On Tuesday this week, the Australian Financial Review went large with the story headlined, “How a big new solar farm became a stranded asset”. That evening, energy analyst Tim Buckley debunked the story on social media. This was not a stranded asset at all, Buckley pointed out. “Zero stranding … [financially] a brilliant success”.
What is not over, and the point of this republication, is the ‘culture war’ between new and old energy which is played out daily in the press and is frankly misleading for most Australians, and for many politicians whose votes they crave. People tend to believe what they see in the media.
For that reason, there is a generation of older Australians who read and watch the fossil media who are outraged about the demise of coal – this newfangled “not base-load power” solar boondoggle. “When the wind don’t blow and the sun don’t shine” blah blah. They are simply, relentlessly, misled by the financial press which is pro-fossil fuels. There is money in it for them.
This is also why you will see Tim Buckley, principal of Clean Energy Finance, and the leading coal and RE analyst in the country published in this journal from time to time, but so rarely ever in the AFR or The Australian. They won’t run him; he doesn’t suit the fossil agenda.
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