Its interesting that the greenpeace "research" piece Australia's Energy Revolution uses the lladiloes wind farm on its flyer. LLadiloes is contracted to supply 12.5MWatts. TWhen you compare this to a modern coal fired power plants 1000MWatts you see the true nature of the problem with wind power.

You need massive numbers of wind turbines, which requires large amounts of land, 2000 hectares for lladiloes for example, to provide power in the quantities required. Its certainly way more expensive than coal, even clean coal.

As much as greenpeace pretend that the technology is up to scratch it is clearly not.

Its all moot anyway because the Chinese and Indians have no intention of retarding their progress into the modern world by saddling themselves with carbon limits.

Finally this idea that nuclear is more expensive is absolute nonsense. Modern nuclear power investment includes ALL costs including decommissioning and waste storage and is still far cheaper than the renewable alternatives. see http://nuclearinfo.net/Nuclearpower/TheBenefitsOfNuclearPower

All of the rational economic arguments above about the cost of one technology versus another are academic and to a degree irrelevant. "Economies do not exist in a vacuum and you cannot have an economy without an environment to sustain it". As for renewables, if they are more expensive; so what or how would we know, since both the coal and oil industries are massively subsidised and do not pay for the environmental damage they are causing.

unfortunately the world's largest solar power plant in Germany is 40 megawatts. (for around 6 hours per day) The largest wind farm (in the US) is around 500mw when the wind is blowing. All up the combined wind farms in the US currently peak at around 2 - 3 gigawatts.

NSW power stations alone produce around 11 gigawatts from coal plus an additional 3.7GW from the Snowy.

let's get real eh?

A couple of responses:

Ludwig - in response to your concern about population growth I will direct you to another report (http://www.greenpeace.org/australia/resources/reports/climate-change/energy-revolution-scenario-full) we released recently which models a "business-as-usual" energy scenario for Australia to 2050 against one in which energy efficiency and renewable energy technolgoies are rapidly introduced. The Energy [R]evolution Scenario report uses Australian Bureau of Statistics and Australian Bureau of Resource and Agricultural Econmoics statistics as well as figures from the International Energy Agency to model growth in Australian population and energy demand up to 2050.

The modelling shows that through the aggressive introduction of energy efficiency technologies and regulations (for buildings, appliances, transport and industry), we can decrease our primary energy consumption by 16% by 2020 and 38% by 2050 - even while our population grows according to projections. This is in fact the first step in making a transition away from coal-fired power, because energy efficiency is where the easiest and cheapest reductions in our greenhouse gas emissions can be made.

Mark - this partially answers the question you raised as well. Integral to this kind of energy revolution (you may also be interested in the above report) is the massive upscaling of energy efficiency technologies and standards in the domestic, commercial and industrial sectors. So although the price per unit of electricity will probably rise in the short term, overall consumption - and therefore cost of electricity bills - will fall. For example, in the Energy [R]evolution Scenario, households would achieve 10% efficiency by 2020, meaning that their overall power bills drop by 10%.

Secondly, on the topic of cost, renewable energy in fact ensures stability of supply over the long-term becasue it decouples energy prices from the volatile global fuel market (and protects it from the introduction of carbon pricing). The Energy [R]evolution Scenario shows how with a transition to energy efficiency and renewables we see a slight cost increase in the short-term but then a levelling out of energy costs, compared to the"business-as-usual" or reference scenario, where global fossil fuel prices continue to increase over the next 4 decades.

And a couple more:

Paul L: Wind power certainly can provide large amounts of electricity. In Spain, wind power contributes up to 40% of the electricity in their national grid. Here in Australia, a 1000MW wind farm has been approved for construction near Silverton (see: http://www.silvertonwindfarm.com.au/).

In addition, we are not talking about relying solely on wind power to replace coal-fired power. There are a number of proven, currently existing renewable technologies: wind, solar PV, solar thermal, geothermal, wave, tidal and biomass. These technologies must also be available for countries like China and India so that they can continue to increase their energy consumption while stabilising their emissions. It really is our responsibility as developed countries to ensure that these technolgies - and not ones that cause greenhouse pollution and toxic waste - are transfered to developing countries.

Finally, to build a nuclear industry from scratch in Australia would not only be very expensive but also simply couldn't happen in the timeframe required to avoid catastrophic climate change. The IPCC has said that developed countries' emissions need to peak by 2010. A nuclear energy industry in Australia would not be up and running until about 2025.

Janama - again I will underline that we are talking about a mix of many different technologies, not just wind and solar PV (which incidentally are the only two renewable technologies that DON'T provide constant power.) Our Energy [R]evolution Scenario (http://www.greenpeace.org/australia/resources/reports/climate-change/energy-revolution-scenario-full) demonstrates that by 2020, 40% of Australia's electricity can come from renewable sources and by 2030 coal-fired power can be phased out entirely. The capacities we are talking about bringing online in that timeframe are really quite small. For example, the report models the same amount of wind power installed in Australia over the next 12 years as will be installed in the US in the next 18 months (5000MW), and only half the solar thermal capacity (in 12 years!) that Spain is currently installing (4000MW).

There is no technical obstacle to an Energy [R]evolution - only a lack of political will.

My challenge remains unanswered Emma - as I thought.

Here is an impossible challenge - why don't Greenpeace publish their accounts? Who gets all their millions of dollars? Of course the travel bill for all you hot shots flying around the world (Business class?) would be an enormouse cost I realise.
All this hoo hah about 2010 as you know in Australia the drought will break and you will be unable to claim credit unless you have some runs on the board.
You then show you have the power to levy taxes on us and what a terrible weapon that is.
Show us your accounts Emma and explain why they have never been published before?