A list of problems.
Putting power lines, ie local power lines, not grid lines, underground
seems linke a good idea but in a storm falling trees rip them out of the ground.
The repair would take much longer.
A figure for the proposed solar farm installations was given as 22,000
solar panels would be installed every day for 8 years to meet the
Labour Party's program for 2030. Just to generate for six hours a day.
Of course another team of maintenance people would follow along
replacing those that fail.
I did hear but have forgotten what the number of wind turbines have
to be installed every day. I think it was in the hundreds or was it thousands a day.

I have always said that the greens and Labour who proposed this scheme were stupid;
BUT THEY REALLY ARE STUPID !

On the other hand, the fraction of Australia required for 100% solar is tiny - and no one is suggesting 100% solar but a mix of solar and wind.
The ANU have modelled it and YES they are suggesting a super-grid from Queensland down to Sydney and Melbourne, across to Adelaide and then to Perth. The meme "They're wrecking the countryside!" is a bit rich from people who boost coal. If you REALLY want to see the country wrecked, go out to our biggest coal mines and see what's happening! Go to our hospitals, where a good chunk of the health bill is treating our pollution victims.

Otherwise, we'll have a few solar farms (in the right ecological spots not endangering anything), a few wind turbines (away from migratory lanes and any endangered birds) and a few transmission lines. And home-grown CLEAN renewable energy that doesn't poison our population, is immune to global gas price surges, and yes - is MORE RELIABLE than today's grid because of all the extra interconnectors and hydro-plants. Remember, solar farms generate half their energy in the cloud. Not zero. Half. Some energy. If we overbuild solar farms for La Nina as the ANU staff behind the CSIRO report recommend, we'll be OK.

$100 billion to clean our grid and / or think of it as $12 billion per year from here to 2050 to clean up our grid AND replace oil!

https://reneweconomy.com.au/for-100-billion-australia-could-have-a-low-cost-and-reliable-zero-emissions-grid/

Alan B,
I think you need to double check your 'factoid' about wind. The EROI (Energy Returned on Energy Invested) is much higher these days. Wind turbines are only meant to have an expected lifetime of 25 years - but the latest figures show some wind having EROI's higher than that - suggesting that they repay the energy cost of making them earlier than their first year. I'm aware of Weisbach's studies but they're in Germany where solar isn't as good, and his studies are a bit old these days. Wind turbines are HUGE today - adding exponentially more power.

"Data collected in 2018 found that the EROI of operational wind turbines averaged 19.8 with high variability depending on wind conditions and wind turbine size.[12] EROIs tend to be higher for recent wind turbines compared to older technology wind turbines. Vestas reports an EROI of 31 for its V150 model wind turbine.[13]"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_return_on_investment#Wind_turbines

Wind is the cheapest form of renewable energy. An EROEI of 31 means it can not only rebuild itself 31 times over, it can also energetically 'pay' for its own storage, in that it is so abundant it can build hydro dams which last 100 years. Given the dams will last on average 4 times longer than the wind turbines, that means 3 generations of wind don't have to energetically pay for their storage. So their EROEI will still be 31, but they won't have any ESOI (storage) costs to factor in.

You know, I think Max Green might actually believe some of the tripe he is posting here.

The power of indoctrination must be even grater than I realised, or could it be that his income depends on him believing this garbage?

"Already there is a petition circulating in Australia calling for ugly destructive power lines to be put underground to save farms, forests, wildlife and scenery."

Yes and how much is that going to cost?
Price estimates in CO2 please...

When I was running the marine division of Telford I became very friendly with the engineer running the power house & other infrastructure of South Mole Island. The power system of the island was underground. I spent some time on the island.

In winter after rain he would come & collect me for a patrol of the island at first light. We would basically follow the rather poor map of the underground system looking for steam rising from the sandy ground. This indicated hot areas where the mains were leaking power due to damage to the insulation, or in some cases from very poorly constructed junctions.

He had no idea what was degrading the system, but the loss of power was an expense he could do with out.

I live in a 3 kilometer long dead end country road. My end of the road
about 1.5K long has larger properties with an old over head power system. Despite many large trees we have little trouble with the local supply. The first 1.5K is a new development of 4000 Sq meter to 1 hectare blocks, with "modern" underground power only 5 years old. They have continual problems with their local power supply.

Why the hell do some people want to fix that which is not broken.