While most people are now convinced that global warming is a human-induced phenomenon, wide-spread destruction of farming land and native forests and grasslands, plus the dramatic increase in electricity costs have made many people doubt the wisdom of the current approach to the energy transition.
Countries with the highest photo-voltaic and wind energy penetration appear to have the most expensive electricity in the world. Associated negative environmental impacts due to vegetation and landform destruction, huge increases in mining disturbance, toxic manufacturing processes and inadequate waste management are of huge concern for those living in the regions who personally witness and experience these impacts.
This has created a new city-country divide: not only is the majority of the country’s wealth generated in the regions, but the energy transition also comes from the regions and those impacts burden regional inhabitants disproportionally. To make matters worse, these regional concerns are regarded as inconsequential by the city-bound who need the energy.
Northern Australia has vast areas of land where apparently uniform biological environments may justify partial sacrifice for wind or solar opportunities, but these areas are a long way from the populations that need that energy. Unlike fossil and nuclear power generation, solar and wind energy are low intensity and widely distributed making transmission both costly and of significant environmental impact.
There has been no detailed national assessment of the total environmental costs of renewables under-taken, the impacts of global warming being considered so consequential as to overshadow any other impacts. However, twenty-five years down the renewables pathway we see renewables still only supplying 6 % of world energy demand – with a similar proportion for modern bioenergy. We remain a long way from a clean energy future as the realities of this goal become clear.