Malcolm Roberts (Queensland, Pauline Hanson's One Nation Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

As a servant to the many different people who make up our one Queensland community, it has been only a few weeks since my last speech drawing attention to financial losses and failures in the wind energy scam. Today, we have more. Europe's largest onshore wind turbine installation, Markbygden, has filed for bankruptcy protection. If completed, it would have consisted of 1,101 wind turbines and 750 kilometres of access roads. Escalating construction costs meant the project can no longer bid electricity into the grid at a price the grid operator can afford. As I explained last week, there are not enough mines to mine the materials, not enough steel mills to make the steel nor enough special-purpose ships to bring them across the world. This is just economic cost. The environmental cost no longer factors into the equation. As an example, the Clarke Creek Wind Farm west of Rockhampton hit the news in the last two weeks, when their environmental impact study caused real environmentalists, like One Nation, outrage. The environmental impact statement admitted that the most severe impact of the proposal will be on the skulls of any koalas beaten to death for trespassing on the project's land.

Offshore wind in Australia has had a bad week, too, with BlueFloat withdrawing their plans for offshore wind in the Shoalhaven area of New South Wales. BlueFloat's proposal was for a 359 square kilometre area with 105 turbines located 14 to 30 kilometres of the Illawarra coastline. Each turbine would have a diameter of 275 metres and feed into three offshore substations. What an insane idea. One strong storm, and the whole lot winds up on the beach. Saltwater corrosion repair now accounts for 30 per cent of the levelised cost of electricity from offshore wind turbines. Offshore wind is unprofitable from the perspective of construction and maintenance costs. It's time to have another look at clean coal before the green movement has us all sitting in the dark with a fridge full of inedible, spoiled food.