Pledge to ditch renewables target could cost Guy in sandbelt: poll

Matthew Guy's determination to scrap Victoria's renewable energy target will cost him votes in some of Melbourne's most marginal electorates and reduce his prospects of becoming premier, a poll has found.

The Macarthur wind farm in western Victoria. The Victorian
 government has set a target of 40 per cent renewables by 2025.

A clear majority of voters surveyed in the four swinging "sandbelt" seats of Bentleigh, Mordialloc, Carrum and Frankston in Melbourne's south-east supported moves to boost the proportion of wind and solar power generated in Victoria at the expense of coal.

A ReachTel poll of almost 3000 people in the four electorates found there is strong support for the Andrews government’s ambitious renewable energy target of 25 per cent by 2020 and 40 per cent by 2025.

Read Adam Carey’s story from The Age - “Pledge to ditch renewables target could cost Guy in sandbelt: poll.”

Daniel Andrews lashes power companies over blackouts

Premier Daniel Andrews vowed to take energy distributors to task as the government announced a review into a major power outage that left more than 90,000 households without electricity at the peak of the state’s weekend heatwave.

Victorian Energy and Environment Minister Lily D'Ambrosio.

Unprecedented demand for a Sunday exposed the distributors as unprepared when fuses blew at local power substations, leaving tens of thousands without cooling on one of the hottest January nights on record.

Read the story in today’s Melbourne Age by Cole Latimer and Rachel Dexter - “Daniel Andrews lashes power companies over blackouts.”

Tesla’s big battery a shining light for SA but storms leave neighbours in the dark

The world's biggest lithium ion battery has been launched in South Australia, with Premier Jay Weatherill declaring it an example of SA "leading the world”.

Tesla's lithium-ion battery will store power from the Hornsdale windfarm.

Mr Weatherill travelled to the site of the battery near Jamestown in the state's north with Romain Desrousseaux, the deputy chief executive officer of French renewable energy company Neoen, which will operate the 100-megawatt Tesla battery attached to its Hornsdale windfarm.

Tesla boss Elon Musk — who travelled to South Australia twice this year to mark significant milestones for the battery — did not visit for this event.

Mr Weatherill made light of the billionaire's non-attendance, pointing out Mr Musk had delivered on his promise to deliver the battery within a 100-day deadline or deliver it free.

Read the ABC News story by Nick Harmsen - “Tesla’s big battery a shining light for SA but storms leave neighbours in the dark.”

Federal and State moves are alarming

Melbourne parks will be dug up to
make way for the new east-west
road tunnel.

The idea that the Tony Abbott led Federal Government will repeal carbon tax legislation is alarming.

Almost equally alarming is the intent of the Denis Napthine led Victorian State Government to build an east-west road tunnel in Melbourne.

Both are political ambitions that defy thoroughly understood science about the damage caused by carbon dioxide which accumulates in earth’s atmosphere for many reasons, among them what comes from the exhausts of cars that Premier Napthine intends to pump through the new tunnel.

Commentators from all corners of the world had praised Australia for its stance on carbon dioxide emissions, at least until the recent election of the Coalition Government.

Both the Federal and State decisions are short-sighted in the extreme and even the most conservative climatologists encourage decision makers to prepare for at least a two degree rise  in temperatures above what existed in pre-industrial times.

Temperatures are bordering on one degree Celsius and already much of the world has experienced, and is experiencing, events never seen before and yet Australian MPs, federal and Victorian, seem to think it is a scenario that doesn’t apply to them or their constituencies.