Political Blog
Wednesday, November 22, 2006
The cleanest and greenest of them all
John Howard is starting to sound very shrill with his silly chant that nuclear is the 'cleanest and greenest of them all'. It just sounds dumb which of course it is. Regardless, he and Ziggy Switkowski refuse to talk about the real elephant in the room - energy efficiency.Energy efficiency is the immediate answer to reducing greenhouse gas emissions. It is the 'cleanest and greenest' of all.
According to a Greenpeace report, Australia consumes about twice the European average consumption per capita. If Australian citizens consumed the same amount of electricity as the Europeans, we would save half of all the current installed generation capacity - the equivalent of 20 nuclear reactors.
Mandatory building standards, energy efficient fridges, better light bulbs, insulation for all houses. All these things add up and are much cheaper, cleaner and more environmentally friendly than any other option.
The Ziggy report admits that Nuclear power will not save one tonne of CO2 until after 2030 and then only cut emissions by 8-18% by 2050. That's pathetic. By then it will be too late. We need action now or dangerous climate change will wreck lives, economies, societies, reefs, forests and wildlife across the plant. By 2050 renewables technology will be even better than today with hot rocks, solar thermal, wind and solar panels powering all our energy needs.
The main thing is to start getting ourselves off coal now and not wait for some mythical clean coal technology or the expensive and dangerous option of nuclear power half a century away
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I hope you enjoy some of my ideas and analysis. I am unashamedly Green and much of what you will find here relates to Green politics however I write about a range of current state and national political issues that might have wider appeal.
