Looking out of an aircraft window as you approach Sydney Airport or Melbourne's Tullamarine, our cities look clean, green, pollution-free. Solar panels wink back at you from a growing number of roofs. But the simple fact is they are more dependent now on coal than they ever were in the depths of the Industrial Revolution. It's just that the energy generators are hidden away in the hinterlands, feeding vast amounts of power to the cities through high voltage cables and pumping out invisible CO2. It is the coal from Gippsland or the Hunter Valley that keeps the bright lights on in St Kilda and Kings Cross. Here's a sobering thought for renewable energy campaigners: if every suitable rooftop in...
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