What does an environmentally-successful energy transition look like for North Queensland? That's the question that kicked off our third workshop in this series, at the Smart Precinct NQ.

Ten workshop participants included representatives from Townsville City Council (including Cr Brodie Phillips), the Port of Townsville, Community Gro and the Dept of Environment, Science, Tourism and Innovation, alongside local engineers, ecologists and university students. Read on to see what we came up with!

Below are the questions that were posed to workshop participants and the highest rated responses, as prioritised by the group.

What does it look like if North Queensland is a leader in sustainable renewable energy production?

Participants envisioned:

• Climate-resilient, green cities with eco-friendly architecture, tree-lined and weather-protected streets.
• Widespread rooftop solar and batteries, including on public housing.
• Locally managed microgrids balancing city-wide supply and demand.
• Jobs and skills growth in electrical and IT sectors with a just transition from retiring industries.
• Publicly owned renewables delivering community benefits and government revenue.
• Cheaper, more reliable energy, with minimal environmental impacts through recycling tech, multi-use land, and water-sensitive urban design.
• Eco-tourism boosting both economy and environment.

What are the barriers to achieving this vision? How can we start to solve them?

Other barriers included cost to consumers, safety, data availability, and legislation complexity.

What environmental and cultural values may be at risk from energy development in North Queensland?

• Traditionally owned land, sacred sites, cultural heritage
• Mining culture and community values
• Mined resources needed for renewables infrastructure
• Perceptions vs actual impacts
• Vegetation clearing and biodiversity loss

What else threatens our region's natural and cultural values?

• People under 50 too time-poor to prioritise environment
• Runaway ecological processes – weeds, erosion, fires
• Climate change, tropical diseases, biodiversity loss, urban sprawl

Next Steps

We will be carrying out more workshops with various stakeholder groups to dig deeper into the conservation outcomes that could support a nature-positive energy transition in the North Queensland region. 

Acknowledgements

Thank you to all of our workshop participants, Smart Precinct NQ and our work experience student Astrid, who provided excellent assistance on the day.

This workshop was delivered as part of our "Mapping our Energy Future" project, which is funded by the Queensland Government's Energy Partnerships program.