Billionaire Elon Musk has joined Australian businessman Dick Smith in criticizing ABC fact-checkers for spreading “lies and misinformation” about nuclear energy.
Smith, 80, told 2GB radio last week that Australia should switch to nuclear power “now” because a country cannot run “completely on renewables”.
“This CSIRO claim that you can run an entire country on solar and wind energy is simply a lie. It’s not true, they’re telling lies,” he told Ben Fordham.
“No country has been able to run exclusively on renewable energy; that is impossible, so we should make the decision to go nuclear now.”
But the comments prompted the ABC’s fact-checking unit to claim that four countries – Albania, Bhutan, Nepal and Paraguay – have been running on 100 per cent wind, solar and water power since 2021.
The response infuriated Mr Smith, who said he was furious at being branded a liar by fact-checkers.
And on Monday, Smith found an unlikely supporter in billionaire Elon Musk.
Billionaire energy magnate Elon Musk (pictured in 2022) also weighed in on the fact-checking saga.
Dick Smith (pictured with wife Pip) criticized an ABC Fact Check report on nuclear power.
Musk tweeted his distaste for the notion of government ‘fact checkers’ at X on Monday
The billionaire responded to a tweet by American columnist Michael Shellenberger about the report.
Shellenberger tweeted that “one of the government’s main fact-checking groups has been caught spreading misinformation about renewable energy and nuclear power.”
Musk responded: “Having government ‘fact checkers’ is a giant step in the direction of tyranny.”
“It’s some deeply disturbing Black Mirror shit,” Shellenberger agreed.
Smith has since demanded a correction to the Fact Check report, which came from a dedicated team at RMIT University and published on the ABC website on Friday night.
“Basically it seems like I’m a liar,” Smith said. The Australian.
“It’s damaging my credibility and they’ve never done anything like this to me before.”
Returning to 2GB on Monday, Smith dismissed the report’s claims and accused the ABC of taking his comments out of context.
He said Nepal had motor vehicles and transportation that ran on fossil fuels and many households burned wood, resulting in much higher carbon output.
The businessman also denied claims made in the report by University of New South Wales sustainable energy expert Mark Diesendorf.
“Several countries (and Tasmania) already run their electricity systems on 100 per cent renewables,” Diesendorf said, adding that the state also uses hydropower.
Mr Smith said the expert was only referring to electricity, whereas when he made his original statement he was referring to all forms of energy.
“According to my experience with ABC, since they believe you have to be left-wing, you have to be against nuclear energy,” he told 2GB radio on Monday.
‘All my friends on the left are against nuclear energy, it’s like a religion for them.
‘What the ABC has done is distort that just to look at electricity, which represents only 25 per cent of our problem.
‘Our government and our scientists say we have to get to zero carbon emissions. “That’s all energy, not just electricity.”
Smith (pictured in 2017) has since demanded a correction to the fact-check report.
Billionaire Elon Musk owns X, formerly known as Twitter, SpaceX and Tesla
The businessman also disagreed with statements published by ABC Fact Check about the use of renewable energy in California.
It stated that California had been running at “more than 100 percent WWS (wind, water, sunlight) for 10 of the last 11 days, between 0.25 and 6 hours per day.”
Smith said California was able to use renewable energy because it was connected to the nuclear grid of Arizona and Washington state.
“What they don’t say is that California has nuclear power, so it’s completely dishonest,” he said. “In other words, they are proving that what I say is correct.”
An ABC spokeswoman defended the report in a statement, saying: “RMIT is committed to upholding the integrity of public information and stands by the accuracy of its work.”
ABC has announced plans to part ways with Melbourne’s RMIT University fact-checkers after its contract ends at the end of the year.
Last August, Facebook also abandoned the RMIT FactLab following complaints about how it handled Indigenous Voice to Parliament material.