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‘Green power’: the North’s forgotten resource?
Whenever the future of the North is debated it is usually in terms of what its vast water resources could do for agriculture or how pumping the water south could solve all Perth’s water problems.
Rarely mentioned is the North’s proven ability to deliver “clean, green energy.” Yet today in both Kununurra and Wyndham electric power is generated by nothing but pollution-free hydro-energy and over at Argyle Diamonds, the entire mine complex is run on electricity generated from the Ord River Hydro Scheme.
For any company seeking to enhance its “clean, green” credentials, few other places in the country offer quite that pedigree. Kununurra finally switched off its pollution-pumping diesel-electric system in 1997. Since then across the Kimberley C02 emissions have fallen by 220,000 tonnes and sulphur and nitrogen oxide emissions have been eliminated. At any one time 40,000 of the region’s homes are drawing electricity from the 30MW Ord hydro scheme.
Around the world today towns and cities are promoting their green credentials as a way to attract new investment, and “creative workers” and to stake a claim to 21st Century urban leadership. Recently New York’s mayor, Michael Bloomberg, was telling investors that the “Big Apple” was going to become the “Big Green Apple” and that hundreds of millions of dollars would be spent to ensure New York became environmentally sustainable. In many ways greening the Kimberley towns has already given them a high environmental status.
