3a Introduction to My Third Talk

This presentation was put together last February and in some form or another has been given to various groups a few times now. Between feeling my age and being busy answering questions and giving yet more talks, my blog has been totally neglected. It is definitely time that I finished publishing my first series of talks.

Australia is in the middle of voting for our Federal Parliament and few of the policy speeches from the main parties have mentioned energy policy other than to say we need lots of clean, green, cheap renewable energy. My early talks did not set out to question the use of renewable energy, only to show that nuclear power should be part of the mix. After I finish this series, I will be discussing in more detail just how clean, green or cheap renewable energy is in the form it is being implemented in Australia. The electricity system is very complex and obtaining complete costing data isn’t easy.

With time, it has become abundantly clear to me that many of the graphs used to compare energy sources do not take all the relevant issues into account. Energy storage is an important element in the renewable economy. This next slide shows with an additional bright red box, the extra greenhouse gases associated with one of the renewable electricity sources.

My favourite Doctor Who says it all.