My recent electricity bill was informative but menacing. It had several bits of statistical info, including the variation in consumption since the previous quarter. I was encouraged to see my consumption of electricity had fallen 4.6 per cent. But it added to the BS (Bill Shock, or Bowen Shock as I now call it) when I saw that my bill had nevertheless increased by over 20 per cent. The renewables era of ‘use less, pay more’ has arrived. I obviously can’t afford to reduce my usage any further…

Climate Change and Energy Minister Chris Bowen likes to refer to renewables as the cheapest source of energy. Had my supplier failed to use Bowen’s renewables for my supply, I wondered in a daze of renewable angst. Maybe all the renewable inputs had been applied only to Minister Bowen’s offices, staff and home? Should I demand the supplier to renew my bill with all the cheap inputs from renewables?

Or maybe we should crowd-fund a pamphlet that explains in clear English the difference between ‘cheap’ and ‘expensive’ for delivery to the Minister’s office in the Department? Or perhaps a pamphlet that explains the difference between truth and fiction?

Let’s do some sums. According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics, a taxpayer on the average weekly wage of $1,838 pays $21,529 tax a year. So when the government commits record funding of almost $25 billion to ‘clean energy spending’ for a single year, the tax of over 1,160,000 taxpayers will be required to pay for it. Each year. That is on top of the higher bills. Each quarter. We can’t call that cheap without breaking the English language.

To put that non-renewable (ie spent) $25 billion in context, it is almost as much as total aged care ($27.7 billion) and comes out of total tax revenue of around $863 billion.

But to get a good feel for what we’ll get for the $25 billion, we should look at some detail. There’s the Community Batteries and Solar Banks initiative:

The government has earmarked over $300 million for community batteries and solar banks. The $224.3 million Community Batteries for Household Solar Program will deliver up to 400 community batteries to store excess solar energy. The $102.2 million Community Solar Banks program will help Australian households access cheap solar-powered energy.

And:

Transforming regional communities

The government will establish the $1.9 billion Powering the Regions Fund. The fund will support Australian industry to decarbonise, develop new clean energy industries and help build Australia’s new energy workforce.

And:

Reducing transport emissions

The Driving the Nation Fund invests $500 million to help reduce transport emissions. This includes building electric vehicle charging infrastructure at 117 highway sites and hydrogen highways for key freight routes. The Government is also cutting taxes on electric cars.

Enough! I hear you cry. Okay, I’ll leave it at that, except to say this $25 billion is intended as a yearly expenditure. And there is no benefit defined at the end of each year’s vomit of cash. What will Bowen buy with $25 billion? What difference will any of this hysterical expenditure make to the climate? None, given that it has never been proven that fossil fuel emissions drive warming, and even if they did, Australia’s emissions are a fraction of global emissions at just over 1 per cent.

But Bowen is determined (stubborn) to extend his embrace of renewables and embarrass himself. Here is how Reuters reported his latest plan to spend even more:

SYDNEY, Nov 23 (Reuters). Australia will step up spending to underwrite new wind, solar and battery projects, Energy Minister Chris Bowen said on Thursday, looking to lure investments to stabilise the energy grid as coal-fired plants retire.

Bowen did not specify how much the government expects to spend on the programme, designed to drive investment in 32 gigawatts (GW) of new capacity, or around half the national electricity market’s existing capacity.

The move comes as the industry is struggling to meet the government’s target for 82 per cent renewable power by 2030 from around 40 per cent now due to challenges in expanding transmission networks to handle new renewable projects located far from demand centres.

‘We’re doing well, but not well enough, we need to do better to reach that target,’ Bowen told ABC television.

Andrew L. Urban is the author of Climate Alarm Reality Check (Wilkinson Publishing).