Gas is NOT a renewable source of energy production. It isn’t ‘clean’ either. It pollutes the atmosphere just a little less than coal. Worse, though, is the damage coal seam gas mines are doing to our food producing land, our water giving aquifers and the environment generally. Coal seam gas mining must NEVER be allowed under any circumstance.
Australia is blessed with bounteous renewable energy resources which, if unlocked, will free us from our current bondage to polluting fossil. We no longer need to sour our land with coal mines and the associated damage they make to our environment and health.
THE HIDDEN COSTS OF ELECTRICITY: Externalities of Power Generation in Australia, 2009 Report writes, “Combining greenhouse and health damage costs for Australia gives representative total external costs of $A19/MWh for natural gas, $A42/MWh for black coal and $A52/MWh for brown coal.” These are costs which we are all paying indirectly.
Contrast these figures to solar PV and solar thermal @ $A5/MWh and wind @ $A1.5/MWh. In addition, the Federal government is actively subsidising the fossil fuel industry to the tune of $12 billion pa and yet those polluting industries are crying out for more handouts in the light of a forthcoming price on carbon.
Transition to 100% renewable energy production, including wave, tidal, solar thermal, wind and geothermal, will also give Australia the greatest commercial benefit of all, energy security in a world facing global shortages and inadequacies in meeting it’s rising populations energy needs.
I look to you for forward thinking and bold initiatives that lead the world and place Australia in the forefront of meeting the next 50 year’s energy challenges and those of global warming and climate change.
A high price on carbon pollution with the funds redirected to supporting low income families and renewable energy infrastructure in necessary to meet these challenges head on.
I reiterate, Gas is NOT a part of that clean energy future.
