Where’s the renewable energy?

Members and supporters of Mount Alexander Sustainability Group (MASG) hit the streets in Castlemaine over the past few weeks to put renewable energy on the agenda.

Armed with a survey and clipboards, MASG volunteers asked over 200 residents what they’d like to see election candidates do about renewable energy.

“While Australia could be a global leader in clean renewable energy, at the moment we are getting left behind the rest of the worl,” said Bronwen Machin, MASG Chairperson.

“We conducted this survey to hear community views on what we should be doing to make Australiathe clean energy leader it could be.”

Survey results showed that 95% of residents said that they didn’t think thatAustralia was doing enough to promote the development of clean renewable energy like wind and solar. 96% said that creating clean energy jobs should be a priority for the government this year.

Over 86% of survey respondents also said Australia should develop a plan to move to 100% renewable energy.

MASG made available information from a Melbourne University and Beyond Zero Emissions report that shows that it is technically possible and financially affordable to make Australia wholly powered by the sun, wind and waves within a decade at a cost of $8 per household per week.

Armed with that information and the support of the community MASG is calling on all levels of government to do more on renewable energy.

“The recent Victorian State Government announcement to have 5% of our power derived from solar power by 2020 is a small but important step in the right direction, but it is not enough,” Ms Machin said.

“We know that Governments in Australia spend more than $9 billion dollars of taxpayers’ money each year subsidising fossil fuels and that they continue to grant licences for new coal power stations when the people want renewable energy. It’s time governments switched those subsidies over to support to solar, wind, wave, geothermal and biomass power. Just look what has happened in Germany, where over 280,000 jobs were created by government support for renewable energy.”

The results of the Castlemaine survey will be taken to local member Steve Gibbons and election candidates.