Australians forced to pay $60b for expensive “green” electricity, by Joanne Nova.

The Australian calculates the total bill will be in the order of $60b for green electricity.

It’s not like we could have done something better with that. [NBN?]

Read it all (if you can), then write to your MP and Senator. Ask why — if they are serious about helping reduce CO2 — we don’t have a USC coal plant like so many other countries, and why we don’t have nuclear power. Then ask why, if they are concerned about the poor, about health, about education, we are wasting $60b dollars to try to change the weather in 2100 that we could be spending on these critical areas right now?

Taxpayers hit with a $60bn power bill, by Adam Creighton

Taxpayers will have paid more than $60 billion through federal renewable energy subsidies by 2030, about twice what the crumbling car industry received over 15 years and enough to build about 10 large nuclear reactors.
The government’s large and small-scale renewable energy ­targets, which will compel energy retailers to buy 33 terawatt hours of wind, solar and hydro energy by 2030, will deliver about $45bn of subsidies to renewable energy producers over 20 years, according to analysis by The Australian.

If it’s improving and getting cheap, whatever you do, don’t buy it yet. It’s hard to argue with ACIL Allen Consulting chief executive Paul Hyslop:

“Solar costs have probably fallen 75 to 80 per cent in the last six or seven years,” Mr Hyslop told the energy and environment committee. “If we had not done anything seven years ago and today we then did all those things, we could have … two to three times as much solar (energy generation) in roofs for the same amount of investment over that period.

“If you think that the cost of ­renewables and low-emission technology is falling rapidly, absolutely put it off for as long as possible.”