FORUM –
I refer to your article of December 24 and see that Asset Energy’s Executive Director David Breeze is enthused by the potential of gas reserves off the coast of NSW between Newcastle and Wollongong to last for 20 years (estimated).
He also wants to explore the potential for carbon capture and storage (to date an expensive and largely failed technology).
I think the residents of our wonderful Coast would prefer to capture the potential of the sun.
A cursory search on the Australian Government’s Geoscience Australia website (www.ga.government.au) reveals that the Australian continent has the highest solar radiation per square metre of any continent.
We get an average of 58 million PJ (petajoules) of solar radiation per year.
That is approximately 10,000 times larger than our total energy consumption.
Now there’s something with potential to be enthusiastic about!
It is unconscionable that the Liberal Government has not vetoed this licence at its expiration last February.
It’s worse still that local Member Lucy Wicks voted against Zali Steggall’s motion in Parliament which would have ended it for good. [Editor’s note: Wicks voted against a motion to suspend standing orders which would have made way for the introduction of the Steggall Bill.]
Once again the Coast gets a photo opportunity with just more talk and no action.
Email, Dec 27, 2021, Lyndall Davis, Green Point