“It's about the governance systems. Have we specifically designed these governance systems to allow for good? If renewable infrastructure in agricultural regions can be utilized such that it drives down input costs, supports regional processing, and enables fertilizer production locally, it's a genuine transformation. And it's something that mining didn't capture. I think mining was all about extraction. How do we change the renewable energy transition from feeling like an extractive process to a collaborative process?”
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Asked whether Australia is learning from the coal seam gas era or repeating it. She says outcomes depend on how projects are governed, and contrasts mining with a chance for farming regions to keep more of the value.
…ready for 200 workers to come into your community and then regional value capture. So how are you going to capture the value from these workers actually come in? So there's been a massive focus on getting ready. There hasn't been a massive focus on how do we retain and keep that value long term.
…and that kind of piece. It seems like we've been through this before in Australia with coal seam gas, that there's been conversations around land use transition and intersection of energy and agriculture. Do you feel like we're learning from those examples or is this a little bit of groundhog day?
Sometimes I feel really optimistic. They're going to nail this. And then other times I feel less optimistic. But for me, it's about the governance systems. Have we specifically designed these governance systems to allow for good? Have we designed them such that we can capture this opportunity? An example, when we spoke about the nitrogen fertilizer stuff with 60% of the cost of nitrogen being energy linked, if renewable infrastructure in agricultural regions can be utilized such that it drives down input costs, that it supports regional processing, that it enables fertilizer production locally, it's a genuine transformation. And it's something that mining didn't capture. I think mining was all about extraction. And how do we change the renewable energy transition from feeling like an extractive process to actually a collaborative process where if we get the governance right and we can capture the benefits, then we'll get decent regional development. We will get community benefits and there will be a significant legacy as a result.
Governance is one of those terms where I do feel like people think it's boring and yet it's so important. I keep going back to this question, I guess, of the frustration I hear from landowners and from regional communities about some of these projects and how they've gone and how the communities…
I think there are some operators out there who are purely extractors, but I feel like they are the ones we meet with opposition because if you don't take the time to build the relationships with your landowners, with your regional communities, there's going to be a lack of trust and there's going…
paper on the question. It did,