By MICHAEL SLOVANUS
SENATOR Gerard Rennick, the Queensland Liberal Senator who, like precious few others, does his job of making bureaucrats and ministers accountable, has demonstrated how corporate bureaucrats corrupt the process of government.
In a recent Senate committee hearing, Senator Rennick asked the head of the CSIRO, Professor Doug Wilson, a number of questions about costings and other assumptions in a major report on Australia’s future energy costs called GenCost.
CSIRO, the nation’s leading scientific agency, apparently produced the report to convince the Albanese government, that its grand “net zero” drive to switch the entire energy network over to renewables was a (surprise, surprise) fantastic, wise and brilliant idea.
Rennick, who is no amateur when it comes to analysing government reports and associated spin-doctoring, found some major problems with GenCost, particularly in regard to the estimated generating capacity of onshore and offshore wind turbine farms, the generating capacity of nuclear power and coal and the cost of connecting the wind and solar power grid.
Rennick accuses the CSIRO of over-estimating the generating capacity of wind by 18% from it’s generally recognised 30% while seriously under-estimating the capacity of coal and nuclear power.
When Rennick asked Prof. Wilson if it was true that GenCost assumed there was no extra cost for renewable storage and transmission until renewables reached 60% of the grid, the CSIRO chief said he would “take the question on notice”.
When Rennick pressed him if there was anyone present who could answer the question he said the two experts responsible for the report, Paul Graham and his direct superior Peter Mayfield, were both on leave but he was still “very happy to take that on notice”.
Rennick’s next question was whether GenCost assumed onshore wind generating capacity of 48% and offshore capacity of 51%. Again, the CSIRO chief couldn’t answer and said he was “happy to take that question on notice”.
The Senator then asked the professor if he was aware that the average generating capacity for wind over the past five years was 30% and again the professor said he would take that question on notice as well. But that wasn’t the end of it.
“The Head of the CSIRO is clueless. He clearly only answers questions that suit his narrative and takes everything else on notice. Whatever happened to accountability in answering questions?” Rennick posted on X.
“The CSIRO is misleading the Australian public by overstating the capacity of wind farms. They have a capacity of 30% not 50%. This understates their costs by 40%. Why bother turning up to estimates if you aren’t going to bring your subject matter experts – especially in regard to their GenCost report which is used by useful idiots like Chris Bowen to justify their lies.”
The Senator went on to explain that coal and nuclear power, if allowed to run 24 hours a day without being turned down for solar input during the middle of the day, have a generating capacity of 90%. But by overstating wind and understating coal/nuclear capacity the CSIRO costed coal and nuclear at 20% more efficient than wind, i.e. 60% over 50%.
But Rennick says their generating capacity is in fact 300% more efficient, that is 90% over the 30% for wind. The CSIRO chief did manage to offer some defence for GenCost, claiming that Australian energy generation conditions are unique on the world stage.
But Rennick is far from satisfied with that excuse. “The net result of this is that efficiency of baseload power is understated by 15 times in relation to wind power while storage costs are completely ignored in costings, especially in regard to locating and building pumped hydro. The CSIRO have no idea where the pumped hydro is going to go.”