John Daysh,
You're welcome to insist on having yourself on but you're most unwelcome to waste our funds to do so ! The evidence that renewables are seriously flawed is all around us.

Indyvidual,

Vague hand-waving doesn’t prove anything. So let’s look at some actual figures:

- Wind and solar are now the cheapest sources of new electricity in most of the world, according to the IEA and BloombergNEF.

- In 2023, wind and solar made up over 80% of new global power capacity, and solar alone added more capacity than coal, gas, and nuclear combined.

- Over 30% of global electricity now comes from renewables, and it's growing fast.

- Australia gets around 39% of its electricity from renewables, up from just 14% a decade ago.

These are not the signs of a “seriously flawed” technology. If you think otherwise, feel free to bring specific evidence - not just slogans and taxpayer panic.

Happy to have a good-faith debate, but let’s keep it grounded in facts.

John,

"Happy to have a good-faith debate, but let’s keep it grounded in facts."

Good.

After a quarter of a century investing in wind and solar, about 2% of human generated energy comes from those sources. How is that a breathtaking rate of rollout?

60% of the world's population is not pursuing net zero.

Spain's blackout appeared to have been precipitated by an electricity over-supply sending the wholesale price into negative territory, which resulted in a number of solar farms cutting supply. On average, an optimal wind and solar grid will be oversupplied by 50%.

Transmission line and pumped hydro cost estimates have been grossly underestimated, with the Victorian government reluctantly acknowledging that a 4.3 billion cost estimate would be close to 20 billion.

The fastest rates of wind and solar build in the world are less than a third that of the French nuclear build which started over half a century ago.

Every nation which has pursued wind and solar has seen consumer electricity costs rise at greater rates than those nations which have not.

1.7 times the area of Tasmania would be required to replace Australia's electricity grid with wind and solar. The government has released no cost estimate for this, but estimates around 1.7 trillion have been made.

Fester,

We’ve been through all this many times before. Repeating it doesn’t make it stronger - just familiar. Still, here’s a quick reality check:

- Your “2%” stat only works if you count all global energy use, including transport and industrial heat. In electricity - where wind and solar actually operate - they now supply over 12% globally, with renewables overall over 30%.

- Spain’s blackout was caused by a fault, not “too much solar.” Negative prices mean abundance, not instability.

- Oversupply? All grids build in excess. Fossil fuel systems do it too. It’s not a flaw, it’s design.

- Yes, transmission is expensive. So were coal plants, nuclear, and oil pipelines. Every transition has upfront costs.

- The French nuclear rollout was decades ago, under a different regulatory environment, and a fully centralized government push. Modern nuclear doesn’t move that fast - just look at Vogtle or Hinkley Point C.

- Rising electricity prices? Correlation does not equal causation. Australia’s biggest spikes were from gas and gold-plated networks, not wind and solar.

- Land use? Wind and solar farms often share space with agriculture. That “1.7x Tasmania” line is a scare stat, not a serious planning argument.

In short:

You’re framing complexity as failure.
You’re ignoring progress already made.
You’re holding renewables to a standard no other energy source was ever required to meet.

You’re not proving renewables have failed - you’re proving that transitions are complex. We already knew that.

John,

"We’ve been through all this many times before. Repeating it doesn’t make it stronger - just familiar. "

Well, you are yet to respond with anything meaningful or consistently factual.

"Your “2%” stat only works if you count all global energy use"

Yes, 2% of total energy. The objective of transition is 100%, so progress is woeful.

"The French nuclear rollout was decades ago, under a different regulatory environment, and a fully centralized government push. Modern nuclear doesn’t move that fast - just look at Vogtle or Hinkley Point C."

Vogtle and HPC are bespoke projects. What France did could better be prepared with nuclear reactor builds could be better compared with the Liberty ship building in WW2. But there is a more general point here: I believe that if you want to produce low carbon energy cheaply, what is needed is a standardised design with multinational collaboration and construction.

"Oversupply? All grids build in excess. Fossil fuel systems do it too. It’s not a flaw, it’s design."

With dispatchable power, you can closely match supply. With non-dispatchable wind and solar you have no control over how much is generated, with massive variations from almost no output to six to eight times average demand. About a third of the energy generated by a wind and solar system is curtailed, or wasted if you will. Comparatively little energy is wasted with a grid running on dispatchable power.

"Rising electricity prices? Correlation does not equal causation."

It isn't a statistic. It is a provable fact from system cost modelling and confirmed by observation in every instance where wind and solar are part of the grid.

https://www.fraserinstitute.org/commentary/solar-and-wind-power-make-electricity-more-expensive-thats-a-fact

Fester,

I’ve responded factually - repeatedly - even as you recycle points we’ve covered before. Citing the Fraser Institute (a think tank with a clear pro-fossil agenda) doesn’t change that.

The article cherry-picks one outlier study that claims solar jumps from $36 to $1,548/MWh when you pile on hypothetical costs - while ignoring the fact that solar and wind are now the cheapest sources of new electricity globally (IEA, Lazard, BloombergNEF).

Your “2% of energy” stat ignores that wind and solar aren’t yet widespread in transport or heavy industry - which is why electricity is the first stage of the transition. And in that space, wind and solar now produce 12% globally, and made up over 80% of new capacity in 2023.

As for France: its 1970s nuclear program was run by a single utility in an authoritarian structure - not remotely comparable to today’s democracies. No modern nuclear rollout has matched its speed, cost, or scale.

Finally, calling renewables “wasteful” for having oversupply is disingenuous - every grid oversupplies. Curtailment is manageable, and sunlight costs nothing. Wasting fuel does - and fossil grids do it every day.

I’m happy to keep engaging if the goal is to learn and clarify - but not if you’re just resetting the board and hoping repetition wins.