Guardian: Politicians “Propagated the Myth” that Renewables are Easy

"Here’s the truth: energy transition is hard. Not everyone gets a pony

Peter Lewis

Jobs will change, communities will be affected, but we have a shot at rising to the challenge of global heating

The climate crisis has long been defined by its lies: From the original sin of science denial, to Tony Abbott’s confected carbon tax panic, to the latest yellowcake straw man. But the most damaging porky of all might be that the transition to renewable energy will be easy.

Government messaging has propagated this myth, vacillating between the torpid technocracy of targets, acronyms and megawatt hours and the sunny spin that promises “a cheaper, cleaner energy future!”.

Both gloss over the hard truth that fundamentally changing the way Australia produces, shares and uses energy is hugely disruptive, particularly in the regions where new infrastructure is earmarked for land and sea.

…

When asked to rank energy sources in order of cost, renewables are rated the most expensive. Fossil fuels are seen as a cheaper solution, while nuclear is preferred by those who don’t support the transition anyway.

These findings are hardly surprising, the result of higher electricity bills as global prices for fossil fuels soar. Energy companies, like all big corporations, clip the inflation ticket and roof-top solar incentives are phased out.

…

When US president JFK announced the project to reach the moon within a decade in 1962, he famously proclaimed he was doing things “not because they are easy, but because they are hard”."

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/apr/23/renewable-energy-transitio...

But wait - It was the Guradian who was totally on board with this.

"The cheapest reliable energy system to meet Australia’s climate targets? Solar and wind, no question

Graham Readfearn
Fri 1 Sep 2023 11.39 AEST

There has been a lot of commentary about how to measure the cost of renewables – but much of it misses the point

If you’ve been reading or watching any rightwing media of late, you will have heard some extraordinary claims being made about the cost of renewable energy and the transition away from fossil fuels.

The opposition’s energy spokesperson, Ted O’Brien, suggested the Labor government could be “wilfully lying” about the “true cost” of the energy transition, while others have questioned the evidence that solar and wind are the cheapest forms of power.

In the Australian, two columns claimed to have uncovered a fatal flaw in how the cost of solar and wind gets compared with coal, gas and the currently-illegal nuclear.

There is a lot to unpick – but not because any true scandal has been uncovered.

…

The LCOE metric shows clearly that solar and onshore wind are easily the cheapest forms of electricity right now. But Lehmann, and critics she quotes, say it’s misleading because it does not account for the cost of adding transmission lines and storage to the grid that enable those renewables.

…

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/commentisfree/2023/sep/01/the-cheapest-r...

So was the Gurdian wilfully lying or not?