South Australia and the island of Tasmania have gone all-in for alternative energy and they are paying the price for it. For some background go here and here for the most recent troubles. For Tasmania go here and read.
Today's post comes from the UK Guardian:
Coca-Cola to close South Australia factory with loss of nearly 200 jobs
Coca-Cola Amatil has announced the closure of its South Australia factory in the latest employment blow to hit the state.
Around 180 workers will lose their jobs when the bottling operation in the inner-city Adelaide suburb of Thebarton closes in 2019.
South Australia has the second-highest unemployment rate in the country – 6.4% – and will this year see the closure of the Holden car factory in Elizabeth with the loss of around 1,000 jobs.
Coca Cola boss Alison Watkins said it had reviewed its supply chain to maintain “competitiveness in the market” and decided it was not viable to update the Thebarton factory.
But the defence minister, Christopher Pyne, said on Wednesday the company was leaving his home state because of high business costs and concerns about the reliability of the power supply.
“We can’t keep going on as a high-tax, highly expensive place to do business with the highest electricity prices in the country and the most unreliable electricity supply in the country and this is where the rubber starts to hit the road for businesses,” Pyne told FiveAA radio.
The Labor premier, Jay Weatherill, has been fiercely criticised by the Coalition for closing down the state’s last coal-fired power station.
Emphasis mine. The article goes on to say that Coca-Cola is not leaving Australia, it will be expanding production at other Australian plants. It is leaving the state of South Australia specifically because of the high energy cost and the unreliable supply.
It is possible to burn coal cleanly, the enviros do not like it and unfortunately, they have the upper hand at this time. The only way that any form of alternative energy will be profitable at a reasonable price is with very large government subsidies - these subsidies come directly from our taxpayer dollars or from Government Debt.
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