Energy White Paper ‘a document for the last century’
December 15, 2011
The 100% Renewable Community Campaign has strongly condemned the Energy White Paper, released on Tuesday by Energy and Resources Minister Martin Ferguson, as a backward-looking document that ignores the benefits of renewable energy and locks Australia into a future of ever continuing power price rises.
“The White Paper is a document for the last century, unable to see that the world is investing strongly in renewables and that we will be left behind,” said Tony Gleeson, Ballina Climate Action Network (BCAN) and the 100% Renewable community campaign spokesperson.”
“What Mr Ferguson has released is a gas plan for Australia. Gas is no solution to our long-term energy needs.
“In Australia, gas means coal seam gas. Coal seam gas is a danger to our precious farmland and is no better than coal in terms of emissions.
“Tying ourselves to gas also exposes Australian consumers to high international gas prices at the power point, just the way we are now at the petrol pump.
“A massive investment in renewable energy is essential for Australia.
“If Australia wants low-cost, zero-carbon energy, we need to invest strongly in renewables like solar and wind now to achieve the benefits of technologies that get cheaper the more you build.
“100% Renewable is calling for 2000MW of big solar plants to be built through the Clean Energy Finance Corporation by 2015.
“Big Solar is proven and commercially available in US and ready to build now in Australia, the sunniest continent on earth, but the White Paper is too stuck in the energy sources of the past to see this.
“It’s no surprise that this committee, stacked as it is with fossil fuel interests, would come up with such a narrow document. It’s time we had people deciding our energy future who aren’t there to protect their own interests in coal and gas.
“We call on Australians to tell Mr Ferguson that we expect much better than this.”
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Right on, Tony. I don’t see that coal or coal seam gas provide much of a future for this region. Bring on the big solar.
Would someone help me out here please? Is Martin Ferguson a Minister for the federal government looking after the nation’s long term interests or spokesperson for the mining industry? Hard to tell just as it is for Tony Burke and the Great Barrier Reef.