Australia’s minister for resources, Matt Canavan, kicked off his Monday morning socials by Tweeting a photo of seven different jobs being advertised in the newspaper by coal giant Adani.
In a show of support for the coal industry, for Adani and for the massive Carmichael coal mine and port project the Indian company is developing in Queensland’s Galilee Basin, Canavan captioned his photo of the job ads with “QLD needs this project and these jobs.”
Canavan has long been an enthusiastic supporter of the Adani and other coal mines in the Galilee Basin, and is apparently willing to offer financial support. Canavan is also minister responsible for northern Australia.
The Adani coal mine is the subject of huge controversy, and will likely be a touchstone for major demonstrations if and when it is developed. Former Greens leader Bob Brown on the weekend repeated his promise to lead a convoy of buses to protest the development if it occurs.
What Canavan fails to note in his Tweet is that one of those jobs is for a solar role, for a “senior project engineer renewables”. That is because, as well the coal mega-mine it plans for Australia, Adani has also identified 650MW of large-scale solar projects it wants to develop as it seeks to become one of the biggest renewable energy developers in the country.
Adani, as RenewEconomy revealed last year, has been scouting around for solar projects for more than a year, and earlier this year confirmed it was looking for solar projects in both Queensland and South Australia.
In a presentation at a mining conference in May, Adani identified for the first time the first four projects in its emerging portfolio – with two solar projects totaling 250MW in Queensland and two totaling 400MW in South Australia.
The solar projects are only likely to ahead if the Queensland government implements its 50 per cent renewable energy target, but Canavan has warned that such projects and targets would “kill” Queensland industry and risk major blackouts.
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