The trouble with reports and criticisms of reports is that they are commenting on a sector which is changing rapidly and unpredictably. Solar panel prices are falling rapidly at present.

http://myworld.ebay.com/fred480v/

The Greens leader, Bob Brown, Senator Milne, other Greens senators, many members and senators of the Labor party and some in the Liberal party have demonstrated they are gullible and therfore not competent to handle their responsibilities.

These politicians and many senior academics provided enthusiastic endorsements for the “Zero Carbon Australia – Stationary Energy Plan” which advocates Australia could and should replace all fossil fuel used in stationary energy and much of transport energy with solar power and wind energy, and to complete the transition by 2020.

However, apart from the report being grossly misleading in many ways, it appears the authors may have misrepresented their credential for the job. I have received two email in the last two days and I quote them below.

<blockquote>"What's really odd about this report is the difficulty of establishing the credentials of the authors. Try to understand the capabilities within ZCA and you'll see what I mean. Many of the 'team' use only their first names. What's going on? Presumably there are some lead authors from Melbourne Uni but I can't figure out who they are."</blockquote>

The other email is posted below:

The other email said:

"This is not a serious research project. You will see the author list on page viii of the report. Apparently the "researchers" are all PhD students or young recently graduated engineers, some of them participating outside their areas of expertise. There is nothing wrong with that of course. People are entitled to develop their own ideas so long as they are honest about how they present themselves. This report is not honest however. For example on page viii the listed researchers include:

• "Derek Bolton ... Oxford Univeristy" yet there is no one in the Oxford directory with this name;
• "James Bramwell ... ANU" yet there is no one in the ANU directory with this name;
• "Kevin Casey ... formerly Ericsson" yet apparently not affiliated with this company any longer;
• "Dominic Eales ... Swiss Federal Institute of Technology" yet there is no one in their directory with this name, though there is someone with a LinkedIn profile with this name who claims to be a "Wind Data Analysis Engineer" with the "Alternative Technology Association" in Melbourne;
• "Rob Campbell ... RMIT" yet there is no one at RMIT with this name, though there is someone with a LinkedIn profile with this name who claims to be a "solar subject matter expert" at Jemena and who was previously a "home sustainability assessor at ecoMaster".

I think you get the picture. Incidentally, Matthew Wright, the Executive Director of "Beyond Zero Emissions" and one of the lead authors on this plan was previously a technical sales engineer at HP and a climate campaign educator at the non-profit "Climate Positive". This is a report by non-experts, and it shows in stark terms what it is possible to imagine if only you are prepared to come to a massive problem like this without any experience and with the boldness to make those assumptions that wiser and more expert individuals might have shied away from."

I just had a look at the author page of the Zero Carbon Australia plan, and Peter Lang's comments are just false, and a 60 second scan will show this.

No first names are used - only full names and the authors are listed clearly, together with their qualifications.

Wow, the pro-nuke zealots are getting desperate - hilarious. They have to spread lies which can be rebutted with a 60 second internet search. Talk about losing credibility.

Well done Peter - just publish a few more of the mysterious "emails" you get and soon no one will listen to you.

Funny how some good research can drive the pro-nuke zealot crowd crazy and into desperation - I would have thought you had more brains than that, I guess I was wrong.

If coal fired was replaced by CCGT (combined cycle gas turbine) power generation related emissions could be reduced by 60% at a much lower cost than getting the same reduction from renewables. There is no obvious reason why this couldn't be completed by 2015 apart from a lack of will on both sides of politics. A gas fired transition would provide the time for technologies such as geothermal and Gen 4 nuclear to prove that they are really reliable. Gas also makes it easier to introduce more renewables before issues of reliability start escalating the costs.

Hey Trudes,

You're the one who should get a grip & read what people write. Peter did not refer to the report directly when he said the "team". He is referring to this link about first names only >

http://www.beyondzeroemissions.org/about/team

e.g.
Our people

Coordinator

Pablo

Research Zero Carbon Australia 2020

Tim

Kevin

Media

Pablo

Public Speaking

Pablo

Admin

Pablo

* * *

And you have not addressed the other comments by Peter.

The ZCA report is clearly a piece of political / handwaving material for wannabee politicians and developers. It is a total piece of fairy land fiction for the urban greenie voting public who don't have a clue about the technology. For a detailed critique and thorough debunking of this fairy story of a report go to ->

http://bravenewclimate.com/2010/07/14/zca2020/

&

http://bravenewclimate.com/2010/08/12/zca2020-critique/

The ZCA report is nothing more than a little board game with little pictures, its toytown... a Noddy report for uninformed children.