Dr Roger Sexton – CERES the most the most ill-conceived development project ever seen

For some time STT has been following the battle to save the Heartland – on SA’s Yorke Peninsula and home to Australia’s best barley growing country – bar none.

Here’s a press release from David Ridgway on the latest before the SA Wind Power Select Committee.

“We don’t want power station,” Yorke Peninsula landholders say

A parliamentary inquiry into wind-driven power stations has heard evidence overwhelmingly against a proposed 199-turbine development on the Yorke Peninsula.

“Landholders made it clear they wanted to protect high-value cropping areas from a power station,” committee chair David Ridgway said.

“We heard that up to 400 square kilometres of farming land could be affected.”

The inquiry is investigating the social, economic and health effects of wind-driven power stations, including separation distances between turbines and nearby homes and possible land devaluations.

“The evidence was that when a turbine is built near a farming property boundary, the non-host landholder can face production losses due to restrictions on aerial spraying of fertilisers and pest control,” Mr Ridgway said.

The Black Point Progress Association submission argued that the proposed Ceres project would make ‘a fundamental change to the character of an exquisite landscape, trashing beautiful countryside for the sake of filling the pockets of developers with consumer subsidies’.

“I was particularly interested in the association’s calculations for carbon dioxide emissions,” Mr Ridgway said.

“It was put to us that each one of the project’s turbine towers would require up to 3,000 cubic metres of concrete, releasing 398,000 tonnes of CO2 into the atmosphere.

“The association argued that it would take as many as 3,580 years for a wind-driven power station to recover the CO2 emissions from its construction, compared with thermal power.

“On those figures, wind-driven power stations may not be clean or green.”

The association’s submission was delivered by one of South Australia’s most respected business figures, Dr Roger Sexton.

Dr Sexton has a PhD in economics and finance, was a director of State Development with the Tonkin Liberal government, set up the Economic Development Board with Robert de Crespigny under Mike Rann and the Labor Government, was head of the Department of Trade and Industry under Kevin Foley and Mike Rann, and spent 40 years of his life doing developments across the globe.

“With that background, I’d have to say that this project is the most ill-conceived development project I have ever seen,” Dr Sexton told the inquiry.

“With massive subsidies of up to $70 million per year extracted from consumers by the Australia government, why would any developer be concerned about the impacts of the project on the environment or the economy or the residents of Yorke Peninsula?” Dr Sexton said.

“This sort of beggar-thy-neighbour approach to lining developers’ own pockets at the expense of the broader community is what we might see in third-world countries in Africa but not in sophisticated, astute countries like Australia,” he said.

Another witness, fifth generation farmer Martin Hayles, would be surrounded by 30 turbines within three kilometres – seven directly on his boundary fence lines and others close by.

“I will not be able to use aircraft for spraying and baiting and, just as importantly, water bombers will not be able to protect my land, my family and my house,” Mr Hayles said.

A member of Heartland Farmers, Naomi Bittner, was equally adamant.

“This is the most reliable dryland cropping area in the state and we are losing one per cent of farming land a year to urban sprawl and industrialisation. I believe this wind farm is an ill-conceived idea that is set to profit a few and disadvantage many,” Dr Bittner said.

“If this wind farm goes ahead, we will have more restrictions imposed on us. We know that these turbines can shift spray drift from one paddock to another and, if the spray is not compatible with that crop in the other paddock, it will kill it.”

Mr Ridgway said he hoped the committee would release its report by the end of this year.

Hon David Ridgway MLC
State Liberal Leader in the Legislative Council
Chair of SA Wind Power Select Committee

When Dr Roger Sexton called it “the most ill-conceived development project I have ever seen” STT says he’s not far off the mark.

But what would Roger know?  He only has a PhD in economics and finance, was a director of State Development with the Tonkin Liberal government, set up the Economic Development Board with Robert de Crespigny under Mike Rann and the Labor Government, was head of the Department of Trade and Industry under Kevin Foley and Mike Rann, and spent 40 years of his life doing developments across the globe.

With a CV like that – you’d reckon he be just about qualified to comment on a brewing debacle when he spots one?

And STT’s attention was drawn to a couple of other FACTS – so we set them out again:

each one of the project’s turbine towers would require up to 3,000 cubic metres of concrete, releasing 398,000 tonnes of CO2 into the atmosphere

it would take as many as 3,580 years for a wind-driven power station to recover the CO2 emissions from its construction, compared with thermal power

Bugger – if yet another couple of FACTS didn’t just pop up to make the greentard look dumber than a bag of hammers.  Oh – we forgot – the greentard only acts on the “facts” they are paid to act on by their Overlords – Vestas.  What’s that you say about “astroturfing”?

But I thought wind turbines were meant to REDUCE CO2?
At least that’s what Vestas paid me to say.