From “carbon-based economies” to renewable energy hubs, regions face their future

While a small coal mining town is facing thousands of job losses, a farming region is picturing renewable energy being generated on its fertile cropping land.

These are the disparate dilemmas faced by regional Australians, as communities call for greater awareness of how the energy transition is playing out on the ground.

More than 4000 jobs will be lost in the Muswellbrook region, in the NSW Hunter, as several coal mines wind down in coming years, deputy mayor Graeme McNeill told a national gathering of rural leaders in Canberra.

“We’re an almost purely carbon-based economy,” Mr McNeill said at the Australian Local Government Association’s regional forum on Tuesday.

AGL closed the Liddell power station in the Hunter last year, with plans to re-establish the site as an industrial renewable energy hub housing a 500-megawatt, 2000 MWh battery and to host a massive clean energy hub.

The region’s Bayswater coal power station and the Mangoola and Mount Arthur mines are due to cease operations by 2032.

Mr McNeill said the council would lose valuable rates revenue as a result of the closures.

“We are pushing hard for net zero as a council – we’re supporting that – but we have a unique problem,” he said.

About 650km north of Muswellbrook, southern Queenslanders are grappling with their future at the centre of a proposed renewable energy zone.

“For the longest time we have been the food and fibre producers for our country,” Toowoomba deputy mayor Rebecca Vonhoff told the conference.

“The focus has, perhaps rightly, been on those job losses in the coal-producing areas, but for areas such as mine … we are being asked to produce energy for the country.

“The balance of what we are gaining and what we are losing hasn’t really been discussed as much.”

Local government minister Kristy McBain agreed consultation was key, having seen her southern NSW community notified of the HumeLink transmission line project soon after the catastrophic 2020 bushfires.

“It has never recovered from that and nor should it,” Ms McBain said.

“Any human with a couple of eyes and a brain would have seen most of the country was engulfed in fire in 2020 and … thought ‘now might not be the time to send out a letter saying all of these properties might be impacted by powerlines’.”

The federal government is spending $20 million to bolster consultation on the energy transition and Energy Minister Chris Bowen is meeting with locals, Ms McBain said.

“A number of communities are already meeting with him to say this needs to be done better, particularly when you’ve got communities whose livelihoods are being impacted, our farmers in particular.”

Energy, housing and the financial stability of councils will be central to talks at the Australian Local Government Association’s national general assembly this week.

Source: AAP