Letter to the Editor: The Nationals’ views on Net Zero

DEAR News Of The Area,

THE matters raised by Harry Creamer and Jake Little in a recent edition of your paper in relation to the National Party’s attitude to the policy of “Net Zero” require some response.

The Nationals are as eager as anyone else to reduce carbon emissions and if we ever reached a point of zero emissions that would be an excellent outcome.

The Nationals (along with many other members of the community) have reservations about the costs and other social impacts of getting there.

Even if we achieve such an outcome there is not going to be a bubble forming over Australia that will isolate us from the excesses of other countries.

The Nationals (together with others in the community) still have some reservations about the urgency of all this, brought about by at least the following considerations:

1. Many of the predictions of dire consequences made years ago have not occurred.

2. If you go looking you can find equally qualified, equally credible experts who will say that the outcome of increased carbon emissions is not as dire as other experts say and that the methodology of those climate experts is flawed. These sceptics just don’t get the airplay that the doomsayers get. Who amongst us is really able to make a judgement about who is correct?

3. There seem to be a lot of people (some already inappropriately wealthy) who are making a lot of money out of this and a lot of people who are making a career out of it. The old adage of “follow the money” is probably just as applicable here.

The primary issues that concern the Nationals though are the massive costs that have been revealed in the attempts to establish the renewables hardware, the perception that all of this is going to have to be constantly and expensively replaced (ten years for a solar farm and twenty for a wind farm) and a perception that it is simply not going to work.

Those of us that have dabbled in agriculture quickly learn that mother nature tends to let you down when you most need her and she is not likely to be kinder to electricity producers.

Consider how you fare when the power goes off – your house and your life grind to a halt.

Consider how industry requiring cheap and reliable power will cope.

Consider how your local supermarket will deal with its fridges and freezers going off for half a day. Do we want to run the risks of regular power outages?

For this reason the Nationals have looked favourably on nuclear energy and carbon capture.

We can hardly be seen to be pioneers with nuclear power stations since there are already over 400 of them operating across the globe and another 70 or so in the course of construction.

All they do is create heat to boil water to produce steam to drive the turbines that produce electricity – just like burning coal.

Yes they are expensive to set up and can take some years to establish (even longer at the end of their life with estimates of 12-15 years to close one down).

But they produce for at least 80 years and with improvements in technology over that time it is likely that this time will be extended.

The technology of carbon capture is still relatively new but other countries are setting up new coal fired power stations containing carbon capture mechanisms which emit little or no objectionable gases.

It has the advantages of being able to be inserted into existing power stations and one imagines that we could continue to mine and burn coal and gas with all the employment and tax advantages that this brings while not making any appreciable contribution to greenhouse gases.

The Nationals do believe it is desirable to reduce or eliminate greenhouse gas production.

We just don’t believe that it is as urgent as the community has been and still is being led to believe. We further believe that when considering the expense involved we can get a cheaper and more reliable system for production of electricity than is currently being proposed by our political opponents.

The Nationals accept that some of our electricity supply should come from renewables.

We do believe that total reliance on renewables will be catastrophic.

Incidentally, the Nationals welcome a diversity of members and a diversity of views.

You can join the party and express dissenting views without penalty.

In fact you don’t even have to be a member – you can come along to a meeting as a guest speaker and try to persuade us we are wrong.

We like to obtain as much information as possible from the widest range of sources before we commit to a course of action.

Regards,
Brian FINLAYSON,
Nambucca Heads.