NYT “Green Column” Promotes Renewable Efforts in Australia that Collide with Economic Realities

By Kevin Mooney So called renewable energy sources comprise just 6 percent of Australia’s power supplies, but this could change dramatically in the next few years if environmentalists have their druthers, according to a New York Times “Green Column” that highlights pending projects. Current plans call for the largest wind farm in the Southern Hemisphere to be built between now and 2013, the report says. Although the report concedes that there are enormous logistical challenges connected with the project, it permits renewable industry advocates to talk around the engineering obstacles. The NYT also claims the renewable energy initiatives will generate modest costs for Australian citizens. But the experiences of European countries and U.S. states suggest otherwise and should be reported. Gabriel Calzada, an economics professor at Universidad Rey Juan Carlos in Spain, has produced a study that shows green jobs are mostly temporary, heavily subsidized and subtract away from economic performance. The study also describes how higher energy prices associated with renewable have worked against Spain’s ability to compete internationally. The same is true in the U.S. where electricity rates are almost 40 percent higher in states with renewable standards than they are in states that do not have such standards, according to the Institute for Energy Research (IER). Readers would greatly benefit if these numbers were juxtaposed with some of the blanket assertions made in the NYT piece. Unrealistic cost estimates are typically attached to political agendas at odds with the public interest. Ideally, journalists should work to expose rather than advance government perfidy.Get full story here.