Dear Chris Bowen, there’s only one ‘renewable energy superpower’ – it’s called China and Australia has no chance of competing
We are sleepwalking towards an energy nightmare far worse than the 1973 oil crisis thanks to Labor’s delusional belief it can make Australia a main player in the renewables market, writes Nick Cater.
Nick Cater
March 24, 2024 6:00 am
History tells us that nations that rely on other countries for energy are flirting with danger.
In the early 1970s, much of the world had come to rely so heavily on oil from the Middle East that oil sheikhs could hold most of the developed world to ransom.
In countries like Britain, which had come to depend heavily on Middle Eastern oil sheikhs, pump prices doubled, and fuel was rationed.
In Australia, on the other hand, pump prices remained steady at around 20 cents a litre since 80 per cent of the oil was extracted locally.
Back then, we refined almost all our petrol and diesel onshore.
Today, Australia is sleep walking towards an energy nightmare far worse than the 1973 oil crisis.
This time, it's not the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) we should fear, it’s the Communist regime in China.
Beijing is to renewable energy what Abu Dhabi used to be to oil.
Anthony Albanese’s government, hellbent on achieving fanciful emissions-free energy targets, has walked into China's trap.
While Energy Minister Chris Bowen fantasises about turning Australia into a renewable superpower, he seems blind to what’s been happening in the energy geopolitics.
China is already the dominant force in renewable energy and Mr Bowen’s ill-advised policies seem designed to keep it that way for ever.
China dominates the solar panel industry.
Solar panel exports from China were worth $US52 billion, far outstripping the value of Australian thermal coal exports ($US43 billion).
The trend is in China's favour, as far as the eye can see.
China is already the dominant force in renewable energy and Chris Bowen’s ill-advised policies seem designed to keep it that way for ever.
Australian governments, state and federal, do their level best to prevent coal exports from expanding by imposing punitive royalties.
Red tape and environmental lawfare make it impossible to open new mines, despite buoyant global demand.
China's single-minded government, on the other hand, has doggedly pursued the goal of becoming the world leader in solar as a first step towards becoming the only player in the market.
And it is succeeding.
China's share of solar panel manufacturing worldwide is approaching 90 per cent and is rising.
Chinese manufacturers have flourished by pursuing two commercial advantages.
They can readily assemble a work force that is either willing to labour in filthy jobs for a pittance or can be coerced into doing so.
Some 45 per cent of Chinese solar panels exports are produced in Xinjiang province using forced labour from China's Uyghur Muslims, according to research by the UK's Sheffield Hallam University.
The solar panel industry's other dirty secret is the energy consumed in processing minerals and manufacturing.
Each square metre of solar-voltaic material requires between 400 to 800 kWh of energy to produce, up to 50 times the daily consumption of an average Australian household.
China uses the abundant and cheap energy it produces from coal to manufacture solar panels, loading each panel with a carbon debt that takes up to four years to pay off.
China is increasing its dominance of the wind turbine industry, and European producers struggle to compete.
Last week, the Albanese Government quietly removed anti-dumping tariffs on wind turbine towers, giving China the freedom to bid for a substantial share of the thousands of towers that must be built by 2030 to meet the government's renewable energy target.
Energy Minister Chris Bowen recently pushed even more green jobs in China's direction by announcing some of the world's most stringent vehicle emissions standards.
Last year, 86.9 per cent of EVs sold in Australia were manufactured in China.
China produces seven of the 10 best selling EVs including the Tesla Model Y and Model 3 which are built under licence in Shanghai, as well as the BYD Atto 3, MG ZS EV, Volvo XC40 , Polestar 2 and Volvo C40.
China has overtaken Germany and Korea to become the third largest source of cars sold in Australia.
By subsidising electric vehicles and taxing those driven by internal combustion, China is on track to become the leading supplier of vehicles to Australia well before the end of the decade.
Chinese global dominance in steel production, aluminium cables and other components essential to electricity transmission will mean that a significant share of the economic benefit from the tens of billions of dollars invested in new transmission will produce Chinese jobs and Chinese profits.
The energy and trade security implications of the government's headlong rush into renewable energy have received scant attention from the Albanese government or the renewable energy cheer squad in most mainstream media.
Yet, under Labor, the course is set.
By the end of the century, Australia will rely on good relations with China to maintain its energy supply.
Meanwhile, our Energy Minister tries to persuade us that there will be 60,000 clean energy jobs by 2025.
He boasts that we can maintain the same competitive edge we enjoy as a leading fossil fuel producer by exporting solar power to Singapore using a yet-to-be-built cable along one the deepest sections of ocean floor on the planet.
He believes we can be a major export of green hydrogen by 2030.
Green hydrogen is a technology far from proven at scale that requires mind-boggling amounts of electricity to produce.
Chris Bowen is delusional.
The so-called green jobs are being created in China.
Green, perhaps, but not so clean for those breathing in cancer-causing dust and fumes, washing down sulphuric acid to refine the 8kg of lithium carbonate and 14kg of cobalt that go into every Tesla battery.
Nick Cater is a senior fellow at Menzies Research Centre
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China is going to own the world in a couple of decades. And we’ll be using candles at night