This nonsense is what passes for intelligent commentary in our media. Walterlin is not alone in his stupidity. We also have Suzy Freeman-Greene who thinks blanketing the landscape with grossly inefficient solar collectors is just super duper. (The Age, It’s clean and it’s green) 26 September 2006). So what did this mastermind have to say?

...politicians in thrall to the mining lobby or a discussion about genuinely clean forms of power? Clearly the Government wants to boost our coal and uranium industries, but in 100 years’ time will there even be an economy around to protect?

Blame greedy politicians and the mining lobby for Australia not going green, that’s the answer. That solar is neither clean nor efficient evidently never occurred to this profound thinker. Of course, she could have researched the subject. But why should she do that when she already has the answer? Let me finish with the sanctimonious Tim Colebatch, economics editor of The Age. Now according to this brilliant economic analyst all the government needs do to provide us with abundant green energy is

to raise income tax high enough, we could do it that way. But it makes more sense to impose the tax on firms emitting gases, to spur innovation. (The Age, Here comes the sun, and it’s all right,1 November 2006).

That’s right, folks — taxation is the “spur to innovation” and invention — not to mention evasion. The logic of this idiocy is that all Australia needs to do to become the world’s scientific and technological wonder economy is to quadruple the income tax. Only someone totally ignorant of economic history — and genuine economic theory — could make such a moronic statement.

Let us make this so simple that even a journalist can understand it. Solar power can never compete with centralised power generation because it is too dilute. This is a scientific and fact. It is not propaganda. Journalists writing on solar energy who have not acquainted themselves with the basic fact of diluteness have no business being a journalists. (I take that back. Considering the degree to which diseased leftists have thoroughly corrupted the media I now consider it the best place for the likes of Colebatch, Walterlin and Freeman-Greene).

This diluteness — or low energy density — stems from the indisputable fact that the maximum amount of energy that can be harnessed from the sun under optimum conditions is just under one kW per square metre (11 square feet) per hour. Once again — for the benefit of the “best and the brightest”: This is the maximum amount of energy that the sun showers on the earth and there is no way to increase it without increasing the size of the sun. And it gets worse. There is no way the maximum limit can be reached and maintained.

losses from the conversion process, weather conditions, etc., would drive the average available power down to under 100W per square metre. (Of course, come night-time the solar energy source disappears until morning). Therefore massive amounts of solar power will obviously demand massive collecting areas to provide the billions of watts that advanced societies need to survive.

From an economic angle solar power will always suffer from diseconomies of scale. In other words, increasing average costs will prevail. As an economics writer Colebatch should know this. But then I’m of the opinion that he really knows very little. To make my point even clearer, here are some more facts that these journalists refuse to report: To generate electricity on cloudy days and during the night a solar station would need massive storage facilities. These facilities would have to be replenished at 6 or 7 times the rate at which it is drained by the load. A little arithmetic, therefore, shows that a 1000 MW plant needs at least 6,000 MW peak power. This assumes optimum conditions, 10 per cent efficiency and 50 per cent spacing.

These greenie journalist blame “stupid” (perhaps even corrupt) politicians and sinister corporations for denying us “abundant green energy”. Yet in the 1950s the Soviet Heliotechnic Institute in Tashkent carried out an extremely careful engineering study to determine the feasibility of using solar-thermal Power to supply a small city with electricity. The results of the study found that the project was hopelessly uneconomic and technically inefficient. This persuaded Soviet planners to abandon the scheme. Even they were not that stupid. Of course, it’s always possible — if you work for The Age — to argue that they were bought off by greedy corporations.

As providence would have it, about the same time as the Soviets dropped their solar plans the French built a solar-thermal plant at Odeillo in the Pyrenees. It is a complex structure of 63 rectangular flat mirrors, each about 8 metres by 6 metres comprising 180 smaller mirrors. The sun is automatically tracked and its rays reflected into a fixed parabolic mirror which is made up of 9,000 small mirrors. They focus the rays onto a boiler produces steam at 270 degrees C which runs turbogenerators. This little gem produces 1 MW electrical output — but only when the sun is out. All at the cost of hundreds of millions of dollars. No wonder the French did the sensible thing and opted for nuclear power.

In America in 1991, LUZ, a solar-electricity generating company, went into bankruptcy. LUZ is interesting because it had been asserted by zealous solar-power supporters (particularly in the media) that the LUZ company’s solar technology now made solar energy an economic alternative to nuclear power. Even Fortune magazine waded in with support. LUZ built its plant in the New Mexico desert to take advantage of the highly favourable conditions. But even there they could not make their 354 MW operation pay, which brings us right back to those three ignoramuses at The Age. It is the diluteness of solar power that brought LUZ to financial ruin. And the same would go for Australia. Have no fear, however, because journalists will always argue that subsidies are both necessary and even moral*. After all, it’s for the children as well as the environment.

Now for some elementary economics. The subsidies are needed because the costs of solar power exceeds what people are prepared to pay for it, whereas the reverse is true for centralised power stations. This means that solar stations use far more resources — especially land — than do ordinary power stations. But aren’t greens always telling us that we should conserve resources? The dirty little secret here is that solar energy is costly as well as wasteful.

What about domestic use? Well, what about it? In 1996 Citipower installed 24 solar-voltaic panels on the Brunswick home of a family of four at a cost of $A25,000. The company also threw in $A20,000 while the lucky couple put in the remaining $A5,000. The couple claimed that the installation reduced their winter bill to a mere $A16.67. The inference being that the sun was setting on the quarterly electricity bill.

I decided to do a few calculations of my own. It turned out that the solar panels generated a maximum of 83 Wh. Let me repeat that: 83 watts. This translated into a miserable 8 per cent efficiency. A maximum of 83 Wh times 24 gives us 1.9 kWh. (Would you pay $A25,000 for this?) So how did the family cope on 2 kWh of electricity? Well, the heating was virtually all gas, including the hot water, and they also cooked with gas. (I know this to be true because I took the liberty of asking them). The system was also designed so at night or when it was cloudy it automatically switched into the grid.

As the very smart Mr Colebatch should know, there ain’t no such thing as a free lunch. Somewhere along the line it has to be paid for — and solar power is no exception.

If the family “saved” a hypothetical $100 a quarter in electricity bills that would have worked out at $400 p.a. That means it would take this ‘investment’ about 62 years and 6 months to break even. But when we discount the return (as we must because a present dollar is worth more than a future dollar) by, say, 10 per cent we find that the ‘investment’ will never pay for itself. It wouldn’t even repay the family’s $5,000 investment. Then of course we have depreciation. If this is set at 10 per cent, for example, then the installation would last for 10 years. Even if you run it until it falls to pieces, it still could not possibly pay for itself at those prices. This is what is called a lousy investment. It’s also lousy science.

I sent my findings to Citypower for comment. They refused to discuss the matter. When I asked if my figures were wrong, they still refused to comment.

Is it any wonder that Drs. A. and M. Meinel of the University of Arizona — a couple noted for their work on solar power — stated that the idea of replacing nuclear with solar was “totally foolhardy”. (cited by Professor Beckman in Access to Energy, August 1976). The Meinel’s were not alone in recognizing solar’s severe and unsurpassable limitations. Another scientist pointed out:

It is, on the other hand, wasting energy to channel large amounts of negentropy into facilities of so-called ‘soft technology,’ which will not give us a sufficiently great return of energy [extractable energy] to justify the investment of energy and raw materials in their construction. (Dr Klaus Klaus Knizia, Energy, Order, Humaneness, cited by Professor Beckman in Access to Energy, September 1981, Vol. 9, no. 1).

But what about all those great jobs that these geniuses think we are sacrificing? Well according to their logic solar creates more job because it is labour intensive. Then again, so are wheel barrows and shovels. Does the oh so clever Mr Walterlin think, for instance, that earth moving machinery should be banned? That scores of factories should be set up to manufacture shovels and wheelbarrows? That computers and trucks should be verboten? That the use of cranes, forklift trucks and containers should be criminalised? The use of solar to increase jobs is just another form of pyramid building. Investments are made to produce goods and services and not jobs. And the more per capita investment the higher will be real wages.

The appalling fact is that journalists have been deliberately suppressing accurate information that discredits green energy claims. This is no surprise to those of us who have observed Australian journalism steadily succumb to new class ideology with its contempt for truth and the public welfare. But why lie? Because the more intelligent green cultists fully understand that so-called alternative energy sources are incapable of providing cheap and abundant energy. Amory Lovins demitted this when he stated:

It would be little short of disastrous for us to discover a source of clean, cheap, abundant energy because of what we might do with it. We . . . could do mischief to the earth and to each other. Mother Earth, Nov-Dec. 1977.

When the possibility of abundant energy from cold fusion was first raised by laboratory experiments Paul Ehrlich responded with his well-known:

Giving society cheap, abundant energy . . . would be the equivalent of giving an idiot child a machine gun. (An Ecologist’s Perspective on Nuclear Power, May/June 1978 issue of Federation of American Scientists Public Issue Report).

Ehrlich was equally blunt about economic growth:

We’ve already had too much economic growth in the United States. Economic growth in rich countries like ours is the disease, not the cure. (David Brooks Journalists and others for saving the planet, Wall Street Journal, 1989)

Ralph Nader’s fanatical sister came out with this little gem:

We continue to delude ourselves that this is the age of progress. (Access to Energy June 1989)

The idotic Marxist Barry Commoner:

Could be a distraction from present energy sources. (ibid).

John Holdren, a prominent American green and an opponent of growth:

It’s a pave the planet and paint it green mentality. (ibid).

Jeremy Rifkin, another media pet and an opponent of cheap energy:

The worst thing that could happen to our planet. (ibid).

In short, the masses are to be denied cheap abundant energy. And these people and their ilk are the ones our so-called environmental journalists (and others) quote in support of their anti-growth ignorance and bigotry masquerading as environmental concern.

*Lefties are not the only ones who screw up on economics and energy. Andrew Bolt wrote an article calling on the government to subsidise ethanol production (Herald Sun, Reap the good oil , 11 August 2006). Being a complete economic illiterate Bolt was oblivious to the damaging effects a subsidy would have on food prices. (See Government MPs plan to rip millions off in subsidies for ethanol producers). When it comes to economics and defending the market Australia’s conservative columnists are unbelievably terrible. Unfortunately they are too conceited to admit that they know nothing of economics. (Rightwing columnists stuff up labour market reform debate).

Gerard Jackson is Brookes’ economics editor