On the Mangoes controversy

Jackie French writes: Re. “Tony Birch says Mango poem controversy exposes student entitlement“(Wednesday)

Most contacts with students are a joy. But…in the last ten years increasing numbers email demanding  “six examples of vivid imagery  in chapter 6” plus “a 500 word overview of the art of a picture book’, with complaints that the answers can’t be found on the internet or, to quote a recent email “I don’t have time in my busy schedule to answer things like this”. The ability of students to directly contact the author is new, as is the expectation among a small but vocal segment that the work will be done by parents or plagiarism.

On the National Energy Guarantee

Barry Welch writes: Re. “How to extricate yourself from an energy policy jam” (Wednesday)

At best Malcolm “Great Expectations” Turnbull’s energy policy is a Miss Havisham’s Cake , covered with icing on the outside but hollowed out and eaten out by rodents (Is that you Tony?) on the  inside. At worst it is the aluminium cladding model, designed to prettify the flawed structure but absolutely fatal. Either way — What the Dickens?

Dave Edmunds writes: Re. “How to extricate yourself from an energy policy jam” (Wednesday)

While Bernard may be accurate in his statement:  “But understand that there are no costless paths to meeting our emissions abatement goals, and if we don’t do it in electricity, will pay more doing it somewhere else.”, it is a bit misleading

All systems eventually wear out, as is happening with our coal-fired generators.  We need to replace those generators with something, and it is now clear that the cheapest replacement technologies are solar and wind.  It would be more accurate to represent the investment in new renewables generation capability as a saving over not investing in renewables.

However, the requirement for a proportion of dispatchable energy looks to replicate the error made in the overinvestment on poles and wires, giving the retailers every excuse to over invest with a guaranteed return.  This is particularly egregious as there is bugger all evidence that we need it other than to placate the coalition party room. Bernard also makes the point that if we do not address emissions through renewables we will have to do so in other ways.  The problem here is that one of the other major areas that will have to be addressed is the transport sector, which will be electrified.

Electric cars use around one quarter of the energy of a petrol car, and as historically electrical energy and petrol cost the same, the electrification of the car fleet will reward owners with a significant reduction in running costs, and of course huge reduction in emissions. While the demand for electricity has not been rising, the electrification of transport will increase demand, for which the proposed policy leaves us completely unprepared.

There is a huge and burgeoning industry related to the electrification of our transport fleet that will reward early movers.  It seems that this is just another in the long list of industries that our current government believes Australia can live without, leaving us with the hope that submarines will do the heavy lifting.