Water shortage has windy solution

North Eastern Advertiser
Wednesday 27/6/2007 Page: 4

A spokesman for Beyond Zero Emissions believes the current water shortage crisis, especially in Victoria, can be solved with a transition of electricity generation to zero emission renewable energy. Matthew Wright said that wind energy fully backed up by gas would use 91 per cent less water than the coal-fired power generators, and would be much more cost effective in an era of rising water and carbon costs. "The Victorian Government has conveniently ignored the cause of our water shortage: climate change induced drought," Mr Wright said.

He said the Danish government has announced it aims to generate 75 per cent of its electricity through wind energy by 2025. By 2010 Germany will have 30,000 Megawatts (MW) of wind energy potential installed into their grid, enough to generate 40 per cent of Australia's electricity needs. Recently Texan billionaire T. Boone Pickens announced he is going to build a 4000 MW wind farm; three of these would provide most of Victoria's energy needs. In comparison, Victoria's biggest, dirtiest coal power plant is a tiny 2000MW.

The output from the proposed Roaring 40s Musselroe Wind Farm will be sufficient to supply electricity to approximately 50,000 households in Tasmania. Roaring 40s spokesman Josh Bradshaw said it was only a matter of time before someone started to make the water/power generation link "The Government's push for nuclear energy also doesn't recognise that this type of generation requires massive amounts of water for cooling, and clean coal or carbon capture and storage, while cleaning up emissions, won't address the fact that these types of generation also require large amounts of water. "And all this on the driest continent on Earth," Mr Bradshaw said.