{"id":22192,"date":"2018-06-12T06:23:28","date_gmt":"2018-06-11T19:53:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.solarquotes.com.au\/blog\/?p=22192"},"modified":"2018-06-12T07:16:01","modified_gmt":"2018-06-11T20:46:01","slug":"craig-kelly-renewables-coal-mb0622","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.solarquotes.com.au\/blog\/craig-kelly-renewables-coal-mb0622\/","title":{"rendered":"Craig Kelly On Anti-Renewables, Pro-Coal Warpath (Again)"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Craig

Craig Kelly image : Liberal Party Of Australia<\/p><\/div>\n

Fools, liars, “eco-zealots” and “useful idiots” – some of the terms Liberal backbencher (and it seems energy expert) Craig Kelly has used in the past few days to describe renewable energy supporters.<\/p>\n

Any visit to Craig Kelly’s Facebook page<\/a> is always an interesting one and he was quite busy over the long weekend imparting his brand of wisdom.<\/p>\n

“Useful Idiots”<\/h2>\n

Mr. Kelly kicked off on Saturday with comments<\/a> relating to Tomago chief executive Matt Howell reportedly claiming Australia was at a crisis point with its energy system.<\/p>\n

“This is exactly what I\u2019ve been warning about – green carpet-baggers and their brainwashed \u2018useful idiot\u2019 supporters have sold the myth that we can run our economy on; imported Chinese solar panels, wind turbines and big batteries.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The comment was a variation on a theme Mr. Kelly worked with in March, when he said replacing Liddell Power Station with solar panels, wind turbines and batteries is \u201cas dangerous to the economy as rabies is in a dog<\/a>“, without mentioning all the other stuff<\/a> Liddell would be replaced with as well – such as a gas peaker plant, demand management and perhaps even pumped hydro storage.<\/p>\n

This time around, the added “imported Chinese” reference gave it a dash of Trumpesque oomph.<\/p>\n

There’s much more involved in the transition to 100% renewables than just installing a bunch of modules (regardless of where they are imported from), turbines and batteries higgledy-piggledy and hoping for the best. Many of the so-called “useful idiot” supporters of renewables, who also happen to be voters, would be well aware of that and insulting them in such a way probably isn’t a good move.<\/p>\n

In the wee hours of Sunday morning, Mr. Kelly then claimed<\/a> that for the subsidies wind and solar power have received in Australia, 10 new HELE coal fired power stations could have been built and still with cash left over to build 10 new Royal Adelaide Hospitals. There was no mention of the support coal has received over the years, or the costs associated with it in terms of health and environmental impacts1<\/a><\/sup>.<\/p>\n

“Fools And Liars”<\/h2>\n

Late on Sunday night, Mr. Kelly was at it again, stating<\/a> “eco-zealots in Australia mindlessly chant the dangerous delusion that; ‘Renewable are cheaper'” and referred to “fools and liars peddling the fantasy” coal can be replaced with solar power and wind energy. He again called for the building of HELE plants and an end to renewable energy subsidies.<\/p>\n

HELE stands for High Efficiency Low Emissions. Unfortunately, HELE coal fired power plants<\/a> aren’t all that more efficient or lower in carbon emissions (nor do they address the issue of various toxins released from burning coal) – but they are very expensive.<\/p>\n

Coal Power Failures In New South Wales<\/h2>\n

It seems Craig Kelly’s latest dummy-spits were (re-)triggered by electricity supply issues in New South Wales last week. While renewables weren’t to blame, they were still labeled the culprit by Tomago’s CEO for “hollowing out<\/a>” baseload generation in Australia – and Mr. Kelly seized on this.<\/p>\n

A series of planned and unplanned generation outages resulted in Lack of Reserve (LOR) conditions in the state. The issues were primarily due to coal generators failing. Simon Holmes \u00e0 Court tweeted<\/a> on Sunday evening:<\/p>\n

“Six out of 16 coal units in NSW were out of service on Friday \u2014 resulting in massive price spikes and causing the state to import a record amount of power.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Also on Sunday, the Australian Energy Market Operator published a statement<\/a> regarding the situation in NSW last week.<\/p>\n

“In total, around 3800MW of generation resources expected to be available across the peak was not available in NSW. While a number of generating units in NSW were out of service due to planned maintenance, this had no impact on reserve conditions. A further two unplanned forced outages however did result in 1320MW dropping out of the market and resulted in tighter reserve levels.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The AEMO stated unfavourable conditions also limited rooftop solar, reducing the output of rooftop PV by between 115MW to 254MW on any given day – but this doesn’t represent the majority of New South Wales’ rooftop solar capacity and the state obviously benefited from what was available.<\/p>\n

The situation does highlight the need to properly address Australia’s energy situation sooner rather than later. The resistance from some corners to renewables + storage, facing the realities of climate change and living in a carbon-constrained world has only dragged out the process of shifting to a sustainable, affordable and secure renewable- energy based future. If it should continue, it could lead to a self-fulfilling prophecy of a real energy crisis occurring, while further contributing to an environmental one.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Fools, liars, “eco-zealots” and “useful idiots” – some of the terms Liberal backbencher (and it seems energy expert) Craig Kelly has used in the past few days to describe renewable energy supporters.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":17,"featured_media":22193,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[678],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-22192","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-solar-battery-news","entry"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nCraig Kelly On Anti-Renewables, Pro-Coal Warpath (Again)<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Fools, liars and "useful idiots" - some of the terms Liberal backbencher Craig Kelly has used in the past few days to describe renewable energy supporters.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.solarquotes.com.au\/blog\/craig-kelly-renewables-coal-mb0622\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Craig Kelly On Anti-Renewables, Pro-Coal Warpath (Again)\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Fools, liars and "useful idiots" - 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In an interview with AM's Tom Iggulden, Craig Kelly said power prices pushed up by subsidies for renewable\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "General Solar & Storage News"","block_context":{"text":"General Solar & Storage News","link":"https:\/\/www.solarquotes.com.au\/blog\/category\/solar-battery-news\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Craig Kelly - Renewable Energy","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.solarquotes.com.au\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/07\/craig-kelly-renewable-energy.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.solarquotes.com.au\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/07\/craig-kelly-renewable-energy.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.solarquotes.com.au\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/07\/craig-kelly-renewable-energy.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.solarquotes.com.au\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/07\/craig-kelly-renewable-energy.jpg?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":28012,"url":"https:\/\/www.solarquotes.com.au\/blog\/craig-kelly-big-battery\/","url_meta":{"origin":22192,"position":1},"title":"Craig Kelly Calls SA Big Battery A Failure – After It Works Exactly As Expected","author":"Ronald Brakels","date":"February 21, 2019","format":false,"excerpt":"Craig Kelly is... A Liberal Member of Parliament. A supporter of health damaging and environmentally destructive coal power. The only Federal MP with a nuclear reactor lodged in his seat. A man who resembles a big cuddly koala bear with a shaved face. Recently he published a 419 word essay\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Battery Storage"","block_context":{"text":"Battery Storage","link":"https:\/\/www.solarquotes.com.au\/blog\/category\/battery-storage\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"craig kelly and the big battery","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.solarquotes.com.au\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/02\/craig-kelly-battery.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.solarquotes.com.au\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/02\/craig-kelly-battery.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.solarquotes.com.au\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/02\/craig-kelly-battery.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.solarquotes.com.au\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/02\/craig-kelly-battery.jpg?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.solarquotes.com.au\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/02\/craig-kelly-battery.jpg?resize=1050%2C600&ssl=1 3x"},"classes":[]},{"id":22624,"url":"https:\/\/www.solarquotes.com.au\/blog\/kelly-coal-treason-mb0649\/","url_meta":{"origin":22192,"position":2},"title":"Craig Kelly: Demonising Coal “An Act Of Treason”","author":"Michael Bloch","date":"July 2, 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"In the wee hours of this morning, Liberal backbencher Craig Kelly continued his attack on Australians opposed to coal, opining it was a crime against their country. Craig Kelly has been at the forefront of the Monash Forum's push to boost coal's image and see new coal-fired power stations built\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "General Solar & Storage News"","block_context":{"text":"General Solar & Storage News","link":"https:\/\/www.solarquotes.com.au\/blog\/category\/solar-battery-news\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Craig Kelly - Anti-coal treason","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.solarquotes.com.au\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/07\/craig-kelly-coal.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.solarquotes.com.au\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/07\/craig-kelly-coal.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.solarquotes.com.au\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/07\/craig-kelly-coal.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.solarquotes.com.au\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/07\/craig-kelly-coal.jpg?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":20403,"url":"https:\/\/www.solarquotes.com.au\/blog\/kelly-liddell-renewables-mb0522\/","url_meta":{"origin":22192,"position":3},"title":"Kelly Compares Replacing Liddell With Renewables To A Dog With Rabies","author":"Michael Bloch","date":"March 29, 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"NSW Liberal MP Craig Kelly has said replacing Liddell Power Station with solar panels, wind turbines and batteries is \"as dangerous to the economy as rabies is in a dog\". His comment came after rumours of Chinese company Shandong Ruyi eyeing AGL's clapped-out, coal-fired, emissions-belching Liddell Power Station, which AGL\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "General Solar & Storage News"","block_context":{"text":"General Solar & Storage News","link":"https:\/\/www.solarquotes.com.au\/blog\/category\/solar-battery-news\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Craig Kelly and Liddell Power Station","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.solarquotes.com.au\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/03\/craig-kelly-liddell.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.solarquotes.com.au\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/03\/craig-kelly-liddell.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.solarquotes.com.au\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/03\/craig-kelly-liddell.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.solarquotes.com.au\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/03\/craig-kelly-liddell.jpg?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":22327,"url":"https:\/\/www.solarquotes.com.au\/blog\/monash-forum-coal-power-mb0631\/","url_meta":{"origin":22192,"position":4},"title":"Monash Forum To Ramp Up Fight For Coal Power","author":"Michael Bloch","date":"June 19, 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"Members of the Monash Forum are readying for a battle for hearts, minds and funds as the direction of Australia's energy future is determined. In case you haven't heard of this club, the recently-formed Monash Forum is a ginger group comprised of Liberal\/National party MPs that are pushing for more\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "General Solar & Storage News"","block_context":{"text":"General Solar & Storage News","link":"https:\/\/www.solarquotes.com.au\/blog\/category\/solar-battery-news\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Monash Forum - Coal Power","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.solarquotes.com.au\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/coal-monash-forum.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.solarquotes.com.au\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/coal-monash-forum.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.solarquotes.com.au\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/coal-monash-forum.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.solarquotes.com.au\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/coal-monash-forum.jpg?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":14973,"url":"https:\/\/www.solarquotes.com.au\/blog\/kelly-liddell-power-station-mb0205\/","url_meta":{"origin":22192,"position":5},"title":"Craig Kelly: AGL Speaks With Forked Tongue On Liddell Power Station","author":"Michael Bloch","date":"September 13, 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"Liberal backbencher Craig Kelly has accused AGL of being deceitful with regard to the Liddell Power Station stoush. Pot, meet kettle? The argy-bargy over the future of the Liddell Power Station is continuing. AGL's CEO publicly states he wants to shut down the coal-fired clunker in 2022, the Turnbull Government\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "General Solar & Storage News"","block_context":{"text":"General Solar & Storage News","link":"https:\/\/www.solarquotes.com.au\/blog\/category\/solar-battery-news\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Craig Kelly - Liddell Power Station","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.solarquotes.com.au\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/09\/liddell-agl-kelly.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.solarquotes.com.au\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/09\/liddell-agl-kelly.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.solarquotes.com.au\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/09\/liddell-agl-kelly.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.solarquotes.com.au\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/09\/liddell-agl-kelly.jpg?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x"},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.solarquotes.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22192","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.solarquotes.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.solarquotes.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.solarquotes.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/17"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.solarquotes.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22192"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.solarquotes.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22192\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22196,"href":"https:\/\/www.solarquotes.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22192\/revisions\/22196"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.solarquotes.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22193"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.solarquotes.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22192"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.solarquotes.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22192"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.solarquotes.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22192"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}