Australia: where governments spent thousands to irrigate prime land, then subsidize a solar farm on top

Obviously, if you are a thirsty solar panel, Australia is the place to be. We have ready-made irrigated high quality agricultural land set to be covered with an uneconomic and unreliable solar panels.

Only collective-coerced taxpayers are stupid enough to pay for this.

It’s so silly, groups of unconnected farmers of all different kinds are rallying together to oppose the flagrant waste.

Prime agricultural land loss or booming future energy? That’s the solar planning conundrum for Victoria

Residents near Shepparton are concerned that farmland the Victorian Government has invested in under the Murray-Darling Basin Plan will be lost to agriculture as the state undergoes a solar farm boom.

Four applications for solar farms in the Greater Shepparton region that could produce up to 243 megawatts of electricity have been proposed for Tatura, Tallygaroopna, Lemnos and Congupna, and have been ‘called in’ by the Victorian planning minister.

Critics say there has been no thought put to where the solar farms are being placed and how much prime agricultural land is being lost, and while there is suitable, more arid land available close by.

At least two of the solar farms have recently been the subject of a massive investment under the Murray-Darling Basin Plan.

Tens of thousands of dollars were invested to install new irrigation gates — which can cost an estimated $50,000 to install — and century-old irrigation channels were upgraded to bring the farms into the 21st century.

It is rare to get orchardists, dairy farmers, livestock producers, retirees and residents to agree on anything in a small farming community, but this group does not want a 100MW, $175 million solar farm built on prime agricultural farm land.

If the world cools, which will we want more: food or green electrons?

UPDATE #1: It’s no accident that solar “farms” will be built over prime agricultural land rather than arid desert. They need to be near transmission lines to make the investment viable (even a subsidized one). Obviously there are more transmission lines near populated productive land than out in the desert. h/t Pat who found other examples near Warwick in Queensland and WesleyVale in Tasmania. El Gordo names another in the Hunter Valley.

UPDATE #2: TonyfromOz calculates that this 100MW plant costing $175m will produce one hundredth of the power of Bayswater coal fired station. Since the lifetime of a solar plant is half of a coal station, it would take 200 of these plants to replace Bayswater’s yearly output in the long run (and that is ignoring the need for backup and battery storage for the solar option). The starting cost of replacing Bayswater with solar is thus $35billion (and then some).

h/t Pat

PS: I’m looking forward to the fantastic Friedman18 conference I’ll be speaking at in Sydney with Ian Plimer in a few weeks. Join us! You can get a 10% discount with the code Nova18. See an amazing line up of speakers this year on May 25-27 in Sydney. Meet, laugh and share with sane people!

VN:F [1.9.22_1171]

please wait... Rating: 9.7/10 (53 votes cast)