When you talk to the left, does it ever feel as if you’re talking to a visitor from another planet? A planet where lockdowns saved us all from the Black Plague, where socialism has never failed because “real socialism” has never been tried, and where the world stands on the brink of cheap, abundant “renewable” energy that will save the planet?
In conversations I’ve had, in real life and online, with ardent green-leftists, these are all things they seem to fervently believe. And why wouldn’t they? They only know what they read and hear from the Guardian and the ABC, which constantly repeat Anthony Albanese’s lie that renewables are the cheapest form of electricity.
The fact that their electricity bills are soaring, with renewables at only around 6-10% penetration (ignore the rare, cherry-picked sunny and windy days when renewables briefly spike for a few minutes, generating mostly gushing headlines rather than reliable electricity supply) is completely ignored. At best, they kinda-sorta acknowledge it, but blame it all on “Putin”.
Yet even the Reserve Bank governor is warning that the obsession with renewables is going to keep driving up power prices.
Reserve Bank of Australia governor Philip Lowe has issued a blunt warning that the renewable energy transition would probably spark higher and more volatile energy prices in the years ahead.
The problems are, though, that, firstly, Lowe has couched his warning in typical bureaucratic economist-talk:
He indicated the significant investment in renewable energy around the world was not being met by investment in existing energy sources that were “depreciating quickly.”
“It is difficult to make predictions here, but it’s probable that the global capital stock that is used to produce energy will come under recurring pressure in the years ahead.
“If so, we could expect higher and more volatile energy prices during the transition to a more renewables-based energy supply.”
Australian Financial Review
Lowe could have just cut through the waffle and said that running down fossil fuel generation and plunging trillions into costly, unreliable renewables was a recipe for soaring bills and collapsing reliability.
Lowe also issued the warning as just part of a long, economic Jeremiad that included everything from “reverse globalisation” to a dearth of working-age taxpayers. It also doesn’t help that Lowe parrots dodgy nostrums about “extreme climate shocks”. He also made the mistake of “apologising” “to Australians for giving them unclear guidance that led to hundreds of thousands taking out big mortgages in the expectation that interest rates would stay low until 2024”. As if that wasn’t their own fault for being greedy and stupid.
But that’s all the “out” that the ABC needs. The ABC’s report concentrated entirely on the last part and studiously ignored the part about renewables.
As Tim Poole repeatedly says, the left are low-information voters.
Which makes you wonder how they can square their absolute conviction that “renewables are cheaper”, with the fact that even the Albanese government has been embarrassed into doing something about electricity bills.
Naturally, being a socialist government, the very stupidest thing imaginable.
Federal cabinet will finalise the national response to skyrocketing electricity prices ahead of a national cabinet meeting on Wednesday next week. The package is expected to lower costs for struggling consumers via temporary direct energy price subsidies
The Australian
Yes, that’s right: in response to spiralling power bills caused by heavily-subsidised renewables, the government is going to… pay more subsidies.
Tell me these loons aren’t socialists.
Oh, well — better start stocking up on household pets, so we’ll have something to eat in the next few years. Except we won’t be able to afford the energy to cook them. Enjoy your raw bugs in the dark, comrades.
