This weekend saw a mass community protests at Hazelwood Power Station, in Victoria’s LaTrobe Valley. You can read The Age’s report of the action here, an Indymedia report here and see photos on Flickr here.
In 2005 a group of students at RMIT, Melbourne and Monash Universities led a campaign against the State Government’s decision to extend the life of the Power Station. Almost every week we staged protests outside cabinet meetings, and went up to Morwell for several actions, and meeting with the local council. But we lost, and Australia’s most polluting power station continued to operate. But the movement to shut down Hazelwood did not die – and in fact, these protests were bigger now than they were in 2005.
The Hazelwood power station, located near Morwell in the Latrobe Valley of Victoria, is Australia’s most polluting power station, pumping and average 17 million tons of greenhouse gases every year, equal to the total caused by all 1.4 million households in the state capital Melbourne.
Read on for some facts about Hazelwood…
Hazelwood power station has a 1600MW capacity, generated by eight 200 MW turbines and supplies up to 25 per cent of the state’s base load electricity. Hazelwood consumes 1.31 megalitres of water per megawatt hour.
Hazelwood is also the most greenhouse intensive power station in Australia, which means that it produces the most greenhouse pollution for every unit of energy sent into the power grid.
The power station and mine are majority owned by the UK-based company International Power. Hazelwood was scheduled to be decommissioned by 2009 due to its excessive carbon dioxide emissions, however the State Government in 2005 extended its life until 2031.
Brief history
Hazelwood Power Corporation Pty Ltd was formed in 1995 as a Victorian state-owned business. The corporation ran a brown coal mine and the Hazelwood Power Station in Victoria’s Latrobe Valley. When the government owned Hazelwood it planned to shut the power station in 2005. Instead, then Premier, Jeff Kennett sold Hazelwood power station to International Power, a UK-based company.
In August 1996 the Victorian Government sold the Hazelwood Power Corporation to the UK based company International Power, who renamed it Hazelwood Power. The new owners of the business were National Power from the UK (72%). PacifiCorp from the USA (19.9%), and the Commonwealth Bank of Australia (8.1%). In January 2003 the consortium changed its name to International Power Hazelwood (IPRH), which today produces up to 25% of Victoria’s power.
