The Independent Australian
a politically incorrect magazine of ideas and comment outside the mainstream
CONSERVATION, RENEWABLE ENERGY & THE ECOLOGY OF ENERGY TRANSFORMATIONS Autumn 2005 - Issue No 5
Frank Fisher warns us not to get carried away with the hype around renewables. They will
not allow us to continue our lifestyles without ecological damage and
are not a substitute for conservation.
At the rate industrialised peoples have grown accustomed to using energy, no energy form can be used, and no energy transformation to electricity can occur, without environmental problems. ...
I should say at the outset that as the instigator of what is currently Australia’s largest wind farm (52.5MW, 0.1% of Australia’s installed electricity capacity, (planned to be twice as big, but local grid capacity cannot cope), I can hardly be said to be opposed to the use of renewable energies. Nevertheless, I am seriously concerned with the cavalier approach to renewable energies apparent in even our most responsible media. ...
Conservation can be mined just like coal!
If we could see this, it would become exciting as an opportunity for venture capitalists and be reflected in our economic and regulatory structures. ...
Renewables are sold as a panacea. Renewables are marketed on the basis that they will permit us to continue to live in the ways we have grown accustomed to but with ‘zero emissions’. This is a mischievous and dangerous illusion. ...
Large scale renewable systems involve mining sunshine via plants or via the heat and movement the sun gives to the atmosphere and the oceans i.e. hydro, wind and the various (potential) marine powers. Attempting to fill the current demand with renewables creates a raft of environmental, social and even moral concerns.
Energy cropping means ‘growing fuels’ ... there is a real question as to whether it is moral to use potential food-bearing crop land that wastefully? ...the Snowy Mountains hydroelectric installations had implications for the Snowy River and for the social and ecological systems that lived along it and in it. If all humans were to demand the same 2kW from the wind say, as we in Australia currently expect from fossil fuels ... the energetics of the atmosphere will change as surely as through burning fossil fuels. ... electricity from solar or photovoltaic cells is not an answer ... because the quantities available per square metre per day are small, especially after deducting the energy costs of making and installing them.
What is usually ignored is that all energy infrastructure costs energy to create, transport, install, maintain, dismantle when its life is done. ...
With nuclear power the radioactive residues will have to be taken care of over tens of thousands of years, with security, monitoring and social concerns not yet dreamed of.
The reason that the overall view is not commonly taken is:
• virtually no one thinks that way
• we have not yet created the necessarily international structures that would enable us to act if we did
• the profound vested interests society has in its existing energy sources militate against even putting questions that imply the replacement of all that physical, social and personal. ...
A conservation focus means that while definitely the way to go for new electricity generation, renewables should not be permitted to eclipse conservation. Many of these activities can be pursued by individuals with no help from government. ... The effects could be transformative socially as well as ecologically.
At the rate industrialised peoples have grown accustomed to using energy, no energy form can be used, and no energy transformation to electricity can occur, without environmental problems. ...
I should say at the outset that as the instigator of what is currently Australia’s largest wind farm (52.5MW, 0.1% of Australia’s installed electricity capacity, (planned to be twice as big, but local grid capacity cannot cope), I can hardly be said to be opposed to the use of renewable energies. Nevertheless, I am seriously concerned with the cavalier approach to renewable energies apparent in even our most responsible media. ...
Conservation can be mined just like coal!
If we could see this, it would become exciting as an opportunity for venture capitalists and be reflected in our economic and regulatory structures. ...
Renewables are sold as a panacea. Renewables are marketed on the basis that they will permit us to continue to live in the ways we have grown accustomed to but with ‘zero emissions’. This is a mischievous and dangerous illusion. ...
Large scale renewable systems involve mining sunshine via plants or via the heat and movement the sun gives to the atmosphere and the oceans i.e. hydro, wind and the various (potential) marine powers. Attempting to fill the current demand with renewables creates a raft of environmental, social and even moral concerns.
Energy cropping means ‘growing fuels’ ... there is a real question as to whether it is moral to use potential food-bearing crop land that wastefully? ...the Snowy Mountains hydroelectric installations had implications for the Snowy River and for the social and ecological systems that lived along it and in it. If all humans were to demand the same 2kW from the wind say, as we in Australia currently expect from fossil fuels ... the energetics of the atmosphere will change as surely as through burning fossil fuels. ... electricity from solar or photovoltaic cells is not an answer ... because the quantities available per square metre per day are small, especially after deducting the energy costs of making and installing them.
What is usually ignored is that all energy infrastructure costs energy to create, transport, install, maintain, dismantle when its life is done. ...
With nuclear power the radioactive residues will have to be taken care of over tens of thousands of years, with security, monitoring and social concerns not yet dreamed of.
The reason that the overall view is not commonly taken is:
• virtually no one thinks that way
• we have not yet created the necessarily international structures that would enable us to act if we did
• the profound vested interests society has in its existing energy sources militate against even putting questions that imply the replacement of all that physical, social and personal. ...
A conservation focus means that while definitely the way to go for new electricity generation, renewables should not be permitted to eclipse conservation. Many of these activities can be pursued by individuals with no help from government. ... The effects could be transformative socially as well as ecologically.
