21 Wolseley Parade
Kensington Vic 3031
Wednesday 30 October 1996

The Editor
The Age
Fax address: (03)9670 7514

Dear Sir,

This week's announcement by a state owned electricity utility in New South
Wales for a wind farm near Goulburn at last signals to the world that
someone in Australia is addressing this country's appalling record on greenhouse
gas emissions.

It is however unfortunate that the wind farm is not being built in Victoria
where the greenhouse benefit would be 56 percent greater, due to the fact
that we burn brown coal, whereas NSW uses less polluting black coal. Victoria
also has, on average, stronger winds than NSW. The Victorian Government should
be ashamed that it is doing so little to encourage renewable power
technologies.

Our governments and power corporations are so slow off the mark, it is time
all concerned Victorians took this issue on board. Luckily there is something
every home owner can invest in with three times the greenhouse benefit of
the NSW wind farm: over a 20 year lifetime, every dollar initially invested
in a solar water heater will save more than 50 kilograms of carbon dioxide
emissions. This compares with only about 18 kilograms per dollar for the
proposed wind farm.

If every electric water heater in Victoria were converted to solar operation,
the night-time electricity demand would be reduced to a level where at least
one coal-fired power station in the Latrobe Valley would be redundant. This
truly would be people power in action. I dare Jeff Kennett to outlaw solar
water heaters in order to keep the new power generation companies happy.



Dr Michael Gunter
Trustee, Renewable Energy Development Trust