By Ben Cubby
When future historians ponder the so-called “climate wars”, today – Friday, April 28, 2023 – is likely to be underlined as a key date.
The last coal-fired turbine at Liddell Power Station near Muswellbrook in the Hunter Valley was switched off, to be replaced by a giant battery that will store renewable energy generated by solar and wind power.
The Liddell Power Station closed on Friday after 52 years.Credit: Janie Barrett
The industrial colossus – the largest power plant in the country when completed in 1973 and able to power a million homes – will be dismantled over the next two years, with 90 per cent of the materials recycled, according to its owner, energy company AGL.
“The symbolism is strong because the closure of Liddell is an important step along the way to replacing coal-fired power with solar and wind,” said Frank Jotzo, the director of the Centre for Climate and Energy Policy at the Australian National University.
“It is a milestone obviously because of the transition to renewables but also because of the political debate around Liddell and the fact that in the end it was market forces dictating the change.”
The big switch-off had several steps. First, the flow of pulverised coal into the furnace was shut off, then as the fires died down the plant was unplugged from the energy grid. The giant turbine spun more slowly until, after about an hour, it came to a full stop.
AGL marked the occasion by thanking workers who had kept the station running.
“Today marks the end of one chapter for the site, but also the beginning of another with our plans to transform the site into the Hunter Energy Hub,” AGL’s chief executive Damien Nicks said in a statement. “The world is changing and so is AGL.”
The 140-strong workforce has either been retained to work at AGL’s nearby Bayswater Power Station, voluntarily left for other work, or retired – though some of those who have transferred were offered reduced rates.
The Hunter Jobs Alliance, a group which campaigns for secure jobs in the region, said there was a need for government help and better vocational education as the region moved away from dependence on fossil fuels.
Peter Barry working at the Liddell Power Station.Credit: Janie Barrett
“We owe it to the people who have kept the lights on and kept industry rolling in this region to provide good, secure jobs,” said Erin Killion, the group’s organiser.
“There’s disagreement among people over what form the future will take – they need to see those jobs in renewables happening and then they will believe it ... But I think there has been a shift in people’s thinking from ‘It’s not going to happen’ to ‘I’m starting to see it happen’.”
The CSIRO is working on projects to build links between parts of Australia where fossil fuel industries are closing down – such as the Hunter Valley, Kwinana in Perth and Gladstone in Queensland – so that lessons can be shared and the switch from traditional to renewable industries is less disruptive.
“The thing we’ve found that makes a difference when regions are in transition is leadership – whether that leadership comes from the state, from industry or from the community”, said Michael Battaglia, the head of the CSIRO’s Towards Net Zero Mission, which focuses partly on the resilience of regional areas in transition.
Machinery inside the now-decommissioned Liddell plant.Credit: Janie Barrett
While experts believe most of the nation’s coal-fired plants will shut down in the next decade, coal mining for export is likely to continue in the Hunter and other parts of the nation until 2040.
The chief executive of industry group the NSW Minerals Council, Stephen Galilee, recently told a forum in the Hunter that the industry could expect to run for another 20 years.
Global demand for coal is trending sharply down, according to the International Energy Agency, which notes that 90 per cent of new energy installed around the world in the next two years will be renewable.
In the US, coal power made up half the energy mix a decade ago; it’s now less than one-fifth and falling fast, the IEA said.
China burns about 53 per cent of the world’s coal but its demand has flatlined, as vast amounts of solar and wind power are connected to its grid. Between 2022 and 2025, China is expected to bring 1000 terawatt hours of new renewable energy online: the equivalent of 500 Liddell coal-fired plants.
“The speed of the transition towards renewables is increasing in Australia, relative to what was predicted a few years ago,” Jotzo said. “Renewables went from 8 per cent to 28 per cent in the five years to 2022.”
A much faster acceleration will be needed in the next few years if the world is to ward off the most damaging effects of climate change, Jotzo said.
“If the world was on track to keep the temperature rise to 1.5 degrees, then we would need to see far more dramatic speed in the transition everywhere in the world,” Jotzo said. “That is not currently the case.”