Wilson Tuckey (O'Connor, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

The member for Wakefield mentions tidal power, and I thank him for that, but there is a bigger issue. It is called high voltage DC current transmission. That will be the pipeline for big ticket renewables and low emissions. It is an interesting fact that natural gas does not run down a pipeline on its own. The pipeline between the Pilbara and Perth is consuming over 200 megawatts of energy for the pumping process. That is a pretty average sized powerhouse in comparison. It is about 700,000 tonnes of emissions. If we stop taking the gas out in Perth and turning it into electricity but did that in the Pilbara, we would have more capacity in the pipeline for people who want heat, we would have the security of duplication and we could bring that electricity down on HVDC over about 1,000 kilometres into the south-west network and in the process only lose about three per cent of the power.

The Europeans are starting to wake up to this. This government says, ‘Let’s have photovoltaics all over the place in cloudy parts of Australia.’ The Europeans are going into North Africa and looking at huge gigawatt-size stations. Western Australia only has a total generating capacity of about three gigawatts. The Europeans are talking about single stations or a collection of stations of that size in North Africa, and they propose to send that power over 3,000 kilometres back into Europe. The loss of power is 10 per cent. If you used our dodgy AC system, it would be 45 per cent.

Where are the investment opportunities in this scheme to do that? If you look at the coalition proposal, you will find a $2 million commitment to further investigate an HVDC system. I see it as identical to something done by Charles Court, former Premier of Western Australia. Woodside had a find but nothing else, and Charles Court said, ‘On behalf of the people of Western Australia, I will buy more gas than they can use and I will fund the pipeline.’ Today the pipeline is overstressed and this parliament gets huge amounts of revenue from the industry that followed that initial development. His son, the then minister and former Premier, sold that pipeline to the private sector for about three times what Charlie paid for it.

What is wrong with a government statutory authority being established, after due inquiry, as our leader proposes, to undertake the original introduction of an HVDC system? I would start it on the Pilbara to Perth pipeline. I would build a line across to South Australia and I would interconnect them. As the gas comes ashore in Browse, I would build it up there too. At the end of that, with another line from South Australia to New South Wales, I would have spent about $5 billion. All the benefits of doubling the amount of power running down the wire are as good as having a renewable energy power station. If you go through the desert on the way, and you obviously do for South Australia, it then becomes practical to produce 2.4 gigawatts of wind power, because the HVDC system can accommodate the variability in the generation that comes from that. South Australia could have 2.4 gigawatts of extra power generation at a price that people could afford. (Time expired)

See this speech in context