Joanne Nova
A prize-winning science graduate in molecular biology. She has given keynotes about the medical revolution, gene technology and aging at conferences. She hosted a children’s TV series on Channel Nine, and has done over 200 radio interviews, many on the Australian ABC. She was formerly an associate lecturer in Science Communication at the ANU. She’s author of The Skeptics Handbook which has been translated into 15 languages. Each day 5,000 people read joannenova.com.au
The EPA has approved Robbins Island Mega Wind Factory in a remote island off Tasmania that will have to stop working for five months of the year so it doesn’t hurt the Orange-bellied Parrot. It will however be able to kill eagles and other birds for the other seven months of the year.
Green electrons are revered, Orange-bellied parrots are sacred but our way of life is up for grabs. It’s a cult.
This is infrastructure that only works about 30% of the time anyhow, and now will be reduced to something like 17%. The theoretical capacity will be 340MW in the first stage, supposedly growing to 900MW if they can somehow build the extra 170km transmission lines and perhaps get the taxpayer to help build another undersea cable across the Bass Strait. (If the company was going to pay, why was the Tasmanian government spending $20m on the “business case”?)
It will be one of the largest wind factories in the Southern Hemisphere (the biggest being West of Melbourne), but as Tom Quirk showed years ago, when the wind stops in Tasmania it often also stops in Victoria. So the two giant wind factories with supposedly 2GW of random unreliable power between them will both probably be useless together.
In 2019, this mega industrial proposal was the point where the Greens suddenly realized that skeptics were right and wind-farms were ugly bird killers.
Coming in a hundred years, the Greens will figure out that we can save birds and forests if we burn brown coal:
Robbins Island wind farm proposal approved on condition of 5-month annual shutdown due to orange-bellied parrots
By Erin Cooper, Meg Powell, and Monte Bovill, ABC
A contentious wind farm proposed for Tasmania’s north-western tip has been given the green light from the state’s environment watchdog, but under the condition it doesn’t operate for almost half the year.
Philippines-based multinational renewables company ACEN has sought approval to build a wind farm with up to 122 turbines on Robbins Island and a parcel of land called Jim’s Plain, north-west of Smithton.
The Environment Protection Authority (EPA) has granted conditional approval for the project, which has been vehemently opposed by environmentalists and some Circular Head residents.
Notice the speed with which the EPA operates:
Some 383 representations were received during the public consultation period in January and February 2022.
Plenty more birds to kill:
Dr Woehler [from BirdLife Tasmania] questioned the location for the proposal, describing it as “incredible the EPA hasn’t thought at all about the 20,000 migratory and resident shore birds that use the area”.
“You cannot have a wind farm with 120-plus turbines in the middle of wetlands that are important for migratory shore birds, resident shore birds, orange-bellied parrots, eagles.
Is this the point where the Greens realize they’ve been used by Big-Money?
Robbins Island is home to more than half of Tasmania’s shorebird population, including many critically-endangered species. Not to mention the disease-free population of Tasmanian devils, bird species that migrate from the other side of the globe, and iconic wedge-tailed eagles.
The huge Tasmania wind farm faces Aboriginal cultural heritage claims too:
A request for Robbins Island and its surrounding waters be declared a significant Aboriginal area, to be preserved and protected from injury or desecration, has been submitted to federal environment minister Sussan Ley, RenewEconomy has learned.
The slaughter of birds is severe, And from habitats some disappear, When a single wind-farm, Can do terrible harm, Killing hundreds of raptors a year. –Ruairi
h/t A happy little debunker
This article originally appeared at JoNova
