HERE IN THE HUNTER, THE NSW GOVERNMENT INTENDS TO REPLACE COAL POWER BY BURNING TREES
Just out of Singleton in NSW, Redbank Power Station was once Australia’s most polluting until its closure & placement into receivership in 2014. But there is a proposal to reopen it & replace the coal with over 1,000,000 tonnes of woodchips a year. In 2018 the power station was purchased by Hunter Energy, who ha
ve since changed their name to Verdant Technologies, & that’s where things get interesting …
The burning of trees (or so-called ‘forest waste’) to generate electricity is up to 50% more polluting than coal. By flying under the harmless sounding flag of ‘biomass’, an operator burning trees for power in Australia is entitled to Renewable Energy Certificates – a tradeable currency that gives it the same green energy credentials of genuine renewables such as solar, wind &/or pumped hydro. Redbank is a renewable energy scam. Via a myriad of websites that track back to one office suite containing an empty boardroom desk in Sydney’s Martin Place, Verdant Technologies intends to seek investment in & take trees from forests within a 400km radius of Singleton. This would include iconic places such as the Pilliga, the forests of the Great Divide as far north as Grafton & the south coast escarpment forests down to Ulladulla. Of further concern to communities in the Hunter Valley, is Verdant’s purchase of a century-old sawmilling business near Cessnock (Sweetmans) & its timber allocations for the purpose of converting it into one of Australia’s biggest woodchipping operations. This would place Newcastle’s well-loved forests of the Watagans & those around the Barrington Tops under threat of the most intense logging they have ever endured. Already decimated by the bushfires of 2019/20, the remaining habitats for our koala, glider & declining bird populations now face a wood-fired, fake-green energy, quick-money threat … brought to you by exactly the same background entities who facilitated the siphoning of money into the bank account of Eddie Obeid & sought investment for his corrupt role in trying to facilitate mining approvals in the Upper Hunter & Bylong Valleys. The Hunter Valley, including its best minds & its communities, is currently committing itself to a successful transition away from coal. We should have been encouraged by the naming of the Hunter as a renewable energy zone & NSW Energy Minister Matt Kean’s launch of the $32 billion NSW renewable energy plan in late 2020. We should also have been comforted when the Minister said (NSW Budget Estimates, March 2021) that the deliberate harvesting of biomass [i.e. native forests] for the purpose of generating electricity was, “… not something I want to see.”
However, behind the Minister’s denials is a document https://www.dpi.nsw.gov.au/forestry/north-coast-residues-project suggesting that’s exactly what the NSW Government intends to do. Federal Member for Hunter, Joel Fitzgibbon, has also gone to great lengths to endorse it. The Hunter deserves better than more of the same. Be a part of the future we need. Be part of the Redbank Action Group. For the sake of the koalas & loads more … Stop Redbank!
