LETTER: Alarmists do not help SA’s energy crisis
Renewable energy will become cheaper and cheaper as technology advances, so saying ‘get your candles ready’ is simply defeatist
Andrew Kenny is a great example of someone who writes opinion pieces in an effort to create an alarmist view, without giving any facts to back up his view (Renewable energy will be a disaster, April 23). He uses phrases such as, “ruinous folly”, “lunatic plan”, “sure recipe for disaster”, “colossal cost” and “get your candles ready”. His piece is, however, void of any substantial information to support his view that “renewable energy will be a disaster”. Kenny claims that Australia saw its electricity prices dropping steadily when powered by coal and then, in 2005, when they started putting renewable energy onto the grid, prices rose rapidly. What Kenny, in his fear-mongering alarmist view, is not telling the reader is that, historically, when any new generation capacity of any nature whether it be coal, nuclear, gas, hydro or renewables is added to the grid, the tariff supplied by that specific new capacity will be higher than the blended tariff at the stage the new capacity is add...
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