Are wind farms good for anything? They destabilise electricity grids, fail at crucial moments and drive up power prices. Worse, they inflict massive social and economic damage on rural communities and devastate natural environments.
Is it any wonder they don’t build them anywhere near the wealthy Teal electorates? Just imagine the almighty meltdowns if they built them on the windswept cliffs above Manly and Bondi, or in the sea opposite Anthony Albanese’s multi-million-dollar cliff-top mansion.
So, stick them out of sight of the rich idiots who vote Green and Teal and make them hardworking rural people’s problem.
NSW councils at the forefront of the renewable energy transition have laid bare serious planning failures and raised doubts that the promised riches will deliver long-term benefits to the very communities selected to power the nation.
Big surprise: rivers of taxpayer money attracts cowboys and troughers like flies to the ‘Net Zero’ bullshit.
In their submissions to a NSW parliamentary inquiry, local governments have revealed a chaotic process that benefits developers, many foreign-owned, over rural and regional communities struggling to cope with a barrage of wind and solar proposals, transmission towers and large battery systems.
Mid-Western Regional Council general manager Brad Cam said on Friday that the rollout of the Central-West Orana Rez, the most advanced of all Australia’s declared renewable energy zones, was an unfolding disaster.
Yet another disaster Labor will leave behind them long after they’re gone. And yet more failed promises from the Climate Cult.
These experiences are at odds with state and federal government promises of a jobs and economic bonanza for the rural and regional communities forced to shoulder the transition away from fossil fuels to meet Australia’s commitment to net zero by 2050 […]
While individual landholders can make good money leasing their land to wind and solar farms, and developers shower sweeteners on neighbours and community groups, some local governments warned that ratepayers would end up burdened with major disruption and long-term costs.
As is always the way with anything ‘climate’, the only people who benefit are the cronies who inevitably chase ‘free’ taxpayer’s money.
A recent report by the conservative Institute of Public Affairs think tank found federal subsidies for the 50 largest wind farms – of which 70 per cent are fully or partially foreign owned – amounted to $1.04bn last year.
The Country Mayors Association said that the revenue generated by renewables projects was rarely held within the local economy.
In fact, they’re a drain on local economies.
Mr Cam said more than 90 per cent of the 800-strong temporary workforce required to build two solar farms were from outside the region, increasing pressure on housing stocks and contributing to a 19 per cent surge in rents.
Medical services were stretched, local families were displaced as landlords cashed in on short-term workers, and tourist accommodation was “continuously exhausted by workers with lower disposable income than traditional tourists”.
If these monstrosities are a blight on small rural towns, they’re an even more devastating plague on the environment.
Ecological experts are joining calls for a temporary halt to new large-scale renewables in crucial nature hotspots, amid growing concern over the destruction of the environment to make way for green energy projects.
Former Queensland government principal botanist Jeanette Kemp said there would be “considerable backlash’’ if the general public was fully aware of the extent of land clearing and fragmentation of valuable habitat to make way for some wind farms in Queensland.
But they’re kept safely away from anywhere that Greens voters and Climate Cultists – who pullulate in the rich, inner suburbs of the big cities – might be bothered by seeing the consequences of their idiotic ideologies. People who actually live in the countryside, on the other hand, are seeing the devastation up close.
Communities in renewable energy zones in NSW and Victoria have long voiced concerns about quality agricultural land being used for the rush of large-scale solar, wind, battery and transmission projects but there is growing alarm at the damage to sensitive landscapes and areas close to national parks, world heritage areas, protected wetlands and migratory flight paths.
The Wet Tropics Management Authority has issued concerns about the cumulative scale of proposed developments that would involve clearing of relatively intact land near the world heritage area. The National Parks Association of NSW has fought the planned construction of high voltage power lines in Kosciuszko National Park as part of the Snowy 2.0 project.
“Maybe with so many people on the more conservative side of politics and the left wing side of politics all saying this is out of control, we’ll get something done.”
Maybe the left will stop being Greens activists and start being environmentalists for a change.
