LANDHOLDERS should be capitalising on seismic changes in how we generate energy, says Matthew Wright, but instead they are being pushed aside.
Mr Wright, executive director of Beyond Zero Emissions, thinks the thrust of current government policy will be to deny many landholders the ability to profit from wind generation, while compromising the enterprises of other landholders who host coal seam gas (CSG) operations without sharing in CSG profits.
Beyond Zero Emissions, a non-profit organisation, has the goal of moving Australia "from a 19th century fossil fuel based economy to a 21st century renewable powered clean tech economy".
Wind turbines are "about as benign as it gets" for power generation, Mr Wright said, adding CSG is a "fairly destructive option for resource exploitation".
"You can quantify the environmental impacts of wind turbines pretty easily, and add them all up; it's difficult to quantify the impacts of CSG, because they are quite variable."
But government policy, as Mr Wright sees it unfolding in NSW - with other States apparently to follow - appears to be about supporting CSG and sidelining wind.
"It's about health. Our predominant energy supply is causing serious health effects to people and the environment, where wind turbines just aren't causing health issues.
"If you offered to resettle those complaining about wind turbines next to a coal mine in the Hunter Valley, and offered those near coal mines to resettle within a kilometre or two of a wind turbine, I think a survey ... would find those relocated to the coal mine would want to go back."
Stock and Land
No comments:
Post a Comment