Of course the greens are silly? Yes they do have a suite of policies that they as a minor third party cannot ever hope to implement?

That said, is there a case for alternative energy? Well yes and just on sound economic grounds that are completely divorced from climate change, real or imagined!

And here I refer to cheaper than coal thorium and rolled out as localized energy projects that could more than halve our industrial energy costs, Which if rolled out in tandem with genuine and intelligently crafted tax reform, would have the high tech industries (along with a tide of self funded retirees) of the world stampeding to relocate to these shores!?

Then there is Aussie innovation in the form of a two tank system that converts biological waste into biogas, which when scrubbed can power another Aussie innovation, the ceramic fuel cell, and currently, in combination, powering Apple HQ with the world's cheapest (80% energy coefficient) endlessly sustainable energy!

As for electric vehicles, if we just used the brains we were born with they'd be the most common vehicles plying our highways and byways inside a single decade. We are blessed with copious lithium and cobalt; and likely the most pure commercial deposit of graphene in the world!

And that's exactly what we need to turbocharge this economy and allow it to roar ahead with the speed of a thundering express steamer, into the future! Now I take it, nobody has a "REAL" problem with that?
Alan B.

Oh Don "to suggest that Australia could seriously aim for 90 per cent generation of electricity through wind and solar by 2030 is simply ludicrous, and akin to fraud. It's not possible."

"We choose to go to the moon. We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win."

Easy to poke fun at the Greens but at least they have vision and hope. Just think 90% renewables could be our moon shot and we wouldn't be left with memories of past glories at the end of it.

Don if you were in the crowd when Kennedy made that speech because they didn't have a plan, they hadn't even got someone to orbit the earth yet.

I can only hope the LNP will not come out with its own grand statement about renewables and some jobs, jobs, jobs bonanza!

It should proclaim a scientific and economic commission to study our energy future, with wide terms of reference including nuclear. A headlong rush into renewables should be frozen until that commission delivers its findings. The input of world economists and scientists, as well as public submissions should be accepted.

There is a complete lack of pragmatism in the Labor/Greens approach. Their a pie in the sky dream on renewables is mirrored in their economic policies. We just can't afford all the health, education and welfare we damn well want. It's time to pay off some debt rather than saddling the yet unborn with it, and, if we don't reduce company tax, the international investment needed to prosper and pay down debt will go elsewhere.

Climate change and alternative energy are not election issues for the great majority of Australian electors. The Greens are merely idiots.

Regarding sending a man to the moon, a mass solar installation has proven to be a dud in Spain, but life goes on everywhere as if it's not, just to keep the Green glow shining.

The idea that renewables can provide main-grid baseload is a shimmering chimera, where as landing on the moon was not.

Don Aitkin whinges about the silliness of the Greens' energy policy then makes claims that are even sillier! Even by 2020, Australia's energy sources will be significantly different from what they were a couple of years ago, as the cost of renewables is still falling, and more solar panels and wind turbines are, and will continue to be, installed. Meanwhile SA's last coal fired power station (in Port Augusta) has closed for good and is being dismantled, and there's a bipartisan commitment to building a solar thermal plant in the same area.

Real time information about the sources of our electricity can be found at http://www.nem-watch.info/widgets/RenewEconomy/?doing_wp_cron=1452566910.0502140522003173828125

Labor's target of 50% electricity from renewables by 2030 is really not that difficult. Of course there are technical issues, but they're problems to overcome, not insurmountable obstacles! Even the Greens' 90% target is not technically impossible (though it would be MUCH harder to meet).

And with interest rates at a record low, the Greens are absolutely right when they say it's time to borrow more. The problem our economy has at the moment isn't too much borrowing, it's too little.