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Green Left – Coalminers call for no more coal, renewables now!

Coalminers call for no more coal, renewables now! Green Left Simon Cunich, Newcastle28 November 2008 – “………………………New mines and extensions approved by the NSW government for the Hunter region alone in the last 18 months include the $240 million Anvil Hill (now Mangoola) open-cut coalmine project, the Abel underground coalmine and major expansions at the Liddell coalmine, Bulga underground mine and Bengalla coalmine near Muswellbrook. These, and the other pending proposals, would add another 60 million tonnes a year to the 110 million tonnes of coal produced by Hunter Valley mines, according to the Anvil Hill Alliance. ……………………….Brown argues that the coal industry should begin to be phased out immediately and an expansion of renewable energy embarked upon. He explains to people “who want coal to go on forever” that the coal companies themselves will shut down mines as they begin to run out of coal: the coalmining industry provides no employment guarantee……………………..“If we’re going to get serious about global warming”, Brown continued, “it needs to happen straight away. It can happen virtually straight away. We have figures from researchers that say every power station on the East coast of Australia can be retrofitted with solar thermal over an eight-year period and that would tie in with our phasing out of the coal industry. There’d be an increase of jobs.”………………….A 2008 study conducted by the Centre of Full Employment and Equity in Newcastle found that a shift to a renewable energy economy in the Hunter/Wyong region would result in a net gain of between 3,900 and 10,700 jobs.

“I know from my time in the industry that the attitude of people is give them another job that isn’t in a coalmine and they’ll take it”, Graham Brown said.

Green Left – Coalminers call for no more coal, renewables now!

December 1, 2008 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | Uncategorized