Daily Telegraph Editorial: NSW energy helping prop up eastern states

IN a crisis, the most daring course is often safest. So said former US secretary of state Henry Kissinger — and he could well have been talking about coal-driven energy in NSW.

Coal-fired Liddell power station in Muswellbrook is slated to shut down in 2022.

‘IF you control the food, you control a nation,” former US secretary of state Henry Kissinger once observed. “If you control the energy, you control a region. If you control the money, you control the world.”

Let’s concentrate on the second of Kissinger’s formulations — namely, if you control the ­energy, you control a region.

It is easy to see how this would apply in times of inter­national conflict. Any military advance by a nation dependent on the supply of outside energy sources will only remain viable if those energy sources stay open. If they are cut, then it is game over.

A reconsideration of coal is looking very ­daring indeed.

So it is just as well for Victoria that NSW is on friendly terms, because over summer we largely controlled their energy. Compared with the previous summer, NSW exported a massive 2577 per cent more power to Victoria between December and the end of February.

As well, overall electricity transfers from Victoria to NSW have fallen 80 per cent since Victoria closed its major coal-fired Hazelwood power plant last March. That closure meant that southern states have ­become hugely dependent on NSW for their energy needs.  “Exports of energy to Victoria increased nearly 1000 per cent since Hazelwood closed, and yet only last week Labor was praising their approach to energy management,” according to NSW Energy Minister Don Harwin.

At one point during the summer energy regulators warned of rolling blackout threats throughout Victoria.

The state’s Health Department also had to urge hospitals to double-check emergency generators in case power was lost during a heatwave.

Yet NSW may face a Victorian scenario of our own if AGL’s Liddell coal-fired power station is shut down as scheduled in 2022.

The need to retain a steady and proven coal-based electricity supply is clearly evident in this summer’s power figures.

Victoria, and to a lesser  ­extent South Australia, were ­utterly helpless without NSW coal power.

“In crises,” Henry Kissing also observed, “the most daring course is often safest.”

Right now, with so many entities and interests forcing Australia towards a reliance on renewable energy, a reconsideration of coal is looking very ­daring indeed.

AIR TESTING UNDER A CLOUD

Climate change sceptics have long claimed temperatures taken at city monitoring stations are inflated by the urban “heat island” effect. Now a similar case emerges with Sydney’s air pollution warning system.

Smog engulfs the Sydney skyline on a summer morning.

Under official guidelines, testing should not take place “near leafy vegetation” because this can skew readings. The guidelines also call for testing in peak city sites.

Yet not a single air testing station is in inner Sydney and many are in tree-lined parks. The next time you see Sydney’s air rated “very good” or “good”, picture an asterisk next to those words.

TRANSFORMING THE WEST

Greater Western Sydney is becoming greater still. From its current status as Australia’s third-largest economy, the next two decades will see Western Sydney soar.

In the case of a brand-new major international airport, that soaring will be quite literal.

But major, city-reshaping ­advances are planned across the entire region, including upgraded hospitals, thousands of new homes, a high-speed rail link to the CBD, new motorways, new social and cultural infrastructure, and improved education and healthcare services.

2The last house on the site of the new Western Sydney Airport at Badgerys Creek is demolished last month.

This amounts to a completely transformed city — and where there is positive transformation, there is opportunity. Thousands of new jobs will be created.

No part of Sydney has known this level of change and growth since the construction of the Sydney Harbour Bridge during the 1920s and early 1930s.

The implications for NSW and Australia are enormous.

“The success of Sydney is ­important for the region, NSW and the ­nation,” Committee for Western Sydney chairman ­Michael Rose points out. Back Western Sydney for the win.