Waubra disease a furphy

www.weeklytimesnow.com.au
24 Oct 2013

Waubra disease does not exist.

In my view it is a name dreamt up by the Australian Landscape Guardians group for what has always been known as wind turbine syndrome.

Others followed suit for their own ends, such as gaining publicity for the so-called Waubra Foundation. This group of people owes the community of Waubra an apology for the damage they have done to the town's reputation. More important, they owe our schoolchildren a heartfelt and public apology for the psychological pain inflicted on them when they and their parents saw full-page ads claiming Waubra disease could make them ill.

Some children panicked every time they had a cold or any other normal childhood illness. It was a cruel hoax and someone needs to be accountable. Yes, Waubra does have a wind farm, but in a community of more than 500 people only about 1.3% are vehemently opposed to it. The rest are in favour of it or don't mind either way. Life goes on as it has for more than 100 years in a great community.

We still produce award-winning potatoes, crops, wool and fat lambs. Waubra Primary School is thriving, full of happy, healthy, carefree students. Yes, local groups such as the CFA, school, kinder, sports clubs, Landcare groups and others receive financial assistance from the wind farm, but that happens any time a large company moves into a local neighbourhood.

It is not "buying" those in it. It is showing appreciation to people for allowing their company to grow and prosper there. I don't have a problem with Landscape Guardians or individuals who have complaints of ill health or depression that they attribute to the wind farm.

I do, however, have a problem with those who have never lived in Waubra who perpetrated an outrageous lie, tarnished the reputation of the community which, far from being divided and fractured, is a united one full of mutual support.

I believe Waubra is owed an apology and statements that use the name Waubra disease should be retracted. Call it what it is-wind turbine syndrome-and let Waubra be known for what is it, one of the best farming areas in the country with property prices increasing. Visit our town and our wind farm. Only then will you know the truth.

Marsha Gallagher is a Waubra resident with turbines on her property.

A power for good

www.standard.net.au
22 Apr 2013

On Friday, April 12, I attended the official opening of the Macarthur wind farm facility. I must say that I was disappointed with the subsequent reporting by your paper. It seemed as though you showed more emphasis on the protestors rather than the positives for the wind farm.

As secretary of the Hawkesdale Brigade Group, I was very privileged to be presented with a cheque for $40,000 from Michael Fraser, CEO of AGL Energy, as a contribution towards the purchase of two ultra-light tankers for the Hawkesdale and Willatook brigades. This is an example of how AGL Energy and the local fire brigades are working together.

In your story on Saturday, April 13, there was no mention of this presentation. Was it an oversight or did you just not care to report on such an important item of the official opening proceedings?

With so much criticism from wind farm opponents following the recent fire at Minhamite, I would also like it known that our group was in constant contact with staff at the facility and really appreciated their offers of both resources and manpower. The Hawkesdale Brigade Group and the wind farm continue to enjoy a close relationship and look forward to maintaining that relationship well into the future.

Ros Stewart, Hawkesdale Brigade Group secretary

The wind power CO2 conspiracy

www.climatespectator.com.au
31 Jan 2013

Yesterday I explained how those who doubt human activity is leading to global warming seem to see cover-ups and conspiracies on every corner. Often these very same people seem to have a similar propensity to see cover-ups at work with wind power as well, where a range of organisations are working together to obscure the truth that wind power doesn't work and is harmful.

Using Maurice Newman one more time to illustrate this broader mentality, he suggests in The Spectator that state and federal governments are hell-bent on supporting wind in spite of it not saving CO₂ and in spite of it hurting poor local land holders, due to the efforts of an extraordinary coalition: "But don't expect help from academia, mainstream media or the public service. They are members of the same establishment and worship together at the altar of global warming. By ruthlessly perpetuating the illusion that wind farms can somehow save the planet, they keep the money flowing. All the while the poor become poorer, ever more dependent on welfare and colder in winter".

This argument about wind not saving CO₂ is a long running one that has been comprehensively refuted for example from the UK Energy Research Centre and the CSIRO.

Just back in September, in response to claims by Hamish Cumming published in The Australian newspaper a few months ago that wind power had failed to reduce emissions because brown coal generators were producing output in excess of Victorian demand, Climate Spectator published three stories (here, here and here).

These explained in quite a bit of detail how, in spite of wind power's variability, it would act to substantially displace fossil fuel consumption in other power stations. As part of this it was explained that Victorian brown coal generators were unlikely to be the plants whose output and fuel consumption was displaced because of their very low operating costs. Instead it was explained that South Australian and NSW generators were most likely to be displaced by wind power output.

Read More…

Wind power delivers too much to ignore

www.newscientist.com
21 Jan 2013

Although aesthetic concerns need to be heard, qualms about wind's reliability are wide of the mark, argues energy policy researcher Reg Platt

THE location of the British Isles at Europe's wild and windy western fringe does not always seem like a blessing. But in one important respect it is: the UK has the greatest potential for wind power, both onshore and offshore, of any European country.

Onshore wind power has expanded steadily across the UK in recent years and is a key plank of the country's commitment to greening its electricity supply. But as the turbines have gone up across the countryside, so has the level of opposition. Wind power has become a deeply divisive issue in British politics.

The issue exploded last year when 106 members of parliament, mostly Conservatives representing rural constituencies, signed a letter to Conservative Prime Minister David Cameron. They urged him to cut subsidies for the onshore wind industry, describing wind technology as "inefficient and intermittent".

Things escalated in the autumn when the recently appointed Conservative energy minister, John Hayes, told two newspapers that "enough is enough" and that no new onshore wind farms would be built. He was slapped down by his boss Edward Davey, the secretary of state for energy and climate change and a member of the Liberal Democrat party. But simmering tensions remain at the top level of the coalition government. Another Conservative, finance minister George Osborne, is known to be sympathetic to the anti-wind cause. Wind turbines also became an important point of contention between the parties in a recent by-election.

Two of the anti-wind campaigners' main concerns are the impact of turbines on the beauty of the countryside and the opposition of local people. It is absolutely right that these be taken into account. But they need to be balanced against the bulk of public opinion, which strongly supports the increased use of wind turbines.

Any misgivings must also be balanced against the important role that this technology can play for the UK, both in fulfilling its climate-change commitments and for future economic success.

Anti-wind campaigners frequently make claims about the shortcomings of wind power. Their main complaints are that the turbines are so inefficient that they actually increase CO₂ emissions, and so unreliable that they require constant backup from conventional coal and gas-fired stations. If correct, these claims would be devastating to wind power. But they are not.

My organisation, the Institute for Public Policy Research, recently published a report tackling these questions. Our conclusions are unambiguous. Onshore wind power reduces carbon emissions and is a reliable source of electricity, at least up to the capacity of wind power that is forecast to be installed in the UK by 2020.

To answer the carbon question, we used a simple model of the UK electricity market. As demand increases, say on a weekday morning when people are waking up and getting ready to go to work, power plants increase output to meet it. Plants with the lowest marginal cost-that is, those that can produce additional electricity most cheaply-are selected first by the market. Here wind beats gas and coal, as no fuel is needed to generate electricity.

The upshot is that, in theory, adding wind power to the energy mix should displace coal and gas, and hence cut carbon. This is backed up by empirical data on emissions reductions from wind power in the US.

There is another way of looking at it. In 2011, wind power contributed approximately 15.5 TWs of electricity to the UK. If this had been supplied by fossil fuels instead, CO₂ emissions would have been at least 5.5 million tonnes higher, and as much as 12 million tonnes higher.

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Wind energy tax credit

www.theaustralian.com.au
8 Jan 2013

CONTRARY to Graham Lloyds article, the US production tax credit for wind power was extended as part of the fiscal cliff deal passed on January 1 ("Blow to big wind in the power-market stakes", 5 6/1).

Given that most major fossil fuel power plants in Australia were built and funded by governments-and many are still owned by governments-it is not unreasonable that renewable energy is provided with a modest level of support until it becomes more established. The cost of wind power, for example, makes up less than 2% of power bills.

While world markets have proven volatile over the last 12 months due to the stop-start nature of government support in some countries, Australia's 20% Renewable Energy Target has been a consistent and relatively low-cost policy that has provided enough stability to attract financiers and investors.

Australia is well-positioned to substantially increase the share of renewable energy in our generation mix between here and the end of the decade, creating tens of thousands of jobs and unlocking billions of dollars of investment in the process.

Russell Marsh, Clean Energy Council, Southbank, Vic


Graham Lloyd is a recidivist when it comes to misrepresenting the facts, exaggerating or misleading by omission.

Don’t cut clean energy while there’s a full head of steam

www.news.com.au
15 Oct 2012

Australia gets about 10% of its electricity from renewable energy and we’re shooting for double that by the end of the decade under our national 20% Renewable Energy Target. Australia currently gets about 10% of its electricity from renewable energy and we're shooting for double that by the end of the decade under our national 20% Renewable Energy Target.

So far this policy has delivered thousands of jobs and billions of dollars of investment, and is capable of much more if the Federal Government can resist tinkering with it. It's a classic case of "if it am't broke, don't fix it". The idea of producing pollution-free power just seems to make sense to people, which is why between 80-90% of people voice their support whenever a poll does the rounds. So far our politicians have acted to give them what they want.

The Renewable Energy Target is designed to deliver 20% of Australia's electricity from sources such as sun, wind, waves, bioenergy and others by the year 2020. Originally introduced by the Howard Government in 2001, the target was expanded by the Rudd Government in 2009 and is starting to hit its stride.

Business often talks about moving goalposts, but changing the way the scheme works now really would be like the AFL or the NRL changing the rules of the game halfway through the premiership season. It would mean that all the pre-season training, all the effort to recruit the best players and all the hours spent on strategy were irrelevant

Right now, major investors are mostly watching cautiously from the sidelines as the Federal Government's Climate Change Authority reviews the Renewable Energy Target. The authority is under pressure from a range of energy companies who are lobbying hard to have the target scaled back, or even dumped altogether, so they can carve out a bigger slice of the pie for either gas or coal.

But the effect of making major changes to the Renewable Energy Target wouldn't be just to lose a few matches-it would be measured in the hundreds of millions of dollars in investment and the thousands of jobs that would be lost. Ultimately it would be like a season where there was no winner-only losers. All over the world, interest in the renewable energy sector is at a record high, with US$257 billion being pumped into it last year across the globe.

Over the past decade, investors in Australia have chipped in around $18.5 billion of their own, with more than $3.5 billion in projects under construction. Large clean-energy projects supply enough clean energy for the equivalent of 2.1 million households. A further 1.5 million homes have solar panels or solar hot water. And there's potentially much more to come.

Vested interests that want to see the target changed or removed have been making a big deal about its costs. But those costs make up only a small percentage of the average power bill-7% versus the 40% contributed by upgrading poles and wires. What's more, the costs of meeting the target are going down as renewable energy falls in price and government incentives to buy solar power are wound back.

At the moment you're looking at less than $2 per week for an average household going towards renewable energy. In 2020 it will be about half that, provided the current Renewable Energy Target remains unchanged. That's a small price for tens of thousands of jobs, billions of dollars of investments and to protect us from the future impact of rising gas prices.

While speculation about the future of the carbon price remains, the Renewable Energy Target has been one of the few investment-grade policies that Australia's electricity generators have been able to rely on. This is largely because it is supported by all sides of politics.

The renewable energy industry has repeatedly outperformed expectations, forecasts and previous targets. If the government can resist the urge to intervene in the Renewable Energy Target, clean energy companies and investors can start to get on with the business of kicking some serious goals for Australia.

Kane Thornton is deputy chief executive of the Clean Energy Council

Epuron acquires Australia's largest tracking solar power plant from SunPower

www.heraldonline.com
3 Oct 2012

SAN JOSE, Calif., and SYDNEY, Oct. 3, 2012 - SunPower Corp, and Epuron today announced that Epuron has acquired the 1 MW Uterne solar power plant operating in Alice Springs, Australia. Commonwealth Bank, Australia's leading provider of integrated financial services, has provided project financing, making it the country's first major bank to support a solar project of this size.

The project was developed by SunPower with the support of Power and Water Corporation. Under a solar power purchase agreement, Power and Water Corporation will buy generated electricity at a guaranteed rate over a 20 year term. Following the acquisition, SunPower will continue to provide operations and maintenance services in conjunction with Ogden Power, a SunPower accredited solar company based in Alice Springs.

"Epuron's acquisition of Uterne underscores the bankability of SunPower's industry-leading, high efficiency technology, decades of proven experience and more than 2,500 MWs deployed globally", said Howard Wenger, SunPower president, regions. "This solar power plant has exceeded reliability and energy production expectations since it was commissioned in June 2011, and will reliably generate power and return on investment for the life of the system".

"The acquisition of Uterne further demonstrates Epuron's commitment to a growing solar portfolio in the Northern Territory", said Epuron Executive Director Andrew Durran. "The project is a great addition to our 1 MW remote TKLN Solar project, making Epuron one of the largest solar project owners and asset managers in Australia. Epuron is especially pleased to be able to project finance the acquisition through CBA, a first for a project of this size in Australia".

Uterne is comprised of high efficiency SunPower solar panels installed on the SunPower(R) T20 Tracker, which positions panels to follow the sun during the day, increasing daily energy production by up to 30% over conventional fixed-tilt installations. In August 2012, Uterne received an Engineering Excellence Award from the Institution of Engineers Australia.

The development of Uterne was made possible with funding assistance from the Australian Government as part of its Solar Cities program. The solar power plant is a key component of the Alice Solar City program and illustrates the initiative's success in developing more sustainable energy solutions in Australia.

Wind Turbine Syndrome: mass hysteria in the 21st Century?

www.climatespectator.com.au
6 Jun 2012

"The patients suffered from nervous excitability, with buzzing noises in the ear, giddiness, and neuralgic pains,.. in some cases,..objective lesions, such as a subinflammatory condition of the membrane tympani,.. All the trouble speedily vanishes if the ear is allowed a sufficient measure of physiological rest; this it can only obtain by the cause of the evil being withdrawn. The victims,.. seem all to be of markedly nervous organization, and the moral may be drawn that such persons should not use the telephone". British Medical Journal, September 21, 1889

The history of the introduction of new technology has often featured highly publicised panics about the miseries that will be visited upon those who fall prey to these Mephistophelean temptations. The industrial revolution in the nineteenth century was the golden age for technophobes and those convinced that modern society was toxic.

George Miller Beard, an American neurologist, popularised the long-discredited diagnosis of neurasthenia. He argued that "wireless telegraphy, science, steam power, newspapers and the education of women; in other words modern civilization" was responsible for widespread anxiety, depression, headaches and fatigue. While we can laugh at the amusing conflation of ideologies about the social order with disease, such attributions are not hard to find today. At 60, I'm old enough to remember neighbours telling my parents that they wouldn't have one of those televisions in the house. Electric blankets, microwave ovens, computer screens and most recently, mobile phones and towers have all attracted panic.

With there being many more mobile phones than people in Australia today, and mass use going back now more than 15 years, the flatline data on the incidence of brain cancer doesn't suggest much evidence to support the populist rumour that mobile telephony causes cancer.

Panics about wind farms are the latest example of technophobia, although those convinced that wifi emits death-rays have recently joined the queue. I've been closely following the claims that wind turbines cause illness for about two years. Many aspects of this unfolding and increasingly hysterical saga point to large psychogenic factors. Psychogenic illness is defined as a constellation of symptoms suggestive of organic illness, but without an identifiable cause, that occurs between two or more people who share beliefs about those symptoms. The idea that fear of illness can precipitate symptoms goes back at least to the time of Francis Bacon who said, "Infections,.. if you fear them, you call them upon you".

A key component of psychogenic illness is that sufferers are warned that they should fear some agent. They are truly 'communicable diseases'. The internet is awash with such warnings and Australia's very own Waubra Foundation, with unregistered doctor Sarah Laurie at the helm, is doing all it can to spread alarm in rural communities. Media monitoring records of alarmists' messages in rural communities provides important evidence for the strong likelihood of a nocebo effect at work.

Read More…

Simon Chapman is professor of public health at the University of Sydney. Twitter: @simonchapman6

Coal or wind in your backyard?

www.climatespectator.com.au
30 Apr 2012

If you're going to 'pick winners' from the energy market, you at least want to choose wisely. So it's hard to see why Victorian laws treat coal and coal seam gas more favourably than renewable energy. The Environment Defenders Office (Victoria) (EDO) released a report last week that finds Victoria's laws give the mining industry privileged treatment that few other industries enjoy. In particular, they now make it easier to obtain approval for a coal mine than a wind farm in Victoria.

The planning rules for wind farms introduced by the state government last year are some of the toughest that apply to any type of development anywhere in the country. No new wind projects have been proposed in Victoria since they have been introduced. At the same time, the government has moved to relax the laws that apply to new mining projects, developing a strategy to encourage brown coal export in Victoria, and initiating a Parliamentary Inquiry to identify and remove barriers to further 'Greenfields' minerals exploration and mining. That Parliamentary Inquiry is due to table its report tomorrow. Let's hope it considers the following differences between the treatment of coal mines and wind farms in Victoria:

• A wind farm cannot be built within two km of a person's home without their consent. But a coal mine can be opened within 100 meters of a home without the owner's consent.
• Wind farms are now excluded from 'no go' zones stretching across the state. But coal mines face no such 'no go' zones: the only place they are excluded from is national parks (for now).
• All wind farms require planning approval from the local council. Coal projects, on the other hand, can avoid the need to obtain certain planning approvals at all in some cases.
• Wind farms must comply with environmental laws like any other project. Coal projects, on the other hand, are exempt from parts of key laws like the Environment Protection Act 1970 (Vic).

This treatment is obviously at odds with the scientific need to make a rapid transition out of polluting energy sources, like coal and gas, and into renewable energy. It is at odds with Victoria's abundant renewable energy resources, and their potential for growth in investment and jobs. It also represents a formidable distortion to the Victorian energy market. The carbon price and other Clean Energy Future policies will drive billions of dollars of investment in renewable energy, but that investment will not go to Victoria so long as these regulatory barriers are in place.

It reflects an assumption that the public benefit of extracting minerals is greater than any costs that may arise from doing so. However, the Industry Commission noted in 1991 that this is not necessarily the case--an argument which seems even more true now that more is understood about the impact on the health and safety of regional communities, the environmental impacts of mining (especially for coal and coal seam gas), and the macroeconomic costs of the mining boom for other economic sectors.

Why then should wind power be subject to more restrictive laws than coal and coal seam gas? For example, if wind farms are subject to 'no go' zones, why shouldn't coal mines be? The EDO report calls for a strategic planning process to identify sensitive areas (for example, those with valuable groundwater resources, or prime agricultural land, or high conservation value areas) and protect them from mining altogether through 'no go' zones closed to mining.

If regional communities can 'veto' wind farms near their property, why shouldn't they have the same rights for coal mines? The Victorian Farmers Federation has called for this right of veto. The EDO report also calls for regional communities to have the right to appeal mining approvals, and to enforce breaches of the law, in the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal.

There are good reasons to think that renewable energy should be treated more favourably than fossil fuels, and given further support from the Victorian government. But at the very least, the government should level the playing field. After all, giving privileged support an industry as questionable as the coal and coal seam gas industry is stretching the limits of the phrase 'picking winners'.


Michael Power is a Law Reform Lawyer at the Environment Defenders Office (Victoria), an independent not-for-profit centre dedicated to public interest environment law.

Heartland Institute strategy and funding details exposed

For those who have yet to hear the news, the Heartland Institute, an infamous US think tank (now there's an oxymoron) had their climate change denialism programme exposed recently when blogger DeSmogBlog received (from a third party) then posted documents produced by the Heartland Institute.

Among the documents were details relating to strategy and funding, including a list of donors and a breakdown of the funding of some well-known climate denialists such as Fred Singer, Robert Carter and others.

Rather than repeat all the evidence here, the full story can be found at DeSmogBlog. The Heartland Institute has threatened legal action against at least two bloggers to date.

As developments occur in coming weeks I will post updates.

Latest developments from Crikey

ACT Govt starts solar farm process

www.canberratimes.com.au
27 Jan 2012

The process to choose a company to build a large solar-farm to generate electricity for the ACT has begun. The territory government has asked for tenders in an effort to select a power producer to build and operate the power station either in or near the territory. Environment Minister Simon Corbell said today that he expected the tender process would attract bids from companies who had the ability to deliver on the government's plans to create large-scale solar at the lowest cost.

"Companies will be able to submit proposals to establish solar facilities to support the development of up to 40 MWs of large-scale solar generation capacity", Mr Corbell said. "The request for proposal has been facilitated by the Electricity Feed-In (Large Scale Renewable Energy Generation) Act 2011, enacted in December 2011, and allows for 40 GWs of generating capacity to be established in the first auction".

Potential producers would eventually vie to put together offers that would generate the 40 MWs of power to be fed into the territory's power grid at the lowest cost. But the first round of tenders would produce a shortlist of companies deemed to be capable of delivering the facility based on their expertise and their records in the industry. "This process will make sure Canberrans get the best value investment in renewable technology, but also see more than one large scale facility being established", the minister said.

Wind raises important issues

www.edenmagnet.com.au
9 Feb 2012

A Joint Regional Planning Panel will shortly look at the feasibility of the proposed wind farm at Twofold Bay. They will need to consider some important issues. The visual impact of a wind farm located on an iconic piece of South Coast wilderness coast is an important issue, and concerns from the Eden community need to be carefully considered. If the Planning Panel considers that the visual impact is too great, then the wind farm development will look for another location for their wind farm.

A particular concern of the proposed Eden wind farm is the threat to sea eagles. If an expert assessment suggests there is significant risk to these birds, then the development should not proceed. Tourism is a vital industry for Eden and the Planning Panel should look at the Australian experience of coastal wind farms. The evidence suggests Australian coastal wind farms attract tourists, in some cases in large numbers. The Codrington wind farm in Victoria, for example currently attracts 50,000 visitors per year.

The Planning Panel also needs to look carefully at the health risks of wind farms. If they confine their search to the peer reviewed literature, there would seem to be very little concern about so called 'wind farm syndrome'. A recent Australian report by the National Health and Medical Research Council concluded that "there is currently no published scientific evidence to positively link wind turbines with adverse health effects".

The UK's Health Protection Agency reviewed the evidence on inaudible low frequency vibration (infrasound) and concluded: "The available data does not suggest that exposure to infrasound below the hearing threshold levels is capable of causing adverse effects". There have been a range of concerns raised by those opposed to the wind farm development that need to be addressed. There has been an attempt by some to vilify the wind industry which is disappointing. There have been several attempts to portray wind developers as untrustworthy, living in mansions in faraway exclusive suburbs. That attitude does not lead to constructive debate.

From an occupational health and safety perspective, wind is a far safer form of energy than natural gas, coal or nuclear power. There is no evidence at all to suggest wind farms interfere with whale migration. Investment in wind farms, along with other forms of renewable energy and natural gas will allow Australia to strategically phase out coal fired power stations over the next couple of decades.

If the Joint Regional Planning Panel decides to approve the Eden wind farm, it will be an important development for the Far South Coast. It will help our region move towards a 50/50 by 2020 target which will make the Far South Coast an example for other regions, and will help preserve our wilderness coast. If they decide against the proposal, then we need to accept the decision and look at other ways in which our region can show leadership.

Matthew Nott
www.cleanenergyforeternity.net.au

Thornton: Winds of change for farmers

www.adelaidenow.com.au
11 Jan 2012

Wind turbines can help save struggling farms, argues Kane Thornton.

LIFE on the land has only become tougher. The cruel effects of drought, fires and floods, along with the strong Aussie dollar and challenging global markets, have pushed farming families to the limit. In many cases, diversification has been the key to their survival. Responding to changing market dynamics, consumer demands and weather conditions by moving into different crops, livestock and land uses, is helping save the family farm.

It would be a brave outsider who demanded the removal of the farmer's right to make those choices for themselves. Yet that is what the activists opposed to wind farms are doing. They are saying that individual farmers should not have the right to choose wind farming to help them drought-proof their properties, make better use of marginal farming land, or insure against market downturns. But for those farmers fortunate enough to live in some of the windiest places in the world, farming wind can be the best option.

And those farmers are not the only ones who benefit. wind farms are also providing jobs for local communities and contractors and an economic boost for struggling regional areas. At the Capital wind farm near Canberra, about $10 million went straight into the pockets of local people during construction. It went into the corner store, the local restaurant, motels and more.

Of course, appropriate regulations and community consultation should apply to any wind farm, as they do to any new farm infrastructure, be it an extra shed, a tourist development, a road, a dam or a mine. wind farms in Australia face the toughest guidelines in the world in relation to their siting, operation and permissible noise levels.

The wind power industry is working hard to improve its process of consultation with local communities and the quality of information that it shares with them. A lack of information-or the wrong information-can understandably create anxiety for people who are not familiar with our new ways of producing electricity.

However, opponents of renewable energy seem determined to use wind farms as political footballs, fuelling community divisions they claim they want to avoid. They make inflammatory claims about noise-when a wealth of scientific research shows that noise from wind farms does not have a harmful effect on people. These disingenuous claims increase anxiety within the community. And, like any form of anxiety, this can have an impact on a person's health. Those opponents also ignore the impact that wind farms have on reducing our carbon emissions, and say wind power is expensive.

Consider this. Over the first six months of last year, Australia's 1188 wind turbines generated enough electricity to power more than 725,000 homes. If we are to move away from coal (which itself can create health issues) then wind power is one of the cheapest alternative sources we can introduce on a large scale. Farmers should have the right to farm the wind and the right to secure the future of their livelihoods and their families.

* Kane Thornton is Clean Energy Council's acting CEO

Ramsay's wind farm backflip

www.weeklytimesnow.com.au
12 Jan 2012

THE about-face of State Liberal Simon Ramsay over his attitude to wind farms is hard to swallow, writes Greg Barber

Six years ago, Simon Ramsay wanted to be part of the wind industry, to diversify and drought-proof his farm. It was smart because while the price of agricultural commodities seems to move downwards, the demand for zero-emissions electricity grows.

Mr Ramsay is now one of the most rabidly anti-wind MPs (Weekly Times, November 30) in a government that has all but killed off new wind farm proposals in Victoria. He derides subsidies to wind farms, by which he means the Renewable Energy Target, a target his Liberal colleague Greg Hunt wants to claim credit for. He says all the jobs are in China, where the turbines are made.

So are the major components for coal-fired power plants. So are Mr Ramsay's underpants, quite likely. Most of the thousands of Australian jobs in the design, construction and operation of wind farms are outside Victoria. That will continue if Mr Ramsay has any say in it. He spreads all the voodoo on the health effects of wind farms. So why hasn't his government made dramatically tougher noise rules for turbines? Because the current 35-dB limit is the right one.

I've stood underneath an operating wind turbine carrying on a perfectly normal conversation. Interestingly, we are yet to see someone suffering ill effects when they are getting paid to host turbines on their property, and those people live closer to turbines than just about anyone. Once upon a time, Mr Ramsay wanted some of that action for himself.

Despite what he tells you, his government has not introduced a buffer between wind turbines and homes. They have required a developer to get a sign-off from every resident within 2km before they can even apply for a permit. If you want to farm the wind, any one of your neighbours within 2km has a right to say no and Mr Ramsay thinks this policy will stop wind projects from dividing communities.

Under the State Government's new policy, approved wind farms not built in the next few years will lose their permits and will be back to square one. Nine wind farms face this test by the end of March. Mr Ramsay talks about the "visual immensity of these monstrosities" he once applauded. But picture this: for every two turbines you see up on the hillside, there is a full-time, highly paid, locally based job. There's also a $10,000 annual payment to the landholder. A couple thousand more paid in council rates. Green electricity for 1600 homes.

South Australia now has more than 1000 MWs of wind power. Late last year, there were times when more than 90% of its electricity came from the wind. The fuel is free so the electricity is cheap. Bad news if you are a coal-fired power station. Good news for regional communities. But it requires a consistent and coherent government policy and with Mr Ramsay, you get a political weathervane.

* Greg Barber is the Leader of the Victorian Greens

Shameful hypocrisy

Age
28 Oct 2011, Page: 16

THE mine at Anglesea is already spewing carcinogenic dust over surrounding houses and farms and is within 1.5 km of the primary school. It is a shameful irony that Victoria's new wind farm restrictions prevent even community initiated wind farms being built, yet we have virtually no protection from the expansion of coal and gas mining. This is a classic example of the 1% who own the fossil fuel industry riding roughshod over the 99% who want a healthy environment and safe future for our kids.

Jane Morton, Northcote


Back to a dirty future
THE Baillieu government's Anglesea mine lease renewal shows it is stuck in 1961, when premier Henry Bolte used state debt to build state infrastructure and effectively won overseas investment for Victoria. But Baillieu's government knows that the science tells us to stop burning coal just ask the CSIRO. The shame is that the government doesn't have the courage to use state debt to build infrastructure. With wind farms and solar thermal baseload power, Victoria could have thousands of jobs and a clean energy future. Bolte didn't know how damaging coal is, Baillieu does. Whose future is Baillieu working for?

Ian Mack, North Fitzroy

Wind farm veto simply absurd

Herald Sun
19 Oct 2011, Page: 33

ONE resident alone can bring down a planning application for the development of a wind farm. This absurd corruption of the planning process will kill or severely limit the growth of the renewable energy industry in this state. The claims of health impacts of wind turbines are anecdotal at best. Would the Government support the same veto power for coal mines? There are similar claims of health impacts from that process also. But any ban would hurt the coal and gas companies to which they are beholden.

Rohan Sharp, North Fitzroy

Polluters' interests first

Age
19 Oct 2011, Page: 16

YOU can only be bewildered by a government that gives residents the right of veto over new wind farms within 2 km of their residence, yet potential coalmines like the one proposed for Bacchus Marsh ("Not in our backyard, locals tell upbeat mining company", The Age, 18/10), the coalmine extension at Anglesea or new coal-fired power plants like the proposed HRL plant in the Latrobe Valley are quite OK. All are, or will be, within two km of residents but have no well-funded and well-connected "Landscape Guardians" to lobby against the proposals. So excavating and burning pollutants is not a threat to the landscape.

I had to laugh at the government's comment that it was sympathetic to landowners who did not want to give up their properties for mining operations, but it would not be at the expense of the state's economic interests. Having killed off future economic benefits of wind farms, the government should just concede it is only interested in economic benefits from the polluters.

Chris Owens, Lysterfield

Record points to anti jobs stance

Age
19 Oct 2011, Page: 16

Ted Baillieu would do better to devote a bit more effort to getting Victoria out of the desalination plant's take-or-pay contract than continue his attack on Victoria's low-carbon future. This contract is going to cost Victorians far more than any slashing to the feed-in tariff will ever save.

Mr Baillieu's environmental record since the election bears summarising: slashing of the solar premium feed-in tariff; removal of the standard feed-in tariff in favour of a temporary arrangement; prohibitive restrictions on the installation of wind power generation; abandonment ofthe wind-down program for the dirty Hazelwood power station; effective abandonment of the 20% renewable energy target; and promotion of development of Melbourne's green wedges.

One could be excused for thinking that with the jobs to be lost in the solar industry, Mr Baillieu is actually anti-jobs and has no understanding that the world, like it or not, is heading into a low carbon future. But enough of this concern with the future of our children and the fate of jobs in a fickle state economy; let's get on to the important issues. Yeah, the selection of a safety slogan on number plates.

Robert Brown, Glen Iris

The big issue solar power - Golden opportunity going begging

Sunday Age
9 Oct 2011, Page: 14

READING the article on alternative energy by Michael Bachelard and Deborah Gough ("Sun shines on all sources", 2/10) my thoughts drifted towards the mining tax debate! Huge multinational companies are making a fortune off the back of mining and yet there is seemingly not enough money to invest in alternative energy.

Here's a simple suggestion: how about we increase the tax on mining companies, who continue to make massive profits digging up our precious and finite natural resources, and put this money towards investing in clean energy for the future of all Australians! Clearly we got "suckered" by the spin the first time we had the mining debate, but it's not too late to put it right. Once the resources are gone we will have lost this opportunity.

Michael Cormick, Carnegie

Europe's climate change fear rises

Sunday Age
9 Oct 2011, Page: 10

EUROPEANS believe the dangers of climate change represent a more serious problem than the current financial turmoil, according to a major new poll. The Eurobarometer poll found most people in the European Union consider global warming to be one of the world's most serious problems, with one fifth saying it is the single most serious problem. Overall, respondents said climate change was the second most serious issue facing the world, after poverty.

Connie Fledegaard, European climate commissioner, said: "This is encouraging news. The survey shows that the citizens of Europe can see that economic challenges are not the only ones we face. A clear majority of Europeans expect their politicians and business leaders to address the serious climate challenge now". She said it was striking that the public were even more concerned about climate change than in the run-up to the landmark Copenhagen summit on climate change in late 2009.

The number of people rating climate change as a very serious problem has risen slightly, from 64% when the poll was last conducted in 2009, to 68% this year. When asked to rank the seriousness of the problem, people put it at 7.4 out of 10, compared with a score of 7.1 out of 10 two years ago. People also said there were economic benefits to tackling climate change, with 8 out of 10 people saying that dealing with the problem would provide an economic boost and create jobs. Two years ago, the number was just under two-thirds.

There was also wide support for moving taxation to penalise greenhouse gas emissions and encourage energy efficiency, with an average of 68% of people across the bloc in favour of such a move. However, there was less enthusiasm for people taking personal responsibility for tackling climate change. Only one in five said they took personal responsibility, with more people saying it was for national governments, European Union authorities and businesses. Despite this, most respondents said they had taken action to combat climate change.