The Government will probably reintroduce the Renewable Energy Targets Bill (The RENT Scheme) very soon. The Liberals are unlikely to stop it – they are too engrossed in considerations of survival, and too many are hostage to Green dreamers, Green Industry speculators and vested interests lined up to profit from suffering electricity consumers.

This bill has nothing to commend it.

Firstly, the whole idea of the Emissions Trading Systems beloved by the Lib-Lab party and the merchant banking speculators is that it allows the market to determine the cheapest way to reduce emissions. It is totally negated when politicians mandate or subsidise certain energy systems. Thus the Rent Scheme should be shelved until the fate of the Ration-N-Tax Scheme is finally decided.

Secondly, it would be foolish in the extreme to force Australian industry to pay elevated electricity costs before it is clear what is coming out of the IPCC talkfest in Copenhagen in December, and what our international competitors are doing.

Thirdly, there is no chance that a force fed program to force solar/wind to supply 20% of Australia’s power will succeed without the risk of disruptions to power supplies and rapidly escalating costs for electricity and gas (which will be needed to back up unreliable green power).

And finally, the environmental “benefits” are very doubtful. When the massive land dislocation, and the minerals, energy and emissions resulting from the manufacture and installation of thousands of wind towers and solar panels are fully accounted for, we may find that Green Power is not so green after all.

This bill should be postponed until a full sensible assessment is made.

Viv Forbes

PDF version of this article. [PDF, 29KB]