This investment, if it goes ahead, would easily rank as the largest single piece of infrastructure investment spending this city has ever seen.

The spin-offs in terms of job creation during the construction phase, the possibility for significant local spending and just putting Tamworth even more on the map as a major industrial and development hub are significant.

And, unlike the troubled Uranquinty proposal which took more than three years to get to the approval stage, all the ducks seem to be in a row here with existing access to high voltage transmission infrastructure allowing the power that would be produced to be fed straight into the grid.

Then, looking beyond the immediate benefit to the region, there is the upside at state and national level.

Blind Freddie could see that one of the key motivations behind the State Government’s retail power sell-off is to raise the funds needed for long overdue investment in power generation in NSW.

There is every reason to fear that unless our generation ability is augmented significantly in the very near future that significant shortages – and possibly even New York style blackouts – may only be years away.

One of the most exciting things about the gas-fired generator model is that it is significantly more environmentally friendly than the coal-powered technology currently in widespread use.

Greenhouse gas emissions are apparently down 30 per cent on the coal equivalent.

While there will, no doubt, be a certain “not in my backyard” reaction if and when a formal proposal is announced, we do hope that people step back and look at the bigger picture.

This is real and viable technology that is already up and running in other parts of the country.

It uses an abundant and relatively clean resource and will do much to provide security of power supply in the challenging years and decades ahead.