{"id":14513,"date":"2024-06-03T12:40:45","date_gmt":"2024-06-03T02:40:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/rationalemagazine.com\/?p=14513"},"modified":"2024-06-03T12:45:29","modified_gmt":"2024-06-03T02:45:29","slug":"are-renewable-energy-projects-destroying-our-environment","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rationalemagazine.com\/index.php\/2024\/06\/03\/are-renewable-energy-projects-destroying-our-environment\/","title":{"rendered":"Are renewable energy projects destroying our environment?"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"mp_wrapper\">\n  <div class=\"mepr-unauthorized-excerpt\">\n    <p>Editor\u2019s note: If you would like to submit a letter for possible publication, please email it to editor@rationalist.com.au. See our Publishing Guidelines.\nThe first lot of letters are in response to this video.\nDear Editor,\nI want to share some observations about the video and the impact of wind and solar farms on the environment that was implied in that video (RSA Daily, 30 May 2024).\nThe video has been produced by an environmental activist organisation in Far North Queensland called Rainforest Reserves, which is vehemently opposed to the Chalumbin and Kalan wind farms, as well as several others. Unfortunately, they let themselves down with loose use of language.\nI found it somewhat confusing to hear the use of the word \u201cfactories\u201d, a derogatory political term that appears to be first used by elected members of the LNP. One also wonders at the motivation when statements such as \"To achieve true net zero (removing carbon from agriculture and transport fleet)...start building a fleet of gas plants.\u201d\u00a0\nPromoting fossil fuels over renewable energy appears counterproductive when 250 thousand hectares of land are set aside in Queensland for fracking, with all the attendant issues of toxicity and scarce water use.\nThere are 57 current and proposed wind farms in Queensland with a plated capacity of 34,836 megawatts. Although the video quotes numbers of turbines, turbines are getting larger \u2013 therefore, fewer are required for a given capacity. And fewer access roads are required.\nThe ...<\/p>\n  <\/div>\n  <div class=\"mepr-unauthorized-message\">\n    <hr style=\"width: 100%;max-width: 1000px !important;height: 5px;border-width: 0;color: red;background-color: red\" \/>\n<div style=\"text-align: center\">\n<h3><em>You're part way through this article. Want to keep reading?<\/em><\/h3>\n<h4><em>Only members of the Rationalist Society of Australia can read our Premium articles.\u00a0<\/em><\/h4>\n<h3 style=\"height: 20px\"><span style=\"color: #c83200\"><em><a style=\"color: #c83200\" href=\"https:\/\/rationalist.com.au\/membership\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Become a member today.<\/a><\/em><\/span><\/h3>\n<h4><em>Already a member? 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See our<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":444,"featured_media":14514,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[69],"tags":[591,575,75],"coauthors":[114],"class_list":["post-14513","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-letters","tag-energy","tag-environment","tag-premium"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rationalemagazine.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14513","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rationalemagazine.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rationalemagazine.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rationalemagazine.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/444"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rationalemagazine.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14513"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/rationalemagazine.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14513\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14516,"href":"https:\/\/rationalemagazine.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14513\/revisions\/14516"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rationalemagazine.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14514"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rationalemagazine.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14513"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rationalemagazine.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14513"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rationalemagazine.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14513"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rationalemagazine.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=14513"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}