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The Great Australian Wind Rush and theDevaluation of Landscape AmenityDAVID MERCER aa RMIT University , AustraliaPublished online: 27 May 2010.

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Australian Geographer, Vol. 34, No. 1, pp. 91–121, 2003

The Great Australian Wind Rush and theDevaluation of Landscape Amenity

DAVID MERCER, RMIT University, Australia

ABSTRACT Up until very recently—and in marked contrast to such countries as Spain,Denmark and Germany—Australia generated hardly any electricity from the wind. Drivenlargely by the mandatory targets embodied in the Renewable Energy (Electricity) Act 2000(Commonwealth) this situation is now changing. Australia has several operational small- tomedium-sized wind energy power stations in Western Australia, Victoria, New South Walesand Queensland. But—in the face of often strong local opposition—the Australian WindEnergy Association is keen to increase the number and scale of such projects. This paperoutlines recent overseas developments in wind energy and then focuses on the environmentaland planning dilemmas posed by this form of electricity production. Particular attention isfocused on a highly controversial wind energy proposal in south-western Victoria, the PortlandWind Energy Project (PWEP). The argument presented is that wind is only one of a numberof possible renewable energy options, that coastal landscapes are an ‘endangered species’, andthat it is time for geographers to revisit methodologies concerned with evaluating landscapebeauty and debating the place of landscape values within the ecologically sustainable develop-ment paradigm.

KEY WORDS Wind energy; landscapes; coastal planning; Victoria; landscape assessment;renewable energy.

Introduction

On the weekend of 21/22 July 2001, the Australian-based international energy develop-ment company Pacific Hydro Ltd (PHL) hosted a well-publicised, on-site ‘celebration’to mark the opening of what was reported at the time to be Australia’s largest windpower station at Codrington, in the Shire of Moyne, on Victoria’s west coast, near PortFairy.1 Subsequently, the weekend was widely heralded by the company and localnewspapers as an outstanding success and an unqualified public endorsement oflarge-scale wind energy generation (Portland Observer 2001). The 14 large steel towersmaking up the 18.2 MW (megawatt) project were located on land leased from twofarming families for 30 years in a sparsely populated grazing region. They were installedup to 1 km inland from a coastline of low relief that had never been identified as havinghigh-level scenic significance and, not surprisingly, there was negligible local oppositionto what was strongly promoted by the company as a ‘clean, green’ energy projectof ‘enormous benefit’ to the State and the local community. Indeed, the Shire ofMoyne welcomed the initiative as did green organisations such as Greenpeace and theAustralian Conservation Foundation and—initially—both landowners. It was also the

ISSN 0004-9182 print/ISSN 1465-3311 online/03/010091-31 2003 Geographical Society of New South Wales Inc.

DOI: 10.1080/0004918032000066173

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first of its kind in Australia to be developed by the private sector in the country’s newlyliberalised electricity market (Australian EcoGeneration Association 2001a; Jessup &Mercer 2001).

Codrington was but one of several similar wind energy schemes that becameoperational in Australia in 2001, and in the second half of that year the country’sinstalled capacity grew from a low base of 31.7 to 84.7 MW (Miller 2002). Bycomparison, the total generating capacity of Victoria’s Latrobe Valley coal-fired powerstations is around 6500 MW and, as we shall see, future plans in Victoria and otherStates are for a significant expansion of coal- and gas-fired electricity generation. As anindication of the youth and relative insignificance of the wind energy sector in Australia,Germany produced approximately 3000 MW of wind-generated electricity in 1998 and6113 MW 2 years later, almost three times as much as the USA (Jacobson & Masters2001; Suzuki & Dressel 2002).

Following Wawryk’s (2002) recent work on this issue in South Australia, this papersets the establishment of the Codrington infrastructure project in its wider context anddiscusses a number of related planning and environmental dilemmas posed by this andsimilar proposed wind energy projects in Australia. Particular attention is paid to thearguments used by the wind energy development sector to promote the view that, of allthe possible renewable energy and demand management options, wind represents theoptimal way forward for countries seeking significantly to reduce their greenhouse gasemissions. Over the last few years in Australia the wind energy development industryhas invested massive resources in public relations campaigns aimed at exercising‘symbolic power’ (Bourdieu 1991) to convince the public that renewable (or sustain-able) energy is synonymous with wind energy and that this is the most appropriate wayto reduce the estimated record 28 tonnes per capita of net greenhouse gas emissions inAustralia. This is despite the fact that the State of Victoria subsidises the energy-intensive aluminium industry by over $100 million each year and that Division 3,Section 17 of the Renewable Energy (Electricity) Act 2000 (Commonwealth) identifies nofewer than 23 eligible renewable energy sources (Dauncey & Mazza 2001). Renewableenergy can be defined as the production of transport fuel, process heat or electricityfrom sources that, theoretically, are infinite in supply, i.e. sunshine, organic material(biomass), wind and flowing water. Relevant technologies include wind generators,hydro, tidal and wave power, photovoltaics, solar thermal, biomass-sourced liquid fuelsand biomass-fuelled electricity production. These technologies can be further differen-tiated in terms of their scale.

At another level this paper engages with research on the management of naturalbeauty (Bonyhady 1993; Burden et al. 2002) and contributions by Australian geogra-phers on changing notions of ‘rurality’ and conflicts generated by the commodificationof relatively unspoiled rural landscapes (Curry et al. 2001; Tonts & Greive 2002). In theearly part of the twentieth century Tasmania had a Scenery Preservation Board to arguethe case for scenery protection. But in more recent times in Australia—apart from theNational Trust—there have been few powerful voices speaking on behalf of scenicvalues.

A controversial issue

Whatever its form, energy production and transmission always involve some kind ofenvironmental impact or damage (Randle 1981). In some cases, such as hydro-powerand nuclear generation, the environmental impacts are now recognised as being so

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serious that recent years have seen a major reappraisal of their appropriateness in manycountries. In other instances major conflicts are triggered at the local level because ofsuch threats as visual pollution. This has been a central issue, for example, in theBasslink proposal for the linking of the Tasmanian and Victorian electricity grids acrossa number of rural properties in South Gippsland. Social disruption, too, is often aparallel consequence of energy developments. In the case of Yallourn an entire town inVictoria’s Latrobe Valley was demolished in the 1970s so that the brown coal could beexcavated from the sub-surface (Fletcher 2002).

For generations, Australians have become well accustomed to the sight of large,coal-fired power stations in such areas as the Latrobe and Hunter Valleys, as well asnumerous, small-scale—and relatively unobtrusive—wind turbines pumping upgroundwater for stock on rural properties. However, by virtue of its enormous scale,Codrington—as well as its recent equivalents at Ravenshoe in Queensland, Toora inVictoria, and Albany in Western Australia—represents an entirely new form of ‘windenergy landscape’ (Pasqualetti 2000, 2001; Pasqualetti et al. 2002) that hitherto hasbeen totally foreign to most Australians. Moreover, if such companies as PHL, andbodies such as the Australian Wind Energy Association (AUSWEA), the NSW Sustain-able Energy Development Authority (SEDA) and Victoria’s Sustainable Energy Auth-ority (SEAV) get their way, Australia eventually will be home to scores of similar,large-scale wind power stations located at the windiest and most profitable sites closeto the existing power grid. In the main, such locations are coastal, thus raising the issueof whether this is an appropriate land use in areas of high scenic amenity. In the Stateof Victoria, for example, wind energy developers are currently pressing hard forpermission to proceed with new wind power station projects in the Shires of Glenelg,Moyne, Southern Grampians and South Gippsland, often in the face of substantiallocal opposition.

In certain situations, elected local councillors are sharply divided over the appropri-ateness of large-scale wind energy developments and in some local government areassuch as South Gippsland we are witnessing a gradual shift towards ever strongeropposition as more information concerning impacts becomes available. But this hascertainly not been the case in Victoria’s Shire of Glenelg, to be discussed in more detailbelow. In that south-western shire, incumbent councillors and the local PortlandProgress Association (PPA) have maintained a consistent pro-wind energy stance forseveral years. Clive Hamilton (2002, p. 8)—a prominent Australian advocate of thisparticular form of renewable energy—has argued that eventually ‘We can expect to seeperhaps 400—yes, 400—wind farms, each with 20 to 30 turbines, located on thewindiest sites across the southern coast of the continent.’ More recently, his AustraliaInstitute team has argued for the ‘need [sic] to have more than 11,000 turbinesinstalled, or around 500–600 wind farms’ (Turton et al. 2002, p. xiii). Elsewhere,however—in the Victorian Shires of Cardinia and Baw Baw, for example—officialcouncil policy now is to declare the shires ‘wind farm free’ zones, much as someMelbourne and Sydney councils declared themselves ‘nuclear free’ zones in the 1970s.Figure 1 illustrates Victoria’s main wind resource zones and Figure 2 documents thosesites in Victoria that, to this point, have been targeted by development companies forwind energy power stations. It remains to be seen whether all these projects will receiveplanning approval and what other locations will be identified in the future.

If it achieves little else, this paper will have satisfied one of its main aims if it succeedsin opening up a wider debate around the issue of whether we, in Australia, are willingto follow the trend set in other countries and deliver up large expanses of mainly scenic

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coastal environments to what are—to many people—highly intrusive industrial struc-tures. Clearly, this is an ethical issue, and it is interesting to note that one of the fewdetailed academic studies focusing on the ethics of investing in large-scale wind energyconcluded that, by investing in a wind energy facility in Wales, the Body Shop couldbe argued to be behaving ‘unethically’ (Burritt & Lehman 1995). The debate inAustralia is timely because, by comparison with many other countries, we have not yetembraced this energy-generating technology on a large scale, and we can learn from thepast mistakes of other nations that are much further advanced on the learning curve(Hull 1997). In a sense, then, Australian policy regarding wind energy—and indeedrenewables in general—is currently unfolding in a very ad hoc manner, but, as in theUSA, there is strong evidence that the corporate sector is largely setting the policyagenda (Carter 2001; Gonzalez 2001). For example, it is the industry association,AUSWEA (2002), not government, that has produced the ‘best practice’ guidelines forwind energy development across the country. In Australia, renewables still account foronly around 10 per cent of electricity sources and, of this, total wind energy currentlyaccounts for only 0.05 per cent of electricity supplied (Roarty 2000). Large-scale hydroaccounts for 88 per cent of all renewable electricity production in Australia.

In order to highlight the significance of the central, controversial issue of scale veryearly on in the paper, Figure 3 presents a schematic illustration of the size of a typicalcontemporary wind generator tower.2 However, it needs to be recognised that thisdiagram features only one schematised generator tower. In reality there are usuallyclusters of many generating units (sometimes hundreds or thousands) spread over aconsiderable area (either onshore or offshore) and, naturally, the huge rotor blades arein almost constant motion. There has been a progressive increase in the size of windgenerator towers. Forty metres was common for a 300 kW machine in 1992. But, bythe year 2000, 80–120 m was typical for a 1.5 MW installation. As at Toora inGippsland, this includes 33 m blades and generators weighing as much as 60 tonnes.Denmark is currently experimenting with 5 and 6 MW generator towers that are twiceas large as those in use today (Reuters News Service 2001a). It is highly likely thatfuture power station proposals in Australia will be seeking to use towers of this size andthat they will supplant existing towers on the same sites when facilities are decommis-sioned after a typical lifetime of 25–30 years. This has been the experience in the UKand counters the argument of the wind energy sector that wind turbines are merely‘temporary’ structures (Bunyard 2002).

As we shall see, the debate surrounding large-scale wind energy is often deeplypolarised, its proponents frequently espousing their views with a passion akin toreligious zeal. In contrast to most of the professional literature on the subject oflarge-scale wind energy, this paper does not argue simplistically in favour of blindlyembracing and celebrating this form of electricity production, often for no otherapparent reason than that so-called ‘green’ wind energy is expanding rapidly in such‘leading-edge’ countries as the USA, Spain and Germany (Gipe 1995, 1998; Kelly1997; Blakers 2000; Hamilton 2001). Indeed, my main argument is that there are quitedifferent levels of social acceptance for various renewable energy technologies(Pasqualetti & Butler 1987; Krohn & Damborg 1999; Iniyan et al. 2001), and weshould take the time to explore and debate the issue much more thoroughly, particu-larly in relation to the range of possible alternative energy policies and the visualpollution aspects associated with large-scale wind energy projects (International EnergyAgency 1998). In Europe (Bishop 2001; Jenkins 2001), North America and NewZealand localised opposition to wind energy developments is growing rapidly and a

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FIGURE 3. The scale of contemporary wind generating towers and blades.

number of Websites deal specifically with the issue.3 And in Germany, in September1998, 60 university academics and writers released the ‘Darmstadt Manifesto’ callingfor the complete withdrawal of all direct and indirect subsidies to the wind energysector.

Wind energy

Wind energy is a form of solar energy and a strong, steady wind resource averaging 6.5m/s or 23 km/hour is usually required for the successful establishment of a wind powerstation. Nevertheless, intermittency of wind is always a problem and this form of energygeneration invariably is an adjunct to base-load generation from more reliable sources

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such as coal or gas. Worldwide, wind energy capacity has demonstrated spectaculargrowth in recent years. In the absence of an agreed international tax on carbonemissions, this has been driven both by a plethora of different government policiesseeking to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in electricity production and by consumersvoluntarily purchasing ‘green’ electricity through such schemes as Victoria’s ‘Green-power’ initiative (Fuchs & Arentsen 2002; O’Brien 2002). Environmental organisationssuch as Greenpeace, too, have frequently joined with the wind energy industry to pushfor a much speedier uptake of wind technology (European Wind Energy Association,Forum for Energy and Development, Greenpeace International 1999; Australian EnergyNews 2001). From the wind energy developers’ standpoint the real attraction of thisindustry lies in the enormous potential that exists for carbon emission credit trading tobecome the world’s largest environmental market. However, the major stumbling blockat the moment is that we have too little information on the indirect costs (externalities)of carbon emissions, thus making it difficult to compare the costs and benefits ofdifferent kinds of energy generation (Kausman 2002).

Following the introduction of full contestability in the New South Wales andVictorian electricity markets from January 2002 onwards, many of these same organisa-tions also are now joining forces to evaluate and rank energy retailers in terms of theirso-called environmental credentials (see, for example, Nature Conservation Council ofNew South Wales 2002). This is intended to provide discerning consumers with higherquality information to guide their choice of electricity provider. In all such evaluationsthe purchase of electricity from wind-generated sources is always ranked highly. But,arguably, assessments should take into account damaging impacts on coastal amenity,and be marked down accordingly.

Progressively, both efficiency and the costs of production have also been fallingdramatically in the wind energy sector (Frankovic & Vrsalovic 2001; Sohlman 2001).For example, Codrington’s relatively small generating capacity approximated that forthe whole world in 1981. Gradually, as noted, technological advances have meant anincrease in generating capacity such that giant 1 and 2 MW generating towers are nownot unusual. Inevitably, though, this has meant an increase in scale such that towers100 m or more in height are now commonplace around the world. With this increasein scale conflict with local residents, tourists and environmentalists has escalated tosuch an extent that in many countries now the placement of wind power stationsoffshore is seen as a much less contentious approach (Still 2001; Douglas-WestwoodLtd 2002). In the UK, for example, 18 offshore sites are currently being evaluated forapproval, and there is a 170-turbine proposal currently being discussed for NantucketSound in the United States (Ziner 2002).

While wind energy still supplies only around 0.15 per cent of the world’s electricity,globally, by the end of 2001, there was a grand total of 24 900 MW of installedcapacity, an increase of 52 per cent in only 12 months, and up dramatically from 2013MW in 1990. These figures fall well short of the very high potential statistics that arehighlighted by such bodies as the European Wind Energy Association (EWEA). Witha target year of 2020 the EWEA proposes that with the proper policies in place thepossibility is there to have an installed capacity of 1.2 GW worldwide, generating 10 percent of total electricity output. This would be more than current electricity consump-tion in Europe (European Wind Energy Association, Forum for Energy and Develop-ment, Greenpeace International 1999). Over the shorter timeframe, a recent estimateis that global wind power capacity will reach around 80 000 megawatt by the end of2006 (Reuters News Service 2002a).

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In recent times, invariably each year has exceeded the record set in the previous yearfor newly installed wind energy capacity, such that by the end of the 1990s wind energywas supplying 10 times the quantity of electricity that it had been delivering at the startof that decade (Flavin 2001). These generalised figures, of course, mask enormousvariations between nations in terms of their commitment to this form of energyproduction, as well as temporal swings within countries depending upon the fashionsand vagaries of taxation and other regulatory regimes. While some countries with agood wind regime, such as Denmark or Germany, have made a strong commitment towind energy, others like Norway and New Zealand have not (Grorud 2001). In April2002, for example, Norway’s energy minister refused a licence for the construction ofa 35-turbine wind facility on the coast at Stadlandet on the grounds that it would ‘harmthe interests of nature’ (Reuters News Service 2002b). As the Californian ‘wind boom’of the 1980s demonstrated, it is not uncommon for a surge of interest in wind energyto be followed by changed regulations which result in a dramatic slump (Hislop et al.2000). More recently, in the USA, after an anxious wait, the wind energy sectorwelcomed a 2 year extension of the Production Tax Credit (PTC) to the end of 2003.This grants a 1.5 cent/kWh tax credit for wind-generated electricity (Reuters NewsService 2002c). Nevertheless, in that country wind still accounts only for a miniscule0.1 per cent of total electricity generation and has accounted for about 1 per cent ofcapacity additions since 1996 (Energy Information Administration 2001). The mostrecent appraisal of the prospects for wind energy in the USA suggests the generation ofonly around 20 000 MW by 2010, well below earlier projections (Reuters News Service2002d).

While wind energy still produces less than 1 per cent of the world’s electricity, thecontribution in Denmark is now around 13 per cent, and in the German state ofSchleswig-Holstein it is almost 17 per cent (Hinsch 2001). However, in neither of theseplaces has the strong emphasis on wind energy resulted in a net reduction in green-house gas emissions. Prior to the February 2002 election, Denmark was aiming for thewind contribution to its overall electricity supply to be approximately 50 per cent by2030, but the new centre-right government has announced a radical change in thatcountry’s pro-wind energy stance and the subsidisation of wind energy will cease from2004 onwards (Reuters News Service 2002e). One effect of this is that Denmark’ssubstantial wind energy manufacturing sector is now looking to expand its overseasmarkets, not least in Australia. One feature of this overseas expansion—the establish-ment of local manufacturing plants—is particularly attractive to Australian regionalcentres, a point that will be revisited later in the paper. In April 2002, for example, theDanish wind turbine manufacturer Vestas won an order for 175 turbines for a new windpower station in the USA. Talks are ongoing about the possibility of opening a newmanufacturing plant in the USA if orders of 300 turbines a year can be guaranteed(Reuters News Service 2002f). Spain and Germany are the recent success stories interms of the speed of uptake of renewable wind energy with a record 1670 MW beinginstalled in Germany in 2000 alone. This represented around 50 per cent of new globalcapacity in that year. However, as the Darmstadt Manifesto has demonstrated, thispolicy has not been universally applauded. In addition, Germany’s EconomicsMinister—Werner Mueller—has argued for a slow down in that country’s greenhousegas reduction programme on the grounds that it is making manufacturing moreexpensive than in other European nations (Reuters News Service 2001f).

Such data are frequently used by proponents of wind energy to argue the case thatAustralia has enormous potential for wind-generated electricity but is so far ‘lagging’

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TABLE 1. Operating large( � 25kW) wind energy power

stations in Australia

Albany, WAArmidale, NSWBlayney, NSWBreamlea, VICCodrington, VICCoober Pedy, NSWCrookwell, NSWDenham, WAFlinders Is. 25 kW, TASFlinders Is. 55 kW, TASHampton Wind Park, NSWHuxley Hill, TASKooragang Is., NSWMalabar, NSWSalmon Beach, WA10 Mile Lagoon, WAThursday Is., QLDWindy Hill, QLD

Source: Australian WindEnergy Association.

well behind such countries as the USA, Spain, the UK, Germany and so on, in termsof uptake (Nash et al. 1999; Blakers 2000). Data relating to wind energy potential inAustralia vary enormously, depending upon who is making the assessment. Thus, whilePeck (1998) has calculated a fairly modest nationwide potential of somewhere in theregion of 500–1000 MW, Blakers (pers. comm.) insists that Tasmania alone has apotential higher than 1000 MW. However, the capacity of Tasmania to develop itswind energy sector depends ultimately upon the timing of the interstate Basslinkconnection. Western Australia, Victoria and South Australia are the other States withan especially wide range of potentially suitable sites. The Australian EcoGenerationAssociation (2001a) considers that the latter State has a wind energy potential of atleast 1000 MW. Some calculations, for example, have estimated that south-westernWestern Australia alone has the potential to supply 45 times Australia’s current energyneeds (Sustainable Energy Development Authority 2001). Tables 1 and 2 presentAustralian Wind Energy Association (AUSWEA) data on both existing and proposedlarge wind power stations in Australia. The Association is lobbying for an ambitioustarget of 5000 MW of wind-generated electricity in Australia by 2010 (AustralianEnergy News 2001). A highly conservative calculation of the land area that would berequired for the requisite number of generator towers to produce this amount ofelectricity is of the order of 70 000 ha.

Renewables obligation schemes

In many countries now, both central and Provincial/State governments have mandatedthat a certain proportion of electricity generation should come from ‘renewable’resources such as wind, solar, hydro and biomass. In 1997, the State of Wisconsin inthe USA passed legislation requiring all Wisconsin power utilities to provide 50 MW ofnew electric power from renewable sources, again principally wind. In the UK the Blair

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TABLE 2. Planned large( � 25kW) wind energy power

stations in Australia

Boral Energy, SACape Bridgewater, VICCape Nelson, VICCape Sir William Grant, VICChallicum Hills, VICLake Bonney, SANirranda, VICToora, VICTungketta Hill, SAWindy Hill Phase 2, QLDWoolnorth, TASYambuk, VIC

Source: Australian Wind EnergyAssociation.

government introduced the Renewables Obligation Scheme that came into effect inJanuary 2002. This now obligates energy companies to produce 3 per cent of their salesfrom renewable sources by the end of 2002, rising to an ambitious 10.4 per cent in2011. However, given that the UK already produces 2.8 per cent of its electricity from‘green’ power sources, the criticism has been made by representatives of the renewableenergy sector that the initial targets are not high enough (Reuters News Service 2001b).But there is also the problem that many schemes fail to get planning permission.Approximately 100 renewable energy projects in the UK are currently held up becauseof planning constraints (Reuters News Service 2001c). In two cases conflicts have goneall the way to the British High Court. In November 1999, the court rejected plans byNational Wind Power to construct a large facility in northern England. Between 1997and 1999 consent was given to less than 9 MW of new wind energy in the UK and,even on appeal, only 3 of 19 cases were successful (Western Coastal Board 2001).

In Australia, in November 1997, prior to the Kyoto climate change conference, theHoward government announced that it would commit to a policy of mandating anincremental 2 per cent increase in the use of renewable sources for electricity pro-duction by 2010. At that time the government’s Renewables Target Working Group(1999) calculated that approximately 10.5 per cent of the country’s electricity output(or 16 000 GWh) came from renewable sources. However, as in the UK, renewableenergy advocates are arguing that the government’s commitment to this form ofelectricity generation is very weak and that, given the current increase in electricityconsumption nationwide (an average of 2.8 per cent per annum), renewables appearlikely to represent only around 11 per cent of overall electricity generation in Australiain 2010, barely an improvement on the 1997 figure (Australian EcoGeneration Associ-ation 2001b).

The renewables sub-market has always been considered something of a threat by thepowerful coal and gas interests within the Electricity Supply Association of Australia(ESAA). This body lobbied successfully for a change in the policy such that by 1999the 2 per cent measure had been replaced by a 9500 GWh target which would beintroduced gradually and which, solar and wind energy protagonists argued, wouldultimately deliver only a 0.5 per cent increase in market share by 2010, rather than 2per cent. The wind energy component of the 9500 GWh target is currently around

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2950 GWh. The 9500 benchmark was eventually incorporated in the Renewable Energy(Electricity) Act 2000 which came into effect on 1 April 2001. It is known as theMandatory Renewable Energy Target (MRET) and the requirement is that all elec-tricity suppliers and wholesale purchasers must play their part in purchasing a certainamount of green power, or face fines of $40/MWh. This is being accomplished throughthe purchase and surrender of ‘Renewable Energy Certificates’ (1 REC � 1 MWh) tothe Office of the Renewable Energy Regulator (Australian Greenhouse Office 2001).MRET has a number of strong critics, both from within the renewable energy sectorand from commentators opposed to subsidies (Australian EcoGeneration Association2002; Moran 2002; Stock 2002). In May 2002, the Premier of New South Walesannounced that his government planned to take a national lead and enforce specifiedgreenhouse benchmarks on electricity retailers, starting on 1 January 2003. Thisrequires that retailers’ emissions be reduced by 5 per cent on a per capita basis by 2007or be liable for a penalty (Premier of New South Wales 2002).

The Australian EcoGeneration Association is currently pushing for the 9500 GWhtarget to be raised to 13 000 GWh, and for an increase of 5 per cent in the amount ofelectricity produced from renewable sources by 2010 (Environment Institute of Aus-tralia 2001). AUSWEA has even more ambitious targets. It is arguing for the 9500GWh figure to be raised to 21 400 GWh, of which the wind energy component shouldbe 10 400 GWh (Reuters News Service 2001d).

State developmentalism and the Codrington ‘breakthrough’

Put bluntly, companies such as PHL are in the competitive business of increasing thecurrently extremely modest level of market penetration of their particular technologicalproducts (i.e. wind and hydro-power installations) at the expense of alternative policyoptions such as the use of photovoltaics, coal and gas or measures to reduce energyconsumption. This involves lobbying all three levels of government to amend planningand other regulations to make it easier for wind projects to proceed, even in the face ofstrong local opposition. PHL alone has identified over 160 sites around Australia thatit regards as having the potential for wind energy. These are all on private land soconsiderable effort is put into persuading targeted landholders to sign contracts to allowwind turbine construction to proceed on their land. This, and similar companies,promote a ‘supply side’ rather than a ‘demand management’ solution to electricityprovision (Institution of Engineers, Australia 2001). In the case of Victoria it is seekingto forge a niche market for its ‘green’ energy in a State that has the most greenhouse-intensive energy in Australia and where an overwhelming 95 per cent of electricityproduction comes from the brown coal deposits located in the Latrobe Valley. Atpresent rates of consumption these supplies have been calculated to last at least another500 years and energy companies have stated that power stations built in the 1960s willnot cease production until they have been functioning for 80 years (EnvironmentVictoria 2000). Amid protests from the green movement, the Bracks’ Labor govern-ment is committed to promoting the expansion of coal-fired electricity production inthis region through the opening up of an additional 764 km2 of coalfield (Dabkowski& Baker 2001; Pugh 2001; Reuters News Service 2001e). Gas-fired electricity pro-duction is also being strongly favoured in Victoria at the present time, with over 1500MW of new capacity planned to come on stream by 2005 (Myer 2002a). In October2001, the federal government announced that it would be committing an additional$11.13 million to research aimed at reducing the moisture content of brown coal. This

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has the potential to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from this form of electricityproduction by at least 15 per cent and comes on top of a previous federal governmentcommitment of $26.5 million to ‘clean’ coal technology.

The events associated with the days’ ‘celebration’ at Codrington, mentioned at thestart of this paper, were the most recent in a long-running public relations campaign onthe part of PHL to promote the alleged benefits of large-scale wind energy, particularlyin the Portland/Port Fairy region of south-western Victoria (Centre for CorporatePublic Affairs and Business Council of Australia 2000). They included a rousing speechby Victoria’s Premier, Steve Bracks, as well as refreshments for the estimated 7000visitors, constant shuttle-bus transportion at no cost to users from nearby Yambuk andPort Fairy, exhibitions and information about renewable energy, arts and craft stalls,music and much else besides. Prior to this promotional festival PHL had organised andfunded a lavish, renewable energy ‘expo’ in Portland and, throughout 2000 and 2001,had ensured that a constant stream of positive stories about the company and itsambitious renewable energy plans appeared in the local, State and national print andelectronic media emphasising the supposed environmental benefits of ‘windfarms’4 andthe company’s ever-rising share price. Given that greenhouse gas emissions fromAustralia’s coal-dominated electricity generating sector account for around 40 per centof the country’s total emissions, and rose by 31 per cent between 1990 and 1998 (Pugh2001), the potential contribution that wind power can make to reducing futureemissions and achieving the targets agreed to in Kyoto in 1997 has always featuredprominently in the numerous media releases about PHL and other wind energydevelopers.

A symbolic victory

Securing the services of Premier Bracks to open the Codrington wind power stationclearly was a public relations coup for the company, but there is also no doubt that thePremier stood to gain considerable political mileage out of his association with an eventthat—notwithstanding the government’s continuing support for the expansion of elec-tricity production from coal sources—was celebrating the launch of a monument to‘clean, green’ electricity production, was held in a relatively economically under-developed and depopulating part of the State, and which also happened to be in theelectorate of the then State Leader of the Victorian Opposition, Dr Dennis Napthine.In his speech, Premier Bracks (2001) praised Pacific Hydro and Origin Energy(purchaser of the power station’s entire output) for their endeavours, and noted that

This $33 million wind farm [sic] is an important investment in Victoria’sgrowing renewable energy industry, and will provide enormous economic andenvironmental benefits for the State. Of all the environmental issues, the risinglevel of global greenhouse gas emissions now needs a concerted effort betweengovernment, scientific institutions, the wider community and industry. Thereare significant investment, export and job opportunities for Victoria in therenewable energy industry, including wind energy manufacturing and con-struction. [However] like any industry, renewable energy developments aresubject to environmental assessment processes and community consultation.In Victoria we have the right processes in place to deal with these issues anda government that is committed to getting the balance right.

Such rhetoric was entirely in line with the long tradition of State developmentalism in

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Australia (Walker 1999; Davidson 2002) and the ALP administration’s continuation ofthe former Kennett government’s strong pro-industry stance in Victoria (Costar &Economou 1999). Indeed, the Codrington wind power station had been given thegreen light by Victoria’s previous administration which had also decreed that the projectcould proceed without having to go through a rigorous and time-consuming environ-mental assessment process under Victoria’s Environment Effects Act 1978. Moreover,there were no State-wide guidelines in place to act as a framework for the development,and even 2 years later there were still no nationwide standards in place for noise andother performance standards of wind turbines. In the end, the approvals process for therelatively uncontroversial AUS$33 million Codrington infrastructure project wasfinalised in only 4 weeks and construction (including the importation of the 14generators from Germany) was completed in 10 months.

Even though the 18.2 MW Codrington wind energy scheme is tiny by worldstandards its approval and subsequent commissioning represented a major symbolicbreakthrough for companies such as PHL, Stanwell, Western Power, Primergy,Meridian and Duke Energy wishing to make inroads into Victoria’s potentially lucra-tive, embryonic wind energy sector. The industry as a whole had achieved some earliersmall victories with approvals granted for government-funded schemes at Ravenshoe inQueensland, Crookwell and Blayney in New South Wales, and Esperance and Albanyin Western Australia, but private sector interests had long had no success in establishinga toehold along the highly prized Victorian coastline. Indeed, in 1994 the Kennettgovernment ruled against subsidising the establishment of a wind power station atToora in Gippsland (Gosbell & Heard 1994). In the Codrington case, at last, a majorrenewable energy corporation had managed to persuade both a local Victorian council(the Shire of Moyne) and a State government that its activities had merit, and shouldbe supported. Even more importantly, it had also succeeded in finding two locallandholders who, for an agreed, long-term annual rental income, were willing to allowthe initial 14 widely spaced, 80 m steel towers and associated access roads to beconstructed on their farms and thus paved the way for PHL to ‘cherry pick’ a primecoastal wind energy location. Subsequently—and notwithstanding annual earnings ofaround $30 000 from wind generation—one of the farmers publicly stated his regret athaving signed a contract with Pacific Hydro, commenting that

Wind farming has not worked for us and we now very much regret thedecision to proceed with the lease. The wind farms have spoiled the coastlineand spoiled the view from public beaches and other public areas. Thesepeaceful, natural views belong to everyone and they have been damaged bythis development. (Denham 2001)

Further—as is commonly the case with wind power stations (e.g. Esperance, Raven-shoe)—Codrington has been marketed as a commercial ‘eco-tourism’ facility, withguided tours being offered to passing travellers for a small fee, 4 days a week.

Codrington in context

PHL’s triumphal ‘breakthrough’ and commissioning at Codrington followed the earlierrelease of the third Statement of opportunities (SOO) by the National Electricity MarketManagement Company (NEMMCO) (2001). This document presented an analysis ofthe 10 year forecast of supply for the national electricity grid, first established inDecember 1998, and hinted at the possibility of a looming energy shortfall in Victoria

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FIGURE 4. Victoria: forecast electricity generation capacity and maximum summer demand.

Source: Infrastructure Planning Council (2001).

and South Australia due to excessive winter demands and in New South Wales as aconsequence of high summer demands. Figure 4 illustrates the situation in Victoriawith respect to current generating capacity and potential generation capacity andprojected demand. This graph featured in a major report on infrastructure needsproduced for the State Premier by Victoria’s 14-member Infrastructure PlanningCouncil (IPC) in October 2001. Coincidentally, the Chair of the IPC—Mike Fitz-patrick—also sits on the Board of Pacific Hydro Ltd. The report drew attention to thefact that Victoria currently produces only 116 MW of electricity from renewablesources out of an annual State total of around 9000 MW, and recommended thatwithin 20 years at least one-fifth of the State’s electricity should be generated from‘solar, wind and other renewable energy sources’ (Infrastructure Planning Council2001, p. 27). But these figures have to be situated in the context of the proposedreforms of the national electricity market (Ministerial Council on Energy 2002). At thepresent time only Victoria has gone down the full deregulation path, there is realuncertainty about the direction the reforms are taking, and there are large variations inthe wholesale price of electricity between different States. South Australia’s prices, forexample are almost triple the dollars per MWh rates of Victoria. Better interconnec-tions between States potentially could have a large impact on prices at the individualState level and on the subsequent energy policies but there are still doubts in somecircles as to whether it is realistic to consider the eastern seaboard as one market(Mitchell 2002; Myer 2002b).

More significantly, the start-up of the Codrington project also followed closely on theheels of a protracted conflict between wind energy development interests and localresidents some 30 km further to the west in the adjoining Shire of Glenelg. In thisbattle, which spanned the period October 1997 to January 1999, the Perth-basedcompany Energy Equity Corporation (EEC) first made a formal application to the shireto construct up to 95 large wind generators on private land on three very exposedcoastal sites to the west and south-west of the regional centre of Portland (Hislop et al.2000). Previous research by the National Trust, consultant landscape architects andgeomorphologists had identified this particular stretch of coast as having outstanding

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scenic and scientific value (Victorian Coastal Council 1998; Rosengren et al. 1981;Rosengren 1994). But the other major difference between this stretch of coastline andCodrington is that there is a relatively higher density of settlement in the CapeBridgewater district. The experience with similar projects in other parts of the worldhas often been that there is a close correlation between conflict levels and the numberof residents potentially affected (see, for example, Carpenter 2002). The inappropriate-ness of siting a large wind power station in such a unique and relatively unspoiledcoastal environment was the main source of the conflict between some members of thelocal community on the one hand and the company and the supportive Shire of Glenelgon the other. The Shire Council was unanimous in its view that, subject to severalconditions, a planning permit for the ‘wind farm’ should be granted. Moreover, as atCodrington, the Minister for Planning and Local Government had waived the require-ment for an Environmental Effects Statement (EES). The council’s decision wasimmediately appealed by a number of local residents.

The Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal (VCAT)

In Victoria, planning disputes such as this are adjudicated by a body known as theVictorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal (VCAT) (Bryant et al. 1998; Eccles &Bryant 1999). In its 1999 decision VCAT found in favour of the local residents and—asis not uncommon with similar recent disputes in the UK—the EEC proposal was notallowed to proceed. The tribunal noted (pp. 35–6):

In our opinion the number of turbines, their cluttered arrangement and theirextremely large size … is such that the wind farm would have a disturbingvisual impact on the significant landscape values of the Cape …

This represented an unexpected setback for the wind energy industry which—throughits Wind Power Task Force—responded with a letter to the Premier of Victoria (28April 1999, quoted in Halstead 1999) stating that:

Victoria has the best known wind farm [sic] sites on mainland Australia andhas the potential to generate the majority of Australia’s wind energy. A recentFederal Government report put Australia’s wind energy potential at over 433megawatts, valued at some $719 million over the next 10 years. This invest-ment has the potential to stimulate regional development/investment throughlocal manufacturing, infrastructure, work and revenue to local landownerswho make land available to such projects.

The VCAT deliberations and decision served to highlight a number of complex issuessurrounding proposed wind energy projects in coastal locations. Not the least of theserelated to the relative powers of local government and the State government indetermining final outcomes. For example, under the terms of the Coastal ManagementAct 1995, the Victorian Coastal Council, in November 1996, produced a draft Victoriancoastal strategy. This was made widely available for public consultation almost a yearprior to EEC’s initial application to Glenelg Shire to proceed with three wind powerstations in the Cape Bridgewater region. That strategy—which placed considerableemphasis on the desirability of siting inappropriate developments away from sensitivecoastal locations—was subsequently endorsed by the State government in 1997 (Victo-rian Coastal Council 1997). However, it soon became clear that the Victorian CoastalCouncil had never anticipated a rush of wind energy development applications along

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the coast and so, in May 1999, it hurriedly convened a 1 day ‘wind farm’ workshop ofinterested participants to debate the issues (Victorian Coastal Council 1999). Much ofthe workshop was taken up with a lengthy presentation by the former Chief ExecutiveOfficer of Glenelg Shire Council, Mr Danny Halstead, in which he criticised the VCATdecision and highlighted the ‘policy vacuum’ that existed in Victoria with regard tolarge-scale commercial wind power stations. He also argued that

• the wind energy industry needed to be much better organised to ‘educate’the public;

• given the national commitment to producing more electricity from renew-able sources, the State government needed to identify a Department thathad the responsibility for facilitating wind energy projects;

• this is essentially an issue for rural and regional Australia that does notrequire ‘capital city’ style solutions; and

• Glenelg Shire Council should move quickly to amend its local planningscheme to facilitate the expansion of wind power projects. (Halstead 1999)

The proposed Portland Wind Energy Project (PWEP)

Undaunted by the VCAT decision, in 2000 PHL put up a ‘new’ proposal for a muchmore ambitious wind energy venture that effectively represented a greatly expandedversion of the original EEC plan. The revised and expanded PHL proposal was namedthe Portland Wind Energy Project (PWEP) and it involved lobbying at a number oflevels—Commonwealth, State and local, as well as forming coalitions with green andunion organisations—for planning permission to build an ‘integrated wind farm’consisting of a total of 120 large generator towers at four prime sites (totalling 3184 ha)in the Portland region of south-western Victoria. These were at Yambuk and at thethree major Capes—Bridgewater, Nelson and Sir William Grant—that formed the coreof the original EEC concept (see Figure 5). By nominating four separate sites in anambit claim the company laid the groundwork for a possible ‘divide-and-rule’ strategywhereby local opponents forcefully argued the case for placing the turbines at one of theother locations. PHL vigorously promoted the PWEP as Australia’s largest wind energyproject, and subsequently it was accorded ‘major project facilitation’ status by theCommonwealth government. At a cost of some AUS$250 million, the scheme would—it claimed—abate an estimated 900 000 tonnes of greenhouse gases each year and hadthe potential to provide substantial employment in manufacturing, construction andmaintenance, possibly in the Portland region (Pacific Hydro Ltd 2001).

In every way, with a planned combined capacity of around 150 MW, the PWEPdwarfed the functioning Codrington wind power station and most other proposeddevelopment sites around Australia. There is no doubt that the three coastal promon-tory sites targeted near Portland, first by EEC and then by PHL, are three of thepre-eminent potential wind energy locations in Victoria. Together, they have consist-ently high wind speeds for most of the year and they are also close to the existing grid.With minimal local opposition to contend with, Codrington represented a usefulstrategic ‘toehold’ at one point along the south-west coast, but there is no doubt thatthe three locations in the adjoining Shire of Glenelg were considered the real ‘prize’, the‘jewel in the crown’ of Victoria’s wind energy potential.

However, there were a number of serious problems for PHL and the Shire of Glenelgthat needed to be addressed before the PWEP could become a reality. These included:

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The Great Australian Wind Rush 109

• the obvious need for a thorough environmental impact assessment if the project wereto have any legitimacy at all;

• the fact that Victoria’s coastal strategy was still under review;• dealing with the criticism that PHL was attempting to undermine a decision that had

already been made by the ‘umpire’ (i.e. VCAT);• the need to amend the local planning scheme to allow for this new form of land use;• the absence of any national or State-wide guidelines to act as a framework for wind

energy power station developments; and• ongoing, entrenched opposition from some local landowners.

In addition, there was a credibility problem for the new State government. In thelead-up to the October 1999 State election, the Australian Labor Party oppositionpublicised its manifesto for protecting the coastal environment in the following terms:

The Kennett government has allowed inappropriate high rise developmentsand large-scale subdivisions along our coastline. These have a major impacton the foreshore’s appearance, local character and outlook, and leads toovershadowing. The Kennett government’s planning process has favoureddevelopers and ignored local opposition. (Australian Labor Party 1999)

The Environmental Effects Statement (EES)

By contrast with the earlier Codrington project, the then Victorian Minister forPlanning—John Thwaites—decreed in 2000 that the Portland Wind Energy proposalshould be subject to a detailed environmental assessment under the terms of the State’sEnvironment Effects Act 1978. Following the distribution of an Issues and Options Reportin March 2002, and two extensions of time for the consultants—Sinclair KnightMerz—to complete their work, the five volumes of the voluminous, 2000-page EESwere finally released for public scrutiny in October 2001 and a short, 6 week timetablewas allowed for the public’s written responses. The consultants and Pacific Hydro alsoproduced a 24-page glossy promotional booklet summarising the EES reports andhighlighting the alleged benefits of the PWEP (Sinclair Knight Merz/Pacific Hydro Ltd2001a). This was distributed to all Shire of Glenelg and Moyne residents andratepayers. Even though the PWEP consisted of four quite separate sites, the EESprocess considered them as one, integrated project.

In his overview of environmental impact procedures in Australia, Thomas (2001,p. 196) argues that an unbiased EIS is not possible and that ‘It is reasonable to assumethat all EIS’s fall into the “partisan” category, whether by design or not.’ The statedbenefits of the Portland project underscored all the consultants’ reports contained inthe EES documentation and were summarised as follows:

• The project would make a 7 per cent contribution towards achieving theCommonwealth Government’s mandated renewable energy target;

• It would reduce the greenhouse gas intensity of electricity generation inVictoria and reduce emissions equivalent to 1 per cent of the nationalgreenhouse gas emission target;

• PWEP would inject some $95 million into the Portland regional economyand $287 million to Australia through expenditure on construction, opera-tions and maintenance;

• Other benefits to the Portland region would be its ‘branding’ as a leading

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renewable energy region and increased tourism focused around the windenergy power stations;

• Much of the currently cleared and degraded grazing land would be revege-tated following installation of the towers and biodiversity values would beenhanced;

• A new wind energy manufacturing industry for the domestic and overseasmarkets would be established in the Portland region. Up to 750 new jobscould be created in Portland and $900 million could be saved as a conse-quence of import replacement;

• The project would lead to increased competitiveness of the wind energysector so that sites that are currently uneconomic could become viable inthe future. (Sinclair Knight Merz/Pacific Hydro Ltd 2001a)

Pacific Hydro constantly reiterated that the PWEP was ‘different’ from the earlier EECproposal, that VCAT had ‘erred’ in its decision by not fully addressing greenhouseissues and that the huge scale of the project was essential to make a real difference togreenhouse gas reductions and to ‘kick-start’ manufacturing industry in the Portlandregion. The decision to locate turbines along the coast was defended on the groundsthat the trade-off between scenic values and greenhouse gas reductions was unfortunatebut necessary, and that economically the project was not viable unless it exploited thehighest and most persistent wind speeds. Later projects in less windy locations, it wasargued, could come on stream once the prime sites were operational.

Responses to the EES

There were several formal and informal channels through which both favourable andunfavourable responses to the EES were aired in the period following the release of thefinal SKM/PHL documents. These included the local and State-wide print and elec-tronic media, and formal written submissions and oral presentations that extended overa period of 8 weeks between February and April 2002 before the three-person panelappointed by Victoria’s Planning Minister to investigate the arguments and counter-ar-guments relating to the PWEP and the EES. This was one of the longest panel hearingsin the State’s history, a fact that should be taken into account when assessing theeconomic costs and benefits of this particular project.

In all, 482 written submissions were received. Of these, 374 were in favour of theproject, 105 objected, and the remainder were non-committal. A common feature ofthe supportive submissions was that they were in a standardised format with a signatureattached; there were 213 of these. Table 3 lists the authorship of the main written andoral submissions according to their support or objection to the PWEP. There wasstrong support from the local shire as well as from a number of Victorian Stategovernment agencies. Most of the opposition groups were non-government organisa-tions concerned about potential impacts on tourism, scenic values and bird life. Thepanel was also presented with a petition from 3500 almost exclusively local signatoriessupporting the project, and a second petition from 1200 people opposing the PWEP.The latter petition spanned a much wider geographical range and served to emphasisethat the issue was of concern beyond the immediate confines of the Portland district.

A central plank of Pacific Hydro’s defence of its strategy was that the PWEP was‘overwhelmingly’ supported by the local community. This argument was based on theoutcome of an Auspoll telephone survey of ‘over 200 residents’ (‘78.7 per cent from

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Portland and 17.3 per cent from surrounding districts’) which found that 88 per centof respondents were in favour of the PWEP (Sinclair Knight Merz/Pacific Hydro2001b). However, if the relevant ‘community’ is defined in terms of those peopledirectly affected by the sight and sound of potential wind turbines (in some cases lessthan 500 m away) then a very different picture emerges. Figure 6 shows the pattern ofsupporters and objectors to the PWEP in the Cape Bridgewater region where there wasa 77 per cent opposition to the scheme. Moreover, of the seven landowners who haveagreed to have turbines erected on their land, only one is a permanent resident.

Essentially, the panel hearings allowed for an exchange of views on one centralquestion: is it worth sacrificing some or all of the exceptional scenic values in this partof coastal Victoria for a modest decrease in greenhouse gas emissions? But complicatingthe debate were three things: first, the fact that, if approved, this project could see the‘opening of the floodgates’ for numerous similar schemes around Australia; second, thevery real problem of ‘imagining’ and truly representing what the wind turbines wouldactually look like, once constructed; and third, Pacific Hydro’s insistence that thisparticular project could ‘kick-start’ a multi-million dollar wind turbine manufacturingindustry and generate ‘hundreds’ of new jobs. The experience from elsewhere has beenthat, once constructed, wind energy projects tend to expand. Thus, after a certainperiod, Codrington Stage I invariably translates into Codrington Phase II (the Yambuksite in Figure 5).

The issue of visual representation was hotly debated during the panel hearings, withboth proponents and opposition groups presenting different versions of photo-montages and computer simulations purporting to show what the project would ‘really’look like from different vantage points if it were constructed. PHL and the EESconsultants Sinclair Knight Merz placed enormous faith in the appropriateness ofVirtual Reality technology to present ‘objective’ information. Yet the most thoroughand recent appraisal of this technology concludes:

Even given continuing goodwill on the part of environment developers, wehave very little experience to indicate how responses to virtual environmentsmatch those we might make in the real ones, so the validity of decisionsdeveloped in those settings must be suspect … (Orland et al. 2001, p. 148)

There is no doubt, too, that the promise of new employment opportunities heldconsiderable sway in a predominantly working-class town that in recent years had seena number of potential new commercial enterprises evaporate. Many of the submissions,for example, argued that it would be a ‘tragedy’ or indeed ‘unthinkable’ for Portland ifthis employment-generating opportunity were not approved; and a constant stream ofletters to the Portland Observer denounced local opponents, often in antagonistic terms.However, as was pointed out in one of the submissions:

The potential manufacturing project is not part of the project, but it has beenincluded in the sustainability assessment table … of the Executive Summary.For it to be included in the EES we would have expected a comprehensiveassessment of matters associated with the manufacturing facility, includingsiting, construction, employment and social impacts … (Fendley 2001)

Another submission posed the rhetorical question whether the reportedly high level ofsupport in Portland ‘would be obtained if the jobs and economic benefits were notobtained?’ (Western Coastal Board 2001, p. 4). PHL made it clear that a ‘viable’industry would require the production of a minimum of 400 generators over a period

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FIGURE 6. Cape Bridgewater: landowner responses.

of 4 years (Freehills Melbourne 2002). However, over the longer term, a critical issueis the pressure that would be exerted on the coast as a consequence of having amanufacturing industry, for that industry would obviously require a constant stream of

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orders for wind turbines to keep it viable. Indeed, South Australia’s Premier, MikeRann, recently argued that 8000 large wind turbines ‘needed’ to be built acrossAustralia over the next decade (McGarry 2002).

Further, in April 2002, following finalisation of the panel hearings, the NationalTrust (Victorian Branch) held a 1 day forum in Geelong at which speakers presenteda wide range of views on the appropriateness of coastal wind energy developments.This, too, generated an angry response in the form of a public letter from CliveHamilton of the Australia Institute that was read out at the meeting. Inter alia,Hamilton castigated the National Trust for staging a forum

… in order to cultivate general opposition to the development of windfarms … The move against the development of wind power by the NationalTrust is folly … some sacrifices will need to be made in order to avoid thecalamities associated with global warming. By setting itself against wind powerthe National Trust has come down on the side of the coal-fired power plants.5

Discussion and conclusion

At the time of writing—driven largely by the federal government’s mandatory renew-able energy targets—a number of coastal wind energy schemes in Victoria, in additionto the Portland project, are at various stages of the planning and approvals process. Butin all cases, in the absence of any overriding State-wide planning framework or designguidelines, issues are being hotly contested and negotiated at the local level in thecourse of what is best described as a contemporary ‘wind rush’. The updated Victoriancoastal strategy was released in early 2002 (Victorian Coastal Council 2002) but thisbacked away from recommending strong central direction over this kind of develop-ment along the Victorian coastline. As a consequence we can anticipate a continuationof the present development ‘policy’ consisting of the following familiar elements:

• Commonwealth legislation that is open to wide interpretation and gives no guidanceon the relative emphasis to be given to the wide range of possible renewable energyoptions;

• a deregulated policy regime at the State-wide level so that:• competing companies continue to target, and make claims to, prime wind resource

sites, especially along the coast;• individual landowners within those sites are identified and approached by the rival

companies concerned;• local councils are then placed in the position of negotiating and contesting opposing

positions and amending or modifying local planning schemes to allow for windenergy power station developments.

By any measure this is a totally unsatisfactory process, involving no prior State-widestrategic assessment of suitable and unsuitable sites and—most importantly—no con-sideration of the cumulative impacts of numerous wind turbine assemblages along thecoast. Drawing upon the principles enshrined in the Australian Natural Heritage Charter(Australian Heritage Commission 1996), a more rational approach to wind energyplanning at the State-wide scale has been suggested by Wulff (2002) and is summarisedhere in Figure 7.

This model, if applied, would provide far greater certainty for wind energy develop-ers, landowners and local councils and would do much to reduce the level of conflict

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FIGURE 7. The idealised planning process.

Source: Wulff (2002).

that has been such an unfortunate element of the recent Portland and Toora windenergy proposals.

Much of the available freehold land along the Australian coast is now being boughtup by metropolitan-based purchasers for ‘lifestyle’ reasons. Many of these consumershave no need or desire to make a living from their properties either through ‘wind-’, orany other kind of ‘farming’ and as a consequence we can anticipate continued contes-tation over the industrialisation of this endangered resource. The debate has deeply

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divided both affected local communities and the green movement, and it has much incommon with that surrounding hydro-industrialisation in Tasmania in the past. In thatState, unchecked hydro projects were constructed on most of the main rivers from the1940s onwards, ultimately culminating in an unprecedented nationwide communitybacklash against the cumulative impacts in the 1980s. At the core of that particularconflict—as with wind energy projects—was public disquiet over the devaluation ofscenic landscape values. This is a crucial time for the future of the Australian coastline;and never was there a greater urgency for geographers to revisit the issue of the analysisand classification of scenic value as well as the positioning of considerations oflandscape amenity within the ecologically sustainable development (ESD) paradigm.

Postscript

Since this paper was completed and submitted for publication in May 2002, afterhearing all the evidence the independent expert panel finalised and completed itsfive-volume report and associated recommendations in June 2002 (available at:www.doi.vic.gov.au/doi/internet/planning). Numerous recommendations cautionedagainst the scale and configuration of the integrated project and in favour of preservingthe high amenity coastal landscapes of south-western Victoria against this kind ofinappropriate development. The panel also recommended that a permit should not beallowed for the Yambuk site until further studies had been completed on the endan-gered orange-bellied parrot. In August 2002—in the lead-up to the Victorian Stateelection in November 2002—the Planning Minister effectively overruled the vastmajority of the recommendations and, with only minor modifications, the entire projectwas given the green light. In a highly controversial move, the State government alsocentralised decision making for proposed wind energy projects and made it clearthat—apart from national parks—the entire Victorian coastline was available for windenergy projects. Local councils and communities have been disempowered in thismove. They now have no planning powers in relation to wind energy developmentslarger than 30 MW or over applications for wind monitoring towers. The stage is set forthe next round of bitter conflicts over wind energy power stations along the coast. Atthe time of writing, opposition to new development proposals is mounting at Nirrandain the Shire of Moyne and at Tarwin in South Gippsland, in particular. Pacific Hydroshares hit a high of $4 in September 2002, following government approval of theintegrated wind energy project, but subsequently fell to $2.80 by November 2002. Thisdecline almost certainly reflects growing concerns about community opposition to suchschemes as well as uncertainty about the future of MRET (Myer 2002c) and uneaseabout the blatant politicisation of the environmental assessment review process. Mean-while, a few companies wishing to develop wind energy facilities have made it clear thatthey are interested only in inland or offshore sites.

Acknowledgements

The author would like to thank Gary Swinton for his cartographic assistance, andRodney Wulff for permission to use his diagram, reproduced here as Figure 7. I havealso benefited from ongoing discussions with Ernest Healy, Maryann Wulff and FrankFisher (Monash University), Andrea Bunting, Michael Buxton and Trevor Budge(RMIT University) and Louise Sheba (Portland).

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Correspondence: David Mercer, School of Social Science and Planning, RMIT Univer-sity, GPO Box 2476V, Melbourne, Vic. 3001, Australia. E-mail: dave.mercer@rmit.edu.au

NOTES

[1] PHL is a publicly listed company specialising in generating and supplying hydro, geothermal andother ‘renewable’ forms of electricity in the Asia-Pacific region in such countries as Australia, NewZealand, Chile and the Philippines. For example, hydro-electricity is produced from the Ord Riverplant at Lake Argyle in Western Australia. The company’s current market capitalisation isapproximately AUS$472 million and its most recent hydro venture is a 2 MW plant usingirrigation water on the Mulwala Canal at The Drop, near Berrigan, in the Murray-Darling Basinin New South Wales. PHL’s two largest institutional shareholders are AMP Nominees Pty Ltd (33per cent) and AEP Resources Australia Pty Ltd (20 per cent). Seven per cent of the electricityoutput of the AEP (American Electric Power Company) comes from one wholly owned nuclearpower station. AEP purchased its interest in PHL in 1998 and in the same year also purchased theAustralian electricity, distribution and retail sales company CitiPower. PHL owns eight operatingplants in the Asia-Pacific region. In 2001 it sold its 50 per cent stake in New Zealand’s Bay ofPlenty Electricity. PHL’s net profits rose to $22 million in the half-year to December 2001, a riseof 37 per cent. Much of this success came from a good performance by the 50 per centPHL-owned Bakun hydro project in the Philippines, following heavy rains (Porter 2002).

[2] Even Britain’s Energy Minister, Peter Hain, has conceded that contemporary wind generationtowers are ‘awesomely huge’ (see www.ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/windfarms/news.htm). What is not featured in Figure 3 is a representation of a solar thermal power station.Environmission has put forward a plan to build one of these near Mildura to be operating by 2005.If built, at 1000 m high, this would be the tallest human-made structure on the planet (AustralianBroadcasting Commission (ABC) Radio National 2001).

[3] Some examples include: www.misplacedwindpower.com/; www.windfarm.fsnet.co.uk/index.html;www.cprw.org.uk/wind/windindc.htm; www.ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/windfarms;www.makara.freeyellow.com; www.geocities.com/nowindfarm/; www.naboertilvindmoller.dk/english. The ABC television programme Landline, screened on 6 October 2001, featured a lengthysegment on the alleged benefits of ‘windfarming’. This prompted a deluge of criticisms that theprogramme sidestepped the issue of opposition to such engineering projects. See the online forumon the Landline Website: www.abc.net.au/landline/

[4] Typical examples included: ‘Upbeat, full of energy’, Australian Financial Review 7 March 2000;‘$250m wind farm project’ (headline, Portland Observer 13 November 2000; ‘Renewable energyplans generate a second wind’, The Age 20 November 2000; ‘Green option proves a winner’, TheAge 5 February 2001; ‘Power to the people’, The Weekend Australian 7–8 July 2001. Commonly,infrastructure projects, such as Codrington, are referred to by the wind energy industry as ‘windfarms’, or sometimes ‘wind parks’. The symbolism invoked is that of a minimal-impact rural landuse ‘in harmony’ with the environment. This author, and others, do not accept the appropriatenessof this description of what is in reality an enormous industrial facility in a rural setting that is being‘marketed’ by wind energy developers as something far more benign.

[5] Letter from Clive Hamilton, Executive Director of the Australia Institute, to Randall Bell, Chair,National Trust of Australia (Victoria), 15 April 2002.

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