By Bree Ahrens
If the Country Liberal Party thinks Territorians want our home littered with fracking wells and data centres, then they are seriously out of touch.
Seemingly overnight, the CLP announced plans to make the Northern Territory the ‘data centre capital of the globe.’
They’ve given a subsidiary of fracking company Beetaloo Energy exclusive rights to 185-hectares of public land in Weddell in a desperate move to create a market for fracked gas from the Beetaloo Basin.
Why?
For fracking to escalate beyond a few appraisal wells, it’s going to need a market bigger than the NT.
Production-scale fracking in the Beetaloo would produce far more gas than our small domestic market of 260,000 residents can absorb, and it would be too slow and too expensive to meet East Coast supply needs.
So, where could this gas go?
The NT Government is calling for the Albanese Government to subsidise a 1500km Beetaloo export pipeline east at an eye-watering cost of $6 billion.
The NT EPA is currently considering the first stage of this monster pipeline, which would carry gas fracked in the NT straight to Gladstone’s LNG export terminals.
The pipeline would cut through habitat for threatened species and some of the world’s last remaining free-flowing desert river systems.
No fracking project in the NT has ever been assessed at a Federal level, so this will be a major test of how willing the Albanese Government is to stand up to frackers and ensure the Beetaloo export pipeline is assessed at the highest level under Federal environment laws.
Until the export pipeline is built, there’s no market for production-scale Beetaloo fracking, so the CLP has announced plans for a string of water-guzzling, AI data centres powered by Beetaloo fracking.
While a dozen fracked gas data centres might make things easier for the fracking industry, there’s no happy ending for Territorians.
While the government media release about the proposed AI data centre on the corner of Finn Road and Jenkins Road in Weddell didn’t even mention water, a 2GW data centre would consume billions of litres of water every year. That’s on top of the ground water consumed and put at risk through the fracking required to power the data centre.
The data centre will be on the road that leads to one of the most iconic tourist destinations in the Territory and locals have already raised concerns about bore water quality and reduced flows to Berry Springs.
This is not the future we want for our kids.
We want Berry Springs. We want safe drinking water. Not a government that seems to have forgotten it’s accountable to Territorians, who don’t want a future defined by fracking and AI data centres.
The good news is that Territorians still have time to say no to the CLP’s dystopian plan for fracked gas data centres.
We’ve been overwhelmed by the public response to our ban fracking campaign and invite everyone to join us for a community barbeque at Berry Springs Nature Park at 10am on Saturday 26 September.
The CLP is more than welcome to come along and hear directly from community members about why a dozen water-hungry data centres isn’t what the Territory needs.
Bree Ahrens is the acting Co-Executive Director of Environment Centre NT.
Well theyre either climate denislists, which means theyre dumb as dogshit, or theyre psychopaths.
Either way we will be holding these individuals to account long after their brief stint in politucs, just like we will be holding the fools in the previous Labor government to account for unleashing this horror on Territorians.
Climate change is no joke.
Its killing Aussies.
We wont stand for politicians who are essentially murdering their own citizens at the behest of foreign corporations.
“This is not the future we want for our kids.”
With no disrespect, Data Centres are now a permanent fixture now and in the future.
Fax’s/Telex’s, Australia Post delivered letters, are now a thing of the past or are heading to a history book soon!
The below roles are going, gone or sitting in the departure lounge (*I have highlighted my old jobs with a*) and are not coming back ever:
-Retail cashiering* and checkout operations
-Bank tellers and branch roles
-Routine finance and accounting support* (data entry, reports)
-Insurance underwriting and claims processing
-Warehouse labor and logistics handling*
-Telemarketing and call‑center outbound sales*
-Entry‑level administrative and clerical work
-Legal support and contract drafting services*
-Entry‑level content production and mass media output
Including: Tax preparers;Watch repair technicians; Parking enforcement workers;Meter readers*;Mail sorters; Data entry keyers*;
The kids you keep talking about will be working hand in hand in some form with a Data Centre. They will not be working in the roles you worked in or the roles you remember.
Fracking? The US has become a mega energy exporter overnight due to fracking! Why leave it in the ground? When do you want to extract it? When its worthless? How much in Electricity costs do you want your kids to pay quarterly?
Watch what happens to the beloved Renewable Energy when the Government stops providing incentives and subsidies! eg It will stop instantly!
The world you remember as a kid and want for your kids, has changed beyond belief and will continue to change at a rapid rate from here on….
They’re not out of touch, they just don’t give a shit…