A planned 70-gigwatt “green energy hub” in Australia has been ordered to conduct an environmental assessment of its impacts on an ecologically fragile region amid pushback from environmentalists.
The Western Green Energy Hub is owned by Singapore-based InterContinental Energy, CWP Global, and by Mirning Green Energy—a subsidiary of a corporation representing the area’s Indigenous Mirning people, through which they have a 10% stake in the project.
The hub is expected to be the largest of its kind in the world. It would use solar and wind power to produce value-added energy products, currently assumed to be green ammonia for hydrogen fuel, says the First Nations Clean Energy Network.
In late November, Western Australia’s Environmental Protection Authority (EPA) released [pdf] a decision requiring that the hub project undergo an environmental review.
“Detailed assessment is required to determine the extent of the proposal’s direct and indirect impacts, and whether the EPA environmental factor objectives can be met,” the decision states.
The project will also need final approval from the Mirning traditional owners. The Mirning Traditional Lands Aboriginal Corporation is now undergoing consultations with communities, but chairperson Shilloh Peel told Australia’s ABC News a final decision is years away.
If it proceeds, the hub will include up to 3,000 wind turbines and 60 million solar panels over 2.29 million hectares of pastoral leases and Crown lands. The A$75-billion project would be built in phases over a 15-year period. It is expected eventually to generate up to 70 gigawatts of hybrid wind and solar power that will be used to produce either four million tonnes of green hydrogen or 22 million tonnes of green ammonia every year, reports Renew Economy.
In addition to the power source, the EPA writes that the hub will include coastal and offshore components that “comprise a marine offloading facility, desalination plant, brine pipeline, and an ammonia (or other vector) export pipeline.” The project would also build a new town to house its 8,000 workers.
The hub’s scale and location have raised concerns about its environmental impacts. The planned onshore parts of the project would be sited on Western Australia’s Nullarbor Plain, a vast plateau that is home to rare plants and animals. Dundas Shire President Laurene Bonza, whose region would house most of the project, called the hub’s scale and size “a bit alarming”. She added that the development will require extensive clearing of native vegetation, with 27,000 hectares cleared and another 77,000 hectares partially cleared.
“On one hand they’re saying green energy, on the other hand, how much of our green space are we destroying to get that aim?” Bonza asked ABC News.
Western Green Energy Hub CEO Ray Macdonald said about 95% of the land within the project’s boundaries would remain untouched, stating that “a priority of the WGEH project is ‘avoidance of impact,’ which is fundamental in respecting the environment.”
The area has also been suggested for nomination to the UNESCO World Heritage listing, in part because it contains one of the world’s largest karst cave systems, ABC News says.
The offshore components will affect marine and benthic (at the bottom of a body of water) ecosystems where the hub project is already accused of undermining conservation efforts. Recently released final plans for a new marine park on Western Australia’s south coast reportedly leave a gap in protected areas to allow construction of the Western Green Energy Hub’s coastal infrastructure.
Australian ecologist and cave scientist Stefan Eberhard told ABC News the park’s boundaries were “planned with the development in mind, rather than the protection of the environment in mind.”
The Australian Greens political party, which is generally supportive of renewable energy, is not completely onboard with this project.
“What we don’t want to see is that (renewable energy) come at the cost of pretty unique natural places because it doesn’t need to,” said Brad Pettitt, Western Australia Greens MLC (Member of the Legislative Council, or Upper House, in Parliament).
Macdonald said the company “searched the globe” before deciding on this location and it does “not expect to find a more suitable place,” reports ABC News.
