‘Diversify on steroids’: Mount Isa’s plan for a new, green economy
Mount Isa City Council has launched a bold plan to pivot the town’s economy towards green energy to boost jobs, get ready for CopperString, and fuel their mines with cheaper power.
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Mount Isa City Council has launched a bold plan to pivot the town’s economy towards green energy to boost jobs, get ready for CopperString, and fuel their mines with cheaper power.
Mayor Peta MacRae will be officially revealing an economic road map more than 200-pages long today (Friday, February 21) which lays out how the city will “diversify on steroids”.
“The pending closure of Glencore’s underground operations is a huge loss for Mount Isa,” Mayor MacRae said.
“But when one door closes, many more are opening to protect our workforce.”
The shutting of Glencore’s underground copper mine – which Mount Isa is built around – was initially reported to be wiping 1200 jobs off the map when the winders finally stopped running in July.
Mount Isa City Council community services director Chad King said the council studied the exit of Holden manufacturing from Australia and similar large-scale loses to understand what Mount Isa needed to do to rebound from the loss of the underground mine.
This week, Glencore COO of zinc and copper assets Sam Strohmayr said thanks to extensive workforce management over the last 16 months, Glencore estimates the total number of people impacted the closure will actually be 500.
“We are actively working to redeploy as many people as possible over the coming months,” Mr Strohmayr said.
It’s understood a lot of underground workers are being relocated to Glencore’s George Fisher underground mine, just 16km away.
The Mount Isa Future Ready Economy Road map was developed with the help of The Next Economy.
The Brisbane-based agency has a track record helping fossil fuel reliant towns navigate rough waters, with experience helping coal-dependent Gladstone Regional Council and the Latrobe Valley.
The Next Economy CEO Amanda Cahill said the Mount Isa road map isn’t a “knee jerk reaction” to the underground mine closure, but a serious investment in “creating a new generation of wealth”.
“Mount Isa has traditionally been dependent on gas (power) for a long time because they are cut off from the national energy grid,” Dr Cahill said.
“But gas prices are only going up and up.”
Dr Cahill believes lowering the cost of electricity via renewable energy will reduce running costs for the region’s mines and help new mines get off the ground.
“The interesting thing is it’s not just about decarbonising Mount Isa, this town can also produce the things the world needs to decarbonise through critical minerals like cobalt, copper, led, zinc and rare Earth elements.”
The main source of electricity on the Mount Isa-Cloncurry power grid is the APA’s gas power station.
Recently, the APA installed a 88MW solar farm which sells the bulk of its power to MMG’s Dugald River Mine.
Other areas of interest in the road map include supporting new initiatives like Green Gravity - a new renewable energy battery storage method - and the Flying Whales proposal which seeks to reduce freight costs to land-locked towns by using air ships.
Increasing tourism, boosting agriculture, and supporting the creation of a Mount Isa correction services centre are also on the road map's agenda.
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