• If you are an avid watcher of Channel 10 you have probably seen the ad that proclaims the next MasterChef  series is going 'green'!!  'Season 16 sizzles with carbon-neutral biomethane  & hydrogen gases' -  REALLY?  Well, NO - NOT QUITE!
  •  NOT according to Mike Secombe!  [The Saturday Paper, May 4-10/24, page 6].
  • The claim? - that all the cooking on the next series of MasterChef  will be with 'green energy' -  biomethane in the kitchen and hydrogen for the 'barbecue cook-off'!
  • It's a deal  struck between Channel 10/MasterChef AND Australian Gas Networks a company delivering fossil fuel natural gas to 1.3 million Australian homes AND obviously desperate to continue doing it! 
  • SO! Are the fuels to be used GREEN?  Or not??
  • Biomethane is produced from organic waste - the gas that is produced in rubbish tips from the massive amounts of food waste we throw there every day.  The gas for MasterChef  will come from the sewage treatment plant at Malabar in Sydney.  
  • WHEN BURNT Biomethane PRODUCES EXACTLY THE SAME EMISSIONS AS NATURAL GAS !! Some experts would say that BURNING METHANE is WORSE for our environment and health than burning natural gas!!  
  • Burning Biomethane has the same risks as cooking with natural gas - most of the results of the burning don't go into the cooking - they go into the air in your kitchen and your house! 
  • The pollutants in your kitchen and house from cooking with gas [and heating with unflued gas heaters] include nitrogen oxide, carbon monoxide and fine microparticle matter.  ALL OF THESE HAVE BEEN LINKED to respiratory and cardiovascular problems - and cancer!   It is reported that '1 in 8 cases of childhood asthma result from cooking with gas in homes!' 
  • Want fast, efficient, powerful cooking?? Then do what all top chefs around the world have done, like Australian chef Neil Perry, install an induction cooktop!   
  •  So biomethane no matter how it is produced - not so 'green' at all!  What about the hydrogen??
  • Well, you can produce 'green' hydrogen by using enormous amounts of electricity produced by solar and wind to split water into oxygen and hydrogen through electrolysis. However, the cost of doing this is TEN TIMES the cost of just using the renewably produced electricity generated in homes!! So why bother to do it??!  Just a massive waste in efficiency!!
  • The hydrogen to be used in MasterChef  is NOT 'green' hydrogen however! It is 'grey hydrogen' produced from methane!  NOT 'GREEN" AT ALL!
  • BOTTOM LINE:  Neither gas is 'green' or available to buy! AND It is 'extremely unlikely' that any of us will be using either gas to cook with in our kitchens or barbecues! 
  • In fact, it is much more likely that fewer and fewer homes will be cooking with gas at all! Both Victoria and ACT have already banned any new gas connections and other states have plans to do the same - major building companies in Australia also report that increasingly their builds- large and small are not connecting with gas! 
  • THERE IS ONE SIMPLE REASON - reduced energy costs: recent research shows, by making homes all electric, savings of $1250.00 for houses with rooftop solar energy  and $1020.00 without solar.  

  • Generating your own free electric energy on your roof is the cheapest, most reliable and efficient energy you can use- it also adds considerable addition to a selling price! Add a storage battery and you will have energy security - and never have to pay another energy bill! 

    * So a 'GREEN' MasterChef?? Not at all - just a media partnership with a gradually dying gas industry to continue to try and promote their dirty, polluting, unhealthy product - in a new guise- and keep polluting as long as they can:  maybe a bit like the tobacco industry continues their evil through moving to ecigarettes and vaping!

    [by David Smith, for Electrifying Bradfield Inc.]   

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