I write to you today to offer two simple actions you can take that will really help our work for South Australia's environment: Our 2011 supporter survey and a renewable energy petition.

The 2011 supporter survey

What are South Australians thinking about the environment? What issues are important to you? Taking part in our survey will take only a few minutes of your time, but it will greatly help our work to know what drives your interest in the environment. Click here to begin.

Green Our Grid petition to our new Premier

I would also like to ask you to please add your name to our petition.

Our campaign to replace the Playford B brown coal-fired power station in Port Augusta with a solar thermal facility capable of storing energy is really taking off. We have been encouraged by discussions with key players, and are now working with a number of other organisations who share this vision.

Now that the Olympic Dam Mine expansion has the go-ahead, SA's energy use will soar. So it is even more important now that we get the government to listen and direct its support to this proposal.

We are about to have a change of Premier. Mr Weatherill is a previous environment minister who we know cares about conservation issues. There is a real chance here to press the case for large-scale renewable energy as the way to go for South Australia. So we want to mobilise the South Australian community and issue a challenge to our new Premier.

We want the government to support a large-scale solar facility as the replacement for Playford. Encouragingly, Playford now looks likely to be replaced under the federal Clean Energy Future Plan - but if we don't act quickly and convincingly, it is likely to be replaced with gas. Gas is often referred to as a clean alternative to coal, but this is far from the case, especially since SA's declining conventional gas reserves will soon be replaced by dirtier coal seam or shale gas, which on a life-cycle basis may be much closer to the greenhouse intensity of coal.

I encourage you not only to please sign the petition yourself, but also to see how many other of your friends and colleagues might want to add their voice to the call for large-scale renewable energy in SA. This is a game-changing issue for our State and it is really important that as many people as possible get on board to issue this challenge to Premier Weatherill as he steps into office.

Many thanks for your time,
Tim Kelly
Chief Executive

PS: If you are really keen and would like to collect petition signatories (or even take up the 100 signature challenge) please download official petition sheets here.