The British Acoustics Bulletin has just published what is now the 10th independent review of the evidence on wind farms causing annoyance and ill health in people. And for the 10th time it has emphasised that
annoyance has far more to do with social and psychological factors in those complaining than any direct effect from sound or inaudible infrasound emanating from wind turbines.

Two factors repeatedly stand out: a) being able to see wind turbines increases annoyance, particularly in those who dislike or fear them and b) people derive income from hosting turbines, which miraculously appears to be a highly effective antidote to feelings of annoyance and symptoms.  Wind companies don’t publicise what they pay landowners each year to host turbines, as it varies with topographical conditions and the amount of energy that can be generated. So each price is negotiated. Amounts from $7,000 to $18,000 – depending on the landowners topography and accessible windy ridges – can drought-proof the farm by turning generally useless land into a major earner requiring zero labour and investment.

Neighbours with unfavourable topography look on with envy and worry about the relative re-sale value of their land. Some apparently worry themselves sick. Anti-wind farm groups argue that there are many angry turbine hosts who have signed gag clauses preventing them from speaking out. However, blank contract forms from Australian companies have no such clauses and no contract would indemnify any person being harmed from a claim of negligence, so the silence is telling. Other indications of the sociogenic nature of “wind turbine syndrome” are the recency and the anglophone nature of the complaints. There are an estimated 120,000-plus turbines globally, with major construction now occurring in India and China. In France, turbines can be seen in many parts of the country.

A tourist recently asked public health colleagues and neighbours and were given a blank look when asked about negative public opinion or health problems; the same goes for Spain. The surprising thing is complaints about wind farms appears confined largely to parts of Australia, Canada, the US, Britain and New Zealand and these complaints have accelerated in the past five years, despite turbines having been operational in many locations for more than 20 years.

In Australia, the leading opponents are the Waubra Foundation and the Australian Landscape Guardians, which share a post office box with a mining investment company, Lowell Resources. Australian Landscape Guardians has been totally silent on any other intrusion on the landscape, apparently unperturbed by mining, highway construction or suburban encroachment, not to mention the invasive CSG industry.

So why would anyone be against wind farms? Is it the noise … aesthetics … ecology (they have been known for birds strikes, but what of migratory birds that land where water once was that is now as car-park or major road-way. Is it the competition?  The coal industry didn’t complain about nuclear power stations did it?

So, who is it? The fossil fuel industry is pushing the line that more renewable energy undermines their business model, and thus “puts the energy supply grid at risk”. How and why would climate sceptics spend good money opposing wind farms unless they are funded by the ‘business as usual’ coal, gas  and oil industries?

Now Garrett is supposed to be smart, a solicitor no less, but when it comes to asking the right questions (apart from Chinese making our armed forces’s uniforms) he proved a right dullard; now maybe standing in front of loud-speakers pumping out volumes of sound may have affected him, but his responses always show a mind in action taking careful steps in the mine-field of saying something someone could hang on him later.

His ‘in a jocular fashion’ about reversing anything said about helping the environment has truned out to be 100% right; but why does he lie, side-step an or just not show up at pre-arranged meetings?

I’ve heard rumours of when he dabbled in the the Wildlife Association and the Greens, of screaming rants and accusing people of all sort of things, but pretty much him taking responsability for his stances.

Does he believe he could be prime minister one day and wants to keep as low a profile as possible; does he think the constituants in his electorate will ‘forget’ his coniving, deciet and missing in action/s ?  Didn’t he realize that he could have said anything he wanted, made the Labor party come to heel by exposing their transgressions, or is he that arrogant and ignorant that he believes the Labor party can help him more that his voters ?

So far he has stood up many people in pre-arranged appointments and meetings, like the Electrial trade union and his appearance at the Australian National University; taking to ground like a coward, when there are now safety concerns over another program run by his department.  Hasn’t he heard of ‘I made a mistake and I’m going to fix it’; what a poor example of a parent … how irresponsible would his kids be ?

It really is simple; make all non-compling insulation, solar power and solar hot water systems illegal; make the companies who fitted them the opportunity of going back and making them safe / compliant by June 30th 2010 and then send out auditors; those solar panels, solar hot water and insulation installations that do not comply, ASIC or state office of Fair Trading pursue the companies, sole traders whoever was running the show.

I don’t like Labor, I don’t like Liberal or National (none of them have assisted making Australia #1 in solar power manufacture or use) and the Greens have a ways to go to prove they are fair dinkum, so my comments are not political, they’re intended to achieve an outcome, those who have not achieved the outcome must pay.

Fast forward to the 1960′s and Australia boasted the oldest branch of the International Solar Energy Society.

Today, despite an abundance of Sun, scientific skill and private investors poised to swing behind a solar industry that can deliver a climate-safe power sector and billions in export earnings, the Labor governments of Rudd and Bligh largely do nothing.

Although they all agree (Garrett if only in a jocular fashion) with scientists who say the world needs to cut greenhouse gas emissions from electricity and transport virtually to zero in 40 years, they do nothing.

We in Australia had the solution long ago, plus a world-leading team in Queensland for Australian solar innovation. In 1974 a summary of global solar research pointed to the University of Queensland’s mechanical engineering department, where a team led by Dr Norman Sheridan worked on projects including a study for large-scale solar electricity generation. We were on the cusp of harnessing the sun, yet politicains snatched defeat from the jaws of victory in using solar power.

What killed Australia’s early solar promise ? The short answer is political greed, by keeping us locked into coal-fired power. The Rudd government’s inaction indicates us locked in using coal and gas for the vast bulk of electricity, protecting the coal and gas industry at the expense of new clean energy.  The USA, German and Chinese firms are making billion-dollar profits, much of it on the back of Australian innovation, while the Australian government has pulled much of the funding for solar.  Germany took a strategic decision to move into solar and created 148,000 jobs in a sector now one of the world’s largest solar equipment manufacturers yet its solar resource is but a fraction of Australia’s.  Even Spain’s Government took a decision three years ago to back solar power and its coherent policy approach means it now has the largest solar energy generation capacity in the world.

Spain’s planned 15.5 gigawatts of baseload power from solar thermal projects would more than power NSW, yet the Rudd Government does nothing. Federal Energy Minister Martin Ferguson is no fan of solar as proven by his support for the coal industry and prioritising an unproven clean coal technology. There is $1.5 billion for the Solar Flagships Program (to jump-start four solar projects) while four times that amount has gone to clean coal projects and funding - is in final stages of being allocated – has yet to start the first stage of the solar program.

Queensland state-owned utility CS Energy and US solar company Ausra six months ago applied for federal funding for a portion of a $200 million solar thermal generator as a 23mW bolt-on to the 750mW Kogan Creek coal-fired power plant near Chinchilla; Ausra says the project is shovel-ready and could supply zero-emission solar power within 12 months of a funding decision.

Ausra is the classic example of Australian solar brain drain, as the founder David Mills had to relocate his company to the USA in order to commercialise Australian solar technology. The federal government’s lack of leadership was clear when last year Solar Systems collapsed, taking with it plans for a $420 million solar plant in Victoria.

Clean energy proponents say until the Government adopts policies – such as a strong, national feed-in tariff for large-scale solar generators – investors are being asked to carry all the commercial risk without the commercial benefits. Australia’s renewable energy target is expected to lead to $20 billion being invested in clean energy capacity by 2020 but policy effectively sends that money to wind power, to the detriment of solar, geothermal, wave and tidal power.

Australia has one of the best solar resources and best researchers in the world, yet the Rudd Government and Coalition are sluts to the coal lobby and invest in dead-end fantasies like clean coal while other countries develop their solar thermal expertise and manufacturing. We need to proceed with the new standard in 24-hour solar plants now being built in Europe and the US, even if the battery technology is dearer. While solar power can be up to four times as expensive as coal-fired power, the damaging effects and costly health issues of GHG emissions is far more expensive.

Although Finance Minister Lindsay Tanner last year launched an ATSE (Australian Academy of Technological Sciences and Engineering) report that estimated sun and geothermal energy costs were competitive against coal, gas and nuclear if the social and environmental costs of mining and burning fossil fuels – on human health, land and water quality and the climate – were accounted for, his party is not on board. Based on 2008 emissions, Australia has a carbon pollution damage bill of $17 billion a year; Harvard researchers last year said the cost of producing power from the sun and other renewable sources would be the same as from carbon-capture coal plants. But that didn’t include costs from transporting and permanently storing CO2 underground; nobody wants to even attempt to calculate the full cost of carbon capture and storage, nor the integerity of such containment.

Dr Sheridan (now deceased) estimated Australia’s primary energy demand could be met by an area 70km by 70km covered in solar heat collectors. He said poor attitudes toward solar were encapsulated by a retired electricity commissioner’s comment that, “I wouldn’t waste much energy in worrying about (solar). To get a significant contribution would cost the world.” As it turns out, coal will cost us our world …

In this case it was the Clive Palmer coal mine touted to create thousands of jobs by the chief spruiker – who is not taken seriously these days at all – Anna (bout time she walked the plank) Bligh.

How does it pan out in simple language?

Well in Queensland, we prosocute shop owners for selling cigarettes to under-age people, yet it’s OK for us to dig up our reducing stockpile of coal and sell to a most prolific GHG emitter, China. Anna says we Queenslanders will earn tens of millions of $’s in royalties, but she is seeking $100 million in federal cash to bring climate-friendly solar power back into the state’s energy mix.

According to the Courier Labor Party, Queensland was once at the forefront of solar power but what sent a shiver down the back of every solar power business was the State Government’s Office of Clean Energy having Stephen Robertson put in charge; if he succeeds in the Energy Department like he did as Health Minister, we can use that big hole Clive Palmer is soon to dig coal from and bury the remains of the photovoltaic industry. Ever since Peter Beattie came up with the ‘smart state’ identity, we’ve all become leery of any government utterence with the word ‘smart’ in it.

Anyhow, we will have a ‘smart grid’ system that uses communications technology to lift energy efficiency, for example by programming appliances to run on off-peak power; how we store the solar power and then change demand from day to night raises the question, is it really off-peak then ?  Mr Robertson said the Queensland Smart Communities project would build a large-scale demonstration smart-grid in Townsville, with several stand-alone projects at Zillmere in Brisbane’s north and in Toowoomba; the project would use solar *thermal-storage technology to capture the sun’s heat and store it for future electricity generation. Korean Government-owned electricity giant KEPCO will provide smart-grid technology knowledge. Mr Robertson said the Government hoped the project would create opportunities for businesses to develop clean-energy products to sell to Asian markets.

USA, German and Japanese technology companies dominate the global solar-power market. The USA Government claims to have strong policies in place aimed at producing cheaper solar power and expects solar plants – by 2020 or earlier – to be able to store 12-17 hours of energy, enabling 24-hour solar power that could replace coal and gas-fired plants. Problem is, that batteries to store such power are very expensive as the rare earth materials used to make them is a small finite supply.

The real dilema for politicians is how do you meet the needs of the people who voted you in by backing an energy source that will take years to be effective and in doing so, cut off the large amount of financial and media support paid for by the companies that profit from coal, oil and gas ? Givernments have squandered pension funds, taxed superannuation funds and provide little tax incentive to spur private funding for a massive rollout of pollution-free technologies that use the sun, wind and wave energy. You can forget geothermal / underground heat.

Australia’s electricity sector is the biggest source of GHG (greenhouse gases) but the electricity generators aren’t investing in a major way in large-scale, clean-energy projects because there is no price on carbon, Australia’s 2020 targets for emission cuts are weak and there are flaws in a current program aimed at increasing clean-energy capacity.

* Solar thermal energy is where the Sun’s heat is used to boil water (hopefully not so much oil) to create energy rather than solar panels which generate electricity directly.

The Solar Flagships is being built up to be one of the key planks of the government’s commitment to renewable energy, and looks to have attracted most, if not all, of the major global players in the large-scale solar market.

The flagship program has been redesigned and some of the more fanciful ambitions have been modified, but it still proposes to have 400MW of large-scale solar up and running by 2015, some 250MW in solar thermal (which heats either oil or water to create energy) and a further 150MW in solar photovoltaic (which provides direct energy).

The solar thermal mandate promises to be a fascinating battle between two technologies struggling for ascendancy: the “parabolic trough” proponents such as Germany’s Solar Millennium (teamed up with Leighton’s JB Holland), Siemens, and Spain’s Acciona; and the solar tower group headed by US companies eSolar and BrightSource (teamed up with Bilfinger/Abigroup, Worley-Parsons and Macquarie), and Spain’s Abengoa.

It seems likely that only one or two proponents of each technology might make it through the first round. If previous government decisions in the renewable energy space are anything to go by, the key criteria will also include geographic location and the quality of the local partners, as well as technical promise.

The PV component is destined to be spread over five states, each with a 30MW component, but the solar thermal requirements are for areas that are relatively flat, cloudless and near the grid.

Several areas west of the divide in Queensland and NSW are considered most likely, although the massive Olympic Dam project in South Australia may also emerge as a likely location.

Interestingly, some local farming communities are also pressing their credentials as potential sites. In Hay, local businessman Peter Oataway has already attracted the support of 500 of the 3000- strong population, as well as the local council, green and National Party politicians, in his bid to attract the interest of the major solar players. “The sheep industry is in decline. Irrigation crops are under pressure. We need a growth industry,” he says.

The first-round applications due on February 15 are likely to focus on location, partners and technology, while details about size, financing and pricing are unlikely to be resolved until the second rate later this year. That could pose a potential issue for the government, as two of the mechanisms it was hoping to have in place to bridge the funding gap — a carbon price through an emissions trading scheme, and a renewable energy booster through the mandated renewable energy target — are either not in place or proving ineffective.

Still, the solar people are confident that over time they can compete with fossil fuels, gas, at least without subsidies. Merrick Kerr, the CFO of eSolar, says parity with gas prices should be achievable in Australia by 2020. This, however, will require high temperatures, — nearly double what is achieved now — and higher efficiency.

“I think we can do it (grid parity) against natural gas in Australia, but it’s hard to beat coal,” Kerr says. He says energy storage also will be critical. The aim, he says, is not so much to be “base-load” but to predictable and dispatchable, two key elements for grid operators.

Climate change funds growing

AUSTRALIA is about to have a second specialist climate change fund after two of the principals of the first fund, Arkx, quit to create a new vehicle called Change Investment Management.

Change has been founded by Lisa Wade and Nikki Ashton, both former Citigroup directors and Arkx principals.

Its first offering, the Carbon Opportunities Fund, has received commitments of $5 million, mostly from high net worth individuals.

Its first investment will be a patriotic one — Australia-based wind farm developer and operator Infigen Energy — but 98 per cent of its investments will be made overseas in companies such as China car group BYD and Spain’s Iberdrola Renouvables.

Wade says the Australian component would remain tiny until there was policy certainty to underpin growth in the renewable energy and clean-tech industries. “Unfortunately it’s much easier to invest in liquid, offshore stocks than it is to invest in Australia,” Wade says. But she says high net worth individuals and superannuation funds are recognising the opportunity in investing in the transition to a low-carbon economy. “Once we get the policy certainty, money will be put to work.”

While such low carbon-climate change funds appear to have only novelty value in Australia, they are growing in importance overseas. Two of the largest are funds run by Al Gore’s Generation Investment Management and BlackRock, whose global new energy fund is now worth $4bn.

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/opinion/selection-trials-loom-for-14bn-solar-flagships-program/story-e6frg9if-1225827616783
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Not so much as problem as paradox.

The Middle East is known for its oil reserves,  Australia for energy resources like coal, uranium and some ‘rare earth’, but it appears that the ‘balance of things’ sees most of the raw materials known as ‘rare earth’ come from China.    

A ‘rare earth’ shortage threatens the world’s green revolution (and underlines my earlier article ‘carbon reduction or human reduction’ about reducing our reliance on energy).

The shortage of mud and minerals – essential to low carbon technologies – will curtail the world’s plans for a green future.

All low carbon technologies, from wind turbines to electric cars and low energy light bulbs, use elements known as ‘rare earths’; and about 95% of these are found in China and in 2009 the Chinese decided to restrict export of these essential metals and minerals and a shortage is predicted which could effect the development of green technologies.

The Chinese are not known for subtlety and their extraction methods are at best poor;  extracting and processing ‘rare earth’ is ruining thousands of villager’s farmland because their processing is messy, dangerous and polluting, as they use toxic chemicals (acids, sulfates and ammonia), also, workers have little or no protection.

‘Rare earth’ elements like yttrium and cerium are prized for their magnetic properties and high conductivity; low carbon technologies depend on them. While Green campaigners love wind turbines, the permanent magnets used to manufacture a three megawatt turbine use about two tonnes of ‘rare earth’.

‘Rare earth’ is extracted along with iron ore and pumped into – often times – frozen tailing lakes, where it mixes with mud, waiting for processing at nearby factories. Computers, mobile phones and energy saving light bulbs all use ‘rare earths’ processed there and local villager’s farmlands have been ruined by seepage from the tailing lake.  

China is now refusing to sell ‘rare earth’ as they can value add to it themselves and who can blame them …

Rare Earth factoids

There are 15 ‘rare earth’ elements numbered 57 to 71 on the periodic table, that are essential for new ‘green’ technologies; each Toyota Prius motor uses 1 kg of neodymium, and each battery 10 – 11 kg of lanthanum, both ‘rare earth’ elements.

Compact fluorescent light bulbs use europium, terbium and yttrium; without these they don’t work (thats why I said about 2 years ago we should have skipped from incandescent to LED; even though LEDs also use these, they contain no mercury) and the permanent magnets used in a three megawatt wind turbine need about two tonnes of neodymium and other rare earths.  

Hard discs, I-phones and various military technologies also need rare earth minerals and metals and although China has 53% of the world’s rare earth deposits, it provides more than 95 per cent of the world’s supply. In the last 10 years a 40,000-tonne per year global market for ‘rare earth’ has grown to 125,000 tonnes per year and by 2014, it’s predicted to be 200,000 tonnes.

Only two projects outside China are expected to be producing rare earth in the next five years, Lynas Corporation in Mount Weld in Australia and Molycorp Minerals’ Mountain Pass in California.

Global Green Plan Ltd, using the name GreenSwitch, was deregistered from the national GreenPower program in September 2008 for failing to buy enough renewable energy certificates, but it continued to trade through its website until November.

The company will now have to buy 4000 renewable energy certificates to make up the shortfall.

‘The ACCC investigated GreenSwitch activities and found the numbers didn’t stack up and that they took money from customers and did not use it for what it was intended. The GreenSwitch company’s website read: ”GreenSwitch is no longer accredited to sell GreenPower renewable energy. We apologise for any inconvenience. GreenSwitch is examining other options in the field of carbon credits.”

The GreenPower program has over a million customers in Australia. It encourages households and businesses to pay extra on their energy bills to support investment in solar, wind and other forms of renewable power. It creates renewable energy certificates equivalent to one megawatt hour of renewable energy. But the program itself has previously been questioned by the ACCC, which wrote to the NSW Department of Water and Energy in August asking that it no longer say the scheme would ”make a real difference” to the environment.

As a result of discussions with the consumer watchdog, the department changed the wording on its website and wrote to energy companies asking that the phrase ”significant results for our environment” be replaced with ”renewable energy for our future”.

The doubts arose because the Federal Government’s proposed emissions trading scheme effectively sets both a ceiling and a floor on greenhouse gas emissions, meaning that voluntary actions to reduce carbon emissions could be seen as simply creating more space under the emissions cap for companies to pollute.

The Government maintains this interpretation of the system is wrong, and voluntary efforts, such as buying GreenPower, would be included in any targets for emissions cuts from the start of this year. The Government’s target range for carbon cuts by 2020 took voluntary cuts into account, the Climate Change Minister, Penny Wong, has said.

The ACCC’s GreenSwitch announcement came a day after it said it would take court action against a carbon trading company, Prime Carbon, saying it allegedly made misleading representations about the National Environment Registry and the stock exchange.

One wonders when the ACCC investitages ENERGEX for having customers pay a premium for alternative energy which they were never able to supply and just boosted their bottom line.

However, they went into voluntary administration a week before Christmas after failing to pay a $500,000 bill to the NSW government-owned Integral Energy and other creditors include Origin Energy, AGL Energy, Country Energy and Queensland supplier Energex [Energex have long sold alternative energy at a premium but have never had the number of suppliers to provide promised alternative energy, but hey ... thats the business of profit].

Jackgreen had a staff of nearly 100, who have been sacked and Jackgreen shares that traded at 3.8c before the collapse, are now worthless.

Since Jackgreen’s retail licence was revoked on December 18 and receivers were appointed by the group’s major secured creditor (owed about $11 million), Jackgreen’s accounts showed it’s owed about $25 million in unpaid bills by customers.

Is this just another get rich scheme by people manipulating the federal and state governments going through the motions by splashing cash (stimuli) to companies trading on people’s good faith and paying for alternative energy that never really existed; how will these energy suppliers maintain their ‘green credentials’ if they now have to prove the source rather than buy it from a third party?

Jackgreen did not generate power, it just specialised in selling renewable electricity from cheap methods such as hydro generation, rather than more expensive options such as solar or wind.

So while the public interest in green power generation grows, or may one suggest that like the Victorian ‘green energy’ (buring old growth counts under some morally corrupt interpretations), Jackgreen and other companies of its ilk (like the thermal power) last only long enough to take investor’s money and then going belly up.

It will be interesting if someone could research the names behind these various ‘unlucky’ companies.

Currently I am proceeding towards an Assessors certification under the federal government’s ‘greenloan’ scheme and recently I spoke with the assistant director of TAFE Skills with the view of teaching energy eficient house design.

Now I’m going to write a seperate story on how I am working towards having a house I have designed to be at the forefront of energy efficient house design and construction for the next ‘sustainable open house in Augast 2010; however, I am finding out some really disturbing stuff like a) although the Building Code of Australia sets a minimum 5 Star ‘energy rating’, nowhere is it taught how to achive this and b) if I do design and build and energy efficient house in Queensland, I can ‘earn 10 Stars’, but you guessed it, no real tips, just generalities like (would you believe) a covered and insulated roof outside the home with a ceiling fan will earn you half a star … incredible.

There is nothing in the QBSA – this is the body responsible for all residential construction in the State – about energy efficient house design and Certifiers – whose job it is to assess the houses complying – are not trained. But I’m getting ahead of myself; this is but another example of how Labor Government (led by Auctioneering Anna – sell the State off – Bligh) is trying to decieve the public.  The first is the press release by Stephen Robertson (previously the Dr Death of Qld Health and now trying his hand at pushing the spin pill of environment down our throats) …

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Minister for Natural Resources, Mines and Energy and Minister for Trade – The Honourable Stephen Robertson

16/10/2009

Australia’s newest solar power farm makes Windorah clean and green Australia’s newest solar farm, which is making the outback Queensland town of Windorah one of the state’s cleanest and greenest, has been officially opened. Minister for Natural Resources, Mines and Energy Stephen Robertson said the Bligh Government project has saved more than 100 tonnes of carbon being pumped into the atmosphere. “The Windorah Solar Farm is the first of its kind in Queensland, it is generating power that would otherwise have come from a diesel-powered generator,” he said.

“The Bligh Government is developing a clean energy future for Queensland and projects such as Windorah demonstrate we are delivering on this goal.  “The project is a trial of Australian-developed technology and the Windorah site is the first time it has been integrated with a diesel power station in this way. “The Bligh Government, through Ergon Energy, has invested more than $3.5 million to build the solar farm at Windorah, supported by a $1 million investment from the Commonwealth.

“Solar energy could revolutionise the way power is produced for remote communities that are not on the national electricity grid and rely on diesel power stations feeding into small local grids. “the Windorah Solar Farm will produce around 300,000 kilowatt hours of electricity annually and reduce diesel consumption in the town by more than 100,000 litres a year.

“Significantly, this will reduce the town’s carbon footprint by an estimated 300 tonnes of greenhouse gas per year.”

Mr Robertson said the solar farm uses five 14-metre diameter mirrored dishes to capture sunlight.

“It has generated more than 100,000 kiloWatt hours of clean emissions-free energy to date to help power local homes and businesses,” he said. “The giant dishes follow the sun as it tracks across the sky from sunrise to sunset. “Different combinations of dishes are used at different times, with some being parked and not used while others are generating power, depending on the needs of the town.”

While the solar farm is producing power, the town’s diesel generators operate at reduced output. At night, or when there is too much cloud for the dishes to generate power, the generators are seamlessly brought back up to sufficient capacity to supply the town’s needs. The system also includes batteries to cope with brief cloud cover without having to increase the diesel generators’ output. Modern controls and communications equipment allow for remote monitoring and control of the entire facility.

Federal funding support for major projects under the Renewable Remote Power Generation Program totals more than $50 million and has stimulated a total investment of more than $107 million in renewable generation projects around Australia.

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The following is an exchange between Dave Kimble and Ergon and highlights the lack of comprehension of both the government and its subiduary Ergon on ‘payback’ and what something costs in embodied energy. On the Windorah Solar Farm, which was paid for by Queensland Government ($3.5 million) plus Federal governmetn($1 million), for a 14-metre diameter mirrored dishes and CPV cells.  The population in Windorah ? 80 people !

To: GABRIEL Bashir (FN)
Subject: Windorah Solar Farm

Do you have a life-cycle energy budget for the Windorah Solar Farm project ?
Even if it omitted figures for the solar cells it would be OK.

Dave Kimble
GABRIEL Bashir (FN) wrote:
HI Dave

Yes we have made a life-cycle analysis for the Windorah solar farm.
All information that is able to be shared is on the Ergon Energy’s website.  Please see link below.

Regards

Bashir Gabriel B.E.(Mech), M.Eng.Sc.(Research), MIEAust, CPEng, NPER, RPEQ
Generation Alternative Technology Engineer      Ergon Energy
To: GABRIEL Bashir (FN)
Subject: Re: Windorah Solar Farm

Bashir,
That is not a reasonable answer.
A life-cycle analysis of an energy generating system involves drawing up an energy budget for the project, including ALL the energy inputs to the project as well as all the energy outputs over the lifetime of the project.
The energy inputs would include all the embedded energy in the materials used, and all the labour and transport used in construction at all levels.
I attach a spreadsheet published by Sydney University’s ISA team comparing various fossil and renewable technologies.
You should be able to produce something similar for your technology. If you cannot provide data for the embedded energy in the PV cells, the supplier and their surface area would be sufficient. Without this information it is not possible to compare and contrast the different technologies, and without being able to do that, your technology will never be even looked at.
So, given that you are in charge of promoting the technology, you really need to be more forthcoming.
Dave Kimble
To: Dave.Kimble
Nov 4th
Subject: RE: Windorah Solar Farm
Dave

Thanks for sharing the spreadsheet with us.  Ergon Energy do similar life-cycle analysis though not identical.

As per our webpage Ergon Energy does not sell nor market this technology.  Ergon Energy purchased the dishes from the manufacturer and as such we are an end-user.

Regards,
Bashir
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And soon – if Anna Bligh gets her way – we will sell off State assets to build more infrastructure that does little more then put money in the pockets of the financial supporters of Labor, only to be sold off at some later date, like the Traverston Dam.