Photo of the day - 19th August

I just came to read the following piece of news:

Largest Wind farm to be built in the southern hemisphere

The largest wind farm in the southern hemisphere is to be built in Victoria's southwest. The 140-turbine, $1 billion Macarthur wind farm, which will produce enough energy to power more than 220,000 homes, is slated for completion by early 2013.
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Wow, 140-turbine wind farm. This is definitely something unheard of in Australia, something I thought would never be accomplished in Australia given the lack of political will to invest substantially into renewable energy.

I thought the Greens will be shouting against this scheme, participating in rallies, holding placards with the mobs against building the wind farms to protect some native plants specimens or some migratory parrots.

Before everybody started accusing me of being a supporter for the climate change camp, let me put this straight. I believe that the world is warming. Whether the warming is caused by purely human activities or but some natural factors, the verdict is still out there. The science is still rather inconclusive. But I believe we all have a part to take care of our environment the best we can. We know that burning fossil fuel is definitely not the way forward for generating our ever increasing energy needs. We need to look at something more sustainable, cleaner and cheaper! Wind energy should definitely be part of the solution.

It is surely good to see that Victoria is getting some meaningful investments into renewable energy. I sure hope my home state of WA will do the same one day. The size of the wind farms in Esperance and Albany are just pitiful but nevertheless encouraging. I do hope that Verve Energy that runs the Albany Windfarm and Horizon Power that runs the Esperance Wind Farms will put up more wind turbines than their 12 and 15 respectively.

Note:The photo above is in fact taken at the Albany Wind farm last year.