Renew Economy reported on Andrew (Twiggy) Forrest’s 414-megawatt (MW) Uungula Wind Farm, which has begun pouring concrete foundations for 69 turbines:
“Squadron—controlled by iron ore billionaire and green energy evangelist Andrew Forrest—revealed that 11 foundations had already been poured, with foundation anchor cages currently being assembled in preparation for reinforcing steel installation and further concrete pours”, Renew Economy reported.
The above photo highlights the deleterious environmental impacts of wind turbines.
First, lots of land and trees need to be cleared to make room for wind turbines.
Second, each wind turbine requires up to 1,000 tonnes of concrete and reinforced steel for the foundation.
Third, trees and vegetation need to be cleared for service roads to each wind turbine.
Fourth, vast land and resources are consumed by the many transmission lines and transformers required to connect the spiders’ web of turbines to the grid.
Finally, given the intermittent nature of wind, considerable land and resources are consumed by pumped hydro or battery storage needed to store excess power for use during wind droughts.
As a case study, consider Millmerran coal-fired power station near Toowoomba, Queensland, which opened in 2002 and cost $1.5 billion to build. It is located approximately 130 kilometres from Brisbane, has an 850 MW capacity, and can run almost continuously, independent of the weather.
The typical wind turbine operating in Australia has a nameplate of 3 MW. However, the most recent models under development can generate a maximum of around 6 MW, so I’ll be generous and use that higher figure.
To replace the Millmerran coal-fired power station with wind power, around 140 turbines (850 divided by 6) would be required solely for the nameplate.
However, wind power has a capacity factor of around 35%, which means that around 400 wind turbines would be required to provide Millmerran’s typical electricity output. And because wind is intermittent, these wind turbines would need to be supplemented with extensive battery and pumped hydro storage to ensure that power is available on demand.
In other words, wind turbines might generate no emissions, but they certainly aren’t “green”.
For these reasons, various green groups in Australia have lobbied against the rollout of “biodiversity-destroying” wind turbines across regional Australia.
Veteran conservationist and former federal Greens leader Christine Milne is among those opposing wind farms, labelling them a “developer-led mess”.
Milne has been joined by the former Wilderness Society national campaigns director Amelia Young, who recently quit the group, citing “intolerable … attitudes and behaviours”, and warning of a dire threat to nature posed by the renewables rollout.
Queensland wilderness photographer Steven Nowakowski warned that Queensland rainforest reserves have been earmarked for destruction to make way for wind turbines:
“Chalumbin was just the tip of the iceberg—the entire great dividing range of Queensland, all the high-elevation forests, are all earmarked to get fragmented, smashed and dynamited (by wind farms)”, he said.
Construction at the Lotus Creek Wind Farm
Anyone who genuinely cares about the environment and climate change should advocate for nuclear energy, as it is a zero-emission source, has the smallest environmental footprint, and requires the least amount of materials and resources.
