Tt is a strange political situation when the federal National party denies funding to further progress the Borumbah pumped hydro on behalf of a possible future coalition government.
Will Peter Dutton, on behalf of the Liberal party, back up National’s leader, David Littleproud?
At present the Liberal Party wants to put off investment in renewables.
They claim that nuclear is the answer but we must wait and the CSIRO must be proved to be wrong.
This means that the emissions are not much reduced in the medium term.
But for them to stop the construction of pumped hydro at Borumbah would mean a major change.
The coalition started Snowy 2.
While it has problems it will still work.
The technology is well developed and the economics are still attractive – even given the increase in Snowy 2.
We still have to see the figures but Borumbah, like most pumped hydro systems, will still be the cheapest storage of electricity.
But it is almost impossible for the coalition to win government without the “Teal” and independent seats that they lost in the last election. And it is very unlikely that they will make any inroads into these seats with a policy that stops pumped hydro, limits renewables and relies on the future promise of nuclear.
(I can remember when the nuclear industry promised “power so cheap that it wouldn’t be worth measuring it”)
So if Dutton goes against Borumbah we will most likely have a Labor government – either as a majority or minority government in Canberra.
Borumbah is being built by the Queensland government.
So we really need to know what is the position of the LNP in Queensland?
They can actually stop Borumbah if they are elected later in the year.
As far as Gympie is concerned Borumbah, will be the greatest boost that we have had since the gold rush.
The town that saved Queensland -again?
Of course we have to ensure that private individuals don’t carry any of the cost.
But agriculture and our way of life will be greatly affected by global warming if it reaches more that two degrees as projected under the present emissions.
We really have to weigh up the complete loss of the Great Barrier Reef, the end of snow sports in Australia and a change to all agriculture in the country.
The action to restrict global warming cannot wait.
At Gympie Regional Council’s recent meeting there was a nuanced discussion of a motion that would have supported shutting down Borumbah.
Our community deserves a similar discussion as we consider how we can play a part in reducing greenhouse gas and the catastrophic effect on weather.
Perhaps the National party will consider the alternative of increasing the size of Borumbah, but instead of pumped storage, we use the extra water for a local nuclear reactor.
This could be positioned so that minimum extra high voltage lines are required.
This would certainly encourage the uptake of on roof solar and batteries as electricity costs soared and the community carried the costs of waste disposal, eventual decommissioning and insurance.
But it will be interesting to see if Gympie is one of the locations that Mr Dutton sets out as a site.
We need to know:
1. If Peter Dutton supports the remarks of David Littleproud.
2. If the Queensland LNP is against Borumbah
3. What is the position of our MLA, Tony Perrett.
4. Will Gympie be used for a nuclear reactor
Reg Lawler,
Dagun
