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https://reneweconomy.com.au/dutton-goes-full-trump-on-climate-energy-and-industry-as-albanese-sets-may-3-election-date/>
"There was a moment in Coalition leader Peter Dutton’s pitch to voters on ABC
TV on Thursday night when the full Trumpian catastrophe of his climate, energy
and industry policies could have been exposed for all to see.
Dutton had earlier – in his Budget reply speech – presented a carbon copy of
Donald Trump’s cynical vandalism of climate and energy initiatives – promising
tear up the Rewiring the Nation program, disrupting the roll out of large-scale
renewables, and betting the whole economy on fossil gas and the magic pudding
of nuclear power.
In an interview on ABC’s
7.30 program immediately afterwards, Dutton sought
to justify the plan this way:
“The smelters in our country are talking about closing. In Anthony Albanese and
Chris Bowen’s world, we’re going to pretend that we don’t need aluminum in our
society, in construction and across the building sector. It’s nonsense. We are
going to need it. I want to revitalise that industry, and we can do that if
we’ve got secure 24/7, permanent base load power.”
Here was an opportunity to call out Dutton’s own nonsense right then and there,
to point out that if those smelters are to close, its precisely because the
Coalition wants to force feed them fossil fuels which are both too costly, and
too dirty. Not because they are turning to green energy.
Rio Tinto, the owner of the giant aluminium smelters in Gladstone in Queensland
and Tomago in NSW has made it very clear that it’s not wind and solar that will
kill those massive industries and job hubs, it’s the dependence on fossil fuels
promoted by the likes of Dutton and the LNP.
Rio Tinto has signed the country’s three biggest power purchase agreements for
wind and solar, including a landmark solar and battery deal just this month,
precisely because it says it will lower costs and improve reliability for the
smelter and refineries in Queensland.
And Rio Tinto makes clear that renewables and storage – the very technologies
that Dutton says do not work and wants to stop – are only way to guarantee
their future.
“These agreements are integral to repowering our Gladstone aluminium operations
with affordable, reliable and lower carbon energy for decades to come,” Rio
Tinto Australian chief executive Kellie Parker says.
“For the first time, we have integrated crucial battery storage in our efforts
to make the Boyne aluminium smelter globally cost-competitive, as traditional
energy sources become more expensive.”
But Dutton wasn’t challenged on this on the ABC – and even he knows that he is
talking rubbish. As Ketan Joshi writes on these pages today, the closure of the
country’s giant smelters – the biggest energy users – is built into the
assumptions that justify the Coalition’s misleading and nonsensical gas and
nuclear plan."
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
