DEAR News Of The Area,
I’VE recently retired to Tea Gardens after a 45-year career in power generation and wholesale distribution.
With an engineering background, I understand the technical challenges to decarbonise our electricity system with far more, and vastly distributed inputs, than we currently have (i.e. renewables).
The basic problem is that achieving Net Zero by 2050, which has bipartisan political support, can’t be achieved 20 years earlier than agreed.
It’s just become a debate in ideology for the sake of expediency where proper planning has gone out the window.
And we’ll all pay a price for accepting such a risk.
Just by way of example, to replace the recently retired 2GW Liddell Power Plant near Muswellbrook with small modular nuclear technology would mean no additional transmission infrastructure costs and no change to the current land area already zoned for power generation.
However, to replace Liddell’s capacity with wind turbines would require over 300km2 of physical area whether it’s on land or offshore.
And this is where the discussion gets lost.
The sheer numbers involved to decarbonise the entire energy market are staggering.
And it will be well beyond 2050 just to physically achieve it, costing an estimated $1.5 trillion of taxpayer money along the way.
Regards
Derek MUSGROVE,
Tea Gardens.