The ‘Banana’ that’s bending efforts to end fossil fuels use

We need solar and wind generators before we decommission our coal-fired power stations but first we must overcome the ‘Banana’ in the room: ‘Build absolutely nothing anywhere near anything’.

Wind turbines operating near Palm Springs in California. Picture: Getty Images

The biggest impediment to weaning our economy off its dependence on fossil fuels is not technical. It’s not mining.

It’s earning agreement from landholders and custodians to build the solar farms, wind farms and transmission lines that will deliver renewable electricity to make fossil fuels obsolete.

We must build an abundance of solar and wind power generation before we tear down our coal-fired power stations.

To do that, we must find a solution to the tension between local environmental protection and the imperative to reduce global greenhouse gas emissions.

If we get it right, we can defeat the BANANA in the room: “Build absolutely nothing anywhere near anything”.

The deployment of utility-scale solar, rooftop solar and onshore and offshore wind is urgent. The Australian Electricity Market Operator expects that the last coal-fired electrical generator will be switched off in 2038.

Our economy and consumers will not tolerate blackouts, so we must put the alternatives in place prior to the closures.

There are only four large-scale sources of zero-emissions electricity. These are solar, wind, hydro-electric and nuclear power. In Australia, we have not built a hydro-electric power station for 40 years and there are no plans to build any more. We have a legislated ban on nuclear power and, even if we reversed the ban and embraced nuclear power, it would take 20 years or more before the first nuclear-generated electricity started to flow.

That leaves solar and wind power to replace our coal-fired and gas-fired power stations to meet existing electricity demand and to meet the expanded demand as we wean our vehicles off petrol and diesel, and our factories off coal, oil and gas.

This means that land currently used for agriculture, recreation or left fallow must be shared with solar and wind farms and transmission lines.

To date, failure to resolve these competing interests has slowed investment in renewables. The Clean Energy Council reported late last year that 2023 was shaping up to be the worst year for large-scale solar and wind investment since records began in 2017.

A large fraction of the stalled progress can be attributed to the BANANA in the room.

Landowner resistance to wind turbines and transmission lines is significant. The recommendations of the Infrastructure Commissioner’s Community Engagement Review will help, but it’s too soon for any impact to be felt.

Energy policy adviser for former Australian chief scientist Alan Finkle.

Examples of resistance by environmentalists are multiplying. In NSW, community groups are campaigning against offshore wind farms. This is an example of BANANAism. The community opposition is fuelled by falsehoods that whales and other marine life will be injured or killed, and tourism destroyed.

Just last month, the construction of a terminal at the Port of Hastings in Victoria intended to enable assembly and testing of offshore wind turbines was disallowed to protect 92ha of wetlands, delaying the closure of brown-coal generators that emit a massive 40 million tonnes a year of carbon dioxide.

It is imperative that we find the balance between local and global interests. Climate change is already having a devastating effect on our planet’s biodiversity. Three billion animals were killed or displaced in the bushfires that ravaged NSW and Victoria in 2019-20. In the absence of rapid investment in zero-emissions alternatives to fossil fuels, habitat loss and extinctions will escalate.

A Duty of Care bill is being debated in the Senate. If legislated, it would require the government to consider the impacts of greenhouse gas emissions on young people when exercising their powers to approve coal and gas mines.

However, the reality is that emissions will only decrease if global demand for fossil fuels declines. Were Australia to reduce its coal and gas exports, our trade partners would purchase the shortfall from Russia or Qatar. This would not protect future generations from climate change, but could leave them worse off through the loss of domestic taxes on export revenues.

On the other hand, the duty-of-care argument is justifiable and compelling if the investment demonstrably reduces global consumption of fossil fuels.

Consider that every gigawatt-hour of electricity generated by a new wind farm or solar farm displaces a gigawatt-hour of fossil-fuel generated electricity. This would mitigate global emissions, reduce habitat loss and extinctions, and contribute to a better environment. Thus, there is a stronger rationale for courts and regulators to take global emissions into account to approve a utility-scale wind or solar farm than to disallow a coal mine.

If this “affirmative” duty of care approach were to be adopted, it would take into account the displacement benefit described above as a material consideration in the assessment of renewable energy developments. This would add more certainty to the approval of the wind farms, solar farms and transmission infrastructure that we must build in order to meet our renewable energy targets and mitigate climate change.

One thing is certain: if the BANANA in the room prevails, progress will stall and our emissions will remain unacceptably high, with the consequences disproportionately affecting our children and grandchildren.

On our journey to wean ourselves off fossil fuels, there are no alternatives to building an abundance of clean electricity generation in the time frame within which we must slash emissions.

Ergo, we must say yes to solar power and yes to wind power.

We must find ways to make them work. At scale. Quickly.

We owe it to current and future generations. A novel approach to duty of care would contribute to the urgently needed solution.

Alan Finkel is a corporate adviser on clean energy and former Australian chief scientist.