We post this Guardian article here with a cautionary note from our favourite environmental engineer, Trevor Berrill. From my recollection Queensland coal royalties were slashed under the Australian Labor government competition policy recommended by Professor Fred Hilmer in 1991. Ian Curr, 23 July 2024.
“I wonder if the LNP will roll back the royalties rates ( introduced by Labor in 2022) when in power??
Note that these royalties help to offset the environmental costs (externalities) of coal and gas, that are not fully included in our electricity and gas bills. But that shouldn’t be the role of royalties.
Some of this money is being directed to rolling out a lot more solar, wind and energy storage projects in the State, but these are meeting increasing NIMBY resistance, and that is putting investors off as projects fail to meet deadlines. The National Party is at the forefront of supporting the NIMBYs. In some cases there is poor community consultation so the solar and wind companies are partly to blame. “
Trevor Berrill, 23 July 2024.
A coal royalties revamp delivered a record surplus in Queensland. Here’s why NSW must follow suit | Tim Buckley https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/jun/16/a-coal-royalties-revamp-delivered-a-record-surplus-in-queensland-heres-why-nsw-must-follow-suit?CMP=share_btn_url
The Queensland government allowed its mine safety commissioner to keep acting in her role after she accepted a lucrative job offer from a coal giant that has multiple convictions over workplace deaths and injuries.See https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-11-25/anglo-american-coal-headhunts-qld-mine-safety-commissioner/103146850?utm_campaign=abc_news_web&utm_content=link&utm_medium=content_shared&utm_source=abc_news_web
In defence of the NIMBY resistance, which in the case of North Queensland wind farms include traditional owners and environment groups including the Cairns and Far North Queensland Environment Centre………
The development of wind farms on land and sea and solar farms and the transmission lines to connect them all is a significant cause of land and ocean floor clearing in ecological sensitive places and the wind turbines accelerate the extinction of endangered bird species.
Transmission lines are a major cause of bush fires. Offshore wind farms destroy ecosystems in construction and when in use disrupt all sonar senses of marine life. So what is the benefit of this renewable energy? It does not reduce carbon emissions at all.
Firstly, the demand for electricity is growing faster than the roll out of renewables so current emissions continue to rise and secondly, all renewable energy creates carbon offset credits that license the further burning of fossil fuels – net zero gain. That is why fossil fuel companies are investing in renewables – with massive subsidies to do so.
The North Queensland renewable enegy zone is not designed to provide energy to the coast, it is to provide energy not North West Queensland mining operations for a new mining boom (all those “green minerals”). There is no benefit to justify the ecological distraction of rapidly increasing energy infrastructure. Also, electricity accounts for about a quarter of our energy needs so without addressing industrial heat and transport any decarbonising of electricity is purely tokenistic.
I remember when people like Trevor Berill used to talk about the politics of energy and the benefit of renewables for off-grid community self sufficiency – no transmission lines and no capitalist pig making a fortune. Whatever happened to that idea?
JT