Antinuclear

Murdoch media takes its”facts” on renewable energy from fossil fuel and right-wing promoters

Why the Murdoch media hates renewable energy so much, REneweconomy,  By Giles Parkinson on 26 May 2014 Here is an admission. For more than two years, over two stints, I wrote a weekly column on green energy for The Australian newspaper, called Greenchip.

It appeared prominently on the business pages, and on no occasion was I ever instructed by any editor to take a certain angle, and my copy was never changed to convey another meaning – although one sub-editor did choose the word “seaweed” in a story about algae fuels.

That’s the way it should be. And possibly the way it still is. But I make mention of it now because the position of the Murdoch media towards renewable energy has become a major issue: It appears designed to bring a multi-billion dollar industry to a halt, and apart from ideological reasons, or sympathy with vested interests, it is not clear why.

Certainly, it is not based on the facts.

Some of the reporting on renewables from the Murdoch global network has been laughable, such as the assertion by one Fox News reporter that solar could never work in the US because it didn’t have as much sun as Germany.

Most of it, though, has simply been unbalanced, and ill-informed, such as its numerous stories about the supposed costs of wind energy, its supposed health impacts, and the repetition of the myth that it serves no useful purpose and does not reduce emissions – claims I had debunked in one of my last Greenchip columns.

(Just for the record, for new build generation, wind is already cheaper than coal and gas in most countries, including Australia, and solar is quickly catching up. Even the government’s own economic forecaster accepts that, and so do utilities in Europe, and the US. Wind and solar energy is deemed too expensive because it is sometimes compared with wholesale electricity market prices which have been forced down by massive overcapacity. Renewable energy mechanisms are designed to force out dirty generation, put a value on its environmental benefits, and facilitate a technology with a high capital cost, but zero fuel cost. Incumbent markets have historically favoured low capital cost, high fuel cost sources).

And some of the commentary from Murdoch media is just insistent, unsubstantiated, and plain wrong – such as the air time given to right wing commentators such as Alan Moran, Judith Sloan, Terry McCrann, and Henry Ergas, just to name a few, who give inflated costs of both renewable energy and the renewable energy target, and refuse to believe that wind or solar can have a role to play.

Now, there is no doubt that this position has become the Murdoch media’s official line. On Friday, not for the first time, The Australian ‘s main editorial railed against the renewable energy target. This time, though, it relied exclusively on hotly contested figures provided by the mining lobby group in its submission to the RET review panel.

There is growing despair in Australia about the RET review process, which seems clearly conflicted. Aswe reported last month, the work of the panel’s modeler, ACIL Allen, has been used by the most vocal opponents of the RET, EnergyAustralia, as has the work of panel member Brian Fisher in submissions from the oil and gas industry. Even the appointment of a vocal climate skeptic to head a panel reviewing a mechanism that is designed to assign a value to the environment is a conflict of interest.

The Australian editorial also relies on long-time renewable critic Keith Delacy, a mining company director, who says it is “plain crazy” to have renewable energy schemes. Delacy also argues, absurdly, that renewables have “no place” in a modern economy. One wonders, then, why the major economies – US, China, Japan, Germany, France, and numerous countries in Latin America, Asia, Africa, the Middle East, the rest of Europe and even small islands – are pushing so hard to lift their share of renewables……http://reneweconomy.com.au/2014/murdoch-media-hates-renewable-energy-much-43022

May 27, 2014 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | AUSTRALIA - NATIONAL, media