The true cost
By Save Eumundi Team • Jan 1st, 2008 • Category: Background, Viable AlternativesThe cost to the end user, spread across all users, is that Powerlink and Energex, between them are now spending or planning to spend $5.3bn (Energex $2.71bn and Powerlink $2.6bn) from 2005-2012. This significantly understates the cost of provision of electricity, by breaking up the costs of provision into smaller discrete chunks, where the external factors are excluded and one part of the community subsidises another section of it. The true total cost of the energy generated and supplied to the end customers needs to take many factors into consideration including:
- Cost of fossil fuel used in energy generation
- Cost of water used in energy generation
- Cost of infrastructure (required for energy generation and transmission)
- Cost of carbon emissions (as a result of emission trading from 2010 onwards)
- Cost of acquiring easements
- Devaluation of indirectly affected property and business values (for which there is no direct compensation)
- Additional adaptation costs of responding to climate change events, such as storm surge, extreme weather events, less rainfall, economic impact on environmental tourism (eg Barrier Reef) and living in a warmer climate
- Environmental damage (flora / fauna / scenic amenity)
When the total costs of the proposals are added, imagine what this level of investment could purchase in terms of the alternatives (renewable energy and demand management initiatives).
Save Eumundi Team is a group of people who are keen to see our environment protected and insisting that the Queensland State Government and its agencies (like Powerlink) consider viable alternatives rather than the business as usual approach to electricity generation and transmission.
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