“Engineering and technology always beat ‘renewable’ electricity, hawked by credulous politicians!” says letter writer ANTHONY HORDERN.

Together with all the “experts”, Eric Hunter, of Cook (letters, CN June 19), ignores the elephant in the room of so-called “renewable” electricity.

Solar panels produce nothing for 60 per cent of the year. For half of the year the sun is below the horizon. For 10 per cent of daytime the sun is unpredictably obscured by overcast, cloud or rain, when solar panels stop working.

Each dawn and dusk, the sun slowly rises and sets, solar panel output going from zero to 100 per cent averaging half of their capacity for two hours daily.

The winter sun is low in the sky all day, halving solar panel capacity. Photons impinging obliquely on solar panels do not impart the same energy as those impinging at 90 degrees.

That is hardly a reliable electricity supply.

Windmill output is just as unpredictable, as the wind does not always blow, often for days at a time. In gales, windmills must be shut down to avoid mechanical destruction.

That is hardly a reliable electricity supply.

How do I know this? I’m a surveyor with astronomical and meteorological knowledge. I expect CSIRO and AMEO know that, too!

Replacing coal-fired steam raising at existing sites uses the existing infrastructure, including water supply, workers townships, switchyards and transmission grid.

The central generation grid is optimised for one-way energy delivery. Transmission grids have long lives and minimal maintenance. Grids are quite simple mechanisms, with no moving parts and electrons do not wear the wires.

There is no need to upgrade the transmission grid for nuclear generation. It stacks up perfectly as it is.

How do I know this? I’ve worked with electricity on mining, civil engineering, urban mass transit, satellite remote sensing projects and transmission line surveys.

Sorry, Mr Hunter. Engineering and technology always beat “renewable” electricity, hawked by credulous politicians!

Anthony Hordern, Jamison Centre

Liberals need to press for details on Barr’s trip

The ACT Liberals would gain more credibility by calling for specific detail and easily understood accountability evidence instead of relying on fleeting, superficial sprays (“Taxpayers should wonder at Barr’s absence, says Castley”, citynews.com.au June 30). 

With the residual and still regressive health/non health levy hitting the fan and ratepayer hip pockets, along with considerable increases in rates and a slew of other higher charges descending on ACT households, the chief minister must be very relieved that the once-every-five-years global expo (in Japan) deftly removed him from this year’s budget mop-up operations. 

A Liberal opposition that is serious about this current expedition would at least make sure that Canberrans soon receive details about the full delegation, their specific learnings and what the government will be following up on in the short and long term. 

Many would be interested to know more about the economic and cultural benefits and initiatives, big and small, and how these will permeate over time to areas outside town centres as well. 

More feedback and reporting is needed than what would be presented in a clinical or promotional statement to the Assembly about site visits, other trip activities and processes, and very general hoped-for outcomes. 

Sue Dyer, Downer

I heard a kangaroo scream as it was being hit

The ACT government maintains that its kangaroo “culls” are humane and overseen by vets.

Animal welfare advocates know this is far from the truth. Reserve watchers report there are no vets present at the killing sites.

Confronting photographic evidence of cruelty has been provided to the government, which has been ignored and dismissed.

On June 21, at around 11pm, I heard gunshots from my house and went outside to investigate.

I heard a kangaroo scream and shriek extremely loudly in pain once, then a second time. Then I heard a loud thud as it was being hit. I will never forget those terrible sounds of it being killed.

Kangaroos are quiet animals. To hear an animal scream so violently indicates it was extremely distressed and in pain.

It is clear that he was shot, then stabbed and bludgeoned to death.

Over 17 years of “culling” how many kangaroos have been subject to this barbaric end? We will never know.

Rebecca Marks, via email

We are heading down the sinkhole

The appalling state of our territory’s finances, with a budgeted deficit for 2025-26 of more than a billion dollars, leads me to the conclusion we are heading down the sinkhole and those responsible need to be sent away for remedial training or gardening duties.

It is dangerous to allow this to blunder on unchallenged.

John Lawrence via email

More people die over winter, say reports

Seems I hit a raw nerve with a couple of CityNews letter writers in the June 26 edition.

Calum Paterson quotes a study in England to determine the environmental damage of timber. Natural gum, which we have here in Australia, is by far the cleanest and most efficient wood to burn. Pretty sure there are no gum trees in England, so you are comparing apples to oranges there. 

In response to Darryl Johnston, yes there is a fee to buy firewood, but if you remember recently high winds on the southside of Canberra demolished many of the gum trees around our parks and if you had a saw you were able to access this source of heating and help with cleaning up the numerous downed trees. 

As requested by Mr Johnston, I have proved some evidence to deaths attributed to cold weather in Canberra and Australia;

A 2019 report by an independent group, Better Renting, who have no links to wood fire or electric heating, stated that about 140 people die each year in Canberra due to health issues exacerbated by the cold, with over one third of these deaths attributed to cold housing. 

The report, Unsafe as houses: Cold housing deaths in the ACT, compares average monthly deaths in colder months to warmer months, and finds 140 more people die in the May to September period compared to other times of the year. 

The Australian Institute of Health and Welfare states that “there are more deaths in the winter months of June, July and August and less deaths in the summer months of December, January and February. The very young and the very old are more likely to die in winter.

A new study in The Lancet shows 6.5 per cent of deaths in this country are attributed to cold weather, compared with 0.5 per cent from hot weather. 

I hope these statistics help with your doubts about the dangers of being exposed to cold weather, add to that the increased cost of electricity it is making it very difficult to keep warm. 

On another note, I found that gas heating is cheaper than electric heating, yet our local government wants to phase out gas, go figure.

Ian Pilsner, Weston

I trust the professors on wood heating 

The latest contribution to the wood heater and pollution debate by Vi Evans (letters, CN July 3) cannot go unanswered.

In her letter she makes reference to the research in Australia’s leading medical publication, the Medical Journal of Australia, by a group of eminent environmental health researchers in 2023, who Ms. Evans says, “do not appear to have any significant reputations”.

For a start, Prof Fay Johnston has more than 30 years’ experience as a public health physician and environmental epidemiologist. She currently heads the environmental health research group at the Menzies Institute for Medical Research and leads the Centre for safe Air, a National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) Centre of Research Excellence. She has received national and international recognition for her work including being named a global woman leader in fire science in 2018.

Prof Sotiris Vardoulakis has more than 25 years’ experience in public health. He has advised national and local governments and international organisations, including the World Health Organization and the United Nations on the health effects of climate change, air pollution and extreme events, and on sustainable development. He is currently Director of the NHMRC Healthy Environments and Lives (HEAL) National Research Network and is Professor of Environmental Public Health at the University of Canberra Health Research Institute.

Prof Geoff Morgan is an epidemiologist with more than 30 years’ research experience and development of environmental health policy and education. His current work includes epidemiological studies into the health effects of smoke from various sources including bushfires and wood heaters.

When it comes to wood heater pollution and my health and that of my family and neighbours, I trust the word of professors Johnston, Vardoulakis and Morgan over and above that of the wood-heating industry.

Darryl Johnston, Tuggeranong 

Reliance on renewables is decades away

Sue Dyer (letters, CN June 26) condemns the government for approving and extending gas plants, but the government has faced the reality that total reliance on renewables is many decades away if not a hundred years away if ever.

She wants Australia to become a global renewable energy powerhouse, but Australia is already a global energy powerhouse with infinite amounts of coal, gas, oil, gold, uranium etcetera.

Why don’t we rely on existing power sources until renewables can take over as the alternative?

Paul Temby, via email

Why trackless trams are no cheaper

There’s little point in re-opening the light rail v buses debate for the 34th time, but it’s worth examining columnist Michael Moore’s claim (“Stop slugging ratepayers, take the trackless tram”, CN July 3) that these vehicles offer a cheaper alternative to light rail.

Brisbane Metro is the most relevant example, and its bi-articulated buses went into full service last week.

The project cost $1.7 billion, which procured a 200-metre tunnel under Adelaide Street, an upgraded Cultural Centre bus station, upgrades to the Victoria Bridge, 60 new vehicles and a depot to house them in. Aside from the tunnel, there are no new busways.

Any similar project in Canberra would need to build a new bridge over the lake, down Commonwealth Avenue and around State Circle. It would need to strengthen Adelaide Avenue for the new heavy vehicles, and a number of new stops. 

In short, the cost would look very similar to the costs for light rail.

Matt Baillie, Secretary, Public Transport Association of Canberra

Secrets of the word ‘sod’

I highly recommend a visit to the National Archives exhibition Camel Trains to Steel Wheels about the construction and importance of the Trans-Australian Railway that links Port Augusta in SA to Kalgoorlie in WA. 

The construction of the 1693 kilometres of rails was an impressive project that started in 1912 and ended in 1917.

For me, the publication that commemorated the start of the project was intriguing. Regrettably, we cannot see an open page.

On the cover New South Wales is abbreviated to “N.S.Wales” (which is uncommon), while “South Australia” and “Western Australia” are written as “S. Australia” and “W. Australia”. Was that decision political? Editorial? Or the graphic designer’s decision?

The title – “Turning the First Sod” is also interesting. 

The word “sod”, which refers to turf, appeared in 1475 in middle Europe as “sode”, which has the same meaning, yet the origin isn’t clear.

Some connect it to be taken from “Sodom” (the underground).

In my opinion the origin of “sod” is from Hebrew, where the meaning of the word is “a secret”. So, as you unravel a secret, you unravel the surface of the ground or turf.

Barak Zelig, Wanniassa

Real question writers should be asking

As I do each week, I collected a copy of City News from our local shopping centre and, with coffee to hand, I began wandering through the latest edition. 

There were the early articles, interesting enough in themselves. There were, of course, the ‘Letters’ pages with the usual argy-bargy between left-of-centre correspondents and those opposite. Letters from those who believe the current ACT government is the best option we have, and letters from those vehemently opposed, quite forgetting that in October last year most people in the ACT rejected any alternative to that government

Then I came to the article about the Mr Squiggle exhibition at the National Museum. Having read the article I pondered the real question our letter writers should be looking into. Where was Miss Pat?

It’s a uniquely Australian characteristic to be able to define one’s age by considering who Mr Squiggle’s presenter was during our childhood.

Renewables vs nuclear? Inept Labor government vs 1950s-style Liberal? No. The real question is – where is Miss Pat?

Henry Moulds, via email