Earlier this month, two competing visions for the future of farming emerged on opposite sides of the country. At Gina Rinehart’s Bush Summit in Broome, renewables were cast as a threat to rural communities, while in Canberra, the inaugural Farming Forever Summit highlighted how clean energy is sustaining farm livelihoods.
Fourth-generation farmer Charlie Prell knows the difference firsthand. After years of drought and falling commodity prices pushed his Crookwell property to the edge, wind turbines helped secure his farm’s future and supported his retirement.
Charlie shares his story of resilience and why he sees renewables as part of farming’s survival, not its downfall. But he’s blunt about some of the renewable industry’s missteps and how rushed contracts and divisive tactics by some developers left scars that still fuel distrust and give ammunition to anti-renewables campaigns.
The challenge now is to rebuild trust, ensure farmers have genuine agency, and prove that clean energy can strengthen rural communities rather than undermine them.
As solar module makers use fewer valuable materials to get prices down, questions arise about…
Amandine Denis-Ryan from IEEFA on what can be done about Australia's unique and unhealthy dependence…
A Melbourne project to assess apartment buildings' electrification potential suggests that technically it's doable but…
The former Nationals leader has come out swinging on social media against a global wind…
The only wind farm under construction in NSW has entered the grid management system, the…
Large-scale solar generation hit record highs in three states across Australia's main grid in September,…