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the planned development of 3000 offshore wind turbines in the North Sea and a further 4000 turbines adjacent on land! And I thought that we had won WW2!

6. Wind farms are an environmental and economic disaster. They are an ugly blot on the landscape, provide expensive and intermittent "green power" and always need a continuously operating backup of conventional thermal power stations. When wind power is being generated a thermal station output can be reduced, or put in standby mode, but it still generates CO2 emissions awaiting a wind change! The high capital outlay, maintenance and operating costs of wind farms and their unreliability, is something best avoided.

7. So the Green's eco-religion which promotes a de-carbonized world Utopia dependent on renewable energy resources (hydroelectricity, wind farms and solar energy) to avoid "pollution from greenhouse gas emissions", is in conflict with having a safe and secure electricity supply using thermal power stations. Continuing with, and expanding our coal-fired power stations in Australia is the best and most economical way of generating electricity, where feasible. Where not feasible then we should consider using gas or nuclear power.

8. The relatively new concept of "clean coal technology" and CO2 sequestration (burying CO2 emissions) is receiving a lot of attention today but is clearly a "red-herring" and a waste of R&D funds. It is dependent on the Green's philosophy that CO2 is a dangerous environmental pollutant which should be reduced in the atmosphere at all or any cost. Clearly this is not true. CO2 is a most vital component of the atmosphere and there should be more of it, not less, to ensure the future welfare of the biosphere.

7. In Australia, in the State of Victoria, we have enormous brown coal deposits in the Latrobe Valley that supply fuel for four thermal power stations, which generate electricity very cheaply for Melbourne and our Eastern industrial seaboard. The lignite deposits strike along many tens of kilometers and in places are up to 100 meters thick with an overburden usually less than 20 meters. Reserves are measured in billions of tonnes and are estimated to last for several hundreds of years at current usage. Australians are not going to kowtow to the eco-religious bunkum emanating from the Green bureaucrats of the EU and Kyoto who think that the sky is about to fall in on us if we don't curb our CO2 emissions. Cheap electricity is vital for the development of Australia and gives us a certain trade advantage over the EU with its more expensive nuclear generated power.

Yesterday's (4 July 2008) release of the first Report on Climate Change by Labor's economics advisor, Prof. Ross Garnaut outlines a "diabolic policy problem" and recommends the implementation of a carbon emissions trading scheme ASAP without which there will be dire consequences. Our PM Kevin Rudd is worried about the political consequences of trying to do so. Unfortunately he relies on bad science for policy decisions and is cleverly shielded from receiving the good science and advice. Prof. Garnaut is clearly a false prophet and will go the same way as Sir Nicholas Stern in the UK, whose similar report, The Stern Review, is now discredited and forgotten.

What we need is a politician of Churchillian dimensions to stifle this misguided Green tide of eco-zealotism which sullies and confuses the way ahead for Governments to make sensible climate change legislation, where thought to be necessary, after widespread consultation.

Learn more about this author, Allan Taylor.
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