Antinuclear

Victorians now being won over to wind energy?

Two weeks after the forum in Seymour, VCAT finally approved Cherry Tree. It is now only the second wind farm to win planning permission in Victoria since August 2011.

Against the wind  The Age, December 19, 2013 Michael Green Planning restrictions and health fears have left Victorians reluctant to embrace wind power. But this may be changing. Gwenda Allgood is a no-nonsense local councillor, five times a mayor, from Ararat. In mid-November she travelled east to Seymour to speak about wind farms at a forum on energy held in the bowls club hall.

“We did not have one objection,” she told the audience, explaining the benefits of the Challicum Hills wind farm, built in 2003. “I can only speak as I find: there is no noise [from the turbines]. I don’t know why, but there isn’t. And they’re our best ratepayer – they pay well, they really do.”

There were about 50 people in the hall and almost all were renewable energy supporters. The event was hosted by a local environment group, with speakers on the topics of home retrofitting, community solar power and the campaign against coal seam gas.

But there was one key reason for the afternoon’s proceedings: the Cherry Tree wind farm with its 16 turbines planned for a nearby ridgeline above the Trawool Valley.

After receiving 117 objections, the local council delayed and finally denied the permit – against the advice of its planning officers. The company appealed; the matter had already been before the tribunal for 10 months…….

Like the rest of the world, Australia urgently needs to reduce its carbon dioxide emissions. New wind turbines are already cheaper than new coal or gas-fired power stations, even without carbon pricing.

And yet the forecast for wind power use is remarkably mixed.

In 2009, the South Australian government set a target for renewables to cover one-third of its energy production by 2020. Already, it has nearly met the mark. Wind power alone now accounts for 27 per cent of that.

But, in Victoria, the industry has stalled. In August 2011 the state government stiffened its planning rules, giving people who live within two kilometres of wind farms the right to veto, and prohibiting turbines in several regions

A new report from Victoria’s Commissioner for Environmental Sustainability, Professor Kate Auty, says wind power comprises less than 3 per cent of the state’s electricity generation.

The report strongly criticises the planning restrictions, arguing they discourage a shift to low-carbon energy, make it more difficult and costly to reduce carbon dioxide emissions and damage the local economy.

“Many proposals for new wind farms in Victoria have been withdrawn. Lost investment has been estimated at $4 billion and 3000 jobs,” the report says, quoting figures from the Clean Energy Council.

The Labor Party has promised to repeal the restrictions if it wins government in next year’s state election. In the meantime, the new federal government appears unlikely to encourage the industry…….

Two weeks after the forum in Seymour, VCAT finally approved Cherry Tree. It is now only the second wind farm to win planning permission in Victoria since August 2011.

The tribunal said the Victorian and NSW heath departments had expressly stated “there is no scientific evidence to link wind turbines with adverse health effects”, a view backed by the National Health and Medical Research Council.

It rejected the survey evidence of health concerns tended by anti-wind groups, the Waubra Foundation and the Landscape Guardians.

“To be of any real value such surveys need to be carried out by qualified professionals on respondents selected by accepted random selection methods, and subjected to an analysis that yields statistically valid results,” it said…….http://www.theage.com.au/national/against-the-wind-20131218-2zlcx.html

December 19, 2013 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | Victoria, wind