Even my cynical nature could not have predicted the fall-out from Malcolm Turnbull's announcement yesterday about the Snowy Mountains Scheme - almost universally condemned! There were over 600 comments following a New Daily article, just about 100% negative, and an article by Waleed Aly in the Saturday Paper tears it to shreds.
It seems I was wrong in assuming that renewable energy would be used to pump the water back up to the reservoir. Good, old coal-fired electricity will be used, and I hadn't realised that the Snowy scheme is currently running below capacity because the amount of snow-melt is reducing.
Perhaps the most worrying aspect is that this scheme hasn't been kicking around for years. The NSW Government only heard about it 24 hours in advance; the Victorian Government heard about on the TV News. And, of course, there is no feasibility study which will take at least 9 months to carry out.
It's starting to look as if this is no more than a cobbled-together thought balloon to get the critics off Malcolm's back. Or maybe it's an elaborate Irish joke to celebrate St Patricks Day.
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