Australia’s richest person Gina Rinehart has launched another astonishing attack on wind and solar – and “net zero” in general – despite investing in mines that are operating at near 100 per cent renewables and supplying minerals essential to the green industry.
In a keynote speech at the Bush Summit held in Darwin on Friday, Rinehart took aim at the “great green incinerator”, including a thinly veiled attack on fellow iron ore billionaire Andrew Forrest, who is not just aiming for “net zero” in a couple of decades time, but to real zero in just four years.
Rinehart didn’t mention Forrest by name, but wondered why iron ore miners were reporting their “lowest dividends in seven or eight years”, yet spending billions on the “great green incinerator”.
Forrest’s Fortescue is spending $7.2 billion on wind, solar, batteries and transmission, as well as electric trucks and other mining equipment to eliminate fossil fuels by 2030, an investment it says will deliver a quick return.
Rinehart was not able to attend the Bush Summit on Friday, but in a speech read in her absence by former NT chief minister and now Rinehart employee Adam Giles – the CEO of Hancock agriculture, she said:
“Mum and Dad shareholders, please demand answers to just how many billions of shareholders’ money – money you could otherwise enjoy as dividends – are these big companies spending on the great green incinerator, buying new expensive electric vehicles and putting in charging stations, plus paying for wrongly called renewables, storage batteries, and transmission lines, modifying equipment, and studies into all sorts of green things, including hydrogen, and call for all of those mining executives living and enjoying luxury green gab-fests at Davos and other places to pay that money back, and to pay that money back personally.”
She complained of “toxic” solar panels, which with wind turbines and battery storage were “destroying large parts of our environment.’
Rinehart is entitled to her views and to express them whenever and wherever she wishes, and the views are familiar to anyone who reads the Murdoch media, watches Sky After Dark, or any of the nation’s right wing parties.
Yet two mining companies that Rinehart is heavily invested in – Liontown Resources and Lynas Rare Earths, which supply minerals essential to the green energy transition – are reaping the benefits of investing in those same technologies.
Lynas has boasted of 95.7 per cent renewable penetration at its Mt Weld mine for the whole of the March quarter, (its wind turbines are pictured above), while Liontown is achieving more than 80 per cent wind and solar penetration over the year at its Kathleen Valley lithium mine.
Both companies say the benefits of their big investment renewables are significant, as it has shielded them for soaring diesel prices.
Rinehart is also a major shareholder, and according to the AFR has injected another $85 million, into Arafura Resources, which has just pressed go on the $1.6 billion Nolans mining project that will mostly produce minerals essential for the wind turbines that Rinehart abhors, and the EVs that she also frowns upon.
Rinehart complained in her speech about the “green slush trough wasting pat taxpayers’ money”, but it should also be noted that the Nolan’s mine is almost entirely funded by government handouts and discount loans, and government off-take agreements.
The Bush Summit is now on its annual tour around regional centres, backed by Rinehart’s Hancock Prospecting and Rupert Murdoch’s media organisation.
This year, with the support of Toyota and Woolworths, it appears designed to amplify the policies of the surging One Nation party that Rinehart is backing, with a particular focus on net zero and immigration.
“Net zero destroys real jobs in the industries that keep our country’s economy alive,” Rinehart said. “Vast fields of solar panels or towering wind turbines and transmission lines are essentially build and run projects. They create a short burst of jobs during their unnecessarily environmentally destructive construction.
“Once the ribbon is cut and the photo opportunities are done, they generate very few long-term jobs. Perhaps some people to bury the perhaps some people are employed to bury the birds and the bats that the wind towers will be killing.”
Fortescue, of course, would beg to differ, arguing that the switch to renewables will underpin the profitability of its giant iron ore operations, and bring new business opportunities, such as powering data centres or bringing value added industries to Australia such as green iron.
The Pilbara is a fascinating microcosm of the broader debate in Australia, where Rinehart and Fortescue are at loggerheads over the diametrically opposed energy transition views, and where BHP is also being criticised for back-tracking on their previous commitments.
The debate around energy is now intensifying in political circles, with the loose coalition of Far Right parties, now led by the Rinehart-backed One Nation with the Nationals and the Liberals in tow, wanting to scrap net zero targets.
The LNP government in Queensland highlights what decisions will be taken by a government determined to rip up such emissions policies, and scrap renewable targets.
Yet even the LNP can’t stand in the way of big industry, with Queensland’s biggest energy user – Rio Tinto’s giant Boyne Island smelters and associated refineries – committing to replacing its ageing coal generator in Gladstone with a mix of wind, solar and battery storage, just like the off-grid mines backed by Rinehart.
“Intermittent high-cost energy doesn’t mean Australia can have a great future with many industries, including AI, that require reliable electricity,” Rinehart said in the same speech.
But the biggest data centre to be committed so far in Australia, Iren’s 800 MW facility, will be located in the state with the highest penetration of “intermittent” renewables in the world, South Australia, which is running on a 75 per cent annual share and will be at 100 per cent “net renewables” by the time the centre is built.
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