Clearing the Planet to Save It

If you’ve ever wanted to get an idea of the sheer size of modern wind turbines, just pull your car over while a truck carrying a single blade crawls past, taking up most of the highway. Then remember that that’s just one blade, on one turbine, out of a “farm” of dozens of the monsters.

All for a paltry “capacity” of a hundred or so megawatts for the whole wind farm (“capacity” is what they’re theoretically capable of outputting: in reality, they rarely generate more than a bare fraction of “capacity”).

Not to mention the shocking environmental cost. In just over a decade of operation, a single wind farm in Tasmania killed about 5% of the island’s endangered wedge-tailed eagles. That was before the Chinese-backed rush to put up more than 500 of the monstrosities in the last few years.

But mashing birds and exploding the lungs of bats is just the start of the environmental horror of “green” wind energy.

This is the Kaban wind farm site in North Queensland being cleared right now for a renewable wind farm project.

The next wilderness to be cleared and fragmented is Chalumbin for a similar wind farm that is four times bigger than Kaban.

These are not just farmlands being converted to wind farms, this is wilderness being bulldozed to make way for the monsters. Wilderness that was home to iconic species such as koalas, and a number of endangered species as well.

The Magnificent Brood Frog is now closer to extinction. The 75m wide haulage roads cut straight through two of the three only known locations where frogs are found on the site. So much for no net-loss of habitat in the species Recovery Plan.

The EPBC environmental offset is a complete farce. The balance of land that isn’t cleared is the offset! This is a complete failure of the Environmental Protection and Biodiversity Act (EPBC Act).

Of all the pathetic talk about protecting habitat for Greater Gliders is a joke.

The Kaban and Chalumbin sites contain some of the most special forests that abut the Wet Tropics World Heritage Area.

Nuclear For Climate

And what do we get in return for all this destruction?

Kaban Green Power Hub(external link) is a $373 million renewable energy project located in the Atherton Tablelands of Far North Queensland.

It consists of a 157MW wind farm.

Department of Environment and Science

Again, that’s “capacity”, not actual generation. A single nuclear plant could reliably generate 50 times as much.

Federal Kennedy MP Bob Katter said the development would threaten birds and several vulnerable species in the area, including the greater glider.

“Every north Queenslander must answer these questions: Do you want your natural wonderland turned into an industrial wasteland,” Mr Katter said.

ABC Australia

Who cares, just so long as some Teal voter in their Harbourside mansion gets a warm glow as they charge their EV with “green” power.