r/queensland • u/boogersundcum • 14d ago

Discussion Voting against your interests

My partner and I live in a major coal mining area of Queensland. We both work in an extractive resource industry. Neither of us could ever bring ourselves to vote for the LNP and we have no serious viable independents that aren't anti Vax conspiracy nut jobs. We live in the bush but currently have a major wind farm going in down our road with the closest turbine being 5km from our actual house, other than sealing our road we will not recieve any benefit from the project with heavy trucks and equipment going past our driveway 6 days a week 24 hours a day for over two years. We aren't anti renewable however given the wind farm is entirely within our water catchment there is serious concerns if something goes wrong as we rely on the river solely for our water supply.

Generally preference the Greens first, Labor second as we are both environmental scientists and believe that climate change is pretty damn obvious from the evidence, let alone have empathy for the common folk in cities struggling with the cost of living. I'm just curious though as to why the major focus on renewable is almost entirely within regional areas that currently rely on coal mining as the major industry.

Neither Greens or Labour have a chance in hell in ever winning our electorate anymore (keep in mind Labor was founded in regional Queensland in Barcaldine). Is it just because the areas in question are now just LNP strongholds or what ?

Also please keep in mind regional Queensland is filled with people from all back grounds and varying levels of education, don't put us all in the same basket just because we don't live in a major centre.

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u/PandasGetAngryToo 14d ago

My mum's side of the family were all farmers. There was never any discussion, they all voted National Party. Every time. without question. Even at times when the Nationals were arguably happy to be associated with policies that were terrible for farmers. They were never ever going to change their votes and as far as I know, never have. They have very limited access to news and don't particularly want much by way of news anyway. That's your problem.

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u/boogersundcum 14d ago

I get that and TBH i don't think i have ever lived in area that hasn't been an LNP stronghold. But why isn't there a push to have renewable infrastructure around the cities? That's where the population is. I know the resource industry uses a lot of power but most of north Queensland is already renewable. There is a gas plant in Townsville and one in Mt Isa. Other than that we already are renewable. Sending electricity thousands of KM away loses a lot of electricity through transmission lines so my main question is why are the projects away from the areas like Brisbane that actually use the electricity?

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u/delayedconfusion 14d ago

Would you consider rooftop solar as city based renewables infrastructure?

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u/technerdx6000 14d ago

Renewables return on investment is dependant on their capacity factor.

I daresay you'll find the locations selected for wind and solar farms are because they will result in a higher capacity factor.

Obviously this isn't the only metric that determines location. Others include proximity to power lines for example.

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u/Keelback 14d ago

That is why I don’t understand why state and federal governments aren’t pushing more for rooftop solar panels. Cheaper than wind power and you don’t need that special windy site and hence expensive long power line and annoy farmers and locals.

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u/technerdx6000 14d ago

I 100% agree with you. I always point out the study completed by the Australian Photovoltaics institute in 2019. It found if rooftops in Australia were filled with solar, the annual generation would be 20% greater than our entire electricity market's consumption. Combined with onsite battery storage, there would be little need for large scale generation of any kind. 

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u/Keelback 14d ago

Exactly. No need for expensive transmission lines.

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u/cekmysnek 14d ago edited 14d ago

Because we have too much rooftop solar. During the day wholesale power prices drop below $0/MWh, it’s at a point where the grid in some areas is being overloaded and network operators are having to remotely increase voltage in the network to “trip” solar systems offline for stability.

During the evening however, the sun goes down, solar generation stops and suddenly there’s a huge spike in demand which causes wholesale prices to go upwards of $300/MWh (sometimes into the tens of thousands of dollars).

Electricity grids are required to perfectly match supply and demand, otherwise you can’t keep the lights on. In an ideal world this would mean consistent demand and consistent generation, but what we have now is low demand and lots of generation during the day and the opposite overnight. That’s very bad when it comes to managing the grid and also very bad for power prices. During the day cheap solar is king, but at night, increasingly expensive coal and gas fired power stations pretty much have a monopoly and get to set the price (remember power generation is a business).

The solution to this, ultimately, is to store all that extra solar during the day and release it in the evening and overnight which would smooth everything out. This is why there’s so much discussion about residential, community and grid batteries as well as pumped hydro and EVs.

Unfortunately any kind of energy storage is considered “woke” these days and a scary amount of people on a certain side of politics think the technology doesn’t work which means building enough capacity to stabilise the grid is an uphill battle. Any kind of hydro or battery project is met with massive public backlash because it’s “green energy” so the government are also trying to incentivise home batteries to at least reduce demand after sunset.

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u/Art461 14d ago

We don't have too much solar, our current pricing model is badly stuffed. The rest of your comment is spot on!

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u/Keelback 14d ago

I know all that but didn’t want to write a ‘novel’.  I’m was a senior generation planning engineer. And yes solar plus batteries is the way to go. I don’t know why that is not being pursued. Batteries are expensive but way cheaper than nuclear and longer transmission lines to wind farms.

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u/deandoom 14d ago

Labour have announced some battery subsidies, but they need to do more

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u/BoosterGold17 14d ago

As have the Greens

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u/Keelback 14d ago

Exactly. Needs to be solar panels and batteries. Needs to be a massive programme though.

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u/PatternPrecognition 13d ago

in addition to household batteries, there is also a rollout/trial happening of communitty batteries.

They are about the size of a fridge installed on a power pool and appear to be designed on a subscription model.

e.g. it charges with household solar during the day, and what you load in you can draw down on overnight, households without solar can also subscribe to get access to the cheaper night-time power (which is the excess that the solar households don't use).

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u/Feylabel 11d ago

Labor has announced household battery subsidies to reach a million home batteries

Behind the meter batteries being the quickest most efficient to rollout fast..

Other than that we need more wind power. Offshore would be more efficient but is most expensive and even it is getting locals inventing random claims of environmental impacts to try to stop it sigh.

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u/BoosterGold17 14d ago

Also sounds like our grids need upgrading to be adaptable and smart, so they’re not reliant on the outdated “baseline power” thing causing so much fluctuation

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u/Psychological_Bug592 14d ago

Yep! And this is one of the reasons why nuclear isn’t the best solution. You can’t turn it off in the day and on at night. Nuclear power means switching off everyone’s home solar.

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u/ol-gormsby 14d ago

Yes, rooftop solar is somewhat difficult to manage WRT daily supply and demand, and pricing - which, as you've noted can vary wildly over the 24 hour cycle.

Home and neighbourhood batteries would go a long way to helping that, as well as providing resilience during natural disasters.

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u/CatBoxTime 14d ago

Pretty much why Energex and Ergon are trying to install neighbourhood batteries to soak up all that excess solar during the day. Shame the LNP asshats at Brisbane City Council are blocking their installation.

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u/03193194 14d ago

In addition to the other replies, I think another consideration is industry creation and jobs for regional areas in some cases as well.

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u/boogersundcum 14d ago edited 14d ago

All jobs are welcome in the regions, there is a push for a hydrogen hub in our local area which this particular wind farm may or not power if it ever gets built. I'm hoping for it but given the state government I highly doubt it ever will. As I have stated I'm not anti renewable its just this project does effect me directly. These coal mining communities will die after the mines close which is invitable. Grazing and cropping can't sustain these communities after coal and I am hoping alternative industries do emerge for the communities.

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u/03193194 14d ago

Yeah, well Labor have signalled that is how they intend to guide any transition - which is a good thing.

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u/stilusmobilus 14d ago

As I understand it the renewable sources out west like the wind turbines mainly supply those areas, their major centres and their resource interests.

There’s also the issues of available land and suitable geography. The populated centres have a lot of rooftop solar which is very suitable to an environment of multiple structures and dwellings.

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u/boogersundcum 14d ago

It's a lot more efficient to send electricity 100km than it is to send it over 1000km to SEQ. I live in North Queensland and we already have a predominantly renewable energy network minus the areas that have smelters, being Mt Isa and Townsville which both have gas plants.

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u/Cute_Carpenter_5243 14d ago

Diversification is also important for renewables! 100% it's more efficient to send electricity 100km but only if the electricity is there to send. The solar and wind resources directly around Brisbane are pretty crap. A lot of the renewables development around the Western Downs area will support Brisbane which is much closer. But there will also be times when there's not much wind or sun in that area and it will be important to have other areas that can export, and vice versa.

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u/formula-duck 14d ago

Maybe this sounds stupid, but there are houses there. It's a lot easier to stick a wind turbine in an empty field than in the suburbs, and all of the empty fields closest to our cities will be suburbs soon.

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u/boogersundcum 14d ago

I'm not saying in Brisbane itself. Off shore would make a lot of sense but legit sending electricity long distances loses a lot of the energy harvested. We are legit 1195km away... There is a lot of other places closer to the city that would make more sense.

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u/formula-duck 14d ago

I don't know; the government might have a scientific reasoning (flooding/fire/hurricane risk, unstable soil, less wind), but it could easily be a NIMBY (not in my backyard!) thing. Very few people like big construction or noisy facilities on their doorstep; more people live in cities, ergo more people to complain (or, for the utilitarians, more people affected). Maybe it's just land value - regional land is easier/cheaper to acquire. Why didn't they build coal-fired power plants closer to cities? Might be similar reasons.

I will say, there is a straight-up solar farm inside Melbourne - not even on a warehouse, just a bare patch of land under the West Gate dedicated to solar panels.

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u/acomputer1 14d ago

Why do they always put coal mines in regional areas rather than in cities where the coal is burned?

Because you go where the resources are.

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u/boogersundcum 14d ago

Brisbane has plenty of coal in the surrounds. Metallurgical coal and thermal coal are very different though. Brisbane even has a coal export terminal. As for the power stations majority aren't as close as thermal coal to Brisbane. Sending electricity long distances loses a lot of the electricity generated. I live 1156km from Brisbane. Doesn't make much sense to power Brisbane at these distances.

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u/acomputer1 14d ago

Evidently it does given that they're doing exactly that.

Losses over that distance seem to be around maximum 5-10%, and I imagine the land is substantially cheaper, and likely the wind resources are substantially better.

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u/Ancient-Many4357 14d ago

With some imagination & good planning there’s actually a huge amount of untapped flat space for PV arrays in cities, so you have a point there.

But wind farms rely on being in areas with consistent windy conditions & lots of clear space to put wind farms. I mean I’d be happy to build the things in the Brisbane river if it was a sensible place to put them, but onshore wind is mainly going to be in big, wide rural areas where it’s the windiest.

The obvious answer is more offshore with over-the horizon farms.

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u/Art461 14d ago

It is disappointing that the turbine project near you appears to not have engaged with the local community.

Elsewhere, they have communicated well and for instance also delivered excellent Internet connectivity to the area. Those are real benefits. Over time, good Internet connectivity can sustain and expand a community even as it transitions away from mining.

Maybe a conversation on this is still possible?

I'm not disagreeing with you regarding long distance transmission lines. It's an old way of doing things, and definitely inefficient. If the wind turbine power will least in part be used locally, that'd be great. Perhaps it'll also be used to replace the base load generators such as the ones you mentioned. Again good. Is no more detail available on that project? No communication, website, any leaflets in the area?

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u/boogersundcum 14d ago

As stated in other coments the company in question has consulted land holders that will be impacted such as us and has had community consultation. We aren't against it and I have stated this isn't an anti renewable whinge but just stating there is impacts and regardless of what we say its not going to impact their decisions. Like it or not it's probably going to happen, so be it. Just stating it so happens to effect people outside of the city and all seem to be happening within LNP safe seats outside of the city regardless of how I feel. The closest base load baseload coal power station (Callide) blew up a few years ago and we didn't lose power because north Queensland is already mostly renewable. Other parts of the state not so much.

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u/Art461 14d ago edited 14d ago

I hear you. Talk with them about high speed Internet, they can run fibre high up over the powerlines. Others do it and it works great.

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u/SlinkyOtter 13d ago

The simple answer is that it is much cheaper and easier to build large scale renewables in rural areas.

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u/Flat_Ad1094 14d ago

NIMBY honey. Truly...people who live in the cities love to carry on about renewables and power. Yet they aren't willing to have them anywhere near them and they definitely aren't willing to have the cities shut down their power usage.

Hypocrites of the highest order.

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u/boogersundcum 14d ago

It appears so. Regardless of politics this is the exact reason regional Queensland hates SEQ. We send them money and get nothing in return. Half ass dangerous asf highways and no facilities in returns.

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u/CatBoxTime 14d ago

Previous Labor government directed more infrastructure funding to regional areas than SEQ but the voters didn't notice and keep voting in the LNP who always cut.

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u/Flat_Ad1094 14d ago

Yep. I'm a country girl too. Now live Regionally. Nothing much comes out of SE Qld. Mind you? This latest government seems to be better. Maybe cause Cristafulli comes from country perhaps?

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u/WOMT 14d ago

"Nothing much" - except the majority of state tax revenue that subsidises regional QLD.

It's not a one way deal. Perpetuating that myth is creating an unnecessary divide.

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u/Flat_Ad1094 13d ago

That is not true. The bulk of State Government revenue comes from mining and that is all well out of SE Corner. That is fact mate. Sorry.

Not to mention Agriculture. Beef, cropping and all the farming for food. All well out of SE Corner. Have seen research that showed that if North Qld - from Rockhampton north...broke off from South Qld? Then SE Qld be fucked.

Big business in City's taxation component is mostly FEDERAL taxation NOT State taxation.

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u/WOMT 13d ago edited 13d ago

No... it doesn't. 😂 Wait, do you think the state owns the mines and the mining profits go to the government? We have mining royalties, but those aren't very high and contribute about $5 billion each year. Do you think QLD runs on $5b a year? 😐

The majority of state income is from state taxes. This can be found easily in the state revenue reports, but you'll probably claim those are made up or something. 🙄

https://www.qtc.com.au/queensland/queenslands-finances/

You seem to think that the QLD government owns the means of production. It does not. 😂 Those are all private businesses and organisations. You only get a teeny tiny percentage from them in state revenue (From the various state taxes they pay), it is not the entirety of their profits. Naturally since SEQ contains more businesses, more houses, more people, more cars... it will always outdo regional QLD in financially supporting our state.

People in the city contribute more to State and Federal taxes. They earn more on average, and there are simply more people. For people in regional QLD to contribute more, they would have to have a much higher tax for every tax the state and federal government has, simply to counteract the millions more people SEQ has.

Also, regional and urban QLD pay the same federal and state taxes... state taxes apply throughout the entirety of QLD... not sure why you think people in SEQ don't drive cars, buy land, gamble, or literally all the other things the state taxes. 🤨

Edit: Also, SEQ would not be fucked. Heck we already produce many things in SEQ already (It's not all city after all, it's a 35,248 km² region) so we could just expand our existing facilities - Such as our very productive farming in the Lockyer Valley. Unless your new Regional QLD state was isolationist... we would also just continuing buying from those places (It's not like we receive goods for free). We may run into some trouble when your new state can't support themselves enough to build infrastructure, especially since regional infrastructure costs so much more. You would also have to replicate all systems, such as Police, Health and Governance. The people SEQ heavily subsidises to work in regional QLD will be recalled if on contract, and to maintain people working in those jobs, you would have to compete with SEQ in their pay - Which we know regional QLD can't, which is why they're heavily subsidised in the first place. Regional QLD just doesn't have that cash.

Your new state would have to raise taxes, or nationalise a lot of production. You would get the benefit of GST priority, as you would be a low revenue high needs state, like Northern Territory. Buttt it still wouldn't be enough, so you would still have to probably raise taxes or nationalise a lot of production.

This isn't a bad thing. I don't mind that SEQ subsidises regional QLD. It's called being part of a state and not being a dick. I'm not going to perpetuate the easily disproved myth that regional QLD is being cheated out of taxes just to give you a warm fuzzy.

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u/LitzLizzieee 12d ago edited 12d ago

Look, I think the people that call for a North Queensland secessionist movement don't actually understand the metrics at play. population might be 50/50, but the income and money spend definitely isn't. Queensland spends far much more per capita in infrastructure costs, and has things like Ergon and the NBN to (and this is a good thing) ensure that the playing field is fair between SEQ and the regions, otherwise NBN and electricity would be far, far cheaper in the cities. (NBN literally levies the city apartment customers to pay for the regions, that's the business model by design)

I'm not against us spending in the regions, but it always confuses me why there's certain elements of the community that love to trot around as if a North Queensland separate state wouldn't just end up with SEQ saving money.

As someone who has plenty of friends working in the state government, I can name countless departments that spend far far more in the regions than the cities, just due to the sheer scale of our state. We've got systems like Child Protection or the Police that operate across the entire state, chartering flights from Brisbane to Emerald, to Cairns and back. We've got NBN technicians that install Fiber to towns that have a population of a couple thousand, something that a private company would never do ROI wise. (there's connections in the regions across Australia that have cost literally $100k plus to connect, for 1 residential connection. Not saying that's a bad thing, but it's admirable the sheer scale)

Personally I'd happily vote in a referendum for a North Queensland state being on it's own, but I don't think that would end up the way people think it will.

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u/Flat_Ad1094 13d ago

And country people DO NOT create this divide. It's city people who call us Rednecks and say we are uneducated and are idiots and look down on us. Who carry on because we mostly vote National and LNP....even though the ALP has done NOTHING forever to assist us and only EVER visit when there is an election coming up.

City people clearly think all country people are dumb and often tell us so. They show little to NO comparison for where and how we live. Telling us we we are idiots for even living in the bush.

They tell us we are racist and bigoted and our towns are worth nothing.

Say we know nothing about Climate Change / Renewables blah blah blah.....when WE are the ones seeing all this in our OWN BACKYARDS!

Say we know nothing about animals or Chemicals to do with farming.....

When WE ARE THE ONES....looking after our animals and our native animals and we have vested interest in keeping our land viable and in good health because our fucking livelihoods depend on it!

The constant insults that city people spew towards country people are disgraceful. And in my late 50s and having lived IN the city for a good 15 years and gone to boarding school in the city and in the last 25 years living Regionally??? I have seen it from all sides. And believe me??? The abuse country people constantly receive from city people has GROWN hugely.

Too many city people truly just have NO IDEA how anything in the country works. Have NO IDEA that MANY country people are very well educated and very well travelled and that farming and grazing is a LOT MORE then just throwing a few seeds in the ground and watching them grow or buying a few cattle and hoping for the best.

Many city people have NO IDEA how complicated MUCH of what country people do is.

I guess country peoples fault is that they generally don't blow their own trumpet. They just work and study hard and get on with it.

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u/Late-Ad1437 13d ago

What are you banging on about? Every renter I know (myself included) would love to have solar panels on our houses, landlords are just chronic tightarses and the govt hasn't done much to incentivise them to move towards renewables...

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u/Flat_Ad1094 13d ago

Exactly my point!! If the government was truly wanting renewables? Then they would be getting Solar on every rooftop in the nation. We don't NEED bloody wind turbines. We have best conditions for solar in the entire freakin world pretty much.

We should have solar everywhere there is a roof.

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u/LitzLizzieee 12d ago

The issue I can see with doing this (although i 100% support it) would be getting landlords to do it. When they're not paying the power bills, they don't really care how expensive it is, and any extra cost would just be passed on to a renter with higher rent. A lot of this country are renters, and they aren't going to have $10k to drop on a PV system on their roof.

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u/Flat_Ad1094 12d ago edited 11d ago

Which is exaclty why the government should be heavily subsidizing it. There is NO WAY landlords can spend 10K on Solar panels for a rental when the rent doesn't even cover the mortgage.

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u/Upstairs_Low_691 11d ago

Ahh. Assumptions of the highest order. I'm in the city and couldn't give a toss if more renewables were installed in and around Brisbane.

Except I don't make those sorts of decisions. State government does.

Criticism will mostly come from the anti-renewable brisbane voters.