Australia's Fledgling Wind Farms Risk Being Blown Away as Abbott Coalition Lauds Coal

摘要

Tony Hill moved from inner-city Canberra to a tree-filled valley five years ago to find serenity in the nearby Australian bush. Now he fears his idyllic vista will soon be marred by 50-story-high wind turbines. "The first I heard of it was when I was handed a map that showed my property in the project area," Hill said on the back porch of his 100-acre property near the town of Tarago as he points at a ridge 1 kilometer (0.6 miles) away. "If the company gets its way, there will be 10 towers there alone." Championed as a tool to cut greenhouse gases in nations as diverse as Spain and China, wind farms have become contentious in Australia, a country with 9 percent of the world's black coal reserves. Prime Minister Tony Abbott, who enjoys the backing of the mining industry, plans to slash support for alternative energy that's helped pump A$20 billion ($17.2 billion) into renewables, including the wind farms that Treasurer Joe Hockey called "appalling" and "utterly offensive."