Antinuclear

Australian farmers missing opportunity to profit by farming energy

Farmers squeezed out of energy boon, MATTHEW CAWOOD, Stock and Land 04 Feb, 2012 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.”……
Mr Wright estimated 2000 modern 7.5MW on-shore wind turbines could
deliver more than half NSW’s power requirements.

And he pointed to the alternative, on display in the American hotspots
of gas extraction, Wyoming and Pennsylvania.

“From the air you can see roads, wells, pipelines and evaporation
ponds that completely gut the connectivity between farm fields. These
operations are like a web: you can’t avoid them.”

Once a turbine is up, its impacts stop while its benefits accrue, Mr
Wright said.

Landholders receive long-term income from leasing land for wind
turbines, and could potentially make more under the Danish
co-ownership model.

But a 2011 Australia Institute report, “Mining the Truth”, observed
that returns from resource extraction, including gas, mostly go
offshore.

“In 2009-10 mining profits were $51 billion, of which 83pc, or $42b,
accrued to foreign investors,” the report stated.

“Over the next 10 years pre-tax profits for mining will likely be
around $600b; at present levels of foreign ownership around $500b of
these profits will end up in the hands of foreign owners.”……
http://sl.farmonline.com.au/news/nationalrural/agribusiness-and-general/general/farmers-squeezed-out-of-energy-boon/2440770.aspx?storypage=2

February 3, 2012 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | AUSTRALIA - NATIONAL, New South Wales, politics, wind | wind