My major problem with quotas and subsidies for wind and solar is that we are paying a premium price for a non-premium service. In return for 9c per kwh subsidy wind power should not be missing in action during heatwaves. Solar should be powering kitchen appliances at 7 pm.

In 2017 we'll pay over $2 bn in extra electricity costs for the large renewables target yet our emissions appear to be increasing. It fails at its claimed no. 1 objective. That said some windpower could save on expensive gas which will be in short supply after 2019 in eastern Australia according AEMO. Rooftop solar cuts out the middleman so long as it doesn't force higher costs onto others.

Turnbull has promised he'll cut emissions by at least a quarter by 2030. Barring recession I don't know if that's possible. As big coal baseload plants like Hazelwood and Liddell shut down we'll need to replace them with something equally reliable but cheaper long term than gas. Since energy storage is ether too expensive or small scale that has to be nuclear but a vocal minority can't seem to grasp it.

I have already commented in The Australian but here it is again: Wishful thinking about renewable energy technologies is potentially disastrous. Gary Johns’ survey of the scientific literature suggests how climate change itself might affect their future. There is already a disconcerting enthusiasm for predicting rising usage and plummeting costs of renewables over several decades. Of course we need to plan for large clean energy investments. However present faith in such long projections is unprecedented. Right now sun and wind energy comprise around 1.1% of Australia’s and 0.6% of the world’s total energy supply. Advocates talk about ‘100% renewables’. Their extrapolations are huge. That’s where the real risk lies.

Wind and solar never had a shine. And neither does the thick as two planks stupidity of the dumbest dolts on the planet, who argue until they blue in the face to support their own confirmation bias!

Coal gas, and oil, are not only very replaceable with vastly superior options; but we should embrace those options on the irrefutable economic grounds alone!

I mean and seriously, if a mere 8 grams of thorium can power your house and car for 100 years, for around $100.00 total, why would you buy a mountain of dirty stinking coal that has many more toxic pollutants (lead, arsenic, mercury, carcinogenic cadmium, uranium) than carbon, or a tanker full of oil to run your transport options for the same alluded to, period! How dumb is that?

Why not just burn money and the grandkids?

We can farm oil rich algae on a broad enough scale to completely replace all our current imports of diesel and jet fuel. And use the crushed waste to underpin an arable land and food free ethanol industry.

We can also treat our waste to recover all the biologically created methane, which can be used as is to run generators or scrubbed to use in ceramic fuel cells, the latter's exhaust product, mostly water vapour. Or run the scrubbed biogas through a catalytic process to convert it to liquid methanol, another petrol replacing substitute.

The same process equally applicable to flared methane, flared off in millions of tons annually!

The trouble with thinking inside very limited circles Gary, is the questions are equally limited along with the answers and options.

And thinking inside a locked and bolted (confirmation bias) coal,oil, gas, box, even less advantageous!

People like you with their paws all over the levers of the economy, the reason for S.A's blackouts and the demise of vehicle building/manufacturing in this country, along with the wealth and opportunities we could be creating, as opposed to selling the joint to debt laden foreign speculators!

Well done, thou good and faithful servant.
Alan B.

“David MacKay, chief scientific adviser to Britain’s Department of Energy and Climate Change from 2009 to 2014, thought the idea of renewables powering Britain was an “appalling delusion”.

2017, and it's still and appalling delusion. But then, the RET rent-a-crowd has always been deluded.

Gary you demonstrate how pig headed ignorance has been entrenched in the Labour pary. Whether it is perverting the marriage act or causing deaths to pensioners without power the ability to think has been taken away from your party. The swamp needs to be drained.

We had three black-outs in Adelaide last night, each for a couple of hours. It's amazing how much we depend on steady electricity. I thought, "Oh well, I'll just go on the computer," but of course, battery back-up or not, the modem was off. My fridge de-freezed while it was waiting, waiting, waiting, and you get into a panic that maybe the power will never come on again. Accidentally, I'd bought only tea-light candles which are cute but pretty useless. Still, it's amazing how quick you get used to very little light, like our ancestors had to, I suppose.

I wandered outside to see if the traffic lights down the road were off, but they still were working, two out of the three occasions. Hell of a lot of traffic on the road, all probably looking for a fast-food place, but of course ...... I sat and watched the traffic, it's quite therapeutic, but only so much. Back inside and look at the tea-candles. About all you can do is drink, which I did with gusto, wandering outside again with my mug, like some homeless person, or pop-star. And so to bed.

I could hear the bloke next door, vainly checking his fuse-box, probably for the sixth time. I left all the light switches on, TV and radio too. So they all came back on at about one o'clock, very disorienting.

The joys of renewables ! God, we're a soft bunch of wusses these days !