THE climate change phenomenon is on the crest of a wave.

Courier Mail
29/09/2007 Page: 58

This week there have been several international gatherings to discuss the crisis, including forums hosted by former US president Bill Clinton and that office's incumbent, George W. Bush. In Australia, Federal Police Commissioner Mick Keelty said climate change was a national security issue. But while politicians are acknowledging the need for renewable energy sources, what are they doing about it? And will the political willingness to embrace renewable energy be dumped if it all gets too hard? This week, a Queensland businessman revealed that State Government indecision about renewable electricity targets has put a wind farm project with the potential to power a city the size of Cairns on hold indefinitely.

Lloyd Stumer, head of Wind Power Queensland Pty Ltd, said he was frustrated by bureaucratic confusion about the difference between renewable electricity generation targets and renewable energy targets. Renewable energy includes non-electricity components such as solar hot water that does not contribute to the power grid. In its 2050 strategy, the State Government committed to a renewable, low emission energy target of 6 per cent by 2015 and 10 per cent by 2020.

A spokesman for Mines and Energy Minister Geoff Wilson said renewable energy and renewable electricity generation targets were the same thing, but Stumer said the difference - perceived or real - had become a sticking point with department officers. He said Ministers he had talked to, mainly Wilson, would support the project but departmental semantics was causing the delay. The State Government has set aside a 2300 ha site at Archer Point, south of Cooktown, for the wind farm but Stumer says financiers were reluctant to sign up until a specific renewable electricity target had been set.

"No one will build anything until that target is in place - there'll be no wind farm until there is a renewable electricity generation target," he said. "We can't turn a sod unless we know by (which) particular year they want us to start generating." The $250 million project had been slated to start next year but Mines and Energy Department delays mean it could be 2010, if not beyond, before it gets the green light. The farm could take up to a year to build but had the potential to produce the 120 megawatts of green power necessary to power Cairns within six months.

Stumer also criticised federal Tourism Minister Fran Bailey, who this week said wind energy was not suitable for Australia. She also said that in her view wind technology as an alternative technology was far more suited to the northern hemisphere than the southern. Sturner, who worked as a meteorologist for some 15 years, dismissed her claims as "absolute nonsense". "She says wind (power) is more suited to the northern hemisphere than the southern hemisphere, which is a very strange statement to make," he said. "Meteorologically speaking. there is no reason to make that comment... it's just a weird statement and unsubstantiated." A 10 per cent renewable energy target for Australia by 2010 would cost consumers about $3 a month extra on their electricity bills.

Queensland currently has two commercial-scale wind projects - one on Thursday Island off the tip of Cape York Peninsula and another at Windy Hill on the Atherton Tableland. The noise generated by 60 wind turbines, the number needed to provide the 120 megawatts to power Cairns, could also be a hurdle. Stumer said he would be complying with a boundary standard that would put 4km between a turbine and his nearest neighbours. Then there is the issue of visual pollution: Are wind farms ugly? Some say yes. Others disagree. Nationally, wind has been recognised as a viable contributor to renewable energy. In 1996 there were about 20 wind turbines in Australia. Now there are about 250.

In another attempt at catch-up, the State Government this week announced the establishment of a Queensland Geothermal Energy Centre to be based at the University of Queensland. Although no date was given in press releases from the Government or the University of Queensland. and relevant press secretaries were sent scurrying when the question of timing was raised, there was some re-assurance that it might be operating by the beginning of next year. Again, though, it's more a case of Queensland playing catch-up instead of leading the way.

As much as the centre has been touted as having the potential to be an Australian leader, the reality is that much of the research about generating electricity from hot rocks has already been done by a commercial organisation based in Brisbane - Geodynamics - which also has links to the University of Queensland through a partnership deal. Despite calling Queensland home, Geodynamics is doing the bulk of its trials in the Cooper Basin in northeast South Australia near the Queensland border, where a large mass of hot rock several kilometres under the ground merges with the same geothermal province in southwest Queensland.

The company was granted a licence to explore in South Australia in 2001, and the first holes were drilled in 2003. Last year, Geodynamics successfully bid for two geothermal exploration blocks in western Queensland - Tennaperra, about 60km southwest of Jackson on the Warrego Highway, and Nappa Merrie. north of Roma. The company's executive director and one of its founders, Dr Doone Wyborn, said they were now waiting for the licences from the Department of Natural Resources. Mines and Water (since split into Mines and Energy, and Natural Resources and Water).

Wyborn said that although final conditions were still to be negotiated, he was confident holes would be drilled in Queensland early next year. It has taken more than five years for the Government to get to this point, and its been a lot longer than that since the energy possibilities of hot rocks was recognised. Again, Queensland's potential has gone untapped because mining rights made it too much of a red-tape headache for the company. South Australia, on the other hand, was a little more obliging. These two developments at home come on the back of what has been a big week for climate change globally.

In the US. former president Bill Clinton lent his name to a New York gathering, the Clinton Global Initiative, where luminaries such as Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie gave their Hollywood powered support to the need to address global warming. The Clinton call to arms coincided with a United Nations forum on climate change, and yesterday 16 of the world's greatest greenhouse gas emitters, including Australia, met Bush at the White House.

Closer to home. AFP Commissioner Mick Keelty warned that climate change was the biggest threat to Australia's national security, a point not fully endorsed by Defence Minister Brendan Nelson. who said that terrorism and Islamic extremism were the major threats. Regardless, the climate-change tsunami is heading our way.