Broken Gas Cox

 

At last week’s council meeting Councillor Kasby proposed a modest motion seeking a preliminary report on costs and options to reduce and ultimately eliminate council’s own dependence on fossil gas for their own operations.

That sounds really quite uncontroversial, doesn’t it?  In 2023 … in this very climate-ravaged and vulnerable community … it really should be a no-brainer!

We listened to the “debate” which laboured and lumbered on for about an hour.  We can’t recommend it but it is available in the council web pages if you have a sufficiently serene disposition.

Firstly the positives.  Well known and respected medical practitioner and climate advocate, Dr Kim Loo, gave an authoritative account of the health impacts of indoor combustion of fossil gas in cookers and heating appliances.

Councillor Kasby advocated for the motion eloquently and defended it valiantly from attacks on multiple fronts.

Councillor Tracey seconded the motion and spoke well in support of it including drawing the very pertinent connection to last year’s council decision to rescind the proposed renewable energy strategy.

Those contributions aside, the “debate” wasn’t worthy of a blow-by-blow account.  Instead we  will briefly highlight some of the most egregious individual “contributions”.

Cox!: a heart as firmly closed as his mind

In a text-book exhibition of the Dunning-Kruger effect, Councillor! Cox blustered confidently through a seemingly interminable litany of denial, delay and distraction.  In correspondence with this writer last year he had already revealed his feet to be concreted immovably in denial boots.  His performance in this “debate” confirmed the diagnosis.

Is Councillor! Cox seeking to position himself as the next deputy mayor?  This display may have been him preening his feathers for the benefit of his Liberal masters, and in turn their sponsors, prominent amongst whom are, of course, the fossil fuel lobby.

“...all the rare earth minerals mined by the poor little children”

In any event, he truly revealed his nature in remarks about the cost of solar panels from China (!) when he remarked upon “...all the rare earth minerals mined by the poor little children”.

Dear reader, you may read those words and charitably remain open to the possibility that they were uttered with sincere empathy for the plight of those in forced labour, whether they be minors or part of an ethnic or religious minority.  Please be assured the empathy meter reading was exactly zero!

With his heart of stone and mind of lead, it must have taken an extra-large parachute when Jerome Cox was parachuted into Liberal candidacy for the Hills Shire Council by the NSW Liberal local government oversight committee, chaired by the elusive Christian Ellis.

Gangemi: distraction and deflection

The motion was concerned with actions the council might take to reduce their own usage of gas and ways in which the council might raise community awareness around the health and economic issues of domestic gas use.

But Mayor! Gangemi’s limited contributions were all about distraction and deflection.

He repeatedly framed it as exclusively a state or federal responsibility, apparently abrogating all responsibility for the health, well-being and financial security of the community he nominally represents.

In addition he put a series of questions to the General Manager around council’s existing “environmental” policies and measures, which were completely unrelated to the very particular question of council’s usage of fossil gas.

Blue: gullible fool or unscrupulous tool?

Councillor! Blue blathered excitedly about “renewable gas”.  There is so much to say against this that we simply shouldn’t be talking about it at all.  But let us draw a couple of broad brush strokes.

Firstly, Councillor! Blue seemed completely oblivious to the bleeding obvious - that this is totally irrelevant to the health impacts of burning gas in any indoor setting.  Methane is methane, whether it was initially created millions of years ago and safely stored deep underground, or whether it is generated from landfill or other bio-methane sources.

Secondly, the practicalities and economics of bio-methane are such that there is zero possibility of it ever supplanting fossil gas to any significant degree.  It is totally a fiction of the fossil gas lobby deliberately designed and promulgated to disarm or delay any movement to get off gas.

On the other hand, renewable hydrogen (generated from water via electrolysis using 100% renewable electricity) will have a place in our overall energy transition for limited applications.  But as a replacement for fossil gas it makes no sense at all, on multiple grounds, not least of which being that it is many times more efficient to use the renewable electricity directly than to generate renewable hydrogen and then burn that for energy.

So we must ask: is Councillor! Blue a gullible fool?  Or is he knowingly and unscrupulously promulgating the deceit of the fossil gas lobby?  You decide.

Small target Hodges

Councillor! Hodges uttered not a word - probably not wanting to provide any ammunition that might be used against him in his campaign for election as the member for Castle Hill.  If he is elected on Saturday, the Hills Shire’s gain will be New South Wales’ loss.

Ellis: absent

Councillor!! Ellis was absent and has been granted leave of absence until June.

Perhaps there is hope

The result of the “debate” is that the matter will be considered behind closed doors in a council strategy workshop.  No minutes or independent observations of such a meeting will be possible. Gangemi and Cox voted against even that outcome.

But perhaps there is hope in some words from the General Manager, Michael Edgar.  Councillor! Cox asked the GM to confirm that existing equipment replacement policy was based on cost, hoping that the answer would support his argument that any specific policy around gas was unnecessary and futile.  But the answer may not have been entirely to Councillor! Cox’s liking.

Referring to the decision three years ago to include gas boilers as part of the new Waves Aquatic Centre along with electricity, the GM reflected that, three years on, “the assumptions around the cost of those energy sources have been turned on their head.” 

[ For the record: The Brimbank Aquatic & Wellness Centre in West Melbourne, conceived and opened well before Waves, eschewed nineteenth-century gas boiler technology in favour of a zero emissions, all electric design. ]