Report urges council to harvest wind in the CBD

Age
Wednesday 1/10/2008 Page: 7

Orange-Bellied Parrots, beware: wind turbines are being considered by the Melbourne City Council as a way of reducing the city's carbon footprint. A report adopted by the council last night discusses options for micro turbines on the roofs of Melbourne's tallest buildings, and suggests looking at sites including Port Phillip Bay and the Yarra for more large-scale projects. The report is aimed at reducing the city's net carbon emissions to zero by 2020.

It says the micro turbines do not in themselves significantly reduce the emissions of a building. "But if a strategy was adopted of installing micro wind turbines on all of Melbourne's tall buildings, this would collectively contribute considerably to carbon reductions," the report says. It suggests a study to identify which buildings would be suitable and requiring all new developments to include a proportion of on-site renewable or low-carbon energy supply.

Cr Fraser Brindley, who chairs the council's environment committee, said the wind turbine suggestion was a "distraction". The report's more achievable and cost effective recommendations were for the council to establish a municipal energy authority to supply energy locally through distributed systems, he said. However, the zero by 2020 target was unlikely to be met unless the council started committing to it in the budget, Cr Brindley said. In 2005-06, excluding freight, the city produced 5.9 million tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent, an increase of 59% from 2002. With no action, Melbourne emissions are tipped to rise to 8 million tonnes in 2020.