The Country Telegraph

The Country Telegraph is an independent, multi-platform media company dedicated to Regional, Rural & Outback Australia.

[The Country Telegraph @TheCountryTel]

The Country Telegraph https://t.co/PxbJNNo0gJ

[The Country Telegraph @TheCountryTel]

@BobBurn97207272 Said things were not so bad in an interview with tucker recently?

[Peter Clack @PeterDClack]

Billions of solar panels are nearing their end-of-life cycle, and the world is completely unprepared for the coming toxic avalanche.

By 2050, the International Renewable Energy Agency projects up to 78 million metric tons of useless and toxic solar e-waste. Where is it all going to go?

The industry boasts that solar panels are '95% recyclable'. Technically, yes - because they are made of glass, aluminum and copper. But economics always trumps physics. In Australia and the US, it costs roughly $20 to $40 to disassemble and recycle a single panel, but only around $4 to dump it in landfill.

Because there is no financial incentive, up to 90% of decommissioned panels go straight into the ground. There are between 7 and 8 billion solar panels in the world today. This milestone was reached as global solar capacity officially surpassed 2 Terawatts (TW).

Because the physical wattage of individual panels varies from small 300W residential rooftop modules to massive 600W utility-scale panels, 2 TW of total energy capacity translates to roughly 7 billion individual panels currently installed worldwide.

Each solar panel is an industrial 'sandwich' bound tightly by heavy polymers. To extract the microscopic amounts of valuable silver and high-purity silicon requires energy-intensive chemical and thermal baking.

When they are crushed or left to fracture in landfills, heavy metals like lead and cadmium (in thin-film technologies) can leach into the surrounding soil and groundwater, turning 'clean energy' into a multi-generational hazardous waste problem.

The crisis is accelerating faster than models predicted. Because solar cells degrade and lose efficiency, and newer, cheaper panels hit the market, consumers and solar farms are ripping out functional systems at least a decade early to upgrade.

This compressed lifecycle destroys the narrative of a long-term, stable asset and creates an endless loop of unrecyclable industrial trash.

[Will Shackel @ShackelWill]

India wants more of Australia's uranium, but there's a problem.

Whilst we have the largest reserves in the world, much of it is locked up by uranium mining bans.

The NSW Upper House voted last month to lift their’s, surely now Labor will back the bill in the Lower House...

[The Australian @australian]

Australia’s $135bn data-centre ­industry poses a new risk to the nation’s electricity system, authorities have warned, with sudden dips in voltage potentially causing a mass grid-scale shock and threatening power connections between states. Read more: https://t.co/7JUDW5hvyq

[Aidan Morrison @FootnotesGuy]

A week ago, Grattan released a report, called "Out of gas".

I think it's something quite profound and awe-inspiring to behold. This is the last gasp of the credulous climate absolutists.

Like seeing the last Thylacine, or Dodo.

Grattan now occupies this exquisite remnant habitat of deep-Melbourne-progressive-globalist-elite-academia. They aren't aware this habitat doesn't actually have a place in the new political world order.

They're smart enough and honest enough to know that the transition required to switch from fossil-fuels to renewable-electrified systems will require massive costs and coersion to bring about.

And they're honest enough to look you in the eye, and state in plain language that it should and must be done anyway.

Because climate targets are paramount, right?

They show absolutely no awareness of the enormous betrayal that the mainstream would sense (if they read long academic reports) at the admission that the project is expensive, and requires economic pain and impingement of liberties to accomplish.

It was always meant to be an initiative to reduce cost-of living pressures, and usher in new industrial productivity, right?

The whole paper is weirdly oblivious to dominant policy mindsets, variously more (or less) intelligent and honest, which their position fails to cohere with:

There's the dumb (or dishonest) transition advocates who persist in the narrative that electrification actually costs less than traditional energy. The market will get things done, if only we let it, or maybe just nudge it to get it unstuck. But really costs are lower, and people will wake up and adopt the right preferences imminently, mostly driven by the superiority and increased affordability of green alternatives. This is D'Ambrosio, Bowen, or Kean. But this Grattan report offers them no comfort, because of how bleakly they announced that all the miracle-cures like bio-gas, green hydrogen etc don't scale well, and how expensive the abandonment of shared infrastructure is.

Then there's the savvy compromisers, like Minns and Malinouskas, who have whole-heartedly embraced gas as a cleaner alternative to coal. Not just a transition fuel, but something to be grown and developed. They're deeply concerned about costs and affordability, and wouldn't contemplate strong coercive measures, like banning gas appliances, or paying industry to shut off production while gas infrastructure is slowly disassembled.

And of course, there's the climate and energy realists, who now represent the Taylor, Cananvan, Joyce, Hanson, everyone right of the left wing of Labor, who get that Net Zero is neither achievable nor necessary, as the plan to electrify everything with renewable energy isn't going to work at all, in Australia or elsewhere. And with the rest of the world not moving to net-zero either, the pain that Australia is justified in experiencing to lead the fast-thinning pack of climate absolutists is pretty close to zero. Grattan's report, which elevates emissions targets above everything, won't even register with them.

So Grattan's stance here, declaring the transition to be expensive and painful, but unavoidable and essential, puts them firmly on the path to intellectual irrelevance. This is the last stand of the righteous-but-honest, climate-absolutist intellectual pitching to the mainstream. I admire their ignorance of political realities. In the same kind of way I admire the athletic and instinctive movements of the last Tasmanian Tiger filmed in captivity, still very much its own creature in the moment, detached from the doom that their lonely existence portends to the informed onlooker. 1/

[Wimmera Mallee Environmental & Ag Protect Assoc @MalleeAg71414]

Anything goes with the developer-led rushed renewable roll out. Millions have been spent on fake consultation and planning. Projects can be built outside REZ they just need to prove their worth to VicGrid. How much will they pay $$$$. Electricity prices will not go down with this lot in charge.

"VicGrid has confirmed 77 approved renewable projects can be built outside Victoria’s newly declared energy zones, undermining the state government’s planning framework."

#australianenergyweek #energytransition #vicgrid #auspol #victoriapolitics #Victoria2026

[GE Honesty @GEHonesty]

What is it going to take for farmers to wake up and smell the “gene edited” bacon? 🥓

If the High Courts in the UK have exposed this corruption - why are we copying these exact same mistakes with proposed The Gene Tech Bill and HSNO Amendment Bill?

KEEP GE IN THE LAB, NOT OUR FOOD!✋🇳🇿

@brandnewzealand

#nzpol
#newzealand
#farming
#organic

[The Daily Telegraph @dailytelegraph]

#OPINION - Ray Hadley says the Kosciuszko National Park brumby cull is based on flawed methodology that exaggerates the numbers and uses unreliable aerial shooting, which often leaves animals dying in agonising pain.

WATCH THE VIDEO ➡️ https://t.co/WMiwVIyEMk

Get the news first with The Daily Telegraph app: https://t.co/It3JLBNjhC

[Dr Richard Hirschson @richardhirschs1]

There are 4 levels of resource allocation efficiency IMO:

1. The worker spends their hard earned money on themselves (u are pretty careful when u spend your own money on yourself, u know what u want, u know what u need).

2. The worker spends their money on someone else, like giving a gift (still pretty careful with spending, but not completely sure what recipient needs).

3. Somebody else spends the workers money on the worker, eg, government taxation and public spending (more cavalier with spending, don’t know exactly what the worker needs).

4. Somebody spends somebody else’s money on themselves, eg, socialist government expansion, thieves, dictatorships/corrupt governments.

Margaret thatcher famously said that socialist leaning governments eventually run out of other people’s money to spend.
🤷‍♂️🤷‍♂️

[Malcolm Roberts 🇦🇺 @MRobertsQLD]

Australians are seeing through Labor’s spin and lies

Reality is dawning

[Richard Davies @Richard01357064]

⚠️ NET ZERO ISN'T GOING TO PLAN ⚠️

For years Australians have been told that rooftop solar and home batteries would become a major pillar of the energy transition.

Billions of dollars in subsidies have been spent.

Households have invested heavily.

Governments have built their plans around the assumption that millions of consumers would help stabilise the grid.

Now Australia's energy market operator is warning that reality isn't matching the plan.

According to AEMO, Australia now has around 600,000 home batteries, with more than 400,000 added in the last year alone. Yet most of these batteries are not connected to Virtual Power Plants (VPPs) and cannot be coordinated to support the electricity grid when it needs them most. AEMO estimates up to $7.2 billion in system savings depend on much higher participation rates.

In simple terms:

🔋 The batteries are being installed.

⚡ But many are not doing what planners assumed they would do.

That creates a serious problem because Labor's Net Zero plans increasingly rely on consumer-owned batteries helping to balance the grid as coal-fired power stations retire.

At the same time:

• Renewable projects continue to face delays and connection bottlenecks.

• AEMO has warned about system security risks as coal generators retire.

• AI data centres are expected to place enormous new demands on the grid over the coming decade.

This doesn't mean batteries are useless.

It doesn't mean solar doesn't work.

It does mean that the transition is proving far more difficult, expensive and technically complex than politicians promised.

The uncomfortable truth is that Net Zero plans were built on a series of assumptions:

➡️ Renewables would be built rapidly.

➡️ Transmission lines would arrive on time.

➡️ Batteries would participate in grid support schemes.

➡️ Coal generation could be retired without reliability concerns.

Increasingly, those assumptions are being challenged by reality.

This is exactly why Libertarians have consistently opposed government attempts to centrally plan Australia's energy future.

No subsidies.

No mandates.

No technology bans.

No politicians picking winners and losers.

Australia needs reliable power, affordable power and energy security.

If solar wins, let it win.

If batteries win, let them win.

If nuclear, gas, hydro, coal or future technologies prove more reliable and affordable, let them compete too.

Because the grid doesn't run on political slogans.

The lights stay on because engineering, economics and reality ultimately prevail.

#EnergyPolicy #NetZero #EnergySecurity #AEMO #ElectricityPrices #CostOfLiving #Batteries #RenewableEnergy #NuclearEnergy #FreeMarkets #Libertarian #TechnologyNeutrality #KeepTheLightsOn #Australia

[Bjorn Lomborg @BjornLomborg]

20 years ago, An Inconvenient Truth put climate change at the center of global debate, shaping politics, influencing leaders, and inspiring a generation of activists.

Two decades later, we can assess not just its impact, but its accuracy. Many of the film’s most alarming predictions did not materialize, while many of the policies it inspired have proven costly and ineffective.

The lesson? Panic is a poor guide for public policy. Focusing on innovation, adaptation, and economic development can do far more to help both people and the climate—at a fraction of the cost.

https://t.co/EIJyuNeFU1

[Kate🦋M© @Kate3015]

NSW plans to unlock $17bn green energy boom.

“I love a sunburnt country, a land of sweeping plains.” No more, now we sweeping hectares of ugly solar panels. 🤬

https://t.co/YUjRDlXQ6h via @australian

[Peter Clack @PeterDClack]

Wind and solar aren't the future - they are a high-maintenance, low-yield, asset-degrading collection of unreliable gadgetry.

Ultimately, the actual physics makes them exceptionally intermittent and they fail to deliver a true net profit to everyone who was forced to subsidise them. We are told wind and solar are the limitless, romantic future of energy. But when you strip away the romance, they are not pristine monuments to progress.

The reality is, they are complex jumbles of electronics, specialised glass, composite blades and concrete foundations. Like any domestic appliance, they degrade, malfunction and eventually they just wear out, sooner rather than later.

Whether it is a 'minor rural block' or a massive multi-million-dollar commercial farm, the financial equation is plagued by intermittency. Because these technologies only work sometimes, they require trillions in redundant grid infrastructure, backup gas plants, or toxic, short-lived battery arrays just to keep the lights on.

The narrative promises clean, free power from the sky. But both wind and solar are bound by physical barriers that guarantee they can never deliver the promised utopian returns.

A wind turbine cannot simply absorb all the energy passing through it. In 1919, physicist Albert Betz proved that if a turbine extracted 100% of the wind’s kinetic energy, the air behind the blades would stop moving entirely, blocking any new wind from entering. The absolute mathematical maximum efficiency for any open-airflow turbine is 59.3%.

Because of this physical wall, real-world utility turbines max out at around 45% efficiency in perfect conditions. But because the wind rarely blows at perfect speeds, their actual annual average output (capacity factor) globally sits at a dismal 25% to 40% depending on location. They aren't magical power plants; they are mechanical bottlenecks.

Solar panels face an equally rigid thermodynamic wall. Standard silicon panels have a maximum theoretical efficiency of roughly 33% because nearly half of all incoming solar energy is simply too powerful to be captured and is instantly lost as heat, while another chunk of photons passes right through the material like a ghost.

Millions of homeowners who bought into rooftop solar since the late 2000s are discovering the financial math didn't hold up. As early subsidies and high buy-back tariffs evaporated, owners were left with creeping daily grid supply charges and degrading panels.

After only 10 to 15 years, the costly inverters fail, leaving properties with expensive, non-functioning roof clutter.

[Secession by Western Australia @SecessionWA]

Chapter 15 is now free: the full draft Constitution for a new Western Australia.

Lean government. Local power. Citizen oversight. Strong anti-corruption. Resource royalties for the people. Enforceable rights.

No slogans — just the blueprint.

Read it. Critique it. Share it.

[Wimmera Mallee Environmental & Ag Protect Assoc @MalleeAg71414]

Centre for Independent Studies’ Director of Energy Aidan Morrison discusses Labor’s “whatever-it-takes” subsidy for renewable energy.
Everyone is calling for gas except the Gratton Institute. https://t.co/FpPuOyhs2H
#windfarm #solarfarm #renewables #subsidies #secretsquirelbusiness

[The People's King Elvis @Real_King_Elvis]

RBA internal docs just dropped the truth bomb on Labor’s housing mess.

Demand-side subsidies (Help to Buy, 5% deposits etc.) don’t fix supply, they pull purchases forward and push prices higher. The papers also flag migration policy as a major unaddressed driver during the post-COVID surge.

Mass migration is worsening the housing crisis while supply lags.

It's time to pull the lever.

Cut red tape, slash restrictive zoning and planning delays to unleash private supply. Cut immigration to levels our housing and infrastructure can actually handle. End market-distorting subsidies.

Let free markets and property rights solve it, not bigger government.

What's your solution?

[The Country Telegraph @TheCountryTel]

@Real_King_Elvis Banking to lend for productive investment