With everything we know about climate change, and the role that coal is playing, it would seem fairly obvious that Australia shouldn’t be building any new coal power stations. We’re a smart country, right?
A couple of weeks ago, Coolimba Power called for public comment into an environmental review of their proposal to build a new coal power station in Western Australia. They have used green as the main colour on their website because their operations are not.
As well as this proposal, there are still new coal power stations on the books in lots of other states as well, including Victoria. It is sheer madness. Professor James Hansen, Director of NASA’s Goddard Institute has said “Coal is the single greatest threat to civilisation and all life on our planet”. He is right. We need to rapidly phase out of coal – not expand this polluting industry.
The fact that new coal plants are still on the books points to the total failure of the Governments Pollution Scheme (CPRS). The problem is that the Government is politically unable to stand up to the vested interests and economic blackmail of the coal and other polluting industries.
It is time we looked at other options. If, for example, every energy retailer in Australia committed not to buy and on-sell power from any new coal power stations, it would effectively shut down the market – by popular demand.
We have done a survey of energy retailers and asked them what their position is on new coal. The dirtiest retailer in Australia is Simply Energy – the retail arm of International Power that owns Hazelwood power station in Victoria’s Latrobe Valley. We presented them with an award today – “Australia’s dirtiest energy retailer”.
Not a proud day for Simply Energy. If you live in Victoria or South Australia, give em a call!
