TIME TO QUOTE COST OF RENEWABLE DREAMS

GEOFF Foster (GA, 29/4 & 14/5) condemns my advocating low-emission coal and nonemitting nuclear power.

He claims renewables are less costly.

This is preposterous!

None of his supporting band of starry-eyed windmill and solar enthusiasts have ventured to research and quote to us the costing of their dreams.

I have! The US Congressional Research Service in 2009 quoted (in US cents) 1.7c for nuclear per kW hour, coal 2.4c natural gas 6.7c and oil 10.2c.

In France, (2018) it cost about 1.56 of our cents.

Our subsidy alone to renewables is at least 4c.

Further, I was recently offered thousands of dollars to have an installation for unreliable solar power on my roof.

No wonder the price of electricity has risen 63 per cent over CPI in 10 years.

I told the young fellow I could not in conscience be a parasite on other consumers and taxpayers.

Future costs include building another 80 per cent of standby capacity using gas or diesel to fill in when sun and wind fail us, plus the cost of thousands of extra poles and wires to connect the scattered generators to the grid.

Coal generators can’t now compete on the hourly market with renewables selling for less than the subsidy when wind and sun are behaving, and with price caps preventing them recovering their losses when wind blows feebly at night.

We need an independent inquiry to settle this issue but we won’t get one.

Labor is too shy to explain how it proposes to cut power prices, because it can’t.

John Calvert, Geelong