Energy untapped

04/Jan/2012

Comments: 3 readers have left a comment

WA has huge wind and solar energy resources, so why isn’t the Government using them?

Only the well-off bought into solar energy with government subsidies. Now everyone else has to pay top price for our energy.

Wind turbines and solar panels and other alternatives are clean energy, unlike coal seam gas that may leak greenhouse gases, or contaminate the water table or pollute the soil and threaten future food supplies.

The health of our water and soil should be a concern for everyone.

It is time the Government realised that land is not a profit trophy to hand over to overseas corporations. Land and water are the centre of our very existence.

But coal seam gas is not essential to our being and long-term future.

The State Government has the responsibility to manage land and water use and control access.

Bad-risk explorations have not been adequately weighed up against the long-term cost that may come in future.

How will government inspect thousands of wells and enforce proper disposal of polluted water from any potential leaks during the process?

Will this be left to self-monitoring as in the past? Who will pay for the clean-up when wells run dry?

There are many other alternatives such as wave energy and some sources not even thought of yet. The State needs to exercise a duty of care and control instead of just looking at immediate profits, much of which is going overseas.


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What everyone else is thinking

Jason Robbins

12/01/2012

Unfortunately wind gernation is all smokes and mirrors at the moment. Firstly you cannot control the frequency which means you cannot control the usefull power which with current technology is about 20%. The other 80% is wasted and useless.
The worst part of wind generation is the fact that generators are constantly running behind the scene's to pick up the leads and lags, so therefore defeating the purpose to start with.
I am all for power alternatives but they must be useful and not sold as something that it clearly is not. Hellooo Juliar!

Tony

04/01/2012

Roof top solar is about to reach its saturation point and technical limits (at about 160 MW). There seems to be no intent to create any renewable energy power plant that could make a difference, nor do I see any research investment in the crucial point, namely the storage of energy. Sun, wind or waves don't supply energy 24/7 but we need electricity 24/7. Renewable is still too expensive and not up to the job.

There is also no attempt made to look into the new nuclear Thorium technology. God forbid, that would require some real innovation and confrontation with the uninformed and the media.
In other words, our leaders get paid ever more but deliver less and less while making us pay too much for what is THE life blood of modern civilization: affordable energy. In the meantime they let big companies deplete our resources while the environmental and infrastructural issues are put on the back burner, with the bill to be picked up later

Peter Firminger

04/01/2012

Hear hear Mary!

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