Citizens Electoral Council of Australia

Media Release Tuesday, 2 December 2014

Craig Isherwood‚ National Secretary
PO Box 376‚ COBURG‚ VIC 3058
Phone: 1800 636 432
Email: cec@cecaust.com.au
Website: http://cec.cecaust.com.au

Abolish RET and secure a real energy future

Australia would do well to look to China for climate change reality and scrap the Renewable Energy Target (RET) as scientific quackery and an economic disaster.

The CEC’s latest New Citizen newspaper includes two feature reports which explain why so-called renewable energy is both scientific quackery and completely irrelevant to the future of technology: a report on China’s commitment to a massive expansion of coal, hydroelectric, and nuclear power (elaborated below); and a scientific explanation of energy flux density as the only legitimate measure of technological progress, by which measure the politically-correct renewables—solar and wind—are a plunge back to the dark ages.

China’s emissions reduction deal with the United States on 12 November is an important lesson and the following facts cannot be ignored.

China agreed to a peak in emissions by 2030 and by that date to shift 20 per cent of its energy to non-fossil fuels. In practice this means China will continue building coal-fired power stations, as they were going to do in any case, while they ramp up nuclear power and also boost hydroelectricity. China’s 2011-15 five-year plan includes an additional 300 GW of coal-fired power, twice the total generation capacity of Germany. This new 300 GW of coal-fired generating capacity is equivalent to commissioning a massive 1,150 MW power station every week. Meanwhile, Australia has built just two coal-fired power stations in the last decade—the 750 MW Kogan Creek Power Station (Queensland) commissioned in 2007 and the 416 MW Bluewaters Power Station (Western Australia) commissioned in 2009.

Chinese coal-fired capacity is set to increase from 775.6 GW in 2013 to 1074.4 GW by 2020—a massive expansion given China is concurrently decommissioning many outdated power stations.

However, the growth of nuclear power in China is most stunning of all. Twenty-six reactors are under construction, in addition to 22 already operating. An additional 60 reactors are planned and should be in operation within 8-10 years. A further proposed 120 reactors are expected to be in operation mostly within 15 years. The average reactor construction time from 1992-2012 was 5.8 years; the minimum time was 4.3 years. Construction times are becoming shorter—the CPR-1000 reactor takes just 52 months to build and smaller modular reactors take 36-40 months to build. At the current pace of development, China will be the world number one in nuclear power generation in a decade. It will leapfrog and then double U.S. nuclear capacity in the following few years!

The Three Gorges Dam on China’s Yangtze River is the world’s largest power station in terms of installed capacity (22,500 MW) and another 100 dams are planned or under construction on the Yangtze and its tributaries. China’s hydroelectric power target to raise capacity to 420 GW by 2020 is a huge jump from the capacity of 280 GW reached at the end of 2013.

Nuclear power and hydroelectricity will be important to help reduce China’s air pollution. However, decommissioning dirty old coal burners and replacing them with modern coal-fired power stations is also crucial for pollution reduction. Higher efficiency electrostatic precipitators (ESP), fabric filters, as well as ESP and fabric filter hybrid systems are used on new coal-fired power stations. The average dust collection efficiency was increased from 90 per cent in 1985 to 95 per cent in 1995, 98.5 per cent in 2005, and 99.6 per cent in 2013. Currently, the efficiency of new particulate matter collectors is generally better than 99.9 per cent.

Ever since the Howard government introduced the Mandatory Renewable Energy Target on April Fools’ Day of 2001, both Labor and the Coalition have colluded to maintain this policy of painfully expensive electricity from unreliable solar and wind power. It is past time to dump such foolish policy and build several coal-fired power stations and hydroelectric dams while we set up a nuclear power industry for the future as China is now doing.

Click here to read more about the fraud of global warming.

Click here for a free copy of the CEC’s latest New Citizen newspaper, featuring a report on China’s technological advances in nuclear energy and its plan to establish a moon base to mine helium-3 as a fuel source for nuclear fusion.

SPECIAL ANNOUNCEMENT: The ALP, Liberals and Greens are ganging up to make it harder for other parties to contest elections, by tripling the membership requirement. If you support the CEC’s ideas, it is time to act by joining as an Associate Member for one year, so the CEC can remain registered. Click here to join the CEC as a member.

Click here to refer others to receive regular email updates from the Citizens Electoral Council of Australia.