By Ketan Joshi,  Research and Communications Officer at Infigen Energy.

Muting science with emotive political manoeuvring has been the modus operandi of the anti-wind lobby for several years. Though much of their lobbying is set on implying that wind energy is a threat to human health, there is no published scientific evidence to suggest that this is the case.

Randall Bell, president of the Victorian Landscape Guardians, openly admits a political skew in aninterview with Four Corners:

Recently, the TasWind development on King Island faced the political weaponry of the anti-wind lobby firsthand. The Waubra Foundation, a key player in anti-wind activism across Australia, has become deeply intertwined in the proposal. According to an anonymous and emphatically hyperbolic anti-wind blog, threats to the CEO of the Waubra Foundation’s safety were brought to the attention of Tasmanian police.

The concerns were called actually in by anti-wind groups from North America and Spain. Mark Duchamp, founder of the ‘World Council For Nature’, was behind the email to Tasmanian police:

“She is known worldwide for her devotion to wind farm victims and her awareness campaign, but in her own country she has received multiple threats”

Three articles are referenced as evidence of these threats. It’s worth considering their content in some detail.

“Battle for King Island: Wind energy politics at 20 paces“ is a thoughtful piece on the events at King Island, and mentions Sarah Lauriea few times. Nowhere is Laurie threatened, insulted or denigrated. If critiquing the intentions or credentials of a lobbyist were to constitute a threat to safety, then 99% of all media content would be instantaneously criminal.

“Wind farm fear mongering: It’s enough to make you sick” is an examination of a series of claims made by Laurie in a radio interview. The author, Mike Barnard, deflates the various falsehoods stated by Laurie. He also provides references for his assertions. Nowhere is Laurie threatened, insulted or denigrated.

“Authorities examine complaint against anti-windfarm activist“ reports on the CEO of the Waubra Foundation, Sarah Laurie, being the subject of a complaint directed to the NHMRC, for conducting unethical reseach. The Waubra Foundation recently released an official response to the news, replete with conspiracy theories, claims of a “contemporaneous and coordinated press campaign” and an astonishingly unhinged request for a Royal Commission into the complaint.

These concerns were raised by anti-wind campaigners thousands of kilometres from King Island. Significantly, their concerns were predicated not on unambiguous threats, but on fully-referenced critiques of Laurie’s statements, including an article on her own potential misconduct. Compare the articles above to an actual threat [PDF, language warning], sent to climate scientist Phil Jones:

Sent: Sunday, February 07, 2010 5:34 PM

To: p.jones@uea.ac.uk

Subject: Kill youself (sic) scum

Fuck you for your lies and deceit. You deserve to die. And if you don’t take your own life, then I fucking hope someone does it for you.

 The gulf between real threats of violence and Duchamp’s skewed perception of threat is vast. Climate scientists now have to regularly deal with death threats – a nasty and unforgiveable by-product of the approach of climate change deniers, such as James Delingpole.

A telling example of a real threat can be sourced from the aforementioned Randall Bell. In March this year he issued the following warning to the new premier of Victoria, regarding the two kilometre setback laws currently in place:

“If Dr Napthine reneges on that policy, I’ll break his arms.”

 

Renewable energy campaigners Yes 2 Renewables called on the Landscape Guardians and the Waubra Foundation to condemn Bell’s remarks. Unsurprisingly, there was no denouncement. If anti-renewable groups throw down their political artillery, their cause may be judged on scientific evidence alone – an outcome they will avoid at all costs.

A new organisation known as the Community Power Agency was launched this week to support Australia’s rapidly developing community-energy sector.

“Australia’s community-owned renewable energy sector is growing exponentially,” said Community Power Agency co-founder, Nicky Ison. “In 2009 there were three community-energy projects underway. In 2013, there are now around 40 in development across the country.”

The Community Power Agency will provide much needed sector-wide advocacy and support. 

“While community energy is growing quickly, and many communities are excited to establish renewable energy projects, just like any new sector they will need support if they are going to succeed.”

The Community Power Agency, set up as a social enterprise, provides research and mentoring for community groups.

The Community Power Agency aims to brief federal and state politicians to ensure legislative barriers constraining the sector are removed. It will encourage politicians to establish a Community Energy Fund to help communities get projects off the ground.

Dramatic changes in the energy market and economics of small- and medium-scale power system is driving the emergence of community energy.

“Solar power is getting cheaper year after year, and wind energy is now the cheapest new-build electricity generation in Australia,” said Jarra Hicks. “Communities generating their own electricity is now a real possibility.”

Community-energy projects now operating include the award-winning Hepburn Wind farm in Victoria and the Denmark Community Wind farm in Western Australia, and the race is on as to who will be the first community solar to come on line.

“Community energy is a great opportunity for regional development.  They create local jobs in installation, operation and maintenance, as well as an ongoing dividend for the community” Ms Hicks explains.  “And in cities, large rooftops are a great asset, community solar projects can put to good use”

Community energy projects do face challenges however.  “The biggest challenges are finding the funding to do the feasibility studies to get projects to the point that they are ready for the community to invest in.  Connecting in to the electricity grid and selling the power at a fair price is also a barrier faced by many projects” said Ms Ison. “The Community Power Agency is bring groups together to held address these barriers”.

Community Power Agency founders Nicky Ison and Jarra Hicks have visited and/or worked with more than forty community energy projects in Australia, the UK, Germany and the US. The duo have experience with

solar, wind, biogas and small-hydro developments.

In an attempt to minimise the size of the deficit, Treasurer Wayne Swan has taken the axe to range of programs seen as expendable. In yet another display of poor judgement, the Gillard government decided to ‘defer’ $370 million worth of funding for the Australian Renewable Energy Agency (ARENA). The decision will hamper  ARENA efforts to accelerate research, development and deployment of new clean energy technologies.

The Melbourne Energy Institute‘s prolific analyst, Dylan McConnell, made the following assessment of the Labor government’s 2013 budget.

Published by The Conversation. View the original article here.

By Dylan McConnell, research fellow at the University of Melbourne’s Energy Institute.

The decision to link the Australia’s carbon price to the European Union emissions trading scheme has wiped A$6 billion from the federal budget. Treasurer Wayne Swan has dealt with that loss of revenue by reducing industry assistance to deal with the carbon price – a reasonable move – but he has also deferred funding for important renewable energy development.

The carbon price estimates for 2015-16 have been revised from A$29/tonne to A$12.10/tonne to reflect the collapse in the European carbon price. Given that the European Emission Allowances are currently trading at €3.30/tonne (A$4.30/tonne), with no recovery in sight, this may still be an optimistic revision.

So key components of the Clean Energy Future package have been revised to reflect the changing prices. These aim to “better match spending with the collection of revenue from the carbon price”.

Industry assistance for adjusting to the carbon price has been reduced by around A$3.9 billion over the forward estimates. This seems a prudent decision given the lower carbon-related costs the industries will face (though arguably, this “industry assistance” was excessive in the first place).

Less welcome is the cut to the budget of the Australian Renewable Energy Agency (ARENA) over the next four years. ARENA has a total of A$3.2 billion in funding guaranteed in legislation until 2020, and this total has remained unchanged. However, A$370 million in funding has been “rephased” to beyond the forward estimates. This places ARENA squarely on the expenditure deferral merry go-round, potentially paving the way for a future “return of unallocated funds”.

What is ARENA for?

ARENA was created to consolidate the existing government programs for renewable energy into a single body. ARENA provides a critical link to accelerate the research, development and deployment of renewable energy technologies.

Some have argued the reduction in funding is “warranted”. They believe government spending on renewables is not justified, given the carbon price and the Renewable Energy Target (RET) policies.

However, it is exactly the renewable technologies that are not supported by these policies which are assisted by ARENA. Supplementary support schemes, such as those administered by ARENA, are intended to address carbon policy failures and other “market failures”.

Carbon policy failures

The purpose of carbon pricing is to internalise the cost of greenhouse gas emissions from fossil fuel combustion (and extraction), and through this cut pollution.

The current carbon price and carbon price package has emerged from a complex political negation process. The price is a political compromise and below what would be considered “cost reflective”. The European Union’s emissions trading scheme has also emerged from a political negotiation and has similarly not been set at an “efficient level”.

ARENA, along with other supplementary support mechanisms, helps address some of the carbon policy shortfall and other market failures such as technology or knowledge spill over (whereby knowledge gained by investing in R&D and deployment are diffused to others, including competitors).

The pending linkage to the flailing EU market further increases the importance of such additional mechanisms such as ARENA. Because the carbon prices are likely to be low for some time investors are unlikely to invest in renewable energy technologies without such complementary measures.

Diversity is key

It is widely acknowledged that a range of technologies is required to meet the clean energy challenge. As the Grattan Institute reported, failure to develop a suite of low‐emissions technology options is likely to produce far higher costs in the long run.

The Renewable Energy Target and the carbon price currently do not encourage a diversity of technology options. By design, the RET and carbon price only support the lowest-cost renewable technology, which in the short term, without support for ARENA, will remain wind power.

Additional development and deployment of important technologies is necessary if we’re to make the necessary deep cuts in emission. Concentrating Solar Thermal is one such important technology, recently identified in AEMO’s 100% renewable energy modelling as critical to a renewable energy system. Developing these options today will result in lower costs in the long run.

With the carbon dioxide concentration in the atmosphere recently crossing the 400 ppm mark, efforts to accelerate the development and deployment of renewable energy technologies are sorely needed. A Nature paper earlier this year concluded political choices delaying mitigation have the largest effect on the cost–risk distribution.

Deferring A$370 million in expenditure is in contradiction to the accelerating rate of atmospheric carbon dioxide emissions and the commensurate need to develop and deploy renewable energy technologies. It is difficult to see how ARENA can simultaneously achieve its objective of “accelerating the commercial deployment of renewable energy” and have funding deferred until a later date.

Wind energy is a big business world-wide, with billions of dollars flowing around at various levels. And as in any large and growing market, a wide variety of people are attracted to it.  Most are solid, competent professionals. Some are superstars.  A slightly larger percentage than in other fields are engaged in part because it’s the right thing to do, not just something they can do well and make money.

Along with all of the professional people, there is a physically optimal design that the vast majority of wind generators have converged to: the three-bladed, horizontal-axis wind turbine. This is the most efficient design due to pure physics: the blades are always flying in clean air, at the optimal angle to the wind, at the height of strong wind and have the added component of aerodynamic lift as another vector of force.

There are over 200,000 of them worldwide in sizes ranging from a few kilowatt capacity to 7 megawatt capacity both onshore and offshore, in rural and urban areas. They are generating all but a tiny fraction of a percentage of the electricity harvested from the wind in the world. They are undergoing constant incremental improvements in design including:

1. Low-wind vs high-wind models
2. Variable pitch blades
3. Gearless vs geared nacelles
4. Slight variants of blade design for aerodynamic efficiency
5. Leading edge coatings
6. Tower design
7. Base design – rock-anchor vs concrete-base vs tethered floating vs. bottom-mounted offshore

Then there are the others. As a thought exercise, look at the picture of a simple savonius windmill below and guess reasons why it’s never going to be as efficient as a horizontal axis wind turbine.

A higher profile ‘innovation’ is Saphon, which actually got a TED spot for something that is so obviously deficient that any one remotely related to the wind industry would have laughed it off the stage. Professionals’ comments regarding it are invariably brutal.

Its failures include inability to scale due to mass of the conical device they use, no ability to feather the cone so it will likely fall over in high winds and a mechanical piston actuator that also won’t scale and introduces massive inefficiencies.The patent it claims represents its breakthrough is actually for a different device than the one they are promoting.  They explicitly call out many of the myths denigrating wind generation as real in their promotional video and then claim their design solves these almost non-existent problems. The two principals have no background in wind energy, but one is a former investment banker who specialized in getting people to invest money in companies. Is there a niche where their product is better than a tri-blade HAWT? It’s extremely unlikely in our physical universe, yet this doesn’t stop them from seeking new investors, creating prototypes and getting a remarkable amount of fawning press including being shortlisted for an African innovation award recently. The principals are much better at PR than engineering.

An idea what won’t stay buried is shrouded or cowled wind turbines, where a bulky external shroud concentrates air flow on a smaller wind turbine.  This idea is challenged in ways similar to the Saphon, in that scaling up produces a massively heavy and shear susceptible bulk on top of a tall, relatively slender pole. Effective harvesting of wind requires getting the generator up into the air where the wind is stronger and having a broader surface area to harvest from. All the shrouding does is reduce efficiency of a three-blade HAWT with the same diameter as the shroud. Yet this is re-invented with prototypes being funded regularly, as if no one in the history of wind energy has ever in the past thought to apply the Venturi effect to wind generation.

Many of these innovations claim to have found a way to exceed Betz’ Limit of 59.3% of potential energy harvested from a volume of wind.  None have stood the test of third-party, independent testing. Some claim that Betz’ Limit doesn’t apply to VAWT technology and then point to Sandia Labs documentation which clearly says that it does. Virtually none have performed ISO standard full lifecycle cost assessments, published them and had them audited by independent third parties.

Most claim to be quieter, although virtually none publish side-by-side noise evaluation tests with similarly scaled HAWTs to prove it.  Many claim to kill no birds, although there is no proof of that claim either (and of course utility scale wind generation is the best form of generation for birds from a species perspective.)  Some anti-wind lobbyists have internalized these claims without understanding them and actively promote the idea that there is a better alternative for their pet concerns.

Then there are the situations where there doesn’t even appear to be a physical product of any sort. A firm in the western US received $4 million up front a handful of years ago from the municipality to build a factory for savonius-style wind turbines. It has delayed breaking ground on its factory for four years, doesn’t have a working website and is saying delays are due to bird tests (not true according to the agency that was performing them), a completely unrelated scandal many states away and the need for more money in the bank. It appears to be nothing more than a large scale scam that has already netted them around $4 million and they are hoping to get $10-11 million more. All for a conceptual variant on that barrel split in two above.

There are minor niches where alternatives to tri-blade horizontal axis wind turbines are effective.  There is a vertical axis design, for example, that self-stalls in high-winds, making it effective for remote locations with regular very high winds, e.g. Antarctica.  There are a few darrieus variants that are remarkably attractive kinetic sculptures that happen to generate electricity as well, where the aesthetic value makes the high cost per KWh palatable.

So, how can you inoculate yourself against putting money into a bad wind energy product?  Ask these simple questions and if any of the answers are Yes, be very suspicious:

1. Do they claim to exceed Betz’ Limit?
2. Do they disparage other wind generation technologies to establish their technology’s superiority?
3. Do they have backgrounds entirely in fields unrelated to wind energy?
4. Are they claiming that their variant of a savonius or darrieus wind turbine is actually a new technology?
5. Are they claiming that their product will replace utility-scale three-blade wind turbines?
6. Are they starting from a product as opposed to a specific and tightly targeted market niche?
7. Is their product just a design concept as opposed to at least a working and tested prototype?
8. Are the only test results from tests that they have performed as opposed to independent, third-party labs?
9. Are claimed patents for devices other than the one they are demonstrating?
10. Are they claiming greater efficiency than existing generation technologies based on anything other than an ISO standard full lifecycle accounting that has been independently assessed?
11. Are they claiming to integrate storage into their wind generation device? (Special case: GE is allowed to do this because it has proven it knows what it is doing and the market.)

The wind industry is disruptive because it is supplanting fossil fuel generation at a reasonable cost. That reasonable cost is due to decades of incremental innovation and major supply chain and business innovations, not radical technical innovations. The most effective technology was chosen a few decades ago, and it’s been getting steadily better ever since.

The wind industry isn’t going to be disrupted by someone with an idea and a Powerpoint pitch. If someone is approaching you with a great investment opportunity based on a ‘new’ wind generation technology, be aware.

It’s no secret that there’s money in wind power, but $3 million worth?

That’s the current budget of Arfons, a small rural town in southern France, and Mayor Alain Couzinié says he believes the amount is too much for the town to conceivably spend, France’s The Local reports.

According to Couzinié, the town’s budget has increased more than fivefold in the past threeyears — from 400,000 euros (about $523,000) to 2.3 million euros (more than $3 million) — as a result of the 11 wind turbines that were installed in 2009. For a town with a population of less than 200 people, the available funds are much more than Arfons needs to thrive.

“It’s as if a rain of gold fell on the village,” Couzinié told TV station France 3.

Couzinié asked residents to suggest ideas for how to spend the money, and propositions ranged from planting trees to modernizing telephone booths. He told French TV station TF1 he doubts Arfons will face any budgetary issues in the coming years with the wind farm’s steady stream of revenue.

Countries in Europe have sought to increase their wind power in recent years. In September 2012, the European Union’s wind capacity reached 100 gigawatts – a mark the region has since surpassed, according to statistics released by the European Wind Energy Association (EWEA) in February.

Though the industry faces economic challenges as funding for renewable energy has diminished with the introduction of austerity measures, Francesco Starace, the CEO of Enel Green Power, said “the wind industry remains resilient.”

“Turbines manufacturers adopt survival strategies by upgrading turbines while developers focus on building premium higher margin projects,” he said during an interview with EWEA in November. “With 30 years of additional technological and industrial development, I see wind becoming a mainstream contributor to the electricity production portfolio in many parts of the world.”

Weekly Times reporter Cimara Pearce spoke with Minister Kotsiras about the core energy issues facing Victoria–the moratorium on coal-seam gas (CSG) and onerous wind farm planning guidelines–as well as the criticism he lacks the necessary experience and background to be an effective energy minister.

With the exception of the high-profile appointment of former energy minister Michael O’Brien as Victorian Treasurer, the cabinet reshuffle that accompanied the switch from Premier Baillieu to Napthine largely slipped under the radar. Probably the best example of the silence surrounding changes to the ministry was the announcement of Nicholas Kotsiras as O’Brien’s successor in the energy portfolio.

In contrast to Premier Napthine’s glowing endorsement of wind farms (“I think they are majestic, and I actually love them”), Minister Kotsiras said he was not opposed to wind farms. Kotsiras expressed support for the 2km right of veto enacted by the Baillieu government and confirmed the laws would not be retrospectively applied to existing wind farms.  Here’s an excerpt pertaining to wind energy:

Mr Kotsiras said he was not opposed to wind turbines but believed communities should decide where they go.

Mr Kotsiras supported the 2km setback introduced by the Coalition in 2011 that prohibits developers building turbines within 2km of a home without the written consent of the owner.

He said although he sympathised with residents living near wind farms built before that legislation passed, existing turbines operating within 2km of homes would not be shut off under a Liberal Government.

“We changed the rules to ensure the community was supportive of wind farms,” he said.

“What can you say to them (people living under 2km from existing turbines)? That happened before we were in government.

“You can’t go back and retrospectively alter something when people have invested millions of dollars in major projects on the understanding they have received approvals from all of the relevant authorities.”

Yes 2 Renewables disagree with Minister Kotsiras’ comments about the community and support for the 2km right of veto. Communities can and must have a say about the siting of wind farms. Community engagement can occur through the planning process which accounts for the views of various stakeholders and balances those views against the aims and objectives of the Planning and Environment Act 1987. The 2km right of veto and ‘no-go zones’ for wind farms were imposed by government fiat without community consultation or economic cost-benefit analysis. The current planning guidelines do not strike the right balance between individuals and broader society. (Here are 10 reasons why Napthine should bin Victoria’s wind laws).

Yes 2 Renewables recommends the repeal of the 2km right of veto and abolition of the wind energy ‘no-go zones’. The distance between households and wind farms is best determined on a case-by-case basis, taking into account acoustic modelling, topography, turbine types and other relevant factors. We encourage all Victorian politicians to support evidence-based policy when it comes to wind farms.

JASON “Grub” Bannam loves his job. Working as a welder on massive wind towers has taught the former postie many things, and he enjoys the camaraderie of his workplace, too.

But he worries that his job may go the way that others at his company have, with uncertainty in the wind energy market and cheaper imports stopping companies from buying the towers that his company, Keppel Prince Engineering, (KPE) produces.

KPE in Portland, far south-west Victoria, used to employ 120 people directly in its with tower division, but that workforce is now down to 65 because work has dried up.

The company is currently building the massive white towers for a wind farm in New South Wales, but production supervisor Stuart Batten says there is only three months’ worth of work left in that, and unless there are new contracts coming up the company will probably have to lay off more workers.

Grub says life has been hard for some of the workers that were made redundant.

“It’s hard to find a job in Portland, so a lot of fellas have had to move away or take on fly-in, fly-out work. It’s OK for some of the single guys, but for those with families who have never worked away from Portland and have been forced into the position, it’s been very hard. Some of them have given it a go but returned home,” he said.

“I’ve got a car that’s 10 years old and I’d like to replace it, and I know some of my workmates have other spending they would like to do like major renovations, but they are holding off because they don’t know that their jobs are going to last.”

“You can see how that impacts on the town, with people obviously not spending as much and lots of shops closing.”

If more jobs had to go Grub worries that entire families could be hit hard, because many couples, siblings and relatives worked for KPE.

“If you lose one income in a family you might be able to get by, but losing more than that could hit people really hard.”

Stuart says more than 65 jobs at KPE are currently on the line because the company also has administration support staff, a crane division and technical people helping the wind tower builders.

“That could see an extra 55 people lose their job, not to mention the impact that would have on other businesses in the region from lost business.”

“Once people lose their jobs here it’s hard to keep them in town because the skills they gain here are very specialised, so it can be tough getting them back,” Stuart added.

The wind tower division is being hit hard by multiple forces:

• Uncertainty about the Renewable Energy Target at a Federal Government level.
• The State Government’s 2011 laws that put a blanket ban on wind farms within 2km of a house unless there was written permission by the owner, created no-go zones and required Local Governments to do planning work that the State Government had previously taken on. These changes may jeopardise a number of projects with existing permits and have almost shut down the pipeline of new project applications.

These policies are also making it hard for wind energy companies to source financing for their projects.

• KPE is also losing contracts to overseas wind tower builders that it believes are selling their products at below-cost price to undercut local builders. That case is currently being considered in an anti-dumping trial by Australian Customs.

The Victorian Wind Alliance brings together communities, businesses and individuals in Victoria who support more wind energy for our state. For more information go to http://www.vicwind.org.au.

What can you do to show support for workers like Grub?

• “Like” the Victorian Wind Alliance (VicWind) on Facebook
• Become a member of VicWind for just $20 a year
• Sign the petition of our coalition partners at Yes2Renewables

Those following the Yes 2 Renewables  campaign known that we’ve long called for Ted Baillieu’s anti-wind farm laws to be dumped. They’re costing Victoria jobs, investment, and crucial renewable energy capacity. We’re not alone.

Representing the perspective of our nascent renewable energy sector, Phil Burn of WestWind Energy believes there a 10 reasons why the Premier should bin Victoria’s draconian wind farm planning laws. You can read about them at RenewEconomy (heres a sample):

1. Wind energy equals a jobs and investment boon for Victoria
2. Because there is no accountability on those determining the location of wind turbines
3. Distances between homes and turbines should be based on the distance required to meet performance standards
4. There has been no assessment or justification for blanket area bans over swathes of Victoria
5. It causes uncertainty by affecting Victoria’s multi-billion dollar wind project pipeline
6. The state government has backed the wrong horse
7. The current policy will ultimately result in an increase in electricity cost
8. Wind energy is the cleanest and safest form of electricity generation
9. In the words of the Premier, wind turbines are ‘absolutely fantastic’
10. Preventing the development of wind projects is globally irresponsible

Yes 2 Renewables is making the case to restore fairness to renewable energy planning laws. But we need your help…

Take Action - Since Dr Napthine took office as Premier, nearly 2000 Victorians have signed our petition calling on Ted Baillieu’s anti-wind farm laws to be dumped. Help build the momentum to restore fair laws for wind farms and sign our petition.

Support Yes 2 Renewables - Friends of the Earth need your help to encourage informed debate and progressive renewable energy policies. You can support Yes 2 Renewables’ efforts with a small donation or by volunteering your time. Email leigh.ewbank [at] FoE.org to find out how you can get involved.

A new Victorian Department of Health review gives wind farms the tick of approval when it comes to public health.

The Department of Health review investigated the potential for infrasound to adversely affect human health. The review supports the findings of existing studies, yet peer-reviewed evidence dismissing such concerns hasn’t stopped anti-wind farm campaigners who frequently claim inaudible sound from wind turbines causes wide array of health problems.

The latest review concludes “there is no evidence that sound which is at inaudible levels can have a physiological effect on the human body.”

As it turns out, infrasound is not something new to human experience. “[T]here are many sources of infrasound in the environment and it is even produced by the human body, at much greater levels than infrasound from external sources such as wind farms,” the review notes. “Humans have been exposed to high levels of infrasound throughout our evolution, with no apparent effects.”

Given the prominence of the infrasound argument in the wind energy debate, the review has gained a substantial amount of media coverage.

“[The review] shows a lot of the claims made that wind farms damage peoples health are not accurate,” VicWind coordinator Andrew Bray told The Courier.

Leigh Ewbank of VicWind member organisation Friends of the Earth supported this view in comment made the The Weekly Times. Ewbank asks “How many studies will it take before anti-wind farm campaigners stop spreading fear about this clean, renewable energy source?”

For more coverage of the Department of Health review, see:

• The Standard
• The Age
• ABC Radio – The World Today
• Climate Spectator

South Australia has a lot of wind power. The neighbouring state of Victoria doesn’t. Even though Victoria has just recently opened the largest wind farm in the southern hemisphere, its wind capacity only supplies about 5% of its total electricity use. As a result, when winds are high and its demand is low, South Australia exports electricity to Victoria. However, sometimes the transmission lines reach the limit of their capacity causing some wind power to go to waste. Losing a little green power is not a disaster, but it is a pity, since thanks to its use of brown coal, Victoria probably has the worst generating sector in the developed world in terms of greenhouse gas emissions per kilowatt-hour produced.

Fortunately, the transmission infrastructure between the two states is to be upgraded and one benefit will be to allow South Australia to export more wind power and allow Victoria to use less fossil fuel. According to the Australian Electricity Market Operator (AEMO) the Heywood interconnector will be upgraded from 460 megawatts to 650 megawatts, an increase of 40%. The upgrade is expected to be completed by 2016, will cost $108 million, and is expected to provide $190 million in benefits over its lifetime.

A more expensive option to build up to two gigawatts of additional transmission between the states was rejected. Given that we can’t be certain how much energy storage will cost in the near future and that Victoria has the potential to build a lot more wind capacity of its own if it wants, the cheaper option may be the best choice for the moment.

Oddly enough, there were fossil fuel interests that resisted any improvement in transmission capacity. I find this strange, because last time I checked they too were dependant upon the earth maintaining a habitable environment for the survival of themselves and their descendants.