WIND farm developer NewEn Services wants to build about 80 turbines across three properties north-east of Colac
Plans for 80 wind turbines in Colac district
Hassles are in the wind for Colac Otway Shire Council when it takes over wind farm applications.
6 Responses to “Plans for 80 wind turbines in Colac district”
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Unfortunately the property owner has no say as to the type of turbines that are placed onto their porperty. Also once signed up they are at the mercy of big business and must sign a confidentiality clause and never speak about any problems they have. Health or otherwise.
Just saying they need to think long and hard before signing their property away.
There is a new generation of wind turbines being trialled in the US.
These stand 96 feet tall, rotate at a slower speed and generate less noise. These new generation wind turbines also create 80% more power from the same wind. I think these would be the way to go if any property owner was considering wind turbines to be placed on their properties. I recommend further investigation into the types of Wind Turbines available and wait for the new generation turbines.
I am neither for nor against wind turbines, but believe the new generation would be more energy efficient.
In response to using gas instead of wind, wind is renewable (it does not have an expiry date), gas and coal do. Wind will never stop, gas and coal will one day be no longer available.
Having travelled across Eastern Europe from Warsaw to Prague and seeing thousands of turbines I was so distressed as they are NOT effective. So many were not working because they were faulty or there was no wind so they had to be powered by an internal engine.
Stop trying to put up ugly eye polluters that are not working but make the Greenies thereof labour feel good.
They are NOT delivering power that gas will provide so stop kidding yourselves in your ivory towers.
Thank you Ben Courtice for your response. The purpose of our meeting was exactly as you stated, an information and discussion session. It was a shame that non locals the including Friends of the earth targeted our meeting to raise their own political agendas. That was NOT the intention. You proveed your lack of knowledge about our community. Barunah Plains is a property, Barunah Park is a community.This community has been rocked by the proposal for two wind farms at our back door. Yes. You obviously drove down from Melbourne to grind your axe and then drove home again. This will have no other immediate impact on your life. You sugested further meetings. We have learned from our mistakes and you will not be given another opportunity to hijack our community meetings. We are a closely settled farming community, who enjoy the right to farm without impacting our neighbours.
We do not oppose action on climate change, but we are not convinced that wind energy is the way to fix it.
I am saddened to say that wind farm developement has been responsible for much human and animal suffering which has been ignored by wind turbine developers and authorities. Having reviewed the evidence and experienced the suffering myself I can only say in the strongest terms that wind turbine money = blood money and hosts and turbine companies will sooner or later become liable for this and will be held to account.
As a Melbourne-based campaigner for renewable energy, I attended the Barunah Park meeting. I was dismayed at the invited speakers’ willingness to spread false and misleading information about wind farms and renewable energy. It appeared their underlying agenda had more to do with opposing action on climate change than actually supporting the community.
As an outsider to the community, also with my own axe to grind obviously, I would encourage locals to hold more information and discussion sessions with less obviously biased speakers to discuss the issue more calmly. Hosting of wind farms can provide more jobs, rates for local councils and valuable income for farmers – or indeed for the whole community, depending on how the contracts are negotiated.
Further, wind farms (despite the hype) have no scientifically demonstrated health effects. I support continued investigation into this, but we should note that the alternatives – coal and gas – have very well understood health effects both in terms of causing climate change and, in the case of coal, cancer and respiratory illness in nearby communities.
Communities like Barunah Plains could play a role in providing clean energy for the state and also revitalising their local economy if they engage carefully with the wind industry. I think that would be a good outcome all around.
Ben Courtice
Friends of the Earth, Melbourne