Viv Forbes: Battery Baloney, Hydrogen Hype and Green Fairy Tales

How low Australia has fallen - our once-great BHP now has a “Vice President for Climate”, the number of Australian students choosing physics at high school is collapsing, and our government opposes nuclear energy while pretending we can build and operate nuclear submarines. 

Our Green politicians want: “No Coal, No Gas, No Nuclear” while Our ABC, Our CSIRO and Our Australian Energy Market Operator (AEMO) are telling us that wind and solar energy plus a bit of standby gas, plus heaps of batteries and new power lines can power our homes, industries AND the mass electrification of our vehicle fleet. This sounds like Australia’s very own great leap backwards? 

Ian Bradford: THINKING OF BUYING AN ELECTRIC VEHICLE? Read this first.

In 2017, Human Rights organisation Amnesty produced a report into Cobalt mining in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. It found that there were children as young as seven, working in dangerous conditions.

Cobalt is a vital component of Lithium- ion batteries used in electric vehicles, and of course such things as cell phones. DRC produces around 70% of the world’s cobalt. Miners working in the mines face long term health problems including lung disease, and risk fatal accidents. Between Sept 2014 and Dec 2015 it is claimed at least 80 miners had died underground in southern DRC.