Vikki Campion: Labor maths fantasies leave us all twisting in the wind

Labor maths regarding wind turbines is the stuff of pure fiction, proving yet again that net zero is nothing but a fantasy, writes Vikki Campion.

Welcome to the wonderful world of Disney economics, and it would be a joy to watch if we didn’t have to pay for it.

After the Labor Member for Gosford’s contribution to the NSW Net Zero Future Bill this week was to quote 25 lines of Dr Seuss’s The Lorax, we should not be surprised that this skillset filters down to departmental spreadsheets.

The latest magnum opus in the fantasia of net zero targets is an Excel spreadsheet dreamt up by some luminary who has obviously never hired an electrician themselves, hired a truck or called a tip to dump thousands of tonnes of landfill.

The Wind Energy Decommissioning Calculator, currently on exhibition with the draft Wind Energy Guidelines, starts with a wind factory of 75 towers, 137m high, the dwarf older brother of the monstrosities being built now.

Users can change certain elements, including the height and weight, but using NSW Planning figures on this particular wind farm, it “calculates” the cost of decommissioning per turbine; once the copper, steel, alloy and even concrete (at $20 a tonne) are sold for scrap, will cost a bargain $40,056.95.

Going straight to landfill is 467 tonnes of electronics, 3113 tonnes of polymer, and 3891 tonnes of carbon glass composites. Yet the pre-filled cost of landfill in the calculator is zero dollars.

Heavy machinery transporting large metal cylinders for a wind turbine. Picture: Brendan Radke

It assumes turbines will go to landfills within 200km of the site. Using their hopeful figures, where every possible recyclable is recycled, that’s 560,325 tonnes of landfill.

Will local councils be ordered to accept this? Maybe they can chuck them in the creek because apparently they don’t have to comply with any other environmental guidelines.

It assumes the trucks doing disposal will travel 80km an hour. Turbines are built on steep hills on dirt roads, not the German autobahn.

In calculating transport costs, it assumes “that tower will be transported in four pieces, generator will be transported in 10 pieces and blades in three pieces. Hence there will be 17 truckloads for one turbine”.

Local transport operators in a renewable energy zone quoted around $50,000 to get 17 trucks from northern NSW to Sydney – about a six-hour drive. Yet according to NSW Planning, each truck will drive 10 hours for a mere $34,000.

It assumes it will cost $1640 for two electricians to do electrical work per day. Getting one electrician to Woolbrook for two hours to replace light fittings was more than $400, and decommissioning a wind tower is slightly more complicated.

Specialist electricians laughed and quoted “at least double and maybe five times as much” than the $82 an hour the NSW government has assumed in its calculator.

They are on whatever drugs the guys who made Fantasia were taking if they think specialist sparkies will travel and spend the whole day pulling 35,000m of cable out of each tower (again, their figures) for around $800 each.

We have learned from Snowy Hydro 2.0, which started at $2bn and is now $12bn and rising; your desktop assessments can be 600 per cent wrong and continue to climb.

What was the original spreadsheet for Snowy Hydro 2.0, like? Consider Florence the borer, who they thought would travel 300m a day – (not 150m and then stop for years). Even though she doesn’t move, the owners haven’t stopped charging. If one crew is out of sync and the others must stop, no one clocks off and waits for free.

This Pinocchio calculator is getting an awfully long nose.

A 2019 report in Minnesota puts the cost of decommissioning at $A800,000 per tower while a US Office of Energy Efficiency report puts it at more than $A300,000. Yet none go as low as NSW, which believes that once you sell components for recycling, each tower will cost just $40,000 to pull down.

Step back and ask a simple question, how much work is in a massive wind tower, and how much work is in an extension of my house?

If the Minns and Albanese governments are confident of their numbers, they should underwrite any cost blowouts.

Yet the one thing no government is doing, and nor is any proponent, is taking responsibility for decommissioning turbines. They trip over themselves giving overseas companies secret subsidies to build them, but where are Penny Sharpe and Chris Bowen taking responsibility for pulling them down? The dirty little secret is the farmer is responsible for that.

Every cent from these towers will need to be put in a bank account to decommission them in the future. Otherwise, they will end up collapsing in a paddock, and the land that rotting infrastructure is on may be unsellable.

When will they tell us who is responsible for the decommissioning of the wind towers and rehabilitation of the land, just as the responsibility is on the proponent, and underwritten by government, for decommissioning and land rehabilitation for coal mines?

Luckily, this calculator has a disclaimer saying no person or entity associated with the development of the calculator is liable for any loss or damage whatsoever that may result in the use of the template or any errors or omissions in its contents.

“Users of the calculator must exercise their own skill and judgement and should seek advice from a suitably qualified experts, where appropriate (sic).”

The net zero fantasy has so many chapters – what they think they can achieve, how much it will cost, and one of the greatest parts of this production, is at the end they magically disappear into thin air.

Originally published as Vikki Campion: Labor maths fantasies leave us all twisting in the wind