DEAR News Of The Area,

THE ending of mining at Stratford and the proposal by Yancoal to invest $1.8billion in a solar farm and pumped hydro is major news for Gloucester.

But is it the best option?

Climate change is such a massive and urgent problem that I find it hard not to support a solar farm that will reduce greenhouse gas emissions since premature deaths are occurring now all over the world, including Australia, with every greenhouse gas emission.

It is the pumped hydro that I question.

Pumped hydro is one solution to get a ‘Long Duration’ energy supply.

This is the means of spreading the energy supplied by solar panels over the whole 24 hours of the day.

The other established method is to use batteries.

Batteries are half the cost of pumped hydro to purchase and install and getting cheaper and more efficient every year.

Yet Yancoal makes a big point of asserting that pumped hydro is the best way to go and refuses to consider comparing the cost of a solar farm and batteries. Why?

The two big downsides of pumped hydro, apart from establishment costs, are:

1) That it involves flooding a rainforest gully and other native vegetation (145 hectares) impacting 20 threatened species including koala, sooty owl, stuttering frog etc, the most critically endangered being 217 scrub turpentine for which Yancoal are offering to donate $250,000 to a species recovery organisation.

2) The water that is pumped between two dams will be the untreated polluted mine water which is bound to damage the pumps.

A health risk arises should water escape.

The assertion that pumped hydro is best is based on out of date (2021) costings. Batteries have advanced greatly since then.

My guess is that Yancoal will save rehabilitation costs for the mining voids since pumped hydro would last 50 or 100 years.

For me a solar farm and batteries is the best option and with the money saved you could do the same again at Duralie Mine.

Regards,
Steve ROBINSON.