Kylea Tink (North Sydney, Independent) Share this | Hansard source

As I stand to speak to this motion, I can't help but be bemused by the use of words like 'reckless' and 'economically, socially and environmentally untenable' to describe renewable energy proposals. How can the member for Wide Bay move such a motion in good conscience, knowing we are facing the extraordinary challenge of weaning our society and our economy from our fossil fuel addiction to ensure future generations not only have an environment to live in but one they can survive?

I want to start by addressing the fact that this motion conveniently shares just one part of the story. While the motion criticises renewable energy projects for what it claims to be 'significant land clearing and invasive construction', it is silent on the destruction already wrought on our environment by fossil fuel projects.

There are currently 36,000 kilometres of rail line in Australia, and 80 per cent of the freight carried on those lines is coal or iron ore. In Queensland, coal alone is 12 per cent of freight, while in New South Wales it's 13 per cent. If we assume coal and other fossil fuel make up around 40 per cent of our freight rail, the pro rata footprint is around 14½ thousand kilometres of rail infrastructure. If you add to this the over 1,600 kilometres of pipelines for oil and a further 23,000 kilometres for gas, and then include the existing transmission lines for the Australian fossil fuel based electricity system, at around 40,000 kilometres, we end up with a fossil fuel supply chain footprint in Australia that extends over 80,000 kilometres. By comparison, AEMO estimates that we need 10,000 kilometres of transmission lines to facilitate our energy transition.

Taking this one step further, gas and oil pipelines typically have a 30-metre wide right-of-way corridor, and railways are similar. If you take the 80,000-kilometre footprint and multiply it by the required corridor allowances, 2.4 million square kilometres is currently set aside to accommodate fossil fuel energy generation. By contrast, the highest voltage transmission lines have a 60-metre wide corridor, meaning the new renewable energy infrastructure will have less than half the footprint—just 600,000 kilometres—of the current fossil fuel assets. I ask the member for Wide Bay: as you prepared this motion, did you consider the environmental impacts of the energy system that already exists, or was it just far too convenient to completely overlook them?

Let me continue by explaining that Australia currently has around 200 known coal deposits and 100 coal mines. The five largest of these produce 87 million tonnes of coal per year. But coal only burns with about 30 per cent efficiency in the conversion to electricity, so from this yield we get about 190,000 gigawatts of electricity per year. Google Earth shows that these mines and associated facilities cover about 292 square kilometres. If that same land was dedicated to commercial solar, it's estimated it would produce 112,000 gigawatts—more than half of what these coalmines do. But the big difference is that the land could be used for a dual purpose, with agrovoltaics making each square kilometre of land significantly more productive.

I agree that we must ensure generation and transmission project standards for renewables meet world's best environmental stewardship practice; however, I suspect our reasons for advocating for this are different. For me, I believe it's important because I want to ensure that, as we transition, we do so in a way which is good not just for humanity but for biodiversity in the wider sense. By contrast I suspect this motion was crafted in this way to ensure existing fossil fuel proponents use it as a tool to delay a cleaner energy future. A cynic would say that this is because those currently involved in the fossil fuel system are determined to extract every dollar out of the Australian market, while polluting our waterways and airways and jeopardising a stable, liveable climate moving forward, and that those who support this sector and have long benefited from donations from it have a vested interest in enabling them to do just that.

With that said, I don't believe it's unreasonable to consider nuclear power. Australia does, after all, provide a third of the world's uranium. However, I think it is highly unlikely that the Australian public will embrace it, as the challenges of dealing with the waste it produces have not been addressed. It is likely to be far more expensive, and the technology that is suggested in this motion is not only not ready for deployment; it may never be. Ultimately, it would also not be ready to deploy within a climate-necessary time frame. Even if we do pursue nuclear energy, it would require transmission infrastructure, and if we are to accept the premise of this motion—that transmission infrastructure is being rejected—why would it be different for a nuclear project?

If the member for Wide Bay really cared about the cost of energy for Australian households, he would be advocating for an overhaul of Australia's Byzantine market rules for our electricity system. (Time expired)

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