Australia’s Agricultural Land Sacrificed for Wind & Solar

By Steven Tripp and Leigh Evans

1. “Advance Australia Fair”

Australia has a vast landscape. As its National Anthem states, ‘We’ve boundless plains to share’. At least that’s what Australians thought and this is probably how many British readers see the country too.

Well, it seems it’s time to think again. In regional and rural Australia, there is a shift taking place – the shift to ‘renewables’ – and this now has ordinary Australians incensed at this literal ‘land grab’ by the Democratic Socialist Canberra government of Anthony Albanese.

2. You could fit 7 Luxembourgs and 6 Maltas into just one of these ‘Nutter Zero’ land-grabs

Occupying an area of 20,000km² - this REZ is described as a ‘modern-day power station’ and will join up wind, solar, battery and high-voltage transmission line projects within the area, engulfing more than six entire towns. To put this into context for readers from the UK and the EU, you could fit seven countries the size of the EU’s Luxembourg into the ‘Central-West Orana Renewable Energy Zone’, and still have plenty of room left over for six countries the size of the EU’s Malta.

© Brexit Facts4EU.Org 2024 - click to enlarge

At last count, local Community Groups have tallied the CWOREZ to include over 1,000 wind turbines and the blindingly-huge number of nine million solar panels.

3. The scope of these ‘renewables’ projects is not even limited to land

Referring once again back to Australia’s national anthem, “Advance Australia Fair”, the country is said to be “girt by sea”. [‘Girt’ meaning enclosed – Ed]. The problem is that “For those who've come across the seas” it will be necessary for them to navigate their way carefully though thousands of kilometers of a giant, wired-up grid of wind turbines before they can reach land.

If the Government’s plans all go ahead, there will be major tracts of Australia’s bordering oceans which will no longer resemble anything to ‘strain joyfully’ over.

4. The equivalent of 150 Gibraltars are to sink below the waves

From Steven Tripp : “In late July, I was asked to speak at a rally in Lake Illawarra to oppose the offshore wind turbines project being proposed 20km off their coastline. As I addressed the audience, I stood on stage and looked towards the pristine coastline, unable to comprehend that what is being proposed will take up an area of these glorious stunning waters covering 1,022km². "

One of the UK's new aircraft carriers visiting Gibraltar two years ago.

© Brexit Facts4EU.Org 2024 - click to enlarge

To put such a vast area of the sea into perspective for British and EU-based readers, the Illawarra offshore area would comfortably swallow up 150 Gibraltars – the iconic UK territory in the Mediterranean.

Whilst unfathomably enormous, the Illawarra project is in fact the smallest of six offshore wind projects proposed by the Australian Federal Government, as shown in our 'Observations' below. While the media focus on concerns regarding views of the coastline being ruined, there are far greater environmental consequences of offshore wind. Existing American projects have seen a significant increase in whale deaths, while on July 13 2024, a turbine caught fire in Nantucket, resulting in green fibreglass material washing up over their coast.

5. Why does Australia need offshore wind in the first place?

A now ‘removed’ report by the Victorian State Government admits to the rationale that has been used. Published in March 2022, the ‘Offshore Wind: Policy Directions Paper’ argued why the Victorian Government could not only rely on onshore wind and solar, but also needed to embrace offshore wind:-

‘Analysis indicates that to meet net-zero targets using onshore renewables could require up to 70 per cent of Victoria’s agricultural land to host wind and solar farms.’ The paper goes on to say: ‘achieving full energy decarbonisation with only onshore renewables is an implausible prospect’.

6. Australia’s cheap energy flows out, while hugely-costly turbines and solar panels flood in

Of course, all these wind and solar projects are relying on components that come from overseas. Australia has abundant energy reserves, yet it is shipping those resources offshore so that other countries can benefit from the cheap energy these provide. Meanwhile, Australia is importing their unreliable and expensive wind and solar components.

Worse still, Australia’s Government plans to be installing these industrial-scale wind and solar projects on valuable agricultural and grazing land, off the country’s pristine coasts, or in sensitive biodiverse areas - if Anthony Albanese and his Labor Party colleagues get their way.

Just as in the UK, those in the Australian cities are relatively untroubled by the mayhem which may be coming down the path. All of this is ‘out-of-sight and out of mind’ for city dwellers and for Parliamentarians representing city seats - and the latter have jumped on the bandwagon. We need to ‘catch the new wave’ and ‘champion a new economy’ they claim. Unfortunately, Australia’s valuable agricultural land is ‘unrenewable’ if it is allowed to be torn up by wind and solar projects.

7. Our view

Our view is that apart from all the other reasons for alarm, Australia’s own food security is at threat if agricultural land is consumed by industrial scale wind, solar and high-voltage transmission line projects. Once it is gone, it is gone for good.

For what was always supposed to be a land of plenty like Australia, we would argue this puts these projects firmly into the ‘Nutter Zero’ category.

Did these Parliamentarians realise that these new, ‘modern-day power stations’ would take up a land footprint of 20,000km²?

The locals of the Central-West Orana REZ have already seen its capacity increased twice, without adequate community consultation. It begs the question – when will this land grab for new ‘Nutter Zero power stations’ end?

For rural and regional Australians, they are left helpless as the figures for these projects keep changing, the costs blow out and the enacted legislation does not ‘act’ to protect NSW from any of the environmental destruction or reckless financial spending taking place.

Will the UK look to its Australian cousins and revert from going down the same path?