{"id":333531,"date":"2024-06-21T18:11:46","date_gmt":"2024-06-21T16:11:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=333531"},"modified":"2024-06-21T18:11:49","modified_gmt":"2024-06-21T16:11:49","slug":"coal-power-could-have-saved-these-trees-clearing-forest-for-snowy-hydro-transmission-lines","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=333531","title":{"rendered":"Coal power could have saved these trees: Clearing forest for Snowy Hydro transmission lines"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

From JoNova <\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

By Jo Nova<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Clearing in the Snowy Mountains.\u00a0\u00a0Geoff Wise on Facebook, June 4th 2024<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s just another day on the job to save the world from man-made pollution<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

In a quest to make the weather a bit nicer in 100 years these trees needed to be cut down now so we can connect up a big hydropower \u201cbattery\u201d for holy solar and wind power. The towers will be 75m high and the path through the forest, 140m wide.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When we ran off coal and gas power, we didn\u2019t need pumped hydro. Fossil fuels protect the forests and hills of Australia.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

These photos were posted by Geoff Wise on the \u201cHigh Country of Australia<\/a>\u201d show us what our clean green future will look like:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHere is where the power lines from the Snowy Hydro 2, at Lobs Hole,<\/a> will cross the Tumut River ravine to go to the recently cleared site of the switching station in the Maragle State Forest, before heading north to feed into the National Power grid. The power lines will come from near the distant horizon. Look at the photos for more information. You can see this for yourself, as I was standing on Elliot Way when I took the photos, down hill, to the east is Kosciusko National Park and uphill, to the west is Maragle State Forest.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Other parts of this project (not pictured here) will even cut through national park. Originally the 330kV interconnector towers were going to be put underground in the Kosciusko National Park,<\/a> but after costs ballooned it was decided that the Snowy Hydro 2.0  pumped storage  was \u201ccritical state significant infrastructure to NSW for economic, environmental and social reasons\u201d and the National Park was not so significant. Who knew, socially<\/em>, people in NSW benefit from pumped hydro?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Apparently renewable shareholders have friends in high places. Trees and koalas, not so much.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

h\/t Roger<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Remember small business foresters and farmers are bad people, but industrial hydroelectricity helps the environment. See how caring they are with their clearing\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Clearing in the Snowy Mountains.\u00a0<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Geoff describes how extensive these lines are:<\/a> \u201cOne of the power lines from there travels through Maragle State Forest, then Bago State Forest. A second travels through from Cabramurra and next to the new switching station being built. Snowy Hydro 2 may add, 1 to 2, more lines, as two lines are going to the switching station.\u201c<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The standard joke on facebook with these photos is \u201clook at the damage those brumbies have done!\u201d:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Clearing in the Snowy Mountains for high voltage lines (from Elliot Way) between Maragle and Lobs Hole.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Because over the hill,  feral brumbies are being shot from helicopters<\/a> to \u201creduce their impact\u201d on the Alpine wilderness.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Though some wonder if it\u2019s more the high country colonial history that the bureaucrats are really trying to kill.<\/p>\n\n\n

\n
\"\"
Alpine Brumbies | Photos by Dominic Lyons<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

Geoff also notes the irony that electric vehicles will be everywhere in the renewable future, but they won\u2019t be allowed in the Snowy hydro power station. He wonders, after all the combustion engines are gone, whether they\u2019ll need those horses to pull the carts:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
..Geoff Wise<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

 I received an email from a well informed commentator who noted that the Lobs Hole approval notice is allowed to kill and displace all sorts of things:<\/h4>\n\n\n\n

The Critical State Infrastructure Approval for the Lobs Hole and the Switching Station on KNP allows that no more than:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

(i) 9.35 ha of Caladenia montana species habitat<\/p>\n\n\n\n

(ii) 89.06 ha of Gang-gang Cockatoo (breeding) species habitat<\/p>\n\n\n\n

(iii) 10.86 ha of Masked Owl (breeding) species habitat<\/p>\n\n\n\n

(iv) 117.29 ha of Eastern Pygmy-possum species habitat<\/p>\n\n\n\n

(v) 59.03 ha of Yellow-bellied Glider species habitat; and<\/p>\n\n\n\n

(vi) 1.67 ha of Booroolong Frog species habitat<\/p>\n\n\n\n

can be cleared for the development; and the developers have to minimise:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

(i) the impacts of the development on hollow-bearing trees;<\/p>\n\n\n\n

(ii) the impacts of the development on threatened species; and<\/p>\n\n\n\n

(iii) the clearing of native vegetation and key habitat.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Apparently, the sanctioned clearing is offset by contributing or buying offset credits.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The question is, why can\u2019t farmers within the Great Barrier Reef catchment area have the same option when managing their land? At the moment, bureaucrats scan satellite images and if any bare ground the size of a kitchen table is found on their land, they turn up and carry out an audit essentially accusing the farmer of environmental degradation of the Great Barrier Reef.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2014 R<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Some endangered industries are more protected than others.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In a quest to make the weather a bit nicer in 100 years these trees needed to be cut down now so we can connect up a big hydropower \u201cbattery\u201d for holy solar and wind power. The towers will be 75m high and the path through the forest, 140m wide.<\/p>\n

When we ran off coal and gas power, we didn\u2019t need pumped hydro. Fossil fuels protect the forests and hills of Australia.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":121246920,"featured_media":333542,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_coblocks_attr":"","_coblocks_dimensions":"","_coblocks_responsive_height":"","_coblocks_accordion_ie_support":"","_crdt_document":"","advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[691829324,691818627,691829325,691829323,691829326],"class_list":{"0":"post-333531","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","6":"hentry","7":"category-uncategorized","8":"tag-geoff-wise","9":"tag-hydropower","10":"tag-kosciusko-national-park","11":"tag-man-made-pollution","12":"tag-snowy-hydro-2","14":"fallback-thumbnail"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/06\/0447612574_970695301426364_2367682730979817142_n.jpg?fit=1920%2C1440&ssl=1","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/paxLW1-1oLx","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":255957,"url":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=255957","url_meta":{"origin":333531,"position":0},"title":"Aussie 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NOTHING: Giant Pumped Hydro Scheme Becomes Costly & Pointless\u00a0Disaster","author":"uwe.roland.gross","date":"13\/05\/2023","format":false,"excerpt":"Along with giant batteries and \u2018green\u2019 hydrogen, pumped hydro is touted as the solution to wind and solar power\u2019s hopeless intermittency. 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Orwell knew it, so does your local Ministry of Truth. Wind and solar propagandists know it too. They use \u2018energy\u2019, when consumers only care about \u2018power\u2019. They talk about wind and solar output in terms of meaningless averages, when consumers only care about having power as and when\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"Hydro Tasmania\"","block_context":{"text":"Hydro Tasmania","link":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?tag=hydro-tasmania"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/04\/01b8c6459f6a0a30110caada64e125fdf.jpeg?fit=1200%2C675&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/04\/01b8c6459f6a0a30110caada64e125fdf.jpeg?fit=1200%2C675&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/04\/01b8c6459f6a0a30110caada64e125fdf.jpeg?fit=1200%2C675&ssl=1&resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/04\/01b8c6459f6a0a30110caada64e125fdf.jpeg?fit=1200%2C675&ssl=1&resize=700%2C400 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/04\/01b8c6459f6a0a30110caada64e125fdf.jpeg?fit=1200%2C675&ssl=1&resize=1050%2C600 3x"},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/333531","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/121246920"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=333531"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/333531\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":333544,"href":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/333531\/revisions\/333544"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/333542"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=333531"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=333531"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=333531"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}