DEBATE over one the Federal Government’s key climate policies is continuing to heat up, with a review into the way renewable energy companies have conducted negotiations released at the end of last week.
Energy Infrastructure Commissioner Andrew Dyer’s review found 92 percent of residents were dissatisfied with the level of engagement from renewable energy developers.
But in contrast Farmers for Climate Action has released polling it has recently conducted suggesting renewable energy is well supported in the regions.
On the eve of a planned protest in Canberra tomorrow against the planned mass renewable energy project roll outs over the next seven years, FCA took its polling directly to the Federal Government to meet with Federal agriculture minister Murray Watt and talk up the money-making potential of renewable energy projects.
“Income during drought is vital when you’re trying to run a family farm and renewable energy delivers that,” chair Brett Hall said in a press release issued before the meeting.
“Typical payments being offered to farmers by wind companies are now more than $40,000 per turbine per year, and many farms host dozens of turbines whilst still farming sheep or cattle. Solar companies are now offering farmers around $1500 per hectare per year rent, and the farmer often continues to run sheep under the panels,
“The current National Farmers Federation president makes money from wind turbines on his land, and so does another previous NFF President. Sun and wind are modern commodities which make farmers serious money.”
How was the polling conducted?
FCA commissioned a polling company to survey 687 people living in three regional areas with large numbers of renewable energy projects – Central Qld and the NSW Hunter Valley and Illawarra region.
They asked residents of those regions what they saw as the biggest threat to their region, the biggest opportunity and what was most hurting the local region.
On each question survey respondents were asked to select one from a series of options (as outlined in image below).
The survey was conducted by Farmers for Climate Action but the respondents were not specifically farmers, rather, residents living in each region.
The results of the poll showed increased fires, flooding and droughts driven by climate change as the biggest threat, cost of living to be hurting the regions the most and renewable energy projects were a close second in the biggest opportunity behind tourism.
On the contrary, only a small percentage of respondents chose the construction of renewable energy projects and transmission lines as the issue they were most concerned about.
A point likely to be refuted by the organisation running tomorrow’s “rally against reckless renewables”.
FCA supports Dyer reviews findings
While FCA has released the polling to push for support of renewables, it did support the findings of the Dyor review. Chief executive officer Natalie Collard said last week that it was important for farmers voiced to be heard.
“The good and bad must be put on the table and dealt with, and we were glad to see legitimate concerns were printed in this review and were not hidden,” Ms Collard said.
“It’s important farmers’ voices continue to be heard as the recommendations are implemented.
“We can’t afford a repeat of the behavior we’ve seen from coal seam gas and coal developers in the transmission and renewable energy space. Some project proponents have failed badly and this review can be an important step towards improving practices of some operators, including government-owned operators, as the review states.”
NFF raises concerns about Dyor review
However, NFF president David Jochinke has raised a series of concerns. He said it exposed some serious issues in the renewable plan, but little to address them.
“This is a staggeringly poor reflection on the situation to date and it simply can’t go on,” Mr Jochinke said.
“Yet the report does very little to provide concrete solutions, instead referring to development of best practice guidelines and rating schemes.
“This is the exact kind of bureaucracy farmers and every day Australians are sick and tired of. It will do nothing to reassure farmers and communities their interests are being acknowledged or protected.
“It’s critical engagement is a two-way street and that engagement is genuine, addresses concerns and goes further than energy companies ticking a box ‘we’ve told them our plan’.”
As Chair of the National Rational Energy Network Inc, (NREN), organisers of the Reckless Renewables Rally, I too query he validity of the survey results, as have the commenters below. The key thing to think about is if all the solar, wind, pumped hydro, batteries and powerlines are mined, manufactured and transported using fossil fuels, where is the benefit? Turbines only deliver ~30% of rated capacity, solar less than 20%. So they consume more resources and produce less power, and batteries/pumped hydro/hydrogen /transmission lines consume resources and produce nothing. Then factor in replacing them 3 times during the life of a normal thermal power station, add the immense local environomental destruction, decommissioning cost…..the only thing these ‘renewables’ do efficiently is shuffle money to vested interests, not produce reliable power. If they all go ahead we will build-in a high cost unreliable power source that will hamstring the nations industries, and our children’s future, for a long time.
If you add the population figures for all 3 regions found on google (1,224,465 approx.) they only polled 0.05% of the population. You have to ask where did they get the list of people to contact to poll? All these areas are heavily into mining coal and fossil fuel production alongside farming industries which has historically been seen as advocating green energy in these area as a way to reduce the footprint of the mining industry in the area. No one in broader regional areas where new infrastructure such as transmission lines or batteries were surveyed. Good on them for having members who have had positive outcomes when dealing with renewables but No policymaker should be taking those numbers seriously.
This is an interesting debate with many twists and turns attempting to pit farmer against farmer. Instead of trying to create conflict, between farmers, FCA needs to work with every farmer. I was the Central Qld spokesperson for Farmers for Climate Action a few years ago when it was serious about finding solutions to climate change. However today the organisation has a single focus pushing renewables and ignores real solutions to food security issues. I have pointed out several times that FCA should be focused on soil health, regenerative agriculture and the future of farming, the impact of sun spots on climate, maybe even leading the charge to utilise geo-engineering and manipulation of our weather systems for our benefit. Even if the FCA crew were to find out why the BOM is so blatently wrong with most of their assessments of the future and present rainfall outlooks. There are many more important issues to help farmers manage the changing climate as they originally were supposed to be doing for all of us farmers. Lets hope this group can move away from the renewables and into helping all farmers manage for climate variability.
Well well these energy company’s funded paid organisation. Well we have a property adjoining the macarthur turbines the noise,upset stock in the yards when drenching crutching shearing when the turbines are spinning. Which is not very often lately historically this billion dollar power station runs 21 percent of the time. The blades are now falling apart scattering bisphenol which is used to make them. scattering this totally banned substance in Europe all over our catchments into our waterways and rivers into the southern ocean. Stop imposing these projects on your neighbours. We are again seeing the waste and destruction with the hawkesdale project. Over endangered brolga wetlands which they drain for their tracks and substations and powerlines if you want to see waste watch these cowboys blow money. You bueat crane turned up from Queensland other day parked in paddock over long weekend . Neighbours cattle took a liking to the wiring and hoses. So monday into town solar electric fence reels whole she bang the merchandise store was very happy.
Curious surveys. They caused me to think about the incompetence and/or manipulation which can occur with surveys, polls and questionnaires.
The facts of the matter are that all three elements of polling can be interfered with, innocently or otherwise, ultimately corrupting the results. Samples are commonly manipulated, questions are regularly framed towards an outcome, and analyses is frequently distorted for a cause.
Do any of these facts apply when on one hand the EIC found 92% of residents were dissatisfied with the level of engagement from renewable energy developers, but conversely the FCA found that renewable energy was well supported in the region?
The FCA survey sample is interesting, in that it involved residents, not specifically farmers. The locations of the samples were where renewables were already established, hence where some farmers were being well paid for accepting renewable infrastructure on their properties. The non-farmer residents would have, directly and/or indirectly, already had the benefit of the financial injection provided by the construction phase of the various projects, so asking those particular farmers and residents if transmission lines hurt their region, is almost certain to get a negative response.
Polls can be made to produce any desired result, and no high school class in Australia would have difficulty producing a poll which found that a majority of people really believe the drovers dog won the last election.