Trevor Scott, Castlemaine
In September 2016, South Australia was hit by a storm of such ferocity that many residents were without power for several days. Federal politicians were quick to blame SA’s power supply, a mix of coal and renewables.
Last Friday, the temperature soared to 42 degrees in Melbourne and 200,000 Victorians suffered a power outage. Victoria’s power failed partly because of worn-out coal-fired plants, but clearly the one-in-a-hundred-year storm in SA and the unparalleled heat wave in Victoria were due to Climate Change.
The Morrison government now wants to replace the generators in the Latrobe Valley with a new coal-fired power plant. Our federal government won’t listen to the scientists who have said emphatically that to avoid global warming of no more than 1.5 degrees, all remaining fossil fuel must stay in the ground. This warning was echoed in October 2018 by the IPCC.
Surely this is the opportunity for Victoria to transition to a wholly renewable electricity grid.
We now have solar thermal which uses molten salt to store heat; and pumped hydro using solar energy to raise water; the problem of a constant supply has been solved.
What are you waiting for Victoria?
