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Listen to this if you’ve been affected by a wind, solar or power line project

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The Australian Energy Infrastructure Commissioner has a sole focus on receiving complaints about wind, solar, pumped hydro, battery and power line projects among others.

If you have been affected by a project underway or even one that is proposed you need to submit a complaint by following the steps at https://www.aeic.gov.au/making-a-complaint

Transcript

Chair: Senator Roberts.

Senator Roberts: Thank you for being here this morning. I understand one of my staff called you yesterday?

Mr Dyer: Yes.

Senator Roberts: He had a very pleasant talk. Thank you very much for opening the door. Is it accurate to say that you are the national commissioner for complaints about wind and solar projects?

Mr Dyer: I’d like to characterise it as the ombudsman of first and last resort. If you have a concern about a powerline, a wind farm or whatever that might be in our jurisdiction and you don’t know how to get it solved, you can come to us and we’ll figure out the right process to get the concern addressed.

Senator Roberts: When you say ‘you’, that was used in a colloquial sense. This is open to any citizen in Australia?

Mr Dyer: Yes. We’re a national service and we get complaints from around the country.

Senator Roberts: That’s wonderful to hear. So anyone who has a complaint about wind projects, solar projects, batteries or transmission can make a complaint to you?

Mr Dyer: Yes. If you go to our website, which is aeic.gov.au, the second or third tab along says ‘making a complaint’. There’s the process, the form and the policy. You can call us, you can mail us, you can email us or you can arrange to meet with us.

Senator Roberts: How many are in your office? I understand you have a small office.

Mr Dyer: We’re a very efficient team.

Senator Roberts: I wasn’t being critical.

Mr Dyer: We have, I think, five people.

Senator Roberts: And you’re meant to take care of people’s complaints about solar and wind. And you work with the state government, with the federal government, with private entities?

Mr Dyer: Yes.

Senator Roberts: Thank you.

Mr Dyer: The respondent is usually the developer to a concern. But sometimes it’s a planning process or an EPBC issue. It’s not always the developer, but usually that’s the case.

Senator Roberts: So it could get pretty complex?

Mr Dyer: Yes. We’ve had some of them going for a long time, but we get through them.

Senator Roberts: Can you perhaps talk a bit more about what you can do for someone who has a complaint that you can look at, because people are not aware. Talk to everyday Australians.

Mr Dyer: I don’t have the budget for a front page ad in the Sydney Morning Herald. But people do find us. If you’ve got constituents who have concerns, we should talk about how they can come to us. The best thing to do is promote our website, and that has all of the details. Typically our process is that, if we get a complaint, we’ll do some research on the project and the proponent, and what is going on. If we don’t already know the proponent, and in many cases we do, we will go and get a briefing or open the door, and sometimes the complainant is known to the proponent. Often they’re not known, and so we’re able to build and bridge a relationship between the complainant and the proponent to work through whatever the concerns are. Many concerns are solved by just provision of factual information. It’s often a misunderstanding or misperception that has caused them to come to us.

Senator Roberts: I certainly agree with that. I would like to ask whether you’ve received any complaints in relation to the proposed Eungella or Burdekin Pioneer pumped hydro project in the hinterland near Mackay and the proposed Borumba Dam pumped hydro and the transmission lines around Widgee, which is near Gympie in Queensland.

Mr Dyer: No.

Senator Roberts: Not any?

Mr Dyer: No.

Senator Roberts: There’s a massive community movement in both cases.

Mr Dyer: Then feel free to connect them to us and we’ll work through it.

Senator Roberts: Okay. It’s shocking to me that, in both of those projects, it appears there has been an appalling level of community consultation. This is entirely from the Queensland government. In Eungella, for example, people who were going to have their houses compulsorily resumed and flooded for the new pumped hydro dam found out via media release. Then they found out that they couldn’t get loans for their business, renovations or sell their house, because their land is now jeopardised. Transmission lines for the Borumba project near Gympie are currently proposed over prime agricultural land, which would be again compulsorily resumed despite the community pointing out that there are state-owned land corridors available nearby. Does this lack of consultation sound like it meets the needs for best practice that your office would recommend?

Mr Dyer: We find that most proponents need help in some way, shape or form. I did have a look last night at the Queensland hydro website, and it didn’t jump out to me how you might make a complaint, for example. So, it’s possible that we may need to help them get their complaint process in place. We’ve had to do that with all the TNSPs, and help them get that in place, and the policies put in place, make it transparent on the project website, and away they go.

Senator Roberts: Thank you. What does the best practice consultation look like?

Mr Dyer: It’s a long topic, but it’s about knowing who your stakeholders are and being fairly well advanced in your thinking about what you’re trying to do. If I reflect on a call I had last night, it’s don’t go about it in secret. We often get developers that want to have one-on-one discussions with the landholder to sign them up for hosting the wind farm or the solar farm and say, ‘This is very confidential. We can’t let you talk to your neighbours.’  Before the developers leave the front gate, the whole street knows what the deal is.

Senator Roberts: And they know that these guys are wanting to cover it up?

Mr Dyer: Yes.

Senator Roberts: Which doesn’t build trust.

Mr Dyer: Yes.

Senator Roberts: To build trust, developers need to listen first and then talk once they understand people’s needs?

Mr Dyer: Yes. It’s, for want of a better word, not a crude word, it’s a professional sales role that they’re in. But it’s got to be done with ethics and transparency and thinking like a landholder will think—how you go about matters.

Senator Roberts: I’ve been up to both projects, but already there are many constituents who are saying that this will never be built. It’s just going to do enormous damage. It’s just the Queensland government diverting attention in the media and in the community from serious problems like the Mackay Base Hospital. That straightaway has destroyed any trust in that community.

Mr Dyer: It sounds like they might need some help, so I’ll approach the chair and we’ll start the process.

Senator Roberts: We’ll get your website and your name and we’ll send it to—

Mr Dyer: I’ve got a card here for you. You can take that after the session.

Senator Roberts: I’m intrigued about bonds on solar and wind generators. In the coal industry, for every acre that a surface mine uncovers the coal company has to provide a bond to the government, and then it doesn’t get that bond back until the land is fully reclaimed. Sometimes the reclaimed land is far more productive and far cleaner than the original scrub. What is the bond on solar and wind generators?

Mr Dyer: It’s up to the commercial arrangement between the landholder and the proponent. It’s no different from you owning the milk bar as a commercial landlord down the main street of town. If the tenant defaults and leaves the building, you’re stuck with the bain-marie.

Senator Roberts: So, without a bond, at the end of life, solar and wind generators can just walk away from it? Where are the funds to ensure remediation?

Mr Dyer: Some landholders are quite savvy, and I have seen everything from bank guarantees to bonds being in place, but it’s not across the board. That’s not to say it’s not happening and not being done, but it needs to be a standard practice.

Senator Roberts: There is a standard in the coalmining industry, but there’s no standard in the solar and wind industry?

Mr Dyer: It’s something I’ve advocated for a long time. It’s in section 8 of my report in appendix A, that is, the need to have licensed developers accredited to have the skills to carry out the process, as we are doing in offshore wind, and also that the area being prospected has been sanctioned ahead of time.

Senator Roberts: I want to put on the record that I appreciate Mr Dyer’s frank and complete comments and his openness. It’s much appreciated. Thank you.

Chair: I think we would all agree.

Mr Dyer: Thank you.

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Wind turbines are environmental vandals

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I remember when greenies hugged trees. Now greenies chop down trees and hug manufactured wind turbines made of concrete, steel, fibreglass and gearbox oil. 40 million tonnes of wind turbine blades destined for landfill by 2050. Wind power isn’t renewable.

Transcript

There’s nothing more galling than the sight of a 100 metre wind turbine slumped over. A smouldering aluminium & concrete corpse testament to wind power’s stupidity.

Even if a wind turbine fibreglass blade makes it through a 12 year operating life, the blade is still a global waste catastrophe.

Every year, Europe already adds 2 million blades filling landfills.

At the same time that we declared plastic straws an environmental sin, our beautiful planet has 40 million tonnes of wind turbine blades destined for landfill by 2050.

Every blade of every wind turbine installed to 2030 will be in a landfill by 2050.

So-called renewables need to be renewed every 10-15 years.

We’re not building our net-zero, nature-dependent generation once. We’re doing it twice over. Or three times. With all the waste this will bring.

This is environmental vandalism, killing the environment in the name of saving it.

I remember when greenies hugged trees. Now greenies hug manufactured goods composed of concrete, steel, fibreglass and gearbox oil. Greenies are resource hogs.

Recycling wind turbine blades is not impossible. It just takes a huge amount of energy for which coal is the optimum fuel. That’s why, without affordable coal energy, wind turbine blades and solar panels are dumped not recycled.

German wind farms kill 100,000 birds a year and unlike those killed in cities, these birds tend to be endangered species due to the location of turbines.

New model turbines are approaching 240 metres in height with blades close to 120 metres.

That will need a big hole to bury.

This is not ‘free’ energy and it certainly is not ‘renewable’.

Governments should not ‘force’ a technological transition. If wind technology was any good it would not be reliant on subsidies of $500,000 per turbine per year.

Real transitions – those that serve to benefit our community – happen naturally through market forces because they have natural economic or social advantages that meet people’s real needs.

We are one community, we are one nation and the United Nations & World Economic Forum’s net-zero is environmental vandalism.

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Snowy Hydro 2.0 – The whitest white elephant in Australia

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Despite promises of being one of the world’s largest batteries for only $2 billion dollars, Snowy 2.0 is shaping up to cost over $10 billion and only supply a fraction of promised capacity.

Transcript

As a servant to the people of Queensland and Australia, I speak about the Auditor-General’s performance audit titled, No. 33—Performance audit—Snowy 2.0 governance of early implementation: Snowy Hydro Limited.

Some background for those who may be new to this project: Snowy 2.0 is an extension of the Snowy Hydro project, hence the name. In 2017, Prime Minister Turnbull announced the cost of Snowy 2.0 as $2 billion. This report states that the cost is now $5.1 billion plus billions of other costs, totalling well over $10 billion. The completion date is out to 2025, so we can expect further cost blowouts. The project involves using electricity from unreliable sources like wind and solar to pump water from a lower reservoir, Talbingo Dam, through underground pipes to an upper reservoir, Tantangara Dam. Water is then sent back down to Talbingo Dam, generating electricity on the way. Snowy 2.0 is referred to as a ‘big battery’ because water is stored in the top reservoir until it is needed. The same turbine is either pumping water uphill or generating electricity from the water coming down. The total pipe length is 27 kilometres. Generally, water is pumped up during the day—provided the sun is shining and the wind is blowing. The water is then released down the pipe to generate electricity in the evening peak, when it’s most needed. As the sun does not shine and wind goes quiet at night, pumping water back up the hill overnight, ready for the morning peak, will need coal power. The upper reservoir may hold multiple days worth of water and, at some point, the dam must be refilled, especially as Tantangara Dam is currently only 17 per cent full.

Pumped hydro only works when the dam has water in it. For every megawatt of power generated by water coming down the hill, the turbine needs 1.3 megawatts of power to get the water back up, because of losses. In total, 30 per cent more coal is used in Snowy 2.0. Pumped hydro, put simply, entails generating electricity 2.3 times to be used by consumers once. This is not cheap electricity; it’s actually really expensive electricity. The solar and wind fairy tale needs pumped hydro as a way of storing unreliable wind and power generation, which occurs mostly during the day, and moving that capacity to the evening peek, when unreliable solar and wind can’t provide baseload power.

Maximum generation for Snowy 2.0 is an impressive 2,000 megawatts, but here’s the catch: annual generation is listed in this report as 350,000 megawatt hours. Running at full capacity, Snowy 2.0 will generate electricity for only 175 hours a year. To put that into perspective, my home state of Queensland used 68 million megawatt hours last year. Snowy Hydro will contribute the equivalent of half of one per cent of Queensland’s power each year, one-tenth of one per cent of Australia’s annual generation, at a cost of $5 billion and rising—and that doesn’t include all the costs. This madness will send us broke. There’s a far better way: a 2,000-megawatt coal-fired power station is able to run at 2,000 megawatts 98 per cent of the time, 24/7. Liddell in the Hunter Valley generated nine million megawatts last year.

For less than the cost of this green fairy tale called Snowy 2.0, a coal plant can produce at least 25 times the amount of electricity. That’s why Germany’s Greens coalition government is turning Germany’s coal-fired power stations back on. Shutting ours down when we see what’s happening in the rest of the world is criminal irresponsibility. Prime Minister Albanese is promising reduced electricity prices while at the same time building horribly expensive power generation. The Prime Minister’s agenda will fail, and he will take Australia down with him. Instead, One Nation will build baseload power stations, reduce the cost of electricity, restore grid reliability, restore grid stability, restore Australian manufacturing and restore the income of working Australians.

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Wind and solar cannot solve high power prices and inflation

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Alan Finkel is right when he says we are at a turning point in history. There are two paths for Australia to choose between. One leads to a country where manufacturing thrives and everyone, including the poor, enjoys better living standards on the back of affordable and reliable power. On the other, power prices continue to rise, and the stability of our grid is at risk.

With the highest amount of wind, solar and battery power feeding into the grid in history, Australia’s wholesale power prices have never been higher. All Australians are going to feel the brunt of these price increases. This is a primary cause of our current inflation and it will only get worse, as I have been warning for two years.

Despite net-zero rhetoric, there is an unavoidable truth. Wind and solar cannot solve high power prices and inflation.

Committing to net-zero means that  Government has signed a blank cheque to the wind, solar and battery industry whose only solution is more of the same power shortages and high prices.

For example, the closure of the Liddell coal fired power station will be a loss of 2000MW of dispatchable power.

With unreliable renewables operating on average at 23% of their rated capacity because wind and solar take days off, Australia will need hundreds of square kilometres of solar panels to replace Liddell.[1]

Those hundreds of square kilometres of panels, even running at full capacity, won’t guarantee power is being made when needed. Solar power peaks at midday, far away from the peak demand in the early morning and evening. Wind droughts lasting months have wreaked havoc in Europe.[2] Batteries cannot and won’t fix the gap.

The largest battery in Australia can supply 300MW for an hour and a half, a pittance compared to the 2000MW Liddell could produce.[3] That’s even before we consider that because of transmission and power conversion, battery storage might waste around 20% of the power we use to charge them.[4]

What does all this mean? Wind and solar subsidies force other, more reliable sources of power out of the market. Coal generators are forced into early retirement. Nuclear can’t even be investigated.

Wind and solar are inefficient and intermittent. There is less supply of electricity and it is more unreliable. That makes power more expensive and risky for businesses, employers and wage-earners.

Wind, solar and battery advocates claim that a ‘plan to transition the grid’ can solve all this. What is rarely said is that the plan to ditch coal could cost $320 billion, a cost that one way or another Australians will have to pay from their hip pocket.[5]

Australia is facing down the barrel of a cost of living and inflation crisis. We must abandon the ill-advised forced uptake of wind and solar that is going to keep making power bills more expensive.

Instead, we must stop demonizing coal and build coal fired power stations to cover our transition. Power companies must know that the government won’t force coal to go broke so they can freely invest to maintain their existing assets and build more.

Wherever possible we must build dams with hydro power and retro fit hydro. Snowy Hydro 2.0 has laid bare the false promises of pumped hydro.[6]

And finally, we must investigate nuclear power. Australia has had a nuclear reactor running in Lucas Heights, Sydney since 1958.[7] Australia’s ban on nuclear power is no longer fit for purpose. Everything must be on the table to be investigated if it means bringing Australia’s power bills down.

Although electricity from nuclear is typically more expensive than coal and hydro, in places such as South Australia with its massive uranium reserves and low thermal value coal, nuclear needs to be considered.

It may be years before some of these solutions take effect, but it will be even longer if we do not start them now. Decades of politicians making decisions for the next election instead of the next generation has left Australia with this cost of living and inflation crisis. We must act today with a vision for the future, rooted in reality and with the sole focus of making Australian living cheaper and easier while being environmentally responsible.

[1] For example, 1800Mw Liddell output at 90%, 10-30% capacity factor of solar, estimated 2-3ha (0.02-.03sqkm) per MW of solar power

[2] https://theconversation.com/what-europes-exceptionally-low-winds-mean-for-the-future-energy-grid-170135

[3] https://www.energy-storage.news/victorian-big-battery-australias-biggest-battery-storage-system-at-450mwh-is-online/#:~:text=The%20Victorian%20Big%20Battery%2C%20a,for%20the%20state%20of%20Victoria.

[4] https://opennem.org.au/energy/nem/?range=1y&interval=1w Battery (Charging) vs. Battery (Discharging)

[5] https://www.afr.com/policy/energy-and-climate/why-it-will-cost-320b-to-ditch-coal-in-three-maps-and-a-chart-20220608-p5as3t

[6] https://www.smh.com.au/national/five-years-on-snowy-2-0-emerges-as-a-10-billion-white-elephant-20220310-p5a3ge.html

[7] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_Flux_Australian_Reactor

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Wind and Solar subsidies have to be ditched

Australia has the largest amount of money (wasted) on intermittent renewables in our history, the most wind and solar feeding into the grid in history, and what is the result? Skyrocketing power prices and risk of blackouts! Ditch wind and solar subsidies. Bring back cheap, reliable power.

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Climate policies costing every household $1300 annually

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Climate policies costing every household $1300 annually On Outsiders this morning, Dr Alan Moran release a report I commissioned which analysed the financial impact of climate policies and renewable subsidies on Australian households.

The report, ‘The Hidden Cost of Renewables on Electricity Prices’ uncovers blatant distortions and key facts that are excluded from reporting on the costs of climate policies. Here are the secrets the government has been hiding from you

  • Climate policies account for 39% of your electricity bills not 6.5% as reported.
  • Climate policies are costing you $13 billion a year through higher electricity prices
  • Renewable subsidies and policies cause a net loss of jobs in the economy, as every subsidised “green” job created, 2.2 jobs are lost elsewhere in the economy.

Read the report:

Dr Alan Moran Report – The Hidden Cost of Climate Policies and Renewables

Press Release:

$13 billion hidden cost on households revealed
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Dr Alan Moran Report – The Hidden Cost of Climate Policies and Renewables

Australia’s excessively high electricity prices are undermining our economic resilience and competitiveness and cutting our standards of living. Since 2002 Australian governments, in a misguided quest to reduce carbon dioxide, have introduced climate policies at the expense of cheap coal and gas power. Our electricity prices, once the lowest in the world, have become one of the most expensive.

This report, commissioned by Senator Malcolm Roberts, undertakes a comprehensive analysis of climate policies and renewable energy subsidies. Australians will be shocked to know the true financial burden of these policies on households and industry. These hidden costs drive up all costs of living, including electricity, food, water and transport.

In summary, the report states the financial impact of climate policies and renewable subsidies:

  • costs households at least $13 billion annually, or around $1300 per household;
  • accounts for 39% of household electricity bills, not 6.5% the Government typically quotes;
  • causes a net loss of jobs in the economy; with every green subsidised job created, 2.2 jobs are lost.

The full report can by downloaded by clicking the button below:

Dr Alan Moran – The Hidden Cost of Climate Policies and Renewables

View online:

200819-Dr-Alan-Moran-Report_

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