Liberals don't want sustainable energy

	Is there any other major political party that actively opposes renewable energy? I'd be interested if any reader could tell me of another major political party anywhere in the Western World, or for that matter, anywhere in the whole world, that actively works to stop the development of sustainable energy. Possibly the Republican Party in the USA? About half the Liberals in Federal Parliament reject climate change science. See listings (for all parliamentarians) on the Lower House and the Senate. (February 2013).
	If the Liberals don't want renewable energy, what do they want? The Liberal Party is forward in its opposition to wind power, but reticent in stating what they will use instead. Will they build more polluting coal-fired power stations? Will they build gas-fired power stations (gas is very expensive and is still polluting, but less so than coal)? Or will they build nuclear power stations? None of these alternatives are sustainable or environmentally acceptable. (Rowan Ramsey, Federal Liberal Member for Grey, seems to prefer coal.)
	Leaked documents reveal fossil fuel influence in White Paper The ABC's Andrew Fowler reported, after reading leaked meeting minutes, that the Howard Government's Energy White Paper was heavily influenced by the fossil fuel industry and the big energy users while the renewable energy industry was not even made aware of the meetings that were taking place.
	Wind power a great success in SA In early 2003 SA had no sustainably generated electricity at all. In 2011 around 26% of SA's electricity was generated by sustainable wind power, the amount of greenhouse gas produced by the power generation industry had decreased by a similar amount, and the amount of power that SA imported from the eastern states had substantially diminished. At the same time, power consumption in SA had increased. (Data from Australian Energy Market Operator; see more here.)
	13 square kilometre exclusion zones A circle of 2km radius has an area of about 13 square kilometres, so in states where it is law that turbines not be built within 2km of houses every house will be surrounded by a 13km2 exclusion zone. This will put big gaps in many proposed wind farms and make most areas that would otherwise be well suited to wind farming unviable.
	The saddest thing The saddest thing about the anti-renewables stance of the Liberals is that it shows a complete abandonment of ethical principals in favour of some other agenda.
	Unintended consequences The decision of the Victorian Liberal Government to disalow wind turbines being built within 2km of homes without the home-owner's agreement seems to have had unintended consequences. Construction of five wind farms has been brought forward so as to avoid having to gain approval under the new laws. These wind farms might not have been built for months or years had the Victorian Government not changed the laws.
	True cost of coal Climate Progress published an article that discussed the true cost of coal when the economic, health and environmental costs are all taken into account. The original research was published in the Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences by Dr. Paul Epstein. It was calculated that if the true costs of coal was considered the price of electricity from coal fired power stations would rise by about 18 cents per kilowatt-hour (or $180/MWh). This is far higher than the wholesale price of electricity currently paid to coal-fired power producers.
	Organised political opposition to wind power in the USA Suzanne Goldenberg wrote a piece for The Guardian titled "Conservative thinktanks step up attacks against Obama's clean energy stratigy", 2012/05/08. "The proposals suggest setting up 'dummy businesses' to buy anti-wind billboards, and creating a 'counter-intelligence branch' to track the wind energy industry. A network of ultra-conservative groups is ramping up an offensive on multiple fronts to turn the American public against wind farms and Barack Obama's energy agenda." The strategy proposal has been linked to the American Tradition Institute, which sounds rather like a US equivalent to Australia's Institute of Public Affairs, which, of course, is closely linked to the Liberal Party.

Australia ranks 53^rd in the world in population, but sixth in the world in the CO₂ produced by its electricity industry; it has 0.3% of the world's population, but produces 1.5% of the world's greenhouse gasses; it is well up among the worst greenhouse polluters on the planet. This gives Australians an ethical responsibility to reduce the harm we are doing to the planet. The Federal Labor government is not doing a lot to reduce our greenhouse gas production rates, but after much dithering and mind-changing they finally legislated for a carbon tax to start in July 2012. The other major force in Australian politics, the Australian Liberal Party, are steadily becoming more strident in their statements indicating they don't want to do anything at all about reducing Australia's greenhouse gas emissions.

Wind home Top Index

In the long run it seems likely that wind and solar power will be cheaper than burning fossil fuels, so the Liberals will quite probably find out that by backing fossil fuels they have bet on the wrong horse.

The Europeans have long been leaders in attempts to reduce their climate change impact. While the Federal US government is doing little, much is being done in the USA at the state level. China is by far the leading nation in the world at present in construction of new wind farms as a way of reducing its reliance on fossil fuels and limiting greenhouse gas production.

The nations with a high per-capita rate of greenhouse gas production are the ones that have to accept most of the blame for climate change, while those that suffer the most from climate change will be the poorer nations like those of SE Asia and the pacific. (Several decades ago we could have claimed that we didn't know we were causing climate damage as an excuse for inaction; we no longer can.) Does Australia risk becoming an international pariah if the Liberals get into government and stop all action to improve Australia's position on climate change? Most Australians want action on climate change; are they willing to support a political party that wants to do nothing? Those who do will be as culpable as the Liberals themselves.

The Liberals in three Australian states have now come out in support of mandating no wind turbine being built within 2km of a home without the home owner's approval. Many people in Australia and around the world are living very happily much closer to wind turbines than that. There should be, and are, laws about maximum sound levels from turbines at homes, but a mandatory 2km limit is foolish, not supported by the evidence and will greatly limit renewable energy development in Australia.

It is proven that the emissions from coal-fired power stations damage people's health and cost people's lives. By making the building of wind farms unviable the Liberals will be responsible for thousands of unnecessary serious illnesses and hundreds of unnecessary deaths each year.

Wind home Top Index

Even the USA is acting on greenhouse gas production

Reported by The Climate Institute, 2012/03/29:

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has for the first time proposed limits on carbon pollution from new power plants. (The EPA is required to regulate CO2 emissions from power plants by the U.S. Clean Air Act, due to the threat to health and welfare caused by carbon pollution. This was confirmed by the U.S. Supreme Court in 2007.)

The EPA has proposed that new power plants may emit no more than 1000lb (363kg) of CO2 per megawatt-hour (MWh) of electricity produced. This standard permits combined-cycle gas plants, which emit 800lb CO2 per MWh, but it effectively precludes the construction of any new coal-fired plants unless they include carbon capture and storage. (The standard explicitly excludes open-cycle gas plants used to meet peak demand. For more detail, see http://epa.gov/carbonpollutionstandard/actions.html.)

January 2013; Tony Abbott's new policy advisor Maurice Newman hates wind power, doubts climate change, doesn't trust science and squeezes nine lies into one sentence

On wind power Mr Newman wrote in the publication The Spectator (not associated with Business or Climate Spectator) on January 21, 2012:   Impressive, nine lies in one sentence! I have placed links on seven of the lies on the left. The links will take readers to an explanation of the facts. Then there are two more lies: wind farms are less 'socially inequitable' than other forms of energy generation, consider community funding for example, and wind farms are much less environmentally harmful than coal, coal-seam gas, gas and nuclear. Whether they are a 'blot on the landscape' is subjective. "Even before they threatened my property, I was opposed to wind farms. They fail on all counts. They are grossly inefficient, extremely expensive, socially inequitable, a danger to human health, environmentally harmful, divisive for communities, a blot on the landscape, and don't even achieve the purpose for which they were designed, namely the reliable generation of electricity and the reduction of CO2 emissions." On the issue of whether human activity is leading to warming of the atmosphere he wrote in The Australian on November 5 last year:   The IPCC is composed of climate scientists. There is a strong consensus among climate scientists about anthropogenic climate change. It seems Mr Newman either doesn't trust science or doesn't understand how it works. "When Mother Nature decided in 1980 to change gears from cooler to warmer, a new global warming religion was born, replete with its own church (the UN), a papacy, (the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change), and a global warming priesthood masquerading as climate scientists."

That a man with such opinions and capable of such lies could ever be a chief advisor of a Prime Minister of Australia can only be called depressing.

Mr Newman does not have lack of information as an excuse for his lies on wind power. He is a member of the Community Consultative Committees for the Crookwell wind farms.

If Australia was to follow the opinions of people like Mr Newman it would put us very much out of step with our trading partners who recognise the value of sustainable energy, wind power in particular; for example the USA installed a record 13.2GW and China 14GW of wind power in 2012. (Australia's total wind power at the end of 2012 was 2.7GW.) Australia will be left behind with the most climate-polluting power generation system in the developed world.

Tony Abbott no judge of talent?

Surely one of the most valuable qualities in any (potential) national leader is the ability to choose advisors and assistants wisely and well. It seems that this is a quality that Tony Abbott is lacking.

The Liberals prefer coal to wind. Perhaps they'd like Australian cities to look like this; so long as they had plenty of money in their pockets? Beijing people are reminded what a clear sky looks like by a big screen Image credit: Feng li/Getty Images We can learn a lot from China; they have huge environmental damage, but they are making equally huge steps toward adopting sustainable energy.

• Famously (or infamously) Leader of the Opposition Tony Abbott has said that "Climate change is crap" and the Federal Opposition is implacably opposed to PM Gillard's carbon tax while not having an alternative policy to lower greenhouse gas production that any economist or environmentalist seems willing to support. Mr Abbott has also proposed to abolish the Climate Commission.
• In August 2011 the Baillieu Victorian Liberal government placed in force new laws that will make further wind power development in that state very difficult;
• Around the same time NSW Premier Barry O'Farrell said on radio that "if I had my way, we wouldn't [approve any applications for wind farms in NSW]";
• Also in August the WA Liberal Party voted 'by an overwhelming majority' for a Royal Commission into climate change science – indicating that they were not convinced that it is real.
• In September 2011 rumours were circulating that Isobel Redmond, Leader of the (Liberal) Opposition in South Australia, was considering introducing laws like those in Victoria when and if she gains power. At the same time SA Shadow Minister for Energy Mitch Williams was using the inability of solar and wind power to provide peak load power as a way of devaluing sustainable energy, both in response to my written inquiry and on ABC radio. This seems to be a political ploy to make voters think that sustainable energy has serious short-comings, while the fact is that the power supply system can easily cope;
• To cap it all off, in December 2011 the SA Liberals announced their wind farm policy in a flyer.

Clean energy: turbines and trees at Waterloo Wind Farm This photo was taken before I slept under one of the Waterloo turbines.

In any case, even if a Liberal Federal Government was to retain the 20% by 2020 target, where could the wind farms be built if Liberal governments in the states stand against renewable energy?

Declining emissions attributed to the carbon tax This graph was compiled from Australian Energy Market Operator data and published in the Sydney Morning Herald.

As I write this section the tax has only been in effect for a few months, but it seems to have already resulted in the carbon intensity of the National Electricity Market (NEM) electricity falling from about 0.9 tonnes of CO2 per MWh down to 0.85.

This is a good result at such an early time. It shows that effective action on climate change is quite possible so long as there is a will. (In fact far more could be done especially if the Federal Government was to stop compensating and subsidising the fossil fuel industry.)

So, if an Abbott government is elected, we can expect to lose this small but significant step in the right direction.

Thanks to REneweconomy for making this news public.

Victorian Health Minister complains about $6 billion savings costing $13 million

Tony McMichael, from Australian National University's College of Medicine, said ... "recent claims by Victoria's Liberal health minister, David Davis, that the carbon tax would add $13 million a year to the cost of running the state's hospitals ... were 'appalling', 'ignorant' and 'mischievous' because $13 million was a trivial 0.1 per cent of the state's annual spend."

"You can see the crudeness of that political exploitation of a society that is trying to take initial and useful steps to slow climate change in order to avert risks," he said at the launch of a report which suggests shifting to cleaner energy and transport could save the Australian community $6 billion a year in avoided health costs.

"A minister of health who holds or promulgates that sort of view ... is not fit to be a minister of health."

Victoria greatly discourages the building of wind farms

Toora Wind Farm Cattle grazing peacefully under operating wind turbines

At the same time as bringing in the 2km law, the Victorian government proclaimed a number of 'no-go zones' for wind turbines. These seem to have been arbitrarily decided by someone in the Liberal Party and justification for their locations has never been forthcoming (see below).

ABC

The ABC World Today's Anthony Stewart reported on 2012/02/17:

"Six months after the Victorian Government brought in strict rules on wind farms, there are warnings the laws are forcing the industry out of the state. Since the guidelines were introduced no new wind farm energy projects have been proposed and the future of several existing projects is in doubt. There are fears Victoria will miss out on billions of dollars in investment and potentially force up the price of electricity."

Environmental Defenders Office

Victorians call for action on climate change

"The Essential Media poll of 1009 Victorians, commissioned by conservation group Environment Victoria, found 76 per cent believed the state government should cut emissions and not leave it to the federal government to take action through a carbon tax or other steps. Among Coalition voters, 66 per cent said the state had a responsibility to cut emissions."

So it seems that the Victorian Liberals are 'backing the wrong horse' in supporting the fossil fuel industry against sustainable energy.

Victorian rules mystify Danes

"The head of the world's largest wind energy company has questioned the Baillieu government's rationale for giving households veto rights over turbines within two kilometres of their homes. Ditlev Engel, chief executive of Danish company Vestas, said he had "no idea" where the policy had come from. Mr Engel, who is visiting Victoria with Crown Prince Frederik and Tasmanian-born Crown Princess Mary, said no one had explained the motivation for Victoria's most restrictive regulations on turbines. In Denmark, when you have a wind turbine, in order to get approval, you need to be four times the height of the tip (away from a house). The tip height is 150-200 metres, so the distance from the turbine to where people live has got to be 600-800 metres. And that's fine."

Wind turbine on Salt Creek Hill One of the turbines of Starfish Hill Wind Farm

Reneging on election commitment

Liberal MP does about-face on wind power

"His campaign against the Mount Gellibrand wind farm has involved a remarkable personal shift – in the mid-2000s was a vocal champion of wind energy and obtained permits for turbines on a parcel of his own land, which he has since sold. His recent activism has included campaigning against turbines for which he previously held permits."

It seems to me that Mr Ramsay has been pressured by the Liberal hierachy, or directly by the fossil-fuel interests that seem to have so much power over the Liberal Party, to change his stance.

Where did the 'no-go zones' come from?

Cam Walker has asked Ms Petrovich to justify this claim, given the fact that surveys have shown a high level of popular acceptance for wind power. Ms Petrovich has not replied.

Ms Petrovich's email address is 'donna.petrovich@parliament.vic.gov.au'. I have asked her to justify her statement, and urge readers to do the same.

This would seem to confirm the premise of this page: that the Liberals do not want to do anything to reduce Australia's shameful rate of greenhouse gas production.

The previous Labor Government of Queensland suported a huge wind farm at Hughenden as part of a renewable energy initiative called the Copper String, but this is not suported by the new Liberal-National Government.

The Brisbane Times, 2012/06/08, reported that Environment Minister "Mr [Andrew] Powell repeated a statement he had made to ABC's Radio National that he was not convinced that humans were having an impact on climate change". Premier Campbell Newman described his minister's view as "refreshing".

ThinkProgress reported on 2012/07/18

"The latest snapshot on this inglorious race to the bottom came last week during the Queensland LNP [Liberal National Party] state conference with a motion proposed by the Noosa LNP member Richard Pearson. Pearson's motion called on the states education minister John-Paul Langbroek to "remove environmental propaganda material, in particular post-normal science about 'climate change', from the curriculum and as adjunct material at exam time". The motion was passed with party members overwhelmingly in favor.

More in September 2012

"the Solar Flagships project ..., the Queensland Climate Change Fund, the Queensland Renewable Energy Fund, the Queensland Smart Energy Savings Fund, the Solar Initiatives Package, the Waste Avoidance and Resources Efficiency Fund, the Local Government Sustainable Future Fund and the Climate Smart Home Service. Other projects to be brought to an end are the Solar Hot Water Rebate Scheme, the Solar Atlas, the Cloncurry Solar Thermal Trial Site Remediation and a separate Solar PV Farm, the Bright Thing Campaign, the Renewable Energy Industry Development Plan, and Climate Smart Business Service. The Wide Bay Community Solar Farm has been deferred."

Giving every home owner the right to veto any wind turbine within two kilometres of his or her home will make construction of wind farms in many areas in SA impractical.

Before 2003, when SA's first wind farm at Starfish Hill was built, SA had no wind power, but by 2011 SA was generating more than 20% of its electricity from clean, renewable, wind. This is a wonderful achievement, making SA a world leader in the fight against climate change, and all South Australian's should be proud of it.

Wind and hydro power are by a large margin the most viable forms of renewable energy available at present (the cost of solar is coming down, but an average utility scale wind turbine generates about 2000 times as much electricity as an average roof-top solar installation). Of course SA has negligible opportunity to develop hydro power, we have far too little rainfall for that. If the Liberals make wind power impractical they will greatly limit renewable power development in SA.

South Australia's best wind resources are mostly either on the coast or on ridge-tops within a hundred kilometres of the coast and it is not financially viable to build a wind farm a long distance from a power transmission line (which cost around a million dollars per kilometre to build).

The first anti-renewable energy flyer can be downloaded here.

Liberals thinking of country people? The December 2011 Liberal flyer on wind power tried to give the impression that the Libs were thinking of the rights of country people. If you have a look at Isobel Redmond's contact page you will see that she thinks so much about country South Australians that she is under the impression that they all live in suburbs! (She may have it changed after she reads this. Written 2012/01/24.)

On 2011/09/27 I inquired of Isobel Redmond's intentions in regard to wind power should the Liberals win the next election. The reply I had from her office (Kasia Jaruzelski) was: "I can assure you that the Liberal Party have always believed that renewable resources have a place in the generation of our electricity and should be bought on line where feasible." Judge this statement in the light of the SA Liberal wind farm policy made public in December 2011.

Also Ms Redmond was reported by Adelaide Now to have said on 2012/01/21, "[Wind power is] probably the least efficient and most unreliable of all the green energy sources".

What could she mean by 'least efficient'?

But how does it apply to the wind? How would you meaningfully measure the efficiency of a wind turbine? If less than all the wind power available to the turbine is converted to electricity, does it matter? What harm is done?

Some wind farm opponents confuse efficiency with capacity factor. The capacity factor of Australian wind turbines averages out at 34%, which means that for every 10 mega-Watts of installed capacity we get an average of 3.4 MW of electricity. The capacity factor of solar photovoltaics in SA is around 18%.

What could she mean by 'most unreliable'?

By making such obviously ill-informed statements Ms Redmond is probably doing more harm to the Liberals and herself than she is to the renewable energy industry.

On 2012/01/24 I offered to sit down and talk to Ms Redmond about the facts of wind power; as of late February I had not received any reply to my email.

Brown Hill Range turbines Wind turbines in early morning sunlight

David Ridgway, SA Shadow Minister for Urban Development and Planning joins in

Like so many anti-wind power people, Mr Ridgway made the point that wind turbines do not operate all the time and therefore conventional power stations must be available to fill in. In this he conveniently forgot that all major power generators are off line some of the time, either for maintenance or from breakdown. Fossil fuel generators are typically available only 85% of the time. Other generators must be available to fill these gaps too.

Both coal-fired and nuclear power stations are inflexible in generation, they do not easily respond to varying demand on the grid. Gas and oil-fired generators can be flexible, but are expensive to operate.

Emissions intensity on the Australian NEM Emissions intensity (EI) from the four large states in the Australian National Electricity Market (NEM) and the average for the whole of the NEM, including Tasmania. (Tasmania's EI is off-scale at the bottom of this graph.) Graph credit – Professor Mike Sandiford, University of Melbourne; data from the Australian Energy Market Operator (AEMO) Note the very large decline in South Australia's EI; due almost entirely to the introduction of wind power.

Significantly Senator Edwards does not complain of the billions of dollars in subsidies and compensation going to the coal-fired power station operators and the fossil fuel industry.

Senator Edwards makes a big thing about rises in the price of electricity in SA and falsely blames this on wind farms. He neglects to mention that a report from the Australian Energy Market Commission gave 3% as the "contribution to national price increases" from the Renewable Energy Target and that wholesale electricity prices have been falling during the period when most of Australia's wind farms were coming on-line (see here).

Almost every nation that has wind farms is planning to build more. In an effort to shore-up their stance wind farm detractors search and search for statements about governments that have changed their minds and are not going to build more wind farms; they don't find many. Senator Edwards found a statement from Britain's Climate Change Minister declaring that "there would be no significant expansion of wind farms beyond those already in the pipeline". What Senator Edwards did not say is that later the UK Prime Minister said that "There has been no change in the government's policy on renewable energy". Liberal Democrats boss Ed Davey said "The government is still committed to renewables including onshore wind". (See BBC) The Senator might be interested to know that England's 4th largest onshore wind farm was approved in early February 2013, after he wrote the statement above.

	South Australia is where the Ediacaran blooming of life that occurred 575 million years ago was discovered. If one was to judge by Senator Edwards, who can't seem to see beyond fossil fuels, one might think that SA hasn't come very far since then.
	Senator Edwards, try putting the planet and South Australia first and the short-term interests of the Liberal Party second for a change.

The Senator does not mention what we should do to combat climate change and ocean acidification if we were to drop wind power, nor does he mention that wind power in Australia has been very effective in reducing carbon dioxide emissions intensity (see the graph on the right above).

Senator Edwards finishes his press release by apparently regretting the fact that one of South Australia's coal-fired power stations was, in future, only to operate for six months of the year and the other to be closed-down indefinitely (largely due to the introduction of a significant amount of wind power).

Senator Edwards on solar power

Levelised cost of energy The costs are in Australian dollars per megawatt-hour STEG is Solar Thermal Electricity Generation Graph credit: Bloomberg New Energy Finance

"Stop the press!" Edwards said. "We have the manufacturing capacity to build solar plants. Great! We have the technology–I suppose we do, thanks for that. What the senator [Greens Senator Scott Ludlam] failed to mention was the cost, and the comparative cost."

Funny you should mention that Senator Edwards.

As we report today, Bloomberg New Energy Finance have released an analysis that shows wind energy – unsubsidised – is already cheaper than new build coal and gas fired generation in Australia. Solar PV will follow soon, and then will come solar thermal and other technologies.

It is a pity that Senator Edwards, who represents South Australia, a state that has made great strides recently in developing renewable energy, in a world in great need for more renewable energy, has such a low opinion of it. He could and should be proud of his state's achievements, but instead all he can seem to manage is negativity.

Climate change damage

Climate change damage five kilometres from Senator Edwards' home in the Clare Valley Dead red stringybark Eucalyptus macrorhyncha in the Spring Gully Conservation Park near Clare

It is arguable that the exceptionally hot and dry summer that was responsible for the damage in the Sping Gully Conservation Park shown on the right may not have had anything to do with climate change. What is undeniable by any well informed and honest person is that exceptional weather events such as that of 2007/08 will become more common as climate change progresses unless we get serious about taking action such as replacing fossil fuel fired power stations with wind farms and other forms of benign renewable energy.

The red stringybark trees in the Clare area are in the coolest gullies and on the tops of the highest hills; they can be found nowhere else in South Australia. As temperatures rise and droughts become more common they will probably become locally extinct.

How many other species will follow?

My photo used by the Liberals Construction of prototype turbine at Snowtown

The fact that the people who put the SA Liberal Party flyers together made so many errors, got most of their photos from the stridently anti-renewable energy Waubra Foundation and one of mine (without asking permission), and first said that they were going to enforce a 5km exclusion zone around houses and later changed that to 2km, suggests something thrown together with very little research, objectivity, competence, diligence or care; not to mention low ethical standards.

Contrary to the tenor of the Liberal flyer, wind power development has been a great success in SA, it generates about 25% of SA's power and has substantially reduced power imports from the eastern states and, very importantly, lowered greenhouse gas emissions from power generation.

The flyers give the impression that wind power is unpopular in rural districts. As shown by the Pacific Hydro survey released in early 2012, the great majority of country people are actually strongly in favour of wind power. A few days before the Pac. Hydro report, CSIRO released a report, "Acceptance of Rural Windfarms in Australia: a snapshot". Some of its key findings were:

• There is strong community support for wind farms;
• There is more support than suggested by media reports;
• Wind farmers might improve acceptance by developing a 'Social licence to Operate' approach.

Wattle Point turbines Turbines through mist; early morning

Australians want action on climate change and it is only a small minority of country people who oppose them, mainly on the NIMBY (not in my back yard) principal.

Pacific Hydro and CSIRO reports released in 2012

The CSIRO report "Acceptance of Rural Windfarms in Australia: a snapshot"; found that there is strong community support for wind farms (contrary to the impression given by the popular media) and discussed ways of increasing this further.

Opinion Survey by Australian Wind Energy Association

"The Australian Wind Energy Association commissioned a telephone survey in August 2003 covering 1,027 people. 94% of respondents thought that a target to increase the contribution of clean energy from renewable resources was a good (32%) or very good idea (62%). Less than 3% considered the current target to be too high or much too high. 88% said they wanted the government to increase support to the renewable energy sector, compared to 26% wanting an increase in support for the fossil fuel sector. 95% supported (27%) or strongly supported (68%) building wind farms to meet Australia's rapidly increasing demand for electricity. 91% agreed it was more important to build wind farms for electricity than avoid building them in rural Australia. For 71% of respondents, reducing greenhouse pollution outweighed protecting industries that rely on reserves of fossil fuel."

There are already many constraints on where wind turbines can be built:

• They must be in a place that has a good wind resource; this often means that they need to be on ridge lines or near the coast;
• They must be reasonably close to a high voltage power transmission line with sufficient reserve capacity to take the power from the wind farm;
• They should be reasonably close to a number of other turbines to minimise the length of roads and power cables etc;
• Their location must not be where there is high conservation-value native vegetation;
• National and conservation parks cannot be used;
• Areas that have more than a few scattered houses are not practicable.

Setbacks between wind turbines and houses internationally Image credit: Minnesota Dept. Commerce and Katheryn M. B. Haugen

Most current wind farms have their turbines no closer than one kilometre from homes; that means an exclusion zone of about three square kilometres for each house.

A study of Wind Turbine Setbacks from Residences for the Minnesota Department of Commerce by Katheryn M. B. Haugen, 2011/10/19, showed that in most parts of the world mandated setbacks between wind turbines and homes is 500m or 1km. A figure in this study (Figure 2, page 26; graph on the right) showed no jurisdiction that mandated a setback as great as the 2kms mandated by several Australian State governments. (Scotland mandates a distance of 2km from towns.)

It seems that the 2km setback in parts of Austalia is much more aimed at slowing or stopping the development of renewable energy in Australia than protecting people.

The Victorian rule of 5km from towns is plainly very much out of step with international standards.

Wind farms improve health by replacing polluting coal-burning power stations that have very serious, and proven, effects on health. By opposing wind power and favouring fossil fuels the Liberals are causing more illness from fossil-fuel pollutants in Australia.

All Australians, but especially those who lead Australians, have an ethical responsibility to reduce the harm we are doing to the planet. I find it shocking that one of the major Australian political parties could be so entirely lacking in ethical standards as are the Liberal Party.

Climate change and ocean acidification, both largely caused by greenhouse gasses, are, or will be, the greatest disasters in the history of humanity. They will result in the displacement and possibly the deaths of hundreds of millions or billions of people and the extinction of thousands or even millions of species.

The Liberals in Australia and the Republicans in the USA are setting an example to the rest of the world. The USA and Australia are, per capita, the worst greenhouse polluters among the OECD nations. If the USA and Australia does nothing toward decreasing our huge contribution toward causing climate change, what sort of message does that send to the rest of the world?

For the Liberals to, not just fail to take positive action toward reducing fossil fuel use, but to actively campaign against sustainable energy, is a crime against humanity and the biosphere that would have to rank as worse than anything the generals have done in Burma, Sadam Husein in Iraq, or Assad in Syria.

Not a level playing field for wind power, written by Neil Perry, research lecturer at Uni. Western Sydney, criticizes the unjustifiably harsh treatment of wind power by Australia's Liberals.

Sandi Keane writing in Independent Australia on:

• The motivation behind Plimer and Howard's anti-renewables stance; Plimer and Howard ape creationists;
• Deception is our product, Part 1: exposes astroturfing;
• Part 2: A practical guide to trickery and fakery in the digital age;
• Part 3: A case study: The Landscape Guardians and the Waubra Foundation;

Article by Simon Copland on the ABC's The Drum exposing the Coalitions 'war against renewable energy' and discussing its anti-business aspects.

Is Nuclear Power Globally Scalable?, (by Derek Abbott, School of Electrical and Electronics Engineering, University of Adelaide) provides a convincing argument that nuclear power cannot replace fossil fuels as mankind's main source of energy.

Article by Emeritus Prof. David Shearman and Ass. Prof. Linda Selvey in The Conversation asking why there is so little governmental concern about proven health problems from fossil fuel pollution while some states are hard on wind farms that have no known health problems.