Without getting into too long a diatribe we’ll use today’s article to point out a few gaping holes in the common arguments by anti-fossil fuel alarmists.

The story referenced below is a feel-good one of renewable energy supply to remote communities in Australia.

Great, we absolutely applaud and back such projects and efforts, why wouldn’t we, after all? Who would possibly have an issue with people in difficult situations, and with limited access to energy, finding innovative ways to address the problem?

Great work.

Where we aren’t so aligned is on the parallel narrative, very evident in this article, that fossil fuels are bad and, especially, that such communities are better off living without them.

Like, what??

Look at the images in the article. Which type of energy was used to create and supply almost all of the materials, the solar panels themselves, the wires and vehicles, essentially anything man-made, in those pictures? Certainly not renewable energy.

And that’s totally fine, right, the limitations of renewables at this point in time.

But why the insistence on denigrating fossil fuels even as they are clearly still necessary and widely utilised, for the benefit of the community?

Moreover, although they go to great lengths to point out how dirty and expensive their previous diesel generators were, does that mean they don’t have them anymore? We seriously doubt it. But perhaps Tesla donated some prohibitively expensive batteries to cover at least a few minutes of back up power, for the entire town….

Or does this all preclude that such generators aren’t much more suitable in other situations, such as places with less sun and wind?

And on another note, what happens when, for example, some bright spark of a kid comes up with an innovative yet energy-intensive business idea in such a community, and the renewables simply can’t supply the required energy? What then? Deny such a person the right to develop his or her idea, and follow his or her dreams?

And we won’t even ask what happens in such a town if, for some reason such as a major emergency at 3am, more energy than is available through renewables and storage is required? What then?

Noting also that to produce the prodigious amounts of renewable energy and storage that will eventually be required, according to climate alarmists, we will need vast amounts of land to scatter solar farms, wind turbines, battery metal mines and transmissions lines, particularly in sunny communities and regions such as the one featured in this article – we wonder if these communities will be happy once those (battery-powered) trucks and developers roll in and start mining for cobalt and nickel, digging up massive windmill footings, and layering black solar panels for miles over endangered flora and fauna?

Seriously, this extremely common anti-fossil fuel undertone of mainstream journalists, politicians and activists, even where not required and in situations that clearly involve massive hidden and not so hidden inputs from fossil fuels, is reckless at best and completely immoral at worst.

And that’s not even mentioning the clear ‘let them eat cake’ sentiment that pervades such stories. Truly ignorant to the real challenges of the billions throughout the world currently in energy poverty, and not just those where a feel-good set of characteristics have aligned for the cameras…

KEY QUOTE:

Australia leads the world in per-capita uptake of solar power, with rooftop solar installed on about one in four homes. But this is not the case in Aboriginal communities, which have faced cost barriers and bureaucratic hurdles to getting it installed on public housing.

Warumungu traditional owner Norman Jupurrurla Frank recently spearheaded a demonstration project that integrated rooftop solar with pre-payment meters in town camps and made his the first Aboriginal government house in the Northern Territory to have solar panels installed.

But that’s where the progress stalled; four months later and Mr Frank is still negotiating to have the panel connected to the mains.

“For too long, our communities have been forced to rely on dirty, expensive and unreliable power that is undermining our people’s health and wellbeing,” Mr Frank said.

ARTICLE / SOURCE:

Indigenous communities harness environmental, economic benefits of solar boom – Sydney Morning Herald

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