Essay by Eric Worrall

When will politicians take the hint?

Most Australians don’t want speedy transition toward clean energy

Staff Writer | April 12, 2024 | 6:06 am Energy Australia Oil & Gas 

Most Australians support the country’s transition towards a clean energy power grid but don’t want aggressive change.

A recent survey conducted by CSIRO, Australia’s national science agency, and the Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water, found that most people in the country support a move towards an energy system that relies more on renewables but 47% prefer a moderate-paced and 13% a slow-paced transition scenario. Faster and more extensive change was the choice for 40% of respondents.

In terms of priorities, 82% of surveyed Australians listed energy affordability among their top three concerns, whether or not they were struggling to pay bills. 

…

Overall, responses were similar between metropolitan and regional communities. However, people living out of town in regional areas were more negative towards the transition. 

“The survey showed that most Australians supported the energy transition, but opinions varied about the rate and extent of change. Many Australians held generally moderate attitudes towards living near renewable energy infrastructure, suggesting a broad willingness to support, or at least tolerate, the development of solar farms, onshore and offshore wind farms, and associated transmission line infrastructure,” senior social scientist on the project, Andrea Walton, said in a media statement. 

…

Read more: https://www.mining.com/most-australians-dont-want-speedy-transition-toward-clean-energy/

The referenced CSIRO survey is available here.

People do want clean energy, but they don’t want disruptive changes which increase their power bills. Not increasing power bills is the top priority. So all politicians need to do is figure out how to deliver a Net Zero transition which doesn’t cost anything.

The energy self reliance issue is an interesting priority, scoring highly on the 1st, 2nd, 3rd and 4th preferences. Not having to import energy was supposed to be one of the top selling points for renewables, but Australia has such vast reserves of fossil and nuclear energy, we shouldn’t be importing anything anyway. In addition, almost all of the renewable kit being made in China is a bit of an embarrassment for energy self reliance advocates. The Aussie government recently announced subsidies for kickstarting solar manufacturing in the middle of an unprecedented global glut in solar panels, which I suspect tells us all we need to know about what metric they are using to decide national policy.

Obviously the solution to a zero cost Net Zero transition is nuclear fusion. The Net Zero transition will happen just as soon as affordable power generating nuclear fusion makes it easy.

Any minute now…