Article by Editorial, courtesy of The Australian
05.12.2025
The failure of Queensland Labor’s “world’s biggest pumped hydro” project is a case study in how the difficult realities of the energy transition are too easily ignored by politicians seeking electoral opportunity. The former Palaszczuk government used the promise of the $12bn Pioneer-Burdekin pumped hydro project as part of a $62bn plan to build a renewables “super grid” in the state. But it was never subjected to any detailed financial, engineering and environmental investigations despite more than 50 cattle and sugar properties being resumed. It appears that the potential legacy of the undeliverable project may be one of ruined farmland and poisoned water from contaminated wells. As Michael McKenna reports on Saturday, some landholders can no longer drink from their wells and are restricting irrigation of crops after dangerous levels of aluminium, iron, manganese and E. coli bacteria were found in their water supply fed by underground aquifers. Claims that drilling caused the contamination are disputed but it may be the outcome of Labor’s claimed environmental ambition was actual environmental degradation for no result.
Labor Party insiders say the project was mostly an electoral ambition of the former premier, Annastacia Palaszczuk, who plucked the 5GW figure from the air because she wanted something big to burnish her government’s green credentials.
One of the first actions of the Crisafulli government was to scrap the project as ill-conceived and impossible to deliver at the quoted costs. No doubt it was guided by the experience of Snowy 2.0, which began life in 2017 as a $2bn project. By 2020 it had climbed to $5.9bn. In 2023, the Albanese government reset the budget to about $12bn, with independent analysts warning the true cost could push well past $20bn.
Queensland voters can be thankful that fresh eyes saw the Pioneer-Burdekin pumped hydro project for what it was. But as the bad news keeps coming on the national energy transition it is necessary to ask whether fresh eyes are needed on the route being proposed by Climate Change and Energy Minister Chris Bowen and the panoply of claimed energy experts.
Boosterism rather than practical engineering characterised the push for hydrogen produced from renewable energy despite it being a key plank of the energy transition. Offshore wind is rapidly following the same pathway as hydrogen. AGL has become the latest company to abandon its offshore wind ambitions in Victoria, the latest blow to the state’s efforts to replace coal with zero-emissions power.
AGL’s decision marks the highest-profile exit from Victoria’s offshore wind sector to date and underscores the challenges facing Australia’s most fossil-fuel dependent state. Victoria has placed offshore wind at the centre of its strategy to reduce emissions and secure new energy sources as coal-fired power plants are scheduled to retire during the next decade. But, as with hydrogen and the failed Pioneer-Burdekin pumped hydro project in Queensland, there is a big gulf between political spin on green power and engineering reality.
As the options narrow, agencies from the Australian Energy Market Operator down are warning of higher bills and possible blackouts. AEMO is concerned that new technologies will not be deployed in time to maintain grid stability when coal-fired power stations exit the market.
The Australian Energy Market Commission has warned of higher prices in its latest Residential Electricity Price Trends report. As Chris Uhlmann writes on Saturday, in just 12 months the commission has gone from saying electricity prices would fall 13 per cent across the next decade to saying they will fall by about 5 per cent in the first five years, then rise 13 per cent in the second five, and end up higher overall.
As with the abandoned Queensland hydro project, the reality continues to be an uncertain future for power but certain community and environmental disruption in the name of politics.