If you ever need an example of the idiocy and the ignorance behind the Coalition and LNP campaign against renewable energy in Australia, a good place to start would be the federal MP for Flynn, Colin Boyce.

The LNP member has staged a relentless campaign against renewables, and the proposed Smoky Creek solar project in his electorate in particular. Boyce has argued that they are “reckless”, and he has amplified numerous scare campaigns about heat islands and toxic run-offs, and even homelessness that these projects allegedly cause.

Just a few weeks ago, Boyce argued that wind and solar could not possibly provide the necessary power for the biggest employer in his own electorate, and the biggest energy consumer in the state, the Boyne Island smelter.

“The Gladstone community and the Boyne smelter rely heavily on reliable, predictable and affordable power. The reality of wind and solar output, for anyone enjoying their air-conditioning in this current heat, is that it cannot provide any of this,” Boyce wrote on his web page on 22 January.

“It is not a 24-hour baseload solution. It isn’t always windy and it’s certainly not that sunny after 7pm.” Nuclear, Boyce suggested, is the only solution to replace coal-fired power.

How wrong, how ill-informed, and how irresponsible can a local MP be?

Last week, Rio Tinto — the owner of the Boyne Island aluminium smelter and the Yarwun and Queensland Alumina refineries that together employ more than 3000 people in Gladstone alone — announced the future of these assets will be secured, precisely because they have been able to sign deals for wind, solar and battery storage.

Rio Tinto has signed a 20-year off take deal with the 600 MW Smoky Creek solar farm and its huge 600 MW, 2400 MWh DC coupled battery, adding to the previously announced contracts with the 1.4 GW Bungaban wind project and the  1.2 GW Upper Calliope solar project.

“These agreements are integral to repowering our Gladstone aluminium operations with affordable, reliable and lower carbon energy for decades to come,” said the head of Rio Tinto Australia, Kellie Parker.

“For the first time, we have integrated crucial battery storage in our efforts to make the Boyne aluminium smelter globally cost-competitive, as traditional energy sources become more expensive.”

Rio Tinto says the deal with the Smoky Creek solar and battery means the company now has contracts in place for 80% of its bulk energy needs in Gladstone, and 30% of its “firming” requirements. But it is confident, given the plunging cost of battery storage technologies, that this gap can be readily addressed.

What is clear is that if the LNP had its way, and was in a position to deliver on its ideological infatuation with coal and nuclear, old energy paradigms and its obsession with “baseload”, then the smelters and the refineries would not survive beyond the end of the decade.

Coal fired generation is now too costly and the local coal generators are getting old, the alumina and aluminium products must compete in a world that demands low emission supplies, and nuclear is too far away — and way too expensive — to help.

Boyce’s argument against Smoky Creek is a taste of the nonsense, lies and deliberate misinformation peddled by the LNP, the Murdoch media, conservative “think-tanks” and nuclear boosters and then recycled back through frightened and ill-informed constitutents.

His arguments against the Smoky Creek project included claims about “run -off” from solar farms affecting the barrier reef, of destroyed farming land, of businesses lost, and homelessness.

Boyce has warned of “heat islands” (disproved nonsense) and in 2023 wrote to the regulator warning that his constituents were “lying awake at night, concerned about the radiation and heat energy will affect their herds, their families, and their health".

He has long campaigned against Smoky Creek, standing up in Queensland state parliament in May 2021, as the then member for Callide, complaining that the project would only employ five people on a full-time basis. He didn’t consider the thousands of jobs that could be saved by the project going ahead.

That speech to parliament — you can watch the video here — was delivered less than five hours after the Callide coal generator experienced a devastating explosion that very nearly caused a state-wide blackout, and might have were it not for the  intervention of big batteries that the Coalition still dismisses as useless.

But Boyce, without a hint of irony, declared that the Callide explosion “reiterates the fact that we need baseload power".

The biggest employer in his electorate, and the biggest consumer of energy in Australia, begs to differ. Perhaps it’s time that Boyce and his LNP colleagues listen to what they have and other experts have to say.

Republished from RENEW ECONOMY, March 17, 2025