So, in Australia we are rich with resources:
- Lots of the cleanest burning black coal in the world.
- One of the largest supplies of clean burning gas in the world.
- The largest reserves of uranium in the world. For ultra clean nuclear generated electricity.
We could, and should, have large amounts of baseload electricity. Available 24 hours a day.
Instead, we spend billions on environmentally disastrous wind farms and solar farms. Things that only provide unreliable electricity for limited times of the day. That require many miles of extra powerlines. Things that in themselves are an environmental disaster!
Each windmill has three blades, made largely of fibreglass. An oil-based product! They are almost impossible to recycle! They are 50 metres long. Where they connect to the windmill, they are about 2.5 metres in diameter. Just think! After a relatively short life – a maximum of no more than thirty years – these blades will have to be disposed of. How? Where? How much diesel power will be needed just to take them down?
Each windmill has a base of about 800 tonnes of reinforced concrete. What was the energy cost of making the steel reinforcements? What was the energy cost of making the concrete and transporting it onto the site? And then – here is the real hard one! – how will these massive concrete blocks be removed when the wind farm reaches the end of its service life? Remember that there are hundreds of these! Or do we just leave them as a permanent pollution?
And wind farms are an absolute eyesore! Near we I live is a large windfarm. It spoils what was a beautiful, pristine forest area. Many, many, trees removed. Replaced by concrete blocks and ugly windmills.
Have you ever seen a solar farm? Square kilometres of black glass panels. Which do wonders for the plant life that used to be there! These glass panels, which have a very limited service life, are virtually unrecyclable. And there are many thousands of them, covering many square kilometres!
And they only work when the sun shines!
So we are establishing an absolutely environmentally disastrous electricity generating system that only works sometimes.
Why not use the things that have been given us, that work?
- Coal. Modern electricity generating plants using coal are much cleaner than the older ones. And they take up a relatively small amount of land!
- Gas. Australia has huge amounts of gas reserves. Enormous! Gas is clean burning. Gas powered generators take up little space. Why not use the resource that has been given us?
- Nuclear. Again, we have been blessed with huge reserves of uranium. Why not make use of them? Ultra clean. Very safe. Around the world there have been fewer deaths associated with nuclear generated electricity than any other form of electricity generation.
Instead of wrecking our environment with the environmentally disastrous wind and solar farms, why not use the energy resources we have been given in abundance? Coal. Gas. Nuclear.
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