Coast in frame for offshore wind farm

Courier Mail
Wednesday 28/5/2008 Page: 21

AUSTRALIA'S first offshore wind farm could be built off the Gold Coast to help power the Tugun Desalination Plant. Peak environmental body the Queensland Conservation Council has applied for $4 million in State Government funding for a feasibility study for the project, which would see 12 huge turbine towers erected in the ocean off the glitter strip.

Tourism leaders have reacted cautiously, saying the environmental benefits could be outweighed by visual pollution. The desalination plant would be one of Queensland's most energy-hungry pieces of infrastructure when it comes on line at the end of the year. It will use a massive 200,000MW of power a year and emit as much carbon as a city the size of Mount Isa, and the Bligh Government has declared it wants the facility to be carbon-neutral.

This could be achieved through renewable energy, such as a wind farm, or carbon offsets (tree planting) or a combination of both. QCC executive director Toby Hutcheon said his organisation believed an offshore wind farm, to capture the strong winds that often lash the southeast Queensland coastline, was an ideal way to power the desalination plant.

The QCC has applied for funding from the $50 million Queensland Renewable Energy Fund to study the feasibility of the proposal. Mr Hutcheon said the QCC was looking to partner a commercial wind farm operator, and was talking to Australian and international companies. The turbines could be built far enough offshore so that they would not be visible, he said. Queensland Tourism Industry Council chief executive Daniel Gschwind said potential visual pollution was a concern.

"But by the same token, the tourism industry has a very strong interest in making sure that Australia and Queensland does the right thing by the environment," he said. "Australia and Queensland has long traded on its image as a 'green' destination and the question of sustainability is on everyone's mind these days." Mines and Energy Minister Geoff Wilson said Queensland had "significantly poorer wind resources" than southern states, where most of Australia's wind farms were located. But he said the State Government was backing renewable energy initiatives "every step of the way" and welcomed viable proposals.