By Melissa Fyfe
Environment Reporter
September 5, 2005

Convinced that cabinet will discuss the issue today, green groups will try to confront ministers with a three-storey-high inflatable cooling tower outside Government offices.

State environment groups are desperate to stop the expansion of Hazelwood, arguing that it will lock Victoria into a polluting future and dwarf community efforts to cut back on global-warming emissions.

It has become the number one issue for Environment Victoria, the state's peak green group. They are warning the decision could damage the Bracks Government's environmental credentials at the next state election.

Hazelwood — which supplies about a fifth of Victoria's electricity — has asked for extra coal from the State Government and must move roads, some houses and two streams to better access coal now in its licence. If approved, the 40-year-old plant would keep generating to 2031, adding about 250 million tonnes of heat-trapping carbon dioxide to the atmosphere,

Environment Victoria believes the deal to be discussed at cabinet is a capping of the plant's carbon dioxide emissions at current annual rates. But this is a backward step from previous discussions, which revolved around a reduction of 25 million tonnes of CO2 over the project's life.

The panel said that if the Government followed its own policies strictly, it would require a pollution cut of 55 million tonnes. Environment Victoria acknowledges that the plant can keep operating until 2026, but wanted the Government to refuse Hazelwood extra coal and ask for emission cuts.

"The message we are sending to cabinet is to think very carefully before you leave a terrible legacy," Environment Victoria executive director Marcus Godinho said. "It's crunch time. This is the biggest environment decision that Steve Bracks has faced so far."

Western Australia and NSW had recently rejected coal and turned to cleaner options. "The (Victorian) Government promotes itself as an environmental leader but it would be an environmental vandal if Hazelwood gets more coal," he said.

"Environment groups are saying, fair's fair. Hazelwood has a contract for a certain amount of coal; let them move the roads and the creeks but don't let them get access to any new coal outside their existing boundaries."

Greens leader Bob Brown has warned the issue could play out at the ballot box for Steve Bracks. "The Greens will campaign on global warming. It is a huge issue as we go into the next Victorian election. We will judge the Government on its record, not what they say they will do," he said.

"This is a case of 'Wrong way, go back'," Senator Brown said. "Hazelwood has been identified as perhaps the most polluting coal-fired power station in the Western world and it is not going to be much better."

 

See our earlier story on this -  "Federal Environment Minister has an attack of the George Bush's"