The question of “green” energy

 

Climate change is impacting our world.

But it is just one problem amongst a myriad of problems affecting our ecosystems.

The primary threat to wildlife globally is habitat loss.

Our savanna woodlands, our forests, our grasslands, wetlands and deserts are worth saving. These landscapes are natural carbon sinks. They enable a healthy water cycle. They are home to the wilderness that inhabit them and should not be cleared for industrial renewable developments.

Our concern is in the rush to uncritically deploy large scale wind and solar, we will lose these high biodiversity landscapes and lose our wildlife.

Let’s protect what’s left.

What’s at stake?

Wind and solar renewable energy - not so “green”

  • Massive spatial footprint

    Large-scale wind and solar developments take up thousands of acres of space. Each development frequently requires extensive habitat clearance in order create haulage roads, space for turbine footings, concrete batching plants, power lines and other infrastructure.

  • Extensive habitat destruction

    In Australia, we are already witnessing renewable energy developments clearing thousands of acres of remnant and intact forest, woodlands and open grasslands.

    Queensland is a world leader in habitat clearance. Wildlife are directly killed by it. Once animals lose their shelter, they are exposed to the elements and become easy prey for feral predators.

  • Bats and raptors die from turbine strike

    Significant numbers of bats and raptors can be killed by wind turbines. Bats lungs can explode from changes in barometric pressure around the rotating wind turbines. Both raptors and bats are prone to injury or death from turbine strike.

    Critics are quick to point out that more birds die from impact with cars. Whilst this may be true, the birds most likely to die from turbine strike are high conservation value raptors. Raptors only bear one or two offspring per year. Adult losses can be catastrophic to entire populations.

    “Critically-endangered species are among those being killed,” BirdLife Tasmania spokesman Eric Woehler stated in 2019 of raptor fatalities in Tasmania from wind farms. “The blade is sometimes approaching 300 kilometres per hour, so the birds don’t recognise that as a threat and don’t change their behaviour around them.”

    In America, the Hoary Bat is facing complete extinction due to the mass of casualties it faces from impacts with wind turbines. 128,000 are estimated to be killed per year.

  • Wind turbine and solar panel waste a looming issue

    An increasing global concern is the question of how to deal with wind turbine blades once they’ve reached the end of their life. Most turbine blades are ending up in landfill.

    Solar panels are able to be recycled but they too are also ending up in landfill. It currently costs more to recycle them than to replace them.

    Although wind and sun are in endless supply, the infrastructure used to harvest energy is not sustainable.

 

Is green energy actually destroying the climate?

 

Renewable wind and solar proponents argue there is “no such thing as a free lunch” when it comes to deploying energy sources. But are we inflicting just as much damage to our ecosystems by globally implementing large spatial-footprint solar and wind developments?

 
 

We are losing our unique Queensland vegetation and wildlife to renewable energy developments

Regionally, we are feeling the pinch of the competing interests of environmental conservation and renewable energy siting. We argue that conserving wilderness is key to combat rising CO2 and intact green spaces should be preserved.

Placing renewable energy developments on intact forests, grasslands, woodlands and wetlands is not appropriate.

Our wildlife should not pay the price for climate change.

We are in the grips of a major extinction event, and it is accelerating. Deforestation is destroying our carbon sinks, water cycles and is rapidly clearing the earth of wildlife. This is an emergency for the wildlife we hold dear.

We stand for the conservation of wilderness, particularly the high conservation value wilderness of North Queensland.

We argue that Australia’s renewable energy developments should:

  • not be located on areas of Matters of National Environmental Significance

  • not be located on areas of Matters of State Environmental Significance

  • not be located on any area that impacts vulnerable or endangered species or any location that impacts aquatic ecosystems or water quality

  • not be situated on rural farming landscapes

  • not be placed adjacent to the World Heritage Wet Tropics Area

These parameters must become legislation so renewable developments do not impact high value wilderness and agricultural landscapes.

 
 

Food for thought:

  • 12,000 – 40,000 bats are killed each year in Victoria from wind turbine strike[i].

  • ·48% of Australia’s bat species are found in the Wet Tropics World Heritage Area[ii]. This includes the Vulnerable Spectacled Flying Fox, Endangered Ghost Bat and critically endangered Bare Rumped Sheathtailed Bat[iii].

  • 98% of the Spectacled Flying Fox population inhabit the Wet Tropics. 23,000 died from a heat wave in 2018.[iv] The cooler habitat of Atherton Tablelands, (on which numerous wind farms are in development or proposed) is crucial for their survival, and provides critical winter foraging habitat.

  • Bats can die from barotrauma. Rotating wind turbine blades cause drops in air pressure, causing their lungs to explode.[v]

  • Just a few adult deaths in a vulnerable raptor population can be catastrophic. They are slow breeders.

  • Birds of prey use the same wind resources that turbines need to operate. Raptors use the wind to help power their own flight, using updraughts and thermals to gain height. This can make them particularly vulnerable to collisions with wind turbine blades, which can travel at speeds of up to 290km[vi]

  • Globally threatened Sarus Cranes roost nearby on wetlands of the Atherton Tablelands. Populations are already being impacted by powerlines and man-made incursions into wetland habitat.

 

Please help us to protect Chalumbin from the proposed Chalumbin wind development:

Habitat loss of Southern Cassowaries has pushed this species to the brink of existence.

“We need to say “no” to projects far more often. Many proposed projects are simply a bad idea, with serious environmental, economic, social, and reputational risks that exceed their potential benefits. Such projects should be cancelled altogether rather than being allowed to proceed despite having serious flaws.”

- William F. Laurance, Why EIAs Fail, 2021

Worth protecting: Intact remnant forest of the Chalumbin region, South West of Ravenshoe, Far North Queensland.

Let’s protect what we have left

  • Habitat / wilderness loss is Australia’s number one cause of species extinction.

  • Wilderness conservation ensures the water cycle, soil and delicate ecologies are kept intact.

  • Wilderness provides biological diversity and cross-linked biotopes increase survival chances for migratory species.

  • Healthy wilderness has a balancing effect on extreme weather patterns and permanently reduces carbon dioxide.

  • Wilderness is natural capital. Australians and people around the world love our wilderness: it is inspiring and provides spiritual succour.

  • Protecting wilderness preserves our wild spaces for future generations.

 

Footnotes

[i] Maree Treadwell-Kerr, Bats and Wind Farms presentation, given December 4th  2021 at Ravenshoe Town Hall, Far North Queensland

[ii] Ibid.

[iii] Ibid.

[iv] Ibid.

[v] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0960982208007513, accessed 7.01.22, 1.19pm

[vi] https://cosmosmagazine.com/nature/birds/birds-and-wind-farms-debate/, accessed 7.01.22, accessed 1.45pm