June 9, 2008
Australia
Australia
Opponents to the proposed Tuki wind farm at Smeaton believe the project may not go ahead.
Wind Power wants to erect at least 19 turbines in the area.
But the Spa Country Landscape Guardians group says the company is failing to answer questions about the project.
A group member, Christian Wilde, says the lack of information is raising significant doubt in the community about the project’s future.
“Many of the questions can be summed up in, what are you doing?” he said.
“It’s as simple as that. We can’t even get an answer of that nature from them.
“We have attempted to communicate with them by asking questions over a long period of time and have always been met with … ‘we’ll answer those in due course’, but the answers have never been forthcoming.”
But the company’s spokesman, Ross Richards, says little more can be done on the project until the Federal Government reveals its carbon and emissions trading plans.
Mr Richards says it could be the end of the year before the information is released.
“So we don’t know if the price of carbon is going to be $20 or $50 or whether MRET – the renewable energy target that’s currently in place – whether that will be replaced by another scheme or whether it will all be rolled into the emissions trading scheme, so there are quite a unknowns,” he said.
“We don’t know what the Government’s going to do and we need to know before we can move ahead.”
Mr Richards says the wait for the Government’s policies will not impact on the company’s other projects such as Stockyard Hill, south of Beaufort.
9 June 2008
URL to article: https://www.wind-watch.org/news/2008/06/09/wind-farm-opponents-still-seeking-answers/