have an EV, this strategy means the power stored in your wall battery—intended for overnight charging—will also be taken. There’s even a plan to plug EVs directly into the grid to draw any charge you may have managed to store in your battery if required to keep the grid working.

This won’t be enough on its own, so the government has introduced a new building code mandatory for new homes, which will add about $50,000 to construction costs. These changes include completely sealing homes to keep heat out, which may lead to moisture build up and mould.

Ceiling fans will replace air-conditioners, while rooms and homes will become smaller, ceilings lower and spaces more compact, with no garages and narrower streets, as people will not have cars.

Welcome to your future under electrification. Watch the video for more on this madness.

Transcript

Electrification is an essential part of the Albanese government’s net zero strategy. Electrification consists of taking every device that consumes energy and making it electric: petrol cars replaced with electric cars; gas cooktops replaced with electric ones; gas hot-water systems ripped out and replaced with electric; barbecues only electric—which is no fun at all. Everyday Australians pay the cost. 

To me, it’s unwise to put all our eggs in the electricity basket when we are reimagining our electricity grid to rely entirely on weather-dependent generation. To the government, of course, such heresy is mere ‘disinformation’. I’m sure Minister Bowen is champing at the bit to declare any online critics of net zero as threatening the environment, leading to a ban on ‘disinformation’. 

The truth is that electrification is something we must debate. There are real risks to the public, and the price tag is astronomical. So let’s start with safety. The internet is reporting that China has banned electric vehicles from underground car parks, following a Daily Telegraph story on the weekend. The inference is that the ban was from the government, when in fact the Telegraph made clear the ban was from car-park owners and from apartments above the car parks. It’s businesses acting to protect themselves and their customers. Local news reports that property owners were spurred into action after 11 intense battery fires in Hangzhou. The reports have revived fears in China that the new low-carbon-dioxide technology is more trouble than it’s worth. Definitely—yes, it is. One viral social media post involved a Hangzhou car showroom catching fire after a display car spontaneously combusted. It was a brand-new vehicle. There was no issue of faulty maintenance or handling. As has been correctly reported, the science is clear: ‘when EV batteries do overheat, they’re susceptible to something called thermal runaway,’ says Edith Cowan University academic Muhammad Zhar. This article goes on to say: 

That’s when physical damage— 

or a manufacturing fault— 

triggers a chemical chain reaction within the battery. 

It can be a short circuit. It can be a puncture. Or an external heat. 

Such damage can lead to a high-temperature fire or toxic gas explosion. 

“About 95 per cent of battery fires are classed as ignition fires, which produce jet-like directional flames. The other 5 per cent involve a vapour cloud explosion.” 

That was written by Edith Cowan University academic Muhammad Azhar. 

Recently, five cars were destroyed when a damaged battery fell from an EV parked at Sydney airport. A Tesla went up in flames on the road after contacting debris that fell from a truck near Goulburn. No ways have been developed of smothering a lithium-ion fire. The safest place for an EV is in the open air, where any fire can be contained until it burns out without destroying the property of others in the process. 

Secondly, when it comes to electrification, the elephant in the room is cost. The process consists of rebuilding the national electricity grid, generation and transmission. Energex and Powerlink have identified emerging limitations in the electricity networks supplying the Brisbane CBD. The power grids in Brisbane and across Australia were not built for our modern population density and certainly weren’t built to take the full load of energy that’s now required to electrify houses, cars and businesses. They note corrective action is required to avoid network overload and to avoid load shedding—known as ‘brownout’—which is when the power is selectively switched off to houses and businesses to prevent a wider blackout. Smart meters will make brownouts easier, providing the ability for power companies to remotely turn off air-conditioners and power to living areas, leaving the kitchen circuit functioning to keep the fridge on. New houses are being built with that circuit arrangement. It’s control. 

The cost to rewire the grid to convey solar, wind and pumped hydro from the point of generation to the cities and then rewire the city and suburban grid for the higher electricity demand has not been costed. I have asked the minister repeatedly in the last few weeks for those costings, and it is clear that none exist. Let me help the government. Visual Capitalist consultancy has done independent costings showing that the cost of rewiring the grid and adding firming—back-up batteries and pumped hydro—is about 30 per cent of the overall electrification cost, or $300 billion, on the consensus figure of Australia’s $1 trillion cost—which I think is about half of it. 

In the electrification agenda, cost concerns relate to the national building code. The idea is to avoid having to rewire at least parts of the grid through lowering household electricity usage to make room for charging EVs in the existing power grid. The targeted production is 50 per cent less power—half of what you’re using. Remember that Australians are already using 10 per cent less power than five years ago. The Australian Building Codes Board has a rating system called NatHERS which rates housing standards from one star to 10 stars. The current code requires seven stars. The code includes a measure of whole-of-house energy efficiency, which rates your home compliance with a net zero ideology, including heating and cooling, hot water systems, lighting, pool and spa pumps, cooking and even plug-in appliances. Our Big Brother is poking their nose into every aspect of your home in the name of saving the environment. 

The actual building code component of the building code calls for the sealing of homes to prevent outside air coming in. This creates issues with condensation, meaning mould, which other aspects of the code may alleviate—may. Clearly nobody involved in this new code has lived in a Queenslander-style home that relies on airflow to keep the house cool. The new ideology-driven code will add $50,000 to the cost of construction of a new home, partially offset through lower electricity costs. The reduction in electricity costs will not be a lot because your energy bill is composed mainly of a fee for poles and wires, margin fees and admin fees, not electricity usage. As I have explained, the poles and wires charge is going higher than Elon Musk’s spaceship. 

The cost of the new code to everyday Australians will be massive. We have 11 million homes in Australia and, so far, only recently built inner-city apartments meet the code. A quick calculation: $50,000 per home times 10 million homes is a $500 billion theoretical cost. Not all homes will be done. Many will just be bulldozed and replaced with tiny apartments to house Labor’s new arrivals. Economies of scale may result. Yet the actual cost of building upgrades is expected to be 15 per cent of the transition cost. With a transition cost of $1 trillion, that’s building upgrades costing $150 billion. On the more likely $2 trillion transition cost, building upgrades will cost $300 billion. That’s money everyday Australians will have to pay or will lose when they sell a non-compliant property for a reduced price. In all the time I have heard net zero debated, the shocking cost of converting buildings has never been mentioned 

And wait; there’s more! Converting transport—trucks, shipping and aviation—is not mentioned. It’s another seven per cent—$70 billion. Eight per cent of the cost is made up of hydrogen development, carbon dioxide scrubbing and industry conversion costs. Add another $80 billion. The cost of new generation to replace affordable and reliable coal power with weather-dependent solar and wind fairytale power is the remaining 40 per cent, or $400 billion. Remember, we already have this coal generation. Electrification requires us to shut down the generation we already have and build it over again in solar and wind. The problem climate change carpetbaggers are now running into is simply this: the best places for these things have been taken. New installations are going further out, requiring higher transmission costs and higher maintenance costs. Residents are starting to see the environmental damage caused to our native forest and animals, and to farmland. The resistance has started. 

Let’s not forget wind and solar last for, at best, 15 years and then have to be replaced again and again and again. This means that every single industrial wind and solar installation will need to be replaced at least once before 2060, and more likely twice. The replacement process will be never-ending. Every 15 years the whole lot gets replaced again and again and again. The transmission network will require constant maintenance. Having added an additional 10,000 kilometres of poles and wires, the extra maintenance costs will remain in electricity bills forever. The truth is the public will never finish paying for net zero electrification. 

The good people over at Visual Capitalist have given calculating the cost of net zero a fair crack based on data on US National Public Utilities Council. Their total cost to electrify Western countries before 2060 is US$110 trillion. Insane! Australia’s share of that is currently estimated at $1 trillion; however, looking through the US data, which is more advanced than ours, a cost as high as $2 trillion is much more likely. 

The costings I’ve presented tonight are not firm. I hope they encourage the government to come clean with the costings they have to allow for an open, mature debate—one which asks: is it time to walk away and try something else? Like emission-free coal, for example. For a fraction of this money, we can simply retrofit coal plants with new technology that captures and converts carbon dioxide to useful products like fertiliser. Or stop collecting this because carbon dioxide is beneficial. For some reason, the government doesn’t want to talk about new coal plants. Hmmm; I wonder where that list of ALP donations is again? I suggest journalists go looking. 

This energy fairytale is going to cost so much money it’s never going to happen. Australia can’t afford it. How can Australians who are struggling with the cost of living under Labor afford trillions for electrification? The further we get into this, the more stupid and the more dishonest the idea looks. Ideology-driven bureaucrats, politicians, academics and journalists have put us on a path to ruin. Climate change carpetbaggers will be this country’s death. The rorting, the boondoggles and the waste of taxpayer money is just getting started. One Nation will end the net zero electrification scam and make Australia affordable again. Net zero is a scam, and One Nation is the only party that will stop it. 

/1 Comment/by

Stop the Net Zero Agenda and Protect Our Economy

,

In October, the Climate Change Authority released its roadmap for achieving the “net zero transition,” which effectively is the destruction of our industrial and agricultural base and introduces communist level controls over every aspect of our lives.  Named the Sector Pathways Review, this is a wolf in sheep’s clothing. It should be compulsory reading for every Australian who is intent on joining the migration of lemmings over the net zero cliff. 

The authors claim to have consulted widely, presenting this document as a consensus on the way forward, but this is far from the truth. Their so-called “consultation” consisted of a whip around at universities and government departments that financially benefit from the net zero scam. Unsurprisingly, these stakeholders welcomed the prospect of more money, power, and self-importance. 

The climate change narrative has been structured to work backwards from the goals outlined in this report, which functions as a mechanism for Communist control. The unfounded confidence and hubris displayed is based on scientific fraud, data tampering and cherry picking. 

The link to the report is on my website at:  

One Nation is committed to ending the net zero destruction of our economy and way of life. 

Transcript

I move to take note of the Climate Change Authority’s Sector Pathways Review, which is a wolf in sheep’s clothing. It should be compulsory reading for every senator and every journalist intent on joining this migration of lemmings over the net zero cliff. Net zero is not some feel-good agenda; it’s a fundamental destruction of our productive capacity, our businesses and our freedom to rebuild in the image of the bureaucrats, academics and carpetbaggers that produced this report. The report authors hide behind the term ‘consultation’ yet consulted within their own urban bubble and got the answers they wanted—yes to more money, yes to more power and yes to more self-importance. The climate change narrative has been constructed to work backwards from the goal detailed in this report—I’ve read it with my own eyes—a Communist control mechanism, a control mechanism that I’ve never seen so clearly explained as in this document, with such unfounded confidence, such hubris, based on scientific fraud, data tampering and cherry picking. 

Let’s go through it. Firstly, replacing petrol and diesel powered vehicles, appliances and industrial equipment with electric versions—that’s your car gone. The government will force you to buy an electric vehicle or have no vehicle at all. Gas heaters and hot water systems: gone. Gas cooking: gone. Gas barbecues: gone. Commercial kitchens: put over to electric, which will force many to close, as the cost is prohibitive. For families already struggling with the cost of living under Labor, these measures will mean losing their possessions without being able to afford a replacement. This will become reality once the circular economy arrives in full, requiring a much higher build standard and repairability and high levels of recycled components. That sounds great—just wait until we see the price tag. Appliances would have to be rented because most people won’t be able to afford them. Remember the famous promise from the World Economic Forum’s Klaus Schwab, ‘You will own nothing and be happy’? Are you seeing it yet? Secondly, we will need to generate more wind and solar power than ever before. For Australians living outside the urban bubble, this will mean every mountain and hill will have a wind turbine on top and even more farmland will be covered in solar panels and fractured with transmission line corridors and access roads where none were previously needed. Every home will need a solar installation connected to a wall battery—$15,000 right there. Yet the power is not yours; it’s theirs. To keep the grid on, your power company will take the charge out of your wall battery or your electric vehicle—yes, your electric vehicle. This is what the report means when it says ‘grid integration’. It’s sometimes called a virtual power plant. It’s not virtual power; it’s your power. 

Thirdly, the report accepts that, while some technologies, like solar and storage batteries, are now proven, many other necessary technologies are not. They have no clue what’s coming. The decision to rely on unproven, speculative technology across much of their sector analysis—punctuated as it is with weasel words like ‘could’ and ‘may’—will inevitably underperform. The report says: 

The authority has not attempted in this report to examine how, where or when such future breakthroughs could occur. 

It’s hard to believe they’re jeopardising the whole country on this. We are spending between $1 trillion and $2 trillion, destroying everything we have, on the promise of a better future based on breakthroughs that we know don’t exist yet and are not even imagined. That’s criminal malfeasance—and, given the strong flow of money from net zero carpetbaggers into the climate change nomenklatura, a stronger word may be appropriate. As the Age reported today, the Clean Energy Regulator: 

… has failed to manage conflicts of interest or properly investigate fraud … and … staff … concerns about its relationship with the companies it regulates. 

Under net zero cronyism, the suffering of everyday Australians and their employers has only just begun. The last thing abattoirs will slaughter is farming itself. The plan uses the discredited claim that ‘livestock accounts for half of agricultural emissions’. This ignores the methane cycle. That’s high school science. I know the disciples of the sky god of warming have rewritten the methane cycle and discredited those using it and advancing it, yet science can’t be rewritten—only lied about, as this report does. 

The reason for this spurious war on cattle is clear in the report: reducing our emissions will ‘require the conversion’ of agricultural land to forested areas, and ‘the supply of suitable land for reforestation is limited’. The farming sector must realise that the bad guys are coming to steal more of your rights to use the land you own. The people who will have the money to buy red meat and naturally grown produce after 2050 are the same people writing this elitist, antihuman garbage. The same people who gorge on filet mignon and champagne at Davos tell everyday Australians they will have to eat less. And you will have less, being forced into city high-rise homes and eating lab-grown meats and fast-cycle hydroponic greens with next to zero nutritional value. Based solidly on science and with every fibre of our being, One Nation opposes this agenda. I seek leave to continue my remarks later. 

Leave granted; debate adjourned. 

Sector Pathway Review 2024 (Full Report)

https://www.climatechangeauthority.gov.au/sector-pathways-review

2024SectorPathwaysReviewDownload

Sector Pathway Review 2024 (At a Glance)

SPR at a glance – FinalDownload

/2 Comments/by

Bouldercombe Residents Rebel Against Corporate Big Battery Project

,

All across Queensland, wind, solar and battery projects are being given free reign to clear the environment with minimal checks or consultation.

Bouldercombe residents are right to be concerned. A battery that was only one-tenth the size of the planned project caught fire there, and authorities were unable to put it out. The fire was just left to burn.

Only One Nation will reduce power bills and protect the environment by putting an end to the net-zero madness.

 

/6 Comments/by

DEBUNKED: Brian Cox & Senator Malcolm Roberts on QandA

Join me as I break down the famous QandA session from 2016 with Brian Cox.

Have my arguments stood the test of time? Have the warnings of certain disaster by 2024 come true?

I go into depth to explain the full story behind this exchange that captured millions of views.

/4 Comments/by

Net-Zero Advocates Confronted with Reality

,

For years, net-zero campaigners have refused to admit that wind and solar cannot keep the lights on during the evening and morning peaks. Climate realists using the phrase “when the sun doesn’t shine and the wind doesn’t blow” have been mocked for years. 

That ridicule has now gone down the memory hole and net-zero advocates are now acknowledging the truth of that statement by introducing a policy called “firming.” This involves the process of storing electricity generated during the day for use during peak demand in the evening and morning—exactly what I’ve been saying for 15 years. 

The issue here is the cost: batteries and pumped hydro costs a fortune and batteries only last 10 to 15 years before needing replacement. There’s also an energy loss to consider—batteries lose about 10% of the energy put into them and another 10% on the way out, while pumped hydro uses more electricity to pump water uphill than it generates on the way down. 

I asked the Minister about the cost of “firming,” and her answer was quite embarrassing — she didn’t know. It’s likely to exceed $100 billion. 

Transcript | Question Time

Senator ROBERTS: My question is to the Minister representing the Minister for Climate Change and Energy, Senator McAllister. Minister, during evening and morning peak hours, electricity generation from industrial solar and wind averages just 10 per cent of rated capacity, because solar doesn’t work in the dark, and wind goes quiet at night. Big batteries can transfer electricity from daytime to the evening peak. Minister, how much battery capacity is your government planning to build to maintain electricity supply between sunset and sunrise?

Senator McAllister: I thank Senator Roberts for the question. The senator is right to point to the fact that Australia’s electricity system is changing. We have, as I think most senators understand, a fleet of ageing coal-fired power stations that require replacement. I can tell you: they are not getting any more reliable. In fact, over the last year, I don’t think there’s been a day when we haven’t had a circumstance where at least one of the coal-fired power generators in the national electricity market has been offline for one kind of maintenance or another. Of course, this arises because we went through nearly a decade when the coalition, while in government, did not land an energy policy. They had 22 policies; none of them landed. Our task as government—

The PRESIDENT: Minister McAllister, please resume your seat. Senator Roberts?

Senator ROBERTS: I have a point of order. Standing order 70 (3) (c) says, ‘Answers shall be directly relevant to each question.’ I asked about how much battery capacity your government is planning to build to maintain electricity supply between sunset and sunrise.

The PRESIDENT: I will draw the minister to your question.

Senator McAllister: Of course, our task is actually to restore some measure of order to the energy system so that the investors who build the generation capacity that is necessary to power homes and businesses have the confidence to invest. And that is what the Capacity Investment Scheme has been designed to do. We have just been through a round of the Capacity Investment Scheme where we received very significant commitment to underwriting very significant battery capacity. We do understand the significance of this technology. What the experts tell us is the most cost-effective way to establish a national energy market that can meet the energy requirements of Australian homes and businesses is a combination of wind, of solar, of batteries and of gas, and that is the policy setting that we— (Time expired)

Senator ROBERTS: Minister, you couldn’t tell me the battery capacity your government is planning to build, so you may not be able to answer this question. But let’s just say ‘yes’ or ‘no’, please. What is the capital cost of that battery backup, and how much of that bill will taxpayers pay? Simple.

The PRESIDENT: I will just wait for silence, particularly on my left. This is Senator Roberts’s question.

Senator McAllister: As I have indicated previously to questions asked by Senator Roberts in this chamber, the cost of the transition is regularly estimated out to 2050 by AEMO, and it is included in the Integrated System Plan, which is regularly published and updated. Different states have different arrangements in terms of the ownership and investment in generation, and so the investment that will take place will look different depending on the ownership arrangements that are in place across the national electricity market. However, we understand that there is a measure of support required from the Commonwealth government, and it is why we have put in place the Capacity Investment Scheme which aims to provide support for those who are seeking to invest in new capacity, whether it is in batteries or other forms of generation in the national electricity market.

The PRESIDENT: Senator Roberts, second supplementary?

Senator ROBERTS: So the minister cannot tell us the battery capacity required, nor the capital cost of that battery backup. So, Minister, AEMO is working off a figure of 60 gigawatt hours of storage at around $1 billion an hour, which is $60 billion. How much will electricity prices and supermarket prices rise as a result of having to spend that staggering amount of money?

Senator McAllister: Well, the one thing I can say is that we will take advice from the experts about the optimal investment that’s necessary to build out the national electricity market. It’s a different approach to the one taken by those opposite, because right now we have a coalition government whose plan is to invest taxpayers’ money in the most expensive form—

The PRESIDENT: Minister, please resume your seat.

Senator McKenzie: You can’t tell us how expensive yours will be!

The PRESIDENT: I’m waiting, Senator McKenzie! Senator Roberts.

Senator ROBERTS: A point of order on relevance. I didn’t ask about the coalition government, as you said. I asked about the Labor government now.

The PRESIDENT: I will draw the minister to your question, Senator Roberts. And while I have the attention of the chamber, I will ask senators, particularly those on my left, to listen in respectful silence. Minister McAllister.

Senator Thorpe: You lefties need to listen!

The PRESIDENT: Senator Thorpe, that includes you! Order! Minister, please continue.

Senator McAllister: Thanks very much, President. The senator asked about our plans. The Capacity Investment Scheme will deliver 32 gigawatts of renewable and clean dispatchable capacity to fill emerging
reliability gaps. The truth is that will put downward pressure on prices, because one of the consequences of the failed policies of those opposite is that we do have capacity capabilities that need to be filled because energy capacity is leaving the market and it has not been replaced. We are taking steps necessary to replace it. (Time expired)

Transcript | Take Note of Questions

I move: 

That the Senate take note of the answer from the Minister representing the Minister for Climate Change and Energy, Senator McAllister, to a question without notice I asked today relating to energy. 

My question was quite simple: how much is the government’s net zero policy going to cost just for firming? Firming is the provision of what used to be called stable, synchronised baseload power to keep the lights on when the wind isn’t blowing and the sun isn’t shining. Firming wasn’t needed when we had coal power because coal plants provide stable, synchronised baseload power day and night. Solar and wind don’t. 

AEMO estimates Australia will need 65 gigawatt hours of firming to guarantee grid stability. Depending on the time of year, that storage will need to be refilled each day to get the grid through the next night, including most of the evening and morning peak hours. Australia’s energy consumption in 2023-24 shows that, in summer, for the morning peak hours we needed 36 gigawatt hours of power and for the evening peak hours 28 gigawatt hours. So AEMO’s figure of 65 gigawatt hours of firming is about right. The $64 billion expense—billion dollar expense—will be added to every Australian’s power bill, or it will go onto your taxes. Either way, under the Albanese government you will pay. 

The $64 billion cost is just for one night. These batteries need to be refilled the next day with power from the grid. That means that every day we need a huge amount of solar and wind just to charge the batteries. One wet day preventing large-scale generation from solar and wind means the batteries will not be recharged, resulting in blackouts and energy management that I’ll discuss tomorrow. It’s clear that 65 gigawatts of capacity at $64 billion is not enough to avoid blackouts. We’ll probably need twice that, as well as having to build extra solar and wind just to charge the batteries. 

Everyday Australians are up for hundreds of billions of dollars just for firming. That’s in addition to the electricity needed on any day. This is an insane impost on every Australian struggling with paying for their groceries and insurance and with the cost of living under Labor. End the net zero mandates now. 

Question agreed to. 

/1 Comment/by

Study Reveals Carbon Credits are a Scam!

,

A reputable study says that 70-80% of carbon credits “are devoid of integrity”. This is a market that is costing Australia roughly $5.5 billion based on carbon credit units that even the Greens agree is a scam. This is driving up prices even higher in the middle of a cost of living crisis.

It’s time to stop the corruption and cancel these ridiculous net-zero policies.

Transcript

Carbon dioxide credits are a scam and an absolute fraud, and the Greens agree with One Nation on this. Yes, you heard that correctly. It’s difficult to believe. Australians may wonder what we agree on Granted, the Greens and One Nation have come to the same conclusion for very different reasons. Nonetheless, we share the conclusion that carbon dioxide credits are a scam. They are rife with opportunities for fraud. 

The Clean Energy Regulator has issued 140 million carbon dioxide credits. At the current spot price of $35 each, this represents a racket potentially worth $4.9 billion. That’s expected to grow by 20 million credits, or $700 million, this year alone, making it $5.6 million. 

The Greens and One Nation aren’t the only ones to criticise Australian carbon credit units, or ACCUs. In 2022 Professor Andrew Macintosh, environmental law expert at the Australian National University, and his colleagues published a series of papers absolutely tearing apart the ACCU system. Keep in mind that this is a $5.5 billion market that’s being fabricated, in part to give the UN income, ultimately. As usual, they enlist parasites who benefit while pushing UN policy for them. For example, the major banks. Rothschild Australia, the Bank of America and Merrill Lynch had on their advisory boards in this country at the time the CSIRO chief executive, Dr Megan Clark—a conflict of interest? 

Back to the study of ACCU carbon dioxide credits. The study was done under Professor Andrew Macintosh, who said: 

The available data suggests 70 to 80 per cent of the ACCUs issued to … projects are devoid of integrity … 

So 20 to 30 per cent may have some integrity. Remember, this is a $5.5 billion market. Here’s another quote: 

What is occurring is a fraud on the environment … 

‘A fraud on the environment’, I say to the Greens. This is what Dr Macintosh said: 

What is occurring is a fraud on the environment, a fraud on taxpayers— 

Australian taxpayers— 

and a fraud on unwitting private buyers of ACCUs … 

In response to these revelations, the government commissioned what they call the Chubb review. The government should just have been honest and called it what it really was: a whitewash, a distortion and misinformation. Actually, the Chubb review is disinformation. In the past, when Professor Chubb has been requested to provide empirical scientific data within a logical scientific point backing up claims of climate change due to human carbon dioxide, he has repeatedly failed to produce it. He has never produced it, yet he’s often advocated for it. He’s part of the climate fraud industry and has received a lot of money to push climate fraud. He has been heavily rewarded by both Liberal-National and Labor Party governments. The Chubb review, in this case, addressed nothing of substance and provided no evidence for its claims that problems have been fixed, yet the government held the report up as proof that everything’s fine. As Professor Macintosh and his colleagues outlined in their response to the Chubb review, it spent less than six pages discussing the ACCU rules, which relate to a $5.5 billion market. They say: 

The– 

Chubb— 

report does not contain references to the evidence relied upon to reach its conclusions … 

I’ll say that again: 

The– 

Chubb— 

report does not contain references to the evidence relied upon to reach its conclusions, and includes very little analysis to support its findings. And importantly, the panel does not address key questions around the integrity of the scheme’s rules. 

What use was that? This is ‘a fraud on the environment, a fraud on taxpayers and a fraud on unwitting private buyers of ACCUs’. Here is another quote: 

Bewilderingly— 

I don’t find it bewildering; it’s straightforward, as I’ve been watching this scam unfold for years– 

in its assessment of the methods, the panel does not refer to the findings of a review it commissioned from the Australian Academy of Science … The academy … found numerous flaws in the methods and the associated governance processes. 

There were ‘numerous flaws in the methods and the associated governance processes’. This is so typical of this government. It is so typical of the Liberals, the Nationals and Labor, pushing the climate fraud. Here is another quote: 

The— 

Chubb— 

review … acknowledged the scientific evidence criticising the carbon credit scheme, but says “it was also provided with evidence to the contrary”. Yet it did not disclose what that evidence was or what it relates to. The public is simply expected to trust that the evidence exists. 

Maybe the dog ate the evidence for breakfast. This is what the government says is assurance and integrity for taxpayer money. 

While the Greens, Professor Macintosh and I may agree on the integrity issues with carbon dioxide credits, here’s where I leave them behind: there is no reason to reduce our output of carbon dioxide or trade credits for it. Carbon dioxide credits can never have integrity because they are a scam designed to transfer wealth from the pockets of everyday Australians and their families and small businesses to the bank accounts of billionaire net zero scam artists and parasitic multinationals sucking on the financial payout from climate fraud and associated financial scams. I note some of these points. I won’t go into them in detail. The government that introduced the renewable energy target, a scam, and the national electricity market that is really a national electricity racket—it’s not a market; it’s a bureaucratic controlled entity—stole farmers’ property rights across the country so that they could comply with the UN’s Kyoto protocol. They put in place the first policy—not legislation—advocating for a carbon dioxide tax. It wasn’t Julia Gillard. It was the Howard government that did all these things. The Howard government laid the foundation for all of this. It went around the Constitution to steal farmers’ property rights around the country. Then, six years after being booted from office and after the Liberals and Nationals in the Howard government told us that it was all based on science, John Howard, in a major lecture to sceptic think tank in Londan said that on the topic of climate science, he was agnostic. He didn’t have the science, and now our electricity sector has been crippled because of the renewable energy target, the national electricity market and an alphabet soup of bureaucratic agencies. 

There has never been—there never is—any empirical scientific data and logical scientific points that human carbon dioxide is warming the planet. There is not any from the CSIRO—I’ve done freedom of information requests and held them accountable in the Senate—nor from their publications ever. There is not any from the Bureau of Meteorology. It’s the same deal. There is not any from the United Nations. It’s the same deal. There is also no policy basis. There is no documented effect per unit of human carbon dioxide on climate factors such as air temperature, rainfall, heat waves, drought severity and frequency or storm severity, frequency and duration—none at all. There is no basis for the policy on which the carbon dioxide credits are based. There’s been no cost benefit analysis. There’s been no business case. Ross Garnaut, who produced a report for the Rudd-Gillard government, said in his report on the science that there basically was no science and he was going on the consensus. Yet he is parasitically sucking on solar and wind subsidies, driving up electricity prices and putting Australians into poverty. Remember, the money that goes to the extra costs of electricity in this country is a highly regressive tax on the poor in our country. 

In 2009 and 2020 we had two global experiments showing that human carbon dioxide has no effect on carbon dioxide levels in the air. We had a major downturn with the global financial crisis in 2008. We then had a recession in 2009. COVID hit us. It arrived on our shores—it didn’t really hit us; the government hit us—in 2020, and then 2020 was almost a depression because of the restrictions and lockdowns. In both years, the level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere continued rising unabated. Yet we’ve been told for decades now that by cutting back on human production of carbon dioxide we would see the levels in the atmosphere start decreasing and go down. We had a major reduction in industrial activity and a severe recession in 2009 and 2020. The production of carbon dioxide from human use of hydrocarbons, coal, oil and natural gas decreased dramatically, yet nothing happened. The carbon dioxide in the atmosphere kept increasing. 

I asked the CSIRO why. They said that there is an inflection. I asked them for the details of that inflection, to characterise it statistically. They failed to do it. I asked the Bureau of Meteorology, and they said, ‘Senator Roberts, it would take years for that to come through.’ Here is the CSIRO saying that we’ve already seen it and the Bureau of Meteorology saying that we will see it eventually, but it will take a long while to come. You can’t make this stuff up! What the experiments in 2009 and 2020 showed is that the production of carbon dioxide from human activity will not affect the level of carbon dioxide in the air. Once you understand Henry’s law—the quantities of carbon dioxide dissolved in the ocean are 50 to 70 times more than the entire atmospheric carbon dioxide—then you start to understand why that’s the case. But not content with climate science fraud, the CSIRO is perpetrating gen cost, which is energy fraud based on bogus assumptions that have been completely debunked. Aidan Morrison has done a marvellous job; others have done a marvellous job. 

There’s no basis for this scam, this fraud, but let’s return to the fraud. A report in the 2010s said Europol found 95 per cent of carbon dioxide trading credits were suspicious. That’s easy to believe because there’s no physical basis to the measurement of reductions to carbon dioxide produced. They’re all projections. They’re all based on guesses. They’re formulae based on estimations. They were never quantified and are still not quantified. China is producing record quantities of carbon dioxide, and so are Russia, Brazil, the United States and the European Union—Australia are a small player—yet temperatures are flat and have been flat since 1995. That’s almost 30 years of flat temperatures. I urge senators to establish this inquiry so that we can get to the bottom of how taxpayer money is being fraudulently abused. 

/3 Comments/by

The Costs and Risks of Australia’s Largest Solar Project: Sun Cable

,

This is another of my ongoing questions into understanding the cost of net zero. The Sun Cable project is an insane proposal to cover 12,000 hectares of the Northern Territory with solar panels, at a cost of over $30 billion. There are multiple problems with this project, including environmental damage, power loss during transmission and site remediation once the panels reach the end of life.

These large energy companies are not required to, and don’t set aside funds for remediation. This means Australian taxpayers will end up footing the bill for billions of dollars in cleanup costs when this project inevitably fails.

Despite this being the world’s largest solar project and carrying significant sovereign risk, the Minister had no clue what I was talking about.

Transcript

Senator ROBERTS: My question is to the Minister representing the Minister for Climate Change and Energy, Senator McAllister, and it’s regarding the SunCable industrial solar project in the Northern Territory. Minister, please advise the Senate of the total value of guarantees and, as a separate figure, the total value of subsidies available to the project. 

Senator McAllister: I am aware that the Minister for the Environment and Water has recently provided approval for the SunCable project. This is a project that, as I understand it, seeks to establish renewable generation capability in the Northern Territory and also significant transmission capability, which will allow that generation to be used within the Australian grid but potentially also to be exported to our Singaporean neighbours. This is potentially an extremely important project. It is also one that is first of kind in the Australian context— 

Senator ROBERTS: I have a point of order, under standing order 72(3)(c): ‘Answers shall be directly relevant to each question.’ I asked about the total value of guarantees and the total value of subsidies. What are they? If you don’t know, please just say so. 

The President: I will draw the minister to that part of your question, Senator Roberts. 

Senator McAllister: The senator asks me to comment, I think, on policies that exist in the Australian context to support the rollout of reliable renewables, and of course— 

The President: Minister McAllister, please resume your seat. Senator Roberts, on a point of order? 

Senator ROBERTS: I asked about the total value of guarantees and the total value of subsidies. That’s it. 

The President: Senator Roberts, the minister barely said seven words, so let’s just hear the answer. I have reminded the minister of the question, and I will continue to listen carefully. 

Senator McAllister: The Australian government takes our advice about the future of the energy system from experts, and all of the advice that has been provided to us is that the most cost-effective form of new generation to replace the older, ageing assets that are shortly to retire is reliable renewables. 

Senator CASH: He just wanted to know what the figure is. 

The President: Order! Senator Cash, this is not your question. 

Senator McAllister: We take our advice from experts because we believe that Australians deserve the most cost-effective form of energy that is available to us. We can’t actually go back to doing things the way that they were done under the previous government. 

The President: Minister McAllister, please resume your seat. Senator Roberts, on a point of order? 

Senator ROBERTS: I remind the minister that I asked about the total value of guarantees and the total value of subsidies. 

The President: I have reminded the minister of the question, and I will remind her again, Senator Roberts. 

Senator HENDERSON: It’s okay to say you can take it on notice. 

The President: Order! Thank you, Senator Henderson. 

Senator McAllister: My advice is that this project has been— (Time expired) 

The President: Senator Roberts, first supplementary? 

Senator ROBERTS: The project proposes to generate electricity in the Northern Territory and send it to Singapore using a 4,300-kilometre-long cable, mostly undersea. This is five times longer than Norway’s 760-kilometre Viking Link, the current longest cable. Viking Link loses 3.5 per cent of its generation through transmission loss. What percentage of the project’s Australian generated electricity will be lost in transmission to Singapore? 

Senator McAllister: The senator asks about, essentially, the economics of the project that has been approved, and what I can advise the senator is that this is a matter for the project proponent. The government’s role is not to assess the economics of this project. The minister has made a decision in relation to its environmental approvals. This is part of a broader transformation of the Australian economy. We are blessed with abundant sunshine, wind and land, with skilful engineers and skilful personnel, with a mature commercial and legal environment and with a natural electricity system that many other countries seek to talk to us about because of its strengths. These are strengths for Australian communities. They are strengths for Australian regions and they are potentially a source of significant economic opportunity for Australians living in regional communities. (Time expired) 

The President: Senator Roberts, second supplementary? 

Senator ROBERTS: The minister can’t or won’t tell me about guarantees and subsidies nor a core project assumption, so, Minister, my second supplementary question is: how much is SunCable lodging as a rehabilitation bond for the 12,400 hectares of land that will be covered in solar panels? 

Senator McAllister: The senator asks about the terms on which the approval for the SunCable project has been provided. I can tell the senator that Minister Plibersek applies the terms of the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act to all of the matters that come before her. This is a project proposal that intends to establish a significant source of new generation in the Northern Territory, as you indicated in your first supplementary question. 

The President: Senator Roberts, on a point of order? 

Senator ROBERTS: Minister, is there a rehabilitation bond in place to cover the desecration of the environment? 

The President: Senator Roberts, it’s your responsibility to seek a point of order, not to re-ask your question. If you have a point of order, I invite you to make it. If you don’t, I’ll ask the minister to continue. 

Senator ROBERTS: President, the point of order is one of relevance. 

The President: I believe the minister is being relevant. She has outlined to you the approval processes. So I will ask her to continue. 

Senator CASH interjecting— 

The President: Order! Order! Senator Cash, which bit of ‘order’ doesn’t apply to you? Minister McAllister, please continue. 

Senator McAllister: The minister’s responsibility, of course, is to apply the law when a project is put before her. Since coming to government we have sought to do so in relation to all of the projects before us, but we are pleased to see new renewable projects coming online. Since coming to government, we have given the green light to more than 55 of those under the

/2 Comments/by

One Nation is the True Champion for the Environment

,

As I travel through Queensland, visiting communities affected by industrial wind and solar projects, it’s increasingly evident that Greens’ politics are rife with hypocrisy and the public know it. While they present themselves as champions of the environment, they support the massive environmental vandalism involved in the push for net-zero energy.

Tops of mountains in native forests are being blown off to accommodate massive wind turbines and permanent access roads, which require blasting, are being constructed to transport enormous wind turbine blades—some over 100 meters long—around corners and up the mountain. Additionally, thousands of kilometres of forest are being clear-felled to make way for the transmission lines that will deliver the power to the cities, where Green supporters can pat themselves on the back for using “green” energy.

In reality, there’s nothing green about green energy and there’s nothing green about the Australian Greens. One Nation is the true champion of the natural environment now.

Transcript

And what do the Greens do? After finally showing their true colours as the party of Hamas; as the party of left-wing union thuggery, donations and bribes; as the party of communism; and as the party of environmental destruction in the name of net zero energy, they have a problem. Their traditional base of decent Australians concerned about the natural environment is turning away from the watermelon Greens. So here’s the Greens’ answer: resurrect a bill which was already defeated because it’s a stupid bill, and use this to pretend the Greens still care about our precious natural environment. 

The intention of this bill is in the name: ending native forest logging. Regional forest agreements will be made subservient to environmental regulations which will tie logging down in the courts and bring logging to an end—end logging. All those workers, many of them fine union members, will be out of a job. It is logging that produces timber for, amongst other things, the very seats the Greens are sitting in today, right now, which were made from logged native timber—Western Australian jarrah and Tasmanian myrtle. 

Putting aside their hypocrisy, it’s clear the Greens think their supporters can be gullibly convinced by a superficial virtue-signalling stunt. After all, who would oppose protecting native forests? Actually, the Greens oppose protecting native forests. Greens’ energy policies are blasting the tops off mountains in old-growth forests to erect 300-metre-high wind turbines. They’re clear-felling thousands of kilometres of forest for access roads and the power transmission lines to get the power hundreds of kilometres back to the city—thousands of kilometres, in fact, back to the city. Thousands of hectares of native forest are being permanently destroyed.  

Blasting has released arsenic previously locked in sandstone into our waterways and aquifers. In the case of the Atherton Tableland in pristine North Queensland, aquifers contaminated with arsenic will eventually come to the surface in the middle of the Great Barrier Reef, through underground basins.  

Unlike forest taken for logging, forest damage from net zero energy is not regrown. The access roads are required for maintenance for the life of the turbine. The transmission lines are permanent. Unlike coalmines that are remediated at the end of the mine, there’s no remediation bond on industrial wind, solar and transmission lines, so these things will be a rusting blight on the landscape for a hundred years, for the community to pay for, for taxpayers to pay to rehabilitate and for farmers to rehabilitate. The Greens are environmental vandals. 

I tell you who does support protecting native forests: One Nation. We would end the environmental destruction from net zero energy measures and would restrict solar panels to built-up areas where the energy is needed. We would end any new wind turbine subsidies and instead promote vertical wind technology. One Nation will prevent logging in old-growth forests. 

Regional forest agreements are an accord between the federal, state and local governments to supervise the timber industry. This means the Greens believe they know better than the state governments—all six of them—who have been managing their forests for 200 years. Aboriginals have been managing Australia’s forests for tens of thousands of years, including through the use of burning off. Each state government consults with Aboriginal communities in the development of regional forest agreements. Aboriginal voices only matter, though, to the Greens when they can be exploited to advance Greens technology and lock Aboriginals into victimhood and dependency.  

Generations of ongoing development of forestry agreements, planning out supply and demand, protecting sensitive habitats and protecting old-growth forests—all that great work involving communities, industry and government is torn up and thrown away because the Greens think they know better. They are playing God, playing tsar. What an ego—and to what benefit? 

The Greens are proclaiming their love of housing and promising to build more houses than anyone else. The question arises: out of what are they going to build those houses? The Greens want to shut down the Australian forestry industry, the conventional steel industry, the gas industry, the diesel industry and the cement industry. The Greens are proposing to build houses without timber, steel or concrete. Well, the last time I looked, pixie dust was not a building material. Does the CFMEU know they’re hopping into bed with a political party that would remove from the market all the materials tradies need to build a new home and build new apartment towers while also removing diesel for tradies’ generators and utes, which they now propose to tax out of existence? 

I don’t want to confuse the feelings coming from my left with facts, yet that’s what I do. I deal in facts. At last mapping, there were 131½ million hectares of native forest in Australia, which is 17 per cent of Australia’s land area, and there were 1.8 million hectares of commercial plantations, including pines and eucalypts. This is where most logging occurs, yet it’s not enough to sustain Australia’s demand for timber. There are 30 million hectares of land, most of that privately owned, which can be logged under the careful management of regional forest agreements. Last year, two per cent of those 30 million hectares were logged, meaning Australia is logging 600,000 hectares out of the 133 million hectares available, less than one half of one per cent of our native forests. 

What happens when a forest is logged? Is it clear-felled, never to grow anything again? Of course not. Forestry is about renewal. That’s the whole point of regional forestry agreements. The logging industry is allowed to go in and take the productive timber, remove the stunted and useless timber and then leave that forest to regenerate for 10 years or so before returning to repeat the cycle. Habitat is not destroyed; it’s enhanced. Forests are not destroyed; they’re enhanced. Rather than helping our forests, this Greens bill will harm them. 

Logging removes the fuel from the forest. It thins the trees and protects native forest from bushfires. There are huge areas of this country that have never fully recovered from the bushfires during the drought because some native forests contain so much fuel they burned like hell. What happened to the wildlife the Greens profess to care so much about? They were incinerated—agonisingly, cruelly incinerated. The damage to native flora and fauna caused in those bushfires resulted directly from restrictions on burn-offs, something sensible forest management would have mediated. They tried to, but the Greens stopped it. This is the problem with communists. They think imperious proclamations are a substitute for good government facts and data. They are wrong. 

Let’s be clear: it has been illegal to log old-growth forests for the entirety of this century. I know there has been some intrusion into old-growth forests. This bill from the Greens won’t deal with that problem, though, because the intrusion is mostly coming from the construction of wind turbines, access roads, solar panels and transmission lines, which the Greens adore and love and drive. Illegal logging, logging that damages old-growth forests, must be prosecuted, and One Nation will prosecute offenders. 

One Nation opposes this bill, because we are the party of the environment and we know the current system is best for the environment. As someone who has personally planted thousands of trees, rehabilitated land and protected coastlines, I know One Nation is now the party of the natural environment. 

/by

One Nation’s Plan to Restore Australian Farming : End Net Zero Madness

,

In this video I outline One Nation’s plan to restore Australian farming – within the 60 seconds I was allotted to debate the Nationals’ motion on the issue. 

It’s an easy solution: end the net zero madness! 

Net zero is a policy of the Liberals, the Nationals, Labor, the Greens, and the Teals. Their collective commitment to net zero is destroying farming through the death of a thousand regulatory cuts, strangling farmers with restrictions on water use, farm chemicals, fertilisers, on their soil. This is choking the life out of rural Australia in the name of reducing carbon dioxide, which helps grow the very food these net zero ideologues eat. 

In reality, net zero means net zero food, net zero clothing, net zero freedom and net zero travel. The UN and the World Economic Forum are pushing for food to be produced in near-urban intensive food manufacturing facilities producing cultural lab-grown meat, forced greens with no cell structure and bug protein. It’s time to let Australian farmers once again feed and clothe the world.  

Let’s end government driven by ideology and restore common sense to farming. 

Transcript

How would One Nation restore Australian farming—explained in the 60 seconds the Nationals have allocated me? It’s easy: end the net zero madness. Net zero is a policy of the Liberals, the Nationals, the Labor Party, the Greens and the teals. Each committed to destroying farming through the death of a thousand regulatory cuts, strangling farmers with restrictions on water use, on farm chemicals and fertilisers and even on their soil. This is strangling the life out of rural Australia in the name of reducing carbon dioxide, which fertilises the very food these net zero ideologues eat. 

Net zero really means net zero food, net zero clothes, net zero freedom and net zero travel. We’ve been told by the UN and the World Economic Forum that food will be produced in near-urban intensive food-manufacturing facilities producing cultured laboratory meat, forced greens with no cell structure and bug protein. Allow Australian farmers to once again feed and clothe the world. It’s time to end government by ideology. 

/by

Net Zero Policies Fuel Rising Cost of Living

,

The cost of living continues to skyrocket out of control.

This government is pouring fuel on the fire with its net zero policies making everything in the economy more expensive. The true scale of how crazy their plans are is apparent with some simple figures. Yet this government is ignorant to the damage they are causing.

Fix the cost of living and bring down inflation – ditch the net zero plans.

Transcript | Part 1 – Question Time

Senator ROBERTS: My question is to the Minister representing the Minister for Climate Change and Energy, Senator McAllister. For every 100 megawatts of installed coal-fired power station capacity, the production of electricity average is around 95 to 98 megawatts. For every 100 megawatts of installed solar and wind generation capacity, though, the actual production of electricity average is just 23 megawatts, with wind itself being just 21. This means that to achieve design capacity, more than four times the installed rated capacity is required—almost five times for wind. Minister, is this included in Labor’s transition costs?

Senator McAllister: Thanks very much for the question, Senator Roberts. In terms of costings, we take the advice of the experts. We’ve had this conversation more than once, in fact, in the context of estimates and in other forums. AEMO works through a range of scenarios and configurations for the National Electricity Market and makes an assessment of the optimal pathway to meet our energy requirements at the optimal cost. They do consider, of course, the capacity factors of the different options that are available to us. There’s actually quite a lot of work to do. The truth is that we inherited a mess in the energy system. When we came in, the average wholesale energy price was $286 a megawatt hour—

The PRESIDENT: Minister McAllister, please resume your seat. Senator Roberts?

Senator ROBERTS: Point of order on relevance: standing order 72(3)(c) says that answers shall be directly relevant to each question. Can we get on to whether or not Labor is aware—

The PRESIDENT: Senator Roberts, as I’ve reminded other senators in this place, make your point of order but don’t follow it up with a statement. The minister is being directly relevant to the points of your question. Minister McAllister, please continue.

Senator McAllister: Thanks, President. As I was saying, we came to government with a lot of work to do because the previous government had 22 energy policies, all of which failed. None of them landed. During the period when they were in government, four gigawatts of dispatchable capacity left the system and only one came on. We actually need to take steps to sort that out, because the previous government was repeatedly warned by the market operator that a failure to deal with the impending closure of coal-fired power stations was going to cause a reliability problem. We have sought advice from the experts at the market operator to help us design the policy settings that will actually allow us to replace that exit in capacity. It’s a lot more than anything that was ever delivered by the people opposite. The very great shame is that, for a person who I know seeks to represent people in Queensland, you show an odd lack of interest in the opportunities that come about as a consequence of making and facilitating these investments, which have the potential to bring jobs and new industry to the communities that you claim to care about.

The PRESIDENT: Senator Roberts, first supplementary?

Senator ROBERTS: During morning and evening peak hours, for every 100 megawatts of installed solar and wind generation capacity, the actual production of electricity averages just 10 megawatts. This means that achieving design capacity requires 10 times the installed rated capacity. Minister, what impact does this massive additional cost have on solar and wind installation capital costs and on electricity prices?

Senator McAllister: Senator, your question actually omits a really important part of the advice that we received from the market operator. The advice that we received—and it’s based on very significant economic modelling and engagement with a whole range of market participants and experts in the energy system—is that the optimal configuration of technology for a future grid involves renewables, firmed by storage, including batteries, and supplemented by gas. That’s the plan that has been recommended to us, and the policy settings that we’ve put in place are designed to allow investment in those kinds of technologies to be brought forward. As I indicated in my answer to your primary question, there is a problem because there was an extended period
when the lack of certainty in the policy settings of the previous government meant that the necessary investment didn’t take place, and we are taking steps to remedy that problem.

The PRESIDENT: Senator Roberts, second supplementary?

Senator ROBERTS: A modern coal-fired power station is expected to last 60 years. Solar panels and wind turbines are expected to last 12 to 15 years—at most, 20. Over the 60-year life of a coal-fired power plant, the combination of wind and solar cobbled together to replace a single coal plant will need to be replaced four times. Minister, when will Labor release its system cost of the 2050 grid system?

Senator McAllister: As the senator would know if he’d examined the Integrated System Plan, it does include a costing for the capital costs associated with building the grid out to 2050. So the answer is: it is released and updated on a regular basis by way of the Integrated System Plan. That’s the basis on which we establish our policies to deal with the transition that’s underway in the electricity system. The truth is that it is underway, Senator Roberts. I know that that is a proposition you don’t agree with, but in just two years we’ve seen a 25 per cent increase in our national grid in the cheapest and cleanest form of energy that there is, which is reliable renewables, and we’ve ticked off enough reliable renewables projects to power three million homes. Those things matter. Establishing a clear pathway for the electricity supply that’s necessary to meet the needs of households and businesses is an absolute priority for this government and should be for every other government as well.

Transcript | Part 2 – Take Note

I move:

That the Senate take note of the answer given by the Minister representing the Minister for Climate Change and Energy (Senator McAllister) to a question without notice I asked today relating to the cost of the net zero wind and solar transition.

With this so-called transition, both major parties are artificially increasing the cost of energy, pouring fuel on the inflation and cost-of-living crises. Labor and the Liberals planning to run the grid on net zero is trying to smash a square peg into a round hole.

In question time I used simple, proven facts and figures to show these plans are ridiculous. It comes down to something called ‘capacity factor’. That describes how much electricity we actually get from various types of power stations. A coal-fired power station runs at nearly a 95 per cent capacity factor or higher. That means, if we install a 100-megawatt coal-fired power station, on average, including downtime for maintenance, we get about 95 megawatts out of it over time.

Wind and solar are far lower. Their average capacity factor is just 23 per cent. That means that to replace 100 megawatts of coal-fired power we need to build 400 megawatts of wind and solar. Even if we do this massive and costly overbuild, it’s not guaranteed that wind and solar power will be available when we need it. At peak hours, morning and evening, when most people turn on devices and appliances, the capacity factor of wind and solar is just 10 per cent. We’re up for 1,000 megawatts of wind and solar to replace each 100 megawatts of coal-fired power, plus the billions of dollars in batteries and the tens of thousands of kilometres of transmission lines.

A coal-fired power station lasts 60 years—four times longer than wind and solar, which must be replaced after 15 years or so. That’s another four times the expense for solar and wind, making it a total of 4,000 megawatts to replace each 100 megawatts of coal power—40 times more expensive.

This supposed plan is not a plan; it’s lunacy. It’s costing trillions of dollars. This insanity and deceit are driving up the cost of living. Only One Nation will stop subsidising large-scale wind and solar to bring down power bills for all Australians.

Question agreed to.

/by