Ex Australian Greens Leader Bob Brown misleading reply about solar power on national TV
April 24th, 2012 by Warwick HughesLast night on the ABC (Australian Govt owned TV channel)- Q & A usual GreenLeft-fest – I saw Bob Brown say that the never built hydro dam on the Franklin River (thats Tasmania) – would have had a 184MW capacity. What knocked me out was his claim that this(184MW) was one fifth of a baseload solar power station. Viewers should have been made aware that Bob was speaking about “planned projects” or “hypothetical projects”.
According to Google the largest solar power station in the World is ANDASOL in Spain using CSP to heat molten salt – which comes in at 150MW.
There is the “planned” 1,000 MW Blythe solar power plant in the Mojave desert but that seems to be converting to strait PV – so no night-time power there – can hardly be termed “baseload”. Not to mention the fact that the owners have filed for bankruptcy according to the LA Times – 3 April 2012. So Bob Brown is quoting numbers of a “hypothetical” solar plant. Typical Green propaganda – pie-in-the-sky hopes.
Here is the question he was answering on Q & A.
HYDRO POWER
“Sue Bastone asked via video: Good evening Senator Brown. As electricity prices continue to rise in Tasmania do you ever feel the slightest bit guilty about putting a river before people when you led the campaign against damming the Gordon below Franklin? Surely our environment would have been better off with hydro powered electricity than having to import power from dirty coal powered generation on the mainland and wouldn’t we be financially better off? Perhaps locking up huge areas of Tasmania’s forests is equally short sighted.”
I will try and get the script of Bob Brown’s reply later today from the Q & A webpages.
Posted in Renewable Energy, Solar | 26 Comments »