Comments by "" (@pwillis1589) on "Australia making ‘incredible progress’ in the transition to renewable energy" video.

In this comments section I don't think I read one that was even remotely informed. A very sad indication of the level of debate/discussion on energy production in this country.
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Would that be the bill with the subsided coal and gas? Even Nuclear power in the US is mostly subsidied by government payments to energy companies. Where do you get the idea that power generation is a level playing field. Initially renewables did get R&D assistance but mostly are on their own now and are cheaper than even the subsidised coal where I live.
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Currently the technology exists to make all these items from green power, no CO2 emissions. Also how easy is it to recycle a tonne of burnt coal? Solar power technology is improving rapidly and no one has ever suggested resources are not consumed in the manufacture of solar panels. It is a life of type comparison between a solar panel for your roof and burning coal and at the moment solar is winning. Add in some battery technology and it still cheaper and more environmentally friendly.
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If you did a bit of reading, quite a lot actually.
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@klaasdykstra8127 Yours or my political opinion has nothing to do with energy production, and obliviously the production of anything be it a solar panel, a wind tower, a gas turbine, or a coal fired plant takes resources and adds a certain quantity of CO2 into the atmosphere and financial cost. You may or may not care about the levels of CO2 and the effect it is having on unnaturally warming the planet and in regard to energy production it is now almost irrelevant as renewable power production is already significantly cheaper than burning fossil fuels. Where I live it is a simple fact wind power is way cheaper than a coal power. Where I live you can't get anyone to invest in fossil fuel power, the free market has decided this, not governments. I understand this varies country to country and China and India still use vast amounts of coal even they are both investing heavily in renewables as they have proven to be cheaper. If all you are concerned with is cheap reliable power and care about nothing else then just step aside you have nothing to worry about. There is also depending on how it is done cheap safe SMR coming onto the market. The obsession with burning coal for electricity is just old thinking, and surely you understand it will run out eventually, turning to renewables now is just the commonsense thing to do both for cost and reliability. By the way your comment contained two fallacies an ad hominem and a strawman, by attacking me personally and suggesting we stop flying or eating meat which I did not even suggest, your entire argument is illogical.
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@klaasdykstra8127 If you are desperate to burn something then you can easily make hydrogen from green energy and burn that to your hearts content with nil CO2 emissions. That will power your airplanes, cars, farm machinery in fact any internal combustion engine or jet turbine. It is just a matter of thinking about the future and using some imagination. Coal worked great for 150 years but has come at an environmental cost, and there is now better ways to do things.
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@klaasdykstra8127 This is simply false. Battery technology is going forward in leaps and bounds. In actual fact electrically powered vehicles have significant torque improvements over petrol or Diesel engines and are ideal for 4x4. You need to move into this century.
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Based on what?
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@winstonsmith7801 So that can be achieved in so many different ways and by so many different means and with a level of security and low cost I have no understanding why anyone would think that as an advanced western ecomony we would be going backwards. Are you suggesting that the only way to provide base load power is burning coal, because that is just factually incorrect.
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@winstonsmith7801 No that is not my opinion that is fact from observing and reading the data in the Australian energy market. The reason coal power is cheap in NSW for example is because the state government sold outdated coal generation off to private industry at a very cheap price. Those companies knew they could never afford to replace them and hence look what happened. Next to sweetenen the deal the NSW government guaranteed the coal to power those plant would be subsidised 50% off the market price, yes that's your tax dollars, not so cheap now. These are facts not opinions. We have known about the properties of CO2 and how it is a greenhouse gas since about 1855. I can't recall the blokes names but even he hypothesesd at the time too much in the atmosphere could cause issues. If you look at the amount of CO2 at different times over the last couple of million years, not me, the climate scientists universally agree some is essential/good too much is damaging. Again not my opinion.
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@winstonsmith7801 No climate scientist has ever said the world is burning, that is just a strawman fallacy. If by climates change you mean Anthropogenic climate change then yes the overwhelming if not universal scientific opinion is that the planet is warming usually fast and there will be consequences for that. As a society we have the means to remedy that and make the planet a better cleaner place for my grandkids and all future generations. Isn't that something worthwhile. By the way Your comment contained two fallacies a Strawman and a hasty generalisation rendering your comment illogical.
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@winstonsmith7801 Sorry but your response is just full of illogical fallacies. The current overwhelming scientific advice and we have already actually observed the planet warm approx 1.5 degree in the last hundred years, and we caused it. I read published peer reviewed scientific papers. Reading a book might tell me where Harry Potter went to school, but does that make in true? You seem wound up about a world wide conspiracy of climate scientists, do you understand how incredibly unlikely that is to be true. It would require secret communications over a period of 30 to 40 years across governments and individuals across the entire world, and to what end? is that really what you consider to be true?
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@winstonsmith7801 Yes I would agree with that assessment in my adherence to independent factual data, be it scientific or economic. My only intention in commenting on this news articles was to bring some reason to comments section.
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@winstonsmith7801 just ad hominem attack one after another, making your entire argument fallacious and illogical. That is a now world fact. Try and stick to the subject " Renewable energy increases in the energy market"
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@winstonsmith7801 Fortunately all we can actually see in reality is an advanced western democracy with a sophisticated energy system well suited to the future.
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Read about making hydrogen from green power and will realise you can burn as much as you what to power whatever you like. No need to fear monger.
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This is strawman arguement. Of course it takes resources to manufacture solar panels and wind turbines and currently it is both cleaner and cheaper to do that than burn coal.
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@DanielSMatthews The Keeling Curve is just one tool/indicator of climate variation, if you have put all your bickies in that tin then clearly you don't have a proper understanding on climate science which I admit I do not either. So I will go with the universal consensus of actual climate scientists who know more about this subject than you or I and they say you are wrong.
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@DanielSMatthews Happy to stand corrected can you please send me the reference to the peer reviewed scientific paper you have read that confirms this. Thanks. By the way ad hominem arguments are illogical and render your comment essentially fallacious. That is a fact.
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@klaasdykstra8127 You may not be aware but the technology of large scale batteries is improving rapidly and their cost is also coming down significantly. When you combine this with renewables you have no worries about low cost reliable power, and we don't need to burn coal for power. With advances in technology we will soon not even need to burn coal to make steel. These are just functions of moving into the future. There is no need for us to cling to past technologies.
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You are aware that coal power in NSW where I live is heavily subsidised. Firstly when they privatised it at incredibly low prices, and then a 50% discount on the market price of the coal to power them. There is no equivalent subsidy in NSW for solar or wind. There was some R&D tax subsidies and some schemes to put solar panels on the roof of your house, but these are mostly gone now. In Australia there are also diesel fuel tax rebates, so this idea that fossil fuels are subsidised to reduce cost in just plain factually wrong.
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Oops my bad I missed putting in the word "not" before subsidised. It changed the whole meaning of the sentence.
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@buildmotosykletist1987 Well your comment by just turning around what I said goes straight to my original point about the level of discussion on energy production. I acknowledged government subsidies of solar panels on homes but those schemes no longer exist and the rate of solar panels on homes continues to increase. Are you honestly suggesting that Coal powered generations were not sold off a bargain basement prices and that the coal to power them is heavily subsidised to this day. How long did it take you to swap my words around and to what end?
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@buildmotosykletist1987 There was nothing vague about "
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@buildmotosykletist1987 There was nothing vague about" He lied, subsidised renewables are cheaper" That was full of information, I was just overcome with the detail. ( yes a slight mocking tone) but really how the coal power generation in NSW was sold off and subsidised is public knowledge just do some reading ( slight mocking tone)
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@buildmotosykletist1987 You offer nothing more than I know you are but what am I. As I have already acknowledged Solar and wind receive subsidies in the region nationally of $3 billion a year. Fossil fuels subsidies reached $10 billion this year alone. State governments subsidised coal ports, power stations, railways to the tune of $1.2 Billion.
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Poor old Michael Moore, almost everything in that doco was 20 years out of date, much like most of the comments here.
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@LB-bj2rm Just about all human activity at this stage is destructive to the environment. It is about minimising that damage. The science says to just keep going the way we are will cause so much damage our lives will be significantly effected. Despite what Michael Moore thinks the overwhelming economic evidence is green technologies are the way to cheaper cleaner energy. This is not my belief this is common knowlege. I love coal in the some way I love a cigar both are bad for me.
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