Media release – SOLVE – Save Our Loongana Valley Environment, 19 September 2020

Loongana Community proved right – Marinus is a con!

For over a year the small community of Loongana Valley has been threatened with a proposed giant transmission line, which will kill tourism jobs, damage critical habitats, increase fire risk, and decrease property values.

TasNetworks and the state government have ignored our concerns, while persistently claiming that the line, part of a new grid tied to the proposed Marinus and Battery of the Nation projects, is for the greater good. We could find no modelling to back those claims.

We have now been proved right. A new report by Bruce Mountain and Steven Percy from the Victorian Energy Policy Centre and Victoria University Melbourne shows not only was there no prior economic modelling to support Marinus, but that Marinus will cost, not benefit, Tasmanians.

The report, prepared for Christine Milne of the Bob Brown Foundation, is conservative and has a narrow economic focus, but completely dismantles claims that business or the environment benefits from Marinus-BoTN in its current form.

If Marinus is unjustified and unwarranted, then so is UPC-TasNetworks’ transmission line through our valley – designed solely to ship Tassie power and profits offshore.

We join with other communities in calling for energy planning to go back to the drawing board. We call on TasNetworks, and the major political parties, to begin coordinated, multi-sector planning that treats power generated in Tasmania as a utility to benefit Tasmanians first. If there is no u-turn now, Tasmanians will be saddled with useless debt, and miss a multi-generational opportunity to invest our own energy to transition to a low carbon economy, increase business opportunities, and share economic benefits to every corner of our society.

The alternative is bleak – an industrialised north-west, littered with TasNet towers and stranded assets, as Victoria build their own power and storage at a much cheaper cost. A scarred landscape will reduce tourism and cause job losses. A deadly combination of warming climate and transmission lines risks wildfires. Our region will become an example of the worst transition to renewables in Australia’s history.

This new analysis is unequivocal proof that TasNetworks, and the major political parties, need to stop trying to sell us what isn’t in our interests. We call on them to start again, and begin coordinated, multi-sector planning that treats power generated in Tasmania as a utility, and work with communities to the benefit of all Tasmanians.

TASMANIAN TIMES: Project Marinus and Battery of the Nation are ‘Huge $7.1 billion Mistake’.