Make electricity unreliable and unaffordable and you’ll soon turn your economy to ashes. Australia is on the brink of a major recession, and energy costs are front and centre.
Power prices will jump by 25 to 30% next month following the closure of yet another perfectly operable 2,000MW coal-fired power plant. Since the Federal Government’s Renewable Energy Target was ramped up by the Labor government in 2010, Australians have been hit with double-digit percentage increases in their power bills every year since.
Households are being hammered by rising interest rates and power bills that they simply cannot afford.
Then there are energy-hungry industries, like mineral processing, which are all but done for. Aluminium smelters will be the first to go, wiping out thousands of well-paid jobs in the bargain.
Peta Credlin taps into comments made recently by Peter Day, a director of one of Australia’s last remaining smelters. Day’s brutal analysis: Australia is well on the road to de-industrialisation, thanks to its idiotic energy policy.
‘We can have lower emissions or a first world economy – not both’
Sky News
Peta Credlin
30 May 2023
Alumina Limited Director Peter Day had some sad home truths on what is Australia’s counterproductive energy policy, says Sky News host Peta Credlin.
Mr Day addressed his worries towards established industries that rely on coal and gas and also the government’s lack of acknowledgement towards the inefficient backup capacities of renewable energy.
“In plain language terms, the Alumina boss is telling us that we are on a rapid road to de-industrialisation,” Ms Credlin said.
“At some stage, we will have to wake up to the fact that we can have much lower emissions or a first world economy – but not both.”
Transcript
Peta Credlin: It’s rare to find a business leader today talking about business and not virtue signalling on the voice or climate change or diversity and inclusion. But yesterday on issues impacting his business, the chairman of Alumina, one of our biggest manufacturing businesses that runs the Portland smelter in Victoria and an Alumina refinery in Western Australia, Peter Day, had some sad home truths on Australia’s energy policy.
The Alumina chairman pointed out that, and I quote, “The country’s now taking steps that will challenge,” I note that word challenge, “that will challenge many of its established industries that are dependent on coal or gas. Having power that’s available 24/7,” he said, “is a particular challenge. Transition plans in Australia,” he said, that is plans for the transition to renewables are, and I quote, “currently not addressing the issues of backup capacity adequately given battery technologies do not currently provide a viable long duration back-up solution.”
“For example,” he said, “the largest battery currently in Australia could power half the Portland smelter for a maximum of an hour. Further,” he said, “actions to reduce carbon emissions that threaten Australia’s value adding industries,” which he said, “are already in the world’s lowest emissions quartile are counterproductive.”
That’s right. Counterproductive. And he said we’ve just produce even more emissions in countries that aren’t as fastidious about emissions as we are here. Now, this is the chairman of a business that over the past five years has paid almost $3 billion in taxes and royalties and nearly 4 billion in wages, stating that without continued access to competitively priced fossil fuels, gas in this particular case, this value adding venture would cease. In other words, we would cease to be a country with heavy industry.
Day said, and I’ll quote him again, “Current plans for Australia’s energy transition threatened to create immense uncertainty, immense uncertainty on the availability and cost of future energy supply.” So in plain language terms, the Alumina boss is telling us that we’re on a rapid road to de-industrialization. Like the alarm of speculation about future weather events or hysteria about the Barrier Reef, his words are buried in the business section of just one newspaper.
As you know, I don’t oppose reducing emissions as reasonable enough, but not in ways that impose massive extra costs on consumers and ways that weaken us compared to places like China, which never put emissions reduction ahead of economic and military strength. At some stage, we’ll have to wake up to the fact that we can have much lower emissions or a first world economy, but not both. Let’s hope our leaders will soon wake up to these too and ensure that we don’t lose any more coal-fired power until there’s a reliable alternative in place and that we green light the new gas fields we need for ourselves, and of course, the allies that depend on Australia.
Sky News
STOP THESE THINGS 
Reblogged this on whatyareckon and commented:
Hard to believe but our “leaders” are selling the farm to save the planet!!!
I worry less about CO 2 reduction than I do about the loss of industry in this country. We can desecrate the whole east coast of Australia with hundreds of wind farms and thousands of solar arrays, batteries, and whatever else. The lack of a dependable predictable power source will prevail. We need to think ahead. Look at Ontario Power and their installation of Canada’s first SMR (300 MW) which is scheduled to be in operation.by 2029. GE Hitachi with their Nuclear experience will soon have a full order book with other companies sure to follow.
When Japan attacked Pearl Harbor, the United States and Australia were caught flat footed. But we muscled through on the strength of our industrial economies. The United States produced enormous amounts of aluminum with electricity from Bonneville Dam on the Columbia River, and the Tennessee Valley Authority. We’re both now substantially de-industrialized.
US Navy war games simulations show “the quartet” (US, Australia, New Zealand, and India) losing a Pacific war to China because we run out of ammunition. In other news, José Bidet wants the civilized world to use up all our ammo in Ukraine, so that when China takes Taiwan, all we can do is say “OOPS!”
Pearl Harbor was another Holocaust example of consolidation. Toyota; the terrorist’s choice copied from Jeeps left on the Philippines. Glass-Steagall helped build TVA.
How’s the QUAD, with three OTAN servants. What of ANZUS, AUKUS & BRICS?
Hawke-Keating years are forgotten; deindustrialisation, privatisation (Thatcherism); first tranche sale of CBA, “the recession we had to have” with mortgage rates at 25%. All added to Baby Boomer blaming; a false perception of good times when cheap displaced labour flowed from post-war Europe. Industry was also destroyed by shutdown redundancy packages to stop asbestos cancer clusters.
Does government govern FOR the majority population? If not, then who for?
Does education work when DINKS don’t know they’re on resetting interest only loans?
Did you like the internationally cross-owned big 4 AU banks again making first half record profits?
Is the RE subsidy just another rip-off by those who’ve drunk the Kool-aid propaganda of man-made global warming (Oops, relabeled climate change)?
How many companies shifted operation to China’s cheap labour? Now US owned, Bonds left AU with a $25M taxpayer grant. When did borders ever stop the money flow?
Why isn’t inflation controlled by stopping the wealthy from spending? Oh that’s right they control the military weapons & where all the subsidies go.
It astonishes me that we let these “politicians” destroy our economy and living standards with a completely stupid idea connected to “trying to save the planet” ??? The planet has been here for 4.5 BILLION years and needs no help from us. We are ants on its surface who are incapable of affecting how our planet lives; revolves and develops. We can affect tiny areas of it but it always “mends” itself. There is a video by a man who tells us that this planet has survived all manner of horrors from space and yet it is still here, revolving and supporting human life. When will we realise CO2 will NOT kill anything it is vital for our food as it is what green plants need to live and grow.
Criminal sanctions are required against those mandating these policies.
CO2 isnot the problem.
Those profiting off the climate crises scam are.
The chairman’s warning about the risk of de-industrialization and the potential loss of heavy industries resonates deeply. It highlights the importance of finding sustainable pathways that support both emissions reduction and the growth of a first-world economy. We must urge our leaders to carefully consider these concerns, prioritize the development of reliable energy sources, and strike a balance that preserves Australia’s industrial strength while moving towards a cleaner and more sustainable future.
Agreed, it’s called nuclear power.
We can have a “sustainable”future using hydrocarbons because hu.an generated CO2 is not the problem,it’s actually a benefit as crop yields are increasing. CO2 and warming are unrelated.
Why Those Politicians Pushing the Idiotic Net Zero BS are NOT in jail is beyond reason and beyond Humanity.
My girl & I went to watch a sunset reflected against a wind turbine.
As the yellow, orange & red moved silently up the pristine white in the still evening air, we stood quietly in each others arms.
The last touch of red slipped from the tip of a vertical blade as our eyes continued to rise upwards to a bright shining star. A single salute from the hand of God.
We stood in silence until she turned to me & said, “Aren’t you glad Don Quixote gave up?”
It would seem, sadly, that not only Peter Day, but Peta Credlin too, do not know that this whole mad process of “towards NetZero”, can never lead to any CO2 emissions reductions. Indeed, if anything, the mad rush to make so much greater use of “renewables”, requiring as they do, the use of vast quantities of rare, exotic metals, will lead only to increases in CO2 emissions.
Well done, STT, in highlighting this tragedy.
Paul Miskelly