Friday, August 02, 2013

Ten Bucks A Litre - Review

Even the name of this documentary focusses the mind on the fact that we simply must rethink the way we use energy.

ten bucks a litre documentary

It provides a basic summary of a number of alternate energy sources. But I felt that host Dick Smith, now almost 70, talked up his favourite options (notably ones that gave him nostalgia for the past) without even looking at viability. Conversely, he was deliberately suspicious of those he didn't like, even to the point of dismissing an expert report.

Climate Spectator (also critical of his slightly misleading presentation) points out that energy efficiency was only talked about briefly at the end. If energy efficiency is looked at first, then everything else becomes easier. Even the options Dick Smith didn't like.

1 comment:

Ross Cayley said...

Yeah, I agree that this show was not-at-all objective, and surprisingly ill-informed. Dick let his pre-conceived notion of a nuclear future derail this show badly. Nuclear is a fossil fuel too – and suffers the same bugbears as other fossil baseload power sources – expense of supply and infrastructure development (not to mention vast decommissioning and waste-management costs, and the capacity for a failure to render thousands of square kilometres uninhabitable - forever). Dick was at Melbourne University for his doco, but for some reason didn’t bother chatting to Prof Mike Sandiford, in the same building, pretty much in the adjacent office – maybe Dick was worried that Mike would undermine the premise of his show? Mike has already outlined to us all why renewables – especially solar – will be the future – they will be cheaper before too long, and then market forces will take over. (http://www.theage.com.au/business/fossil-fuels-will-run-out-of-gas-when-the-solar-revolution-arrives-20110321-1c3qe.html)