‘Death by 1000 cuts’: Massive Goldfields green energy hub to damage intricate Nullarbor caves, scientist says

The massive green energy hub proposed for the Goldfields would be “death by 1000 cuts” for the vast cave systems that make up the world’s largest arid limestone karst, according to a scientist working to stop the project. The proposed Western Green Energy Hub would see 3000 wind turbines, 35 solar farms and a renewable hydrogen facility constructed north-west of Eucla along with a stretch of offshore infrastructure. Not-for-profit Save the Nullarbor co-founder Stefan Eberhard has voiced concerns the project which lies in the development footprint would cause irreversible damage to the world’s largest arid limestone karst. Dr Eberhard said there are more than 13,000 known karst features along the Nullarbor, with 4500 karst recorded in the proposed hub area alone, including caves, sinkholes, blowholes and rock holes. “If this project is allowed to go ahead it will cause unavoidable and irreparable harm to an iconic Australian region with outstanding natural and cultural values of recognised world heritage significance,” he said. “Quite simply, this project should not be constructed on any part of the Nullarbor limestone karst region or incised into the middle of the Great Australian Bight marine national parks.” When fully operational, the current proposal is expected to bring an estimated 8000 people to the region, with a township being built to accommodate them. Dr Eberhard said the sheer number of people moving to the region meant damage to fragile cave systems would be “absolutely inevitable” as more visitors flood caves in South Australia’s Nullarbor National Park. “I would liken it to death by 1000 cuts to the caves and other sensitive features on the Nullarbor if this project goes ahead,” he said. “Degradation and destruction in caves occur insidiously over many years and decades. “Wherever someone places their footprint, it’s there forever in some of these caves, and some of these caves are unique in the world, they’ve been there for five million years or longer, effectively unchanged.” Shire of Dundas president Laurene Bonza said the project would be an “absolute headache” from a town planning perspective, given the shire’s current population is about 720. “The logistics of putting 8000 people out there, it’s bigger than my head can get around,” she said. “There are certainly some concerns as far as town planning and there’s some environmental concerns. “I think the people out here are quite anxious about it . . . those people that live out at Eucla, there’s about 50 of them, that’s a significant impact on their life.” Under the current proposal, the green energy hub would be built across seven stages and ultimately have capacity of up to 70GW. The first stage is expected to generate about 6GW of hybrid wind and solar power and produce up to 330,000 tonnes a year of zero-emissions green hydrogen. WGEH chief executive Ray Macdonald in September said stage one would be potentially significant in positioning Australia as a major participant globally in the emerging green hydrogen sector. Although the hub would stretch 22,690sqkm from east of Cocklebiddy to the South Australian border, 95 per cent of the land will remain undisturbed by operations under the proposal. Dr Eberhard said while avoiding cave systems may be possible to some degree there would be a widespread impact from the grid-like infrastructure construction. “The landscape will be gridded by roads, powerlines and trenched pipelines, so it will effectively carve up and fragment the landscape,” he said. “Although the proponent has claimed that only 5 per cent of the land area will be physically cleared for structures . . . there’ll be enormous and unavoidable hydrological, ecological and biosecurity consequences. “The development proposes to permanently or partially clear hundreds of square kilometres of vegetation . . . which will involve ripping up the fragile and erosion-prone soil and calcrete land surface.” Dr Eberhard likened the Nullarbor Plain to an intricate honeycomb with changes to the surface impacting the complex cave system and aquifer lying beneath. The green hub project will be open to a 10-week public comment period, announced by the Environmental Protection Authority last month after an initial seven-day consultation last month received 282 submissions. EPA chair Darren Walsh said the scale of this proposal warranted a “lengthier than usual” public review period as part of the authority’s impact assessment.