DEAR News Of The Area,
A RECENT letter by Wayne Duesbury (‘At least we agree on something’, Nambucca Valley NOTA, 12/8/2026) makes a number of spurious claims that, I believe, most people would not agree with.
It is a well-established fact that renewable energy sources (solar PV and wind) are not only cheaper than fossil fuels (coal, gas, and oil) but are also more reliable.
The most expensive form of energy conversion is nuclear power.
One can quite rightly ask, if renewables are so cheap, why haven’t our electricity prices come down?
The truth is, they have slightly, due to cheaper solar and wind power, but the coal price has gone up (27 per cent over the last year) and the coal plants are ageing and break down regularly.
When they do break down it is the large-scale batteries that step in, effectively instantaneously, and prevent outages.
Would building more coal plants bring down power prices? No, it would not.
Would drilling for oil in the Bight bring down petrol prices? No, it would not.
There is no appetite for financing new coal plants when renewables are cheaper to build and do not need fossil fuel to operate.
Another point to consider is that for every barrel of oil discovered we burn three. You don’t need a PhD in mathematics to see where this goes.
But a more important issue, even if one chooses to ignore the very real effects of climate change, is one of sovereignty and self-reliance.
The ill-considered war on Iran has revealed the shortcomings of relying on oil and gas from politically unstable regions of the world.
As prices for diesel topped $3.50 per litre earlier this year the people driving electric cars grew even more smug. These people will not be returning to cars that rely on fossil fuels. In fact, this stupid war has done more to drive electric car sales than any advertising campaign.
A war in another part of the world can cause oil shortages, and the high petrol prices that follow, but it can’t stop the sun shining and the wind blowing.
Our energy system is going through a large, necessary, change that requires new infrastructure (poles, wires, generation, and storage) and clinging to some nostalgic view of the past is simply impractical and would be expensive.
Regards,
Peter Sobey,
Valla.
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