Renewable Energy

Renewable energy developers are following tracks laid by the gas industry in the Western Downs – but they’re also making the same mistakes

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Agriculture was once king in Glen Beasley’s neighbourhood on Queensland’s Darling Downs, a vast agricultural area about 200km west of Brisbane. “It was all grain, beef, timber and a bit of coal,” he says.

Then a high voltage power line was built through his family farm outside Chinchilla in 1984. The whispers of gas came with the turn of the millennium, and by the early 2010s, the coal seam gas industry was booming. Gas company Arrow Energy now holds a tenement over his property and a few doors down, there’s a coal seam gas waste facility.

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The environment minister says she is approving windfarms at the fastest rate in history amid industry concerns about an ‘alarming’ slowdown

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Tanya Plibersek has said she is approving windfarms faster than any previous environment minister, rejecting industry claims the sector faces deteriorating investment conditions and lengthening delays.

Renewable energy firms have raised concerns that securing environmental approval is becoming more difficult, particularly for wind. Challenges are unlikely to ease soon, given the government’s recent decision to postpone conservation law reforms until after the next election, putting at risk emissions reduction goals, they say.

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The dystopian picture of renewables painted by the opposition leader is full of inconsistencies, partial truths and misinformation

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The Coalition leader, Peter Dutton, has been trying to paint a picture of what life in Australia will be like if it tries to power itself mostly with renewable energy and without his technology of choice: nuclear.

Towering turbines offshore will hurt whales, dolphins and the fishing industry, factories will be forced to stop working because there’s not enough electricity and the landscape will be scoured by enough new transmission cables to stretch around the entire Australian coastline.

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Jobs will change, communities will be affected, but we have a shot at rising to the challenge of global heating

The climate crisis has long been defined by its lies: From the original sin of science denial, to Tony Abbott’s confected carbon tax panic, to the latest yellowcake straw man. But the most damaging porky of all might be that the transition to renewable energy will be easy.

Government messaging has propagated this myth, vacillating between the torpid technocracy of targets, acronyms and megawatt hours and the sunny spin that promises “a cheaper, cleaner energy future!”.

Funds will be targeted at disadvantaged areas to create 200,000 jobs, after last week’s oil and gas lease restrictions in Alaska

Joe Biden marked Monday’s Earth Day by announcing a $7bn investment in solar energy projects nationwide, focusing on disadvantaged communities, and unveiling a week-long series of what the White House say will be “historic climate actions”.

The president was speaking at Prince William Forest Park, in Triangle, Virginia, touting his environmental record and unveiling measures to tackle the climate crisis and increase access to, and lower costs of, clean energy.