Australia’s Agricultural Land Sacrificed for Wind & Solar
By Steven Tripp
Australia has a vast landscape. As our National Anthem states, ‘We’ve boundless plains to share’.
At least that is what we thought.
In Regional and Rural Australia, there is a shift taking place. The shift to ‘renewables’.
In New South Wales, agricultural and grazing land are under threat by Renewable Energy Zones (REZ).
There are five zones declared in the State, including Illawarra, Hunter-Central Coast, South West (Hay) and New England.
The first to be rolled out is the Central-West Orana Renewable Energy Zone (CWOREZ), with an area of 20,000km². The REZ will congest wind, solar, battery and high-voltage transmission line projects within the area, engulfing the towns of Dubbo, Dunedoo, Coolah, Gilgandra, Mudgee and Wellington.
At last count, local Community Groups have tallied the CWOREZ to include over 1,000 wind turbines and 9,000,000 solar panels.
However, the scope of these ‘renewables’ projects is not limited to land.
In late July, I was asked to speak at a rally in Lake Illawarra to oppose the offshore project being proposed 20km off their coastline. As I addressed the rally, I stood on stage and looked towards their pristine coastline, unable to comprehend that what is being proposed will be 1,022km².
To put that into perspective, Singapore is 735km² and New York City is 790km².
Unfathomably, the Illawarra project is the smallest of six offshore wind projects proposed by the Australian Government. Southern Ocean Victoria will be 1,030km², Hunter NSW 1,854km², Bunbury WA 3,995km², Bass Strait Tasmania 10,136km².
The big kahuna will be Gippsland Victoria at 15,000km².
It boggles the mind.
While media focus on concerns of views of the coastline being ruined, there are far greater environmental consequences of offshore wind. Existing American projects have seen a significant increase in whale deaths. While on July 13, a turbine caught fire in Nantucket, resulting in green fibreglass material washing up over their coast.
Why do we need offshore wind in the first place, you might ask?
A now ‘removed’ report by the Victorian Government admits to the rationale.
Published in March 2022, the ‘Offshore Wind: Policy Directions Paper’ argued why the Victorian Government could not only rely on onshore wind and solar, but also needed embrace offshore wind. Pages 18 and 19 detailed their argument.
‘Analysis indicates that to meet net-zero targets using onshore renewables could require up to 70 per cent of Victoria’s agricultural land to host wind and solar farms.’
The paper goes on to say: ‘achieving full energy decarbonisation with only onshore renewables is an implausible prospect’.
Source: Offshore wind: policy directions paper - victoria state government - https://web.archive.org/web/20220328031328/https://www.energy.vic.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0016/561400/Offshore-Wind-Policy-Directions-Paper.pdf
A figure provided in the paper states that Victoria has ~127,000km² of agricultural land, 70% of that would be 88,900km², or roughly the size of Serbia.
Of course, all these wind and solar projects are relying on components that come from overseas.
Australia has abundant energy reserves, yet we are shipping those resources offshore so that other countries can benefit from the cheap energy they provide. Meanwhile, we are importing their unreliable and expensive wind and solar components.
Worse still, we are installing these industrial-scale wind and solar projects on valuable agricultural and grazing land, off our pristine coasts, or in sensitive biodiverse areas.
Despite this, it is all ‘out-of-sight and out of mind’ for City people.
City Parliamentarians have jumped on the bandwagon. We need to ‘catch the new wave’ and ‘champion a new economy’ they claim.
Unfortunately, our valuable agricultural land is ‘unrenewable’.
Our food security is at threat if agricultural land is consumed by industrial scale wind, solar and high-voltage transmission line projects.
Once it is gone, it is gone for good.
By Steven Tripp