By Bert Hetebry

Holidaying down at Busselton in the last week, enjoying time catching up with family and taking opportunity to walk for miles on the pristine beach.

Busselton is in the State parliamentary district of Vasse, one of the few Liberal held seats in the W.A. lower house. And there are plans afoot to build a wind farm 35km offshore.

Shock horror!

As I was strolling along, back to the jetty where hopefully the cafe would be open, I was asked whether I liked the view… pointing to the horizon, a line separating the dark blue of the water and the lighter blue of the morning sky, I was assured that the plans to change that view with ugly wind turbine towers was going to happen… the line would be interrupted by a series of wind turbines, 15 to 70km off shore at between Mandurah and Bunbury, the most southerly turbines about 70km north of where we were standing, in other words, the view he was extolling, which would only be ruined if you stood on the nearby newly constructed hotel of about six stories high, to see, on a good day, the most southerly of the 200 turbines, maybe, just the very top of the arc as the turbine rotated, but only using very powerful binoculars.

I asked the person apart from the view, what other concerns he had about the proposed plan. Killing of sea birds was one objection. The expense of the project, reliability of power supply were just some of the further objections he raised. The conversation flowed on to solar panels and their contribution to renewable energy, batteries and so forth, and again, negativity was the underlying sentiment of his responses. The short active life of solar panels and that they finish off in landfill, the unreliability of power generation, only while the sun is shining, batteries are not adequate to the task, and so on and on he rambled until I saw someone wandering down with a coffee cup in hand and begged off.

I was more than a little disturbed by the gentleman’s objections to renewable energies and sought a quick google to do casual fact check, and surprisingly, his fears appear to be unfounded.

Firstly, the impact of the turbines on birds, yes, it is agreed that some birds do get killed by the rotating turbine blades. Birds also fly into high rise glass towers and die, they even fly into my windows in the evening when lights are on inside and the glass doors are closed. And yes, it is not a good thing to see, but when we consider the area which the wind farm will occupy as a part of the ocean, the danger is minimal and will have been considered in the planning.

Secondly, the expense and reliability of getting the power to shore using underwater cables. Listening to the objection, I thought this may be the first time ever that this problem had been considered, that we were likely to electrocute the marine life, kill off the fish and endanger the lives of surfers and swimmers with electricity seeping into the ocean.

Thirdly, this is not new technology, the first offshore wind farm was constructed in 1991 and had an operational life of over 35 years, Denmark’s fishing industry has not collapsed due to fish stocks being electrocuted. Currently there are about 290 offshore wind farms operating around the world with 26 more under construction. China has the most offshore turbine capacity followed by United Kingdom, Germany and Vietnam.

Fourthly, longevity. Wind farms have a designed minimum operating life of 30 years and are about 90% recyclable or able to be repurposed after decommissioning.

Another objection raised was the recycling of solar panels, that they end up in landfill, creating more problems after their useful life.

Up to 95% of materials used in solar panels are recyclable and has become an important industry both here in Australia and wherever solar panels have become an important part of the power generating mix. Panels have a useful life of between 20 and 30 years and contain both easy to recycle components such as aluminium frames and glass, and other metals including copper and silver. The cost for recycling is around $20 per panel. So yes, it costs money to get rid of the old ones to replace them when they are no longer doing the job. But they no longer end in landfill.

I was told batteries won’t do the job in providing power when the sun isn’t shining, or the wind isn’t blowing. Tell that to my friend who recently installed solar panels and battery and uses that to power his new EV as well as his day-to-day power needs in his home and shed. Tell that to the people of South Australia who have batteries connected to the grid after the epic fail of several years ago. Or the bank of batteries coming online in the Kwinana hud south of Perth. But some people don’t want to know. they’d rather use… COAL was the answer given to my question when I asked another local. Not surprising really since the coal mining centre of Collie is nearby. I half expected nuclear as being the preferred option.

And the alternative offer by the federal opposition: Nuclear.

Time and again the leader of the opposition has tried to goad the Prime Minister on the election campaign to comment on reducing the cost of electricity, yet the proposition by the opposition is to build very expensive nuclear power plants and has now asked that the question should be put to the electorate as a plebiscite. Two questions actually, do we support Nuclear Power Station and would we like one in our back yard. I can just see the results of such a plebiscite, yes, absolutely need nuclear power, but heck no, not in my back yard.

Perhaps the opposition leader is still basking in the afterglow of having won the race debate, the defeat of the Voice Referendum, that he should be proposing a plebiscite on Nuclear Power. However, his comments regarding the Marriage Equality plebiscite are interesting, commenting that the ‘postal survey had worked, was appropriate for “fundamental change” to society, but should not be repeated. (Unless it is my idea?). I think a popular vote on what was a human rights issue – equality before the law – was a very bad idea.’

I would think that if the Marriage Equality plebiscite were, as he sates, a human rights issue, the law that was changed would have been one which denied a human right and therefore needed changing. Which then leads onto the proposed plebiscite to gain endorsement for a change to the law which would allow nuclear power plants to operate in Australia sometime in the next twenty years or so since that is how long it will take according to the various commentators on this topic, coal fired plants will have to keep operating and CO2 emissions will keep rising as renewable energy sources are rejected.