A local wind tower manufacturing industry would create more than 4000 direct jobs and kickstart Australia’s green steel industry.
New research from The Australia Institute Centre for Future Work found if Australia made its own wind towers, instead of importing them, 4,350 ongoing jobs in wind tower manufacturing would be created, with thousands more made in input industries.
Report author, University of Sydney Professor Phil Toner said currently all wind towers installed in Australia were imported, with most coming from China.
Professor Toner said a domestic wind energy sector could produce over 800 towers per year, with cumulative value of up to $15 billion over the next 17 years.
He said incremental demand for up to 700,000 tonnes of Australian-made steel, per year, would create a foundation for the recapitalization of Australian steel plants with carbon-free technologies.
The report found on-shoring manufacturing would avoiding 2.6 million tonnes of CO2 emissions, due to reduced sea shipping of imported wind towers.
“Wind energy manufacturing represents a prime opportunity to apply the new policy tools of the Federal Government’s Future Made in Australia manufacturing strategy,” Professor Toner said.
He said the report recommended the Federal Government, in partnership with the states, commission an engineering and financial study into an east coast domestic wind manufacturing industry.
“It’s conventional in traditional economic circles to say Australia should stick to its so-called ‘comparative advantage’, in determining its role in the emerging net-zero global economy.
“But if we follow the advice of conventional economists we will lock Australia into once again being just a supplier of raw resources to other, more technologically sophisticated countries.”
Professor Toner said those countries would purchase Australian resources at the going global rate, transform them into innovative and expensive products and then sell them back to us at premium prices.
“With all the opportunities of a net-zero global economy, do we really just want to replace traditional mineral exports like coal with new generations of unprocessed minerals like lithium and rare earths?
“Manufacturing our own wind power equipment represents an enormous opportunity for Australia to attain a more balanced industrial structure and create good quality well paid jobs.”
He said most other industrial countries were investing aggressively in manufacturing the new equipment and products that would be in demand as the energy transition continued.
“Australia needs similar policy activism to maximise the industrial, technological and employment potential of the energy transition.
“Anyone concerned about the climate should be up in arms at the fact we’re importing huge heavy steel towers from China when we could be producing them here, which would provide fantastic opportunities for our burgeoning green steel sector.”
Read the full report: An Industrial Strategy for Domestic Manufacturing of Onshore and Offshore Wind Energy Towers and Equipment.
