Green Dreams

Several years ago, the Green movement were bleating alarmist predictions of ‘peak oil’ and how wind and solar were the only ways to guarantee energy security. Like most of what the Greens assert to support their policy agenda, they were wrong.

The price of oil has halved since their ‘peak oil’ scaremongering and warnings of exponential price rises. Wind power and solar have proved to be as useful as a chocolate teapot in providing base load energy requirements; despite tens of billions of dollars in taxpayer subsidies.

While we fiddle with green dreams, around the world, sensible and prudent nations are pursuing energy security as a national priority.

In the first six months of this year the United States has produced 81 per cent of its total energy needs. This is the highest level of energy self-sufficiency since 1991 and is thanks largely to shale gas and oil. US shale gas has given American industry a massive advantage in energy costs over their global rivals. This has seen international projects relocate to US cities where energy prices are a fraction of comparable nations.

In addition to gas, the US is also expected to produce over 11 million barrels of oil per day – nearly as much as Saudi Arabia. This has them on track to energy independence by 2020.

Energy independence is one of the most transformative events for any nation but is particularly important for the United States economy. It could radically realign industry and the influence of the Middle Eastern oil producing nations, who would no longer be able to rely on a captive market in the world’s largest economy.

Such a circumstance would also allow America to grow and prosper while other Western countries are suffocated by a plethora of green tape. As the European Union slowly bankrupts itself by pursuing the green dream, it will lose industry to places like the USA.

The closure of nuclear plants and a reluctance to use coal to generate power will see Europe face a future energy crisis that will have a profound impact on their prosperity. Unfortunately, European politicians have set upon a path from which they are unwilling to retreat, despite the dire warnings of energy shortages in key markets.

In Australia we are confronted with some similar challenges. We are fortunate to have an abundance of coal that can be used to produce hundreds of years of cheap electricity. However, the Green zealots don’t want us to use it. We have massive quantities of natural gas but spend billions of taxpayer dollars on useless wind farms and renewable energy subsidies.

As a nation with one of the largest uranium deposits in the world, it is simply astounding that we can’t even have a debate about using it to produce zero-emission nuclear electricity.

Instead, we have been led to believe that installing solar panels on our rooftops and polluting our landscape with ugly and inefficient wind farms will somehow sustain our lifestyle and save the planet.

They won’t. What they will do is reduce our quality of life while simultaneously lifting the cost of living. It’s time that we dropped the folly of green dreams and started to look towards practical and proven solutions that will allow Australian industry to compete internationally while giving consumers the base load electricity they need at the lowest possible cost.