It's time to catch the wind and create jobs

Sunday Telegraph
28 August 2011, Page: 97

NSW simply can't afford to miss the golden opportunity to invest in clean, green energy, writes Liberal backbencher Catherine Cusack

A small minority of our constituents believe immunisation is a plot against children, fluoride poisons our water, and wind turbines make inaudible noise that causes cancer. I accept the sincerity of their beliefs, but none of these ideas are supported by mainstream medical science. Most Australians accept medical advice in relation to fluoridation and immunisation, but in NSW wind power continues to be controversial.

Wind turbines are embraced in Europe, the UK and the US places that have energy strategies planning the mix of energy for the next 10, 20 and 30 years; and secures their fossil fuel and clean energy supplies for future generations. Australia is truly languishing in the clean-energy stakes. We have spent billions on small-scale solar and neglected economically viable largescale renewable. Rather than bore you with statistics about Spain, I have looked closer to home.

New Zealand, with an abundance of hydropower, has 63.8% "low carbon". The US, with substantial nuclear and hydropower, has 26.8%. The UK has 19.5% clean energy. By 2030, a third of their power will be produced by wind. Canada has 72.7% low-carbon energy sources for electricity. Australia has only 6.8% clean electricity. We ranked 29th out of 30 countries. (Poland comes in last with 2.2%.) The OECD average is 35.5%.

We have 1153 wind turbines at 54 wind farms producing 2124 MW of electricity (equivalent to powering 891,000 homes). This represents $5.6 billion in capital investment and has created 6000 direct and indirect jobs. But in NSW, with a third of the population, our share of this is just 9%. We are the worst performing state in the second worst performing country in the developed world. We have only seven wind farms that are incapable of meeting demand for Green Energy. However, in the investment pipeline we have 29 proposed wind farms promising 4,000 direct jobs plus thousands more indirect ones.

At least $6.274 billion of the $10.5 billion price tag would be invested locally. The question is: How much of that can accrue to NSW? The opportunity is huge. Wind turbines are made of steel, BlueScope steel. But if you look at two of our largest wind farms, Capital and Woodlawn near Bungendore, the BlueScope steel from Port Kembla was all sent to Queensland, Victoria and South Australia for fabrication into 90x80m towers.

The bolts and 90 turbine transformers were manufactured in Victoria, and 35km of aluminium cable, some sub-station switchgear, and the steel sub-station control rooms came from Queensland. These components were all trucked back to NSW for installation. Yes, we have a political problem to solve but there is a glittering economic opportunity for regional NSW, and especially for Port Kembla, if we can do it. The solution lies in moving proposed wind farms away from population centres.

This would require some financial subsidy to lengthen the connection to the grid. It would be a fraction of the funds already being spent to upgrade our electricity infrastructure. It would be the only subsidy NSW would be required to make. Large scale wind farms receive no state subsidies.

Secondly we must send a strong investment signal to the industry: that we will assist with planning approvals away from population centres so that our state can have the maximum benefits of the $6.2 billion to create 4000 direct jobs. And with BlueScope shedding 1000 jobs in Port Kembla last week, we simply can't afford to reject this golden opportunity. It's time to shake off the myths, solve the politics and catch the wind.