Wind energy is divisive

AUSTRALIA'S climate commissioner, Tim Flannery, recently suggested the health impact of wind farms was more likely to result from neighbours being stressed than physically harmed by wind-related noise.

To back up his claim, Professor Flannery relayed a conversation with a Canberra farmer over whether six turbines on his property had made any of his neighbours sick.

"(The farmer) said, `Yeah, mate, people get sick, sick with envy'," Prof Flannery told a forum, referring to the farmer's $60,000 annual windfall for leasing his land for turbine use.

Like most Australians, I love the idea of wind turbines as a renewable form of energy. Sometimes they even seem quite graceful.

But it's all very well to favour green energy when the closest you get to its production is switching on the kettle.

Many of you will know I grew up in Port Vincent, on Yorke Peninsula. I still have property there and return regularly for holidays.

So, in recent months I've heard lots of differing opinions on the proposed $1.3 billion Ceres Wind Farm on land between Port Vincent and Port Julia, and it's made me realise just how divisive and messy these supposedly win-win schemes can be.

On every level, this project is massive. Developer REpower says the Ceres project would be the biggest wind farm in Australia, powering up to 225,000 homes, potentially driving down energy prices and helping to facilitate an early regional rollout of the NBN.

It's massive, too, in terms of the injection of cash into the regional economy: $8 million annually, including a $150,000 community benefit fund, 500 jobs in construction and 50 permanent jobs for 25 years.

Then there's the size of the 199 turbines. At 150m, they'd be the tallest wind turbines in Australia - higher than the Sydney Harbour Bridge or Adelaide's tallest building, Westpac House.

And there's the rather massive amount of cash that 36 landholders will receive in return for hosting the turbines: at $15,000 a year each for 199 turbines, you're looking at an average new income stream of $80,000 yearly for the landholders involved (or an average of $2 million each for the life of the project).

Massive, too, is the intensity of feeling this project has sparked on both sides of the debate.

Neighbour against neighbour, friend against friend, family against family - little wonder people feel sick to the stomach.

Let's leave the whole intrasound health argument to one side (research hasn't proved it, but experts say more studies are warranted).

Instead, it's only fair to consider the families who live next door and down the road from the 36 host properties - families who've farmed the land for generations and now face a future blighted by 150m turbines as close as 1.3km from their front door.

Heartland Farmers, a collective of more than 200 landowners opposed to the Ceres project, say it will significantly affect their ability to produce high-yield crops because aerial sprayers can't get within 3km of the turbines.

They fear the turbines will restrict the potential for aerial firefighting, heightening the fire risk for properties and people. Land values, they say, could also fall as they've done in other regional areas where wind farms have been built.

I can well appreciate how galling it must be for these farmers when they're expected to suck it up for the common good of SA, especially as their multibillion-dollar agriculture industry is taken for granted more than it's truly celebrated.

I'm not flatly opposed to the Ceres project, although why we'd use good farm land when there's so much arid space further north is a bit baffling.

I know families who stand to do very well out of the development and can understand why they're keen to take up the opportunity.

But I also know people who are at their wits end about it. And it's made me realise that you can't trivialise these issues down to NIMBY jibes and "sick with envy" quotes.