coal power station actions in Australia

Yes­ter­day (Fri­day June 27) CIA (Con­cerned, Inde­pen­dent Activists) locked on to and shut down a con­vey­or trans­port­ing coal into Muja pow­er sta­tion in Col­lie. Two activists were arrest­ed.

In the ear­ly hours of this morn­ing a group of cli­mate cam­paign­ers entered the perime­ter of the Muja coal-fired pow­er sta­tion near Col­lie. West­ern Aus­tralia and shut down the con­vey­or belt sup­ply­ing coal into the sta­tion. This is a peace­ful protest against the con­tin­ued use and expan­sion of pol­lut­ing and unsus­tain­able pow­er gen­er­a­tion in West­ern Aus­tralia. One per­son has locked onto the con­vey­or belt used to trans­port coal into the pow­er sta­tion, pre­vent­ing its oper­a­tion and stop­ping the con­vey­or belt sup­ply of coal into the plant. Ben­jamin Cody, a thir­ty year old father of four from Bun­bury said that he was shut­ting down the plant to high­light and protest against gov­ern­ment approval of two new coal-fired pow­er sta­tions and plans for the con­struc­tion of two more. “Each of these will have a life­time of at least thir­ty years, com­mit­ting our­selves and future gen­er­a­tions of West Aus­tralians to dirty, pol­lut­ing and unre­li­able ener­gy until around 2040. The Car­pen­ter and Rudd Gov­ern­ments need to be held account­able, and the tran­si­tion to WA’s dean ener­gy future has to start now,” Mr Cody said. “Gen­er­at­ing elec­tric­i­ty from coal-fired pow­er sta­tions is the dirt­i­est way to pro­duce pow­er on the plan­et Col­lie could be the ‘Sil­i­con Val­ley’ of renew­able ener­gies if the gov­ern­ment were to direct invest­ment into renew­able tech­nol­o­gy. Instead this mon­ey is all being direct­ed towards the coal indus­try”.

Con­cerned Inde­pen­dent Activists (CIA) spokesper­son, Nicholas Mor­gan said, “It is dis­ap­point­ing and frus­trat­ing that short sight­ed politi­cians and vest­ed inter­ests are pre­vent­ing WA from mov­ing for­ward into the renew­able ener­gy indus­try. This is not about tak­ing away jobs, it’s about cre­at­ing more jobs in ener­gy indus­tries that are sus­tain­able and reli­able, such as wind, solar, wave, and geot­her­mal. Cur­rent­ly in Ger­many, there are rough­ly 250,000 jobs in the renew­able ener­gy indus­try which is grow­ing every year,” Mr Mor­gan said,“The world­wide renew­able indus­try is worth over $100 bil­lion and is dou­bling in size every 20 months. Aus­tralia has real inno­v­a­tive strength and could play a big part, with envi­ron­men­tal, employ­ment and oth­er eco­nom­ic ben­e­fits to fol­low. Aus­tralia risks being left behind in the dark ages”.

The action is also tak­ing place in the shad­ow of WA’s gas and ener­gy cri­sis. “It is absolute­ly unac­cept­able that in this day and age the West Aus­tralian gov­ern­ment is still rely­ing on fos­sil fuels for the state’s ener­gy needs” said Mr Mor­gan. “West­ern Aus­trali­a’s ener­gy emer­gency high­lights the need to invest in a range of clean and reli­able resources such as solar and wind. It is a sad joke that the gov­ern­ment is respond­ing to the lack of gas by reopen­ing the states dirt­i­est pow­er sta­tion which was decom­mis­sioned because it used old, pol­lut­ing tech­nol­o­gy”.

This action is part of a grow­ing trend around Aus­tralia of com­mu­ni­ties who are frus­trat­ed with the lack of action being tak­en by gov­ern­ments on cli­mate change. “All over the world peo­ple are reclaim­ing their pow­er and assert­ed their right to live in a world free from dan­ger­ous cli­mate change”.

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3rd July 2008 — Cli­mate Camp hails Green­peace action: promis­es more to come…

Organ­is­ers of the Camp for Cli­mate Action have applaud­ed Green­peace for this morn­ing shut­ting down the coun­try’s biggest sin­gle source of car­bon diox­ide, Erar­ing Pow­er Sta­tion, south of New­cas­tle…

Erar­ing pow­er sta­tion is equal first in the dubi­ous hon­our of biggest CO2 emit­ter in Aus­tralia with anoth­er Hunter pow­er sta­tion, Bayswa­ter in Muswell­brook.

Camp spokesper­son, Hol­ly Creenaune, said that direct action against the caus­es of cli­mate change was a rea­son­able response to the inac­tion of Gov­ern­ment on reduc­ing coal depen­dence.

“The longer the Gov­ern­ment pre­var­i­cates on this issue, the more peo­ple will take action them­selves against coal pow­er and exports.”

“Green­peace have tak­en action that any rea­son­able per­son would take in the face of the urgent need to stop emit­ting green­house gas­es and the hes­i­tan­cy of Gov­ern­ment to take lead­er­ship.

“Next week hun­dreds of peo­ple will fol­low their bold lead and take part in the largest sin­gle direct action against the caus­es of cli­mate change that Aus­tralia has ever seen.”

The Camp for Cli­mate Action will cul­mi­nate in a peace­ful direct action on 13th July at the Car­ring­ton coal ter­mi­nal, where hun­dreds of peo­ple will walk onto the coal rail line and stop coal exports in their tracks.

“This is the real­i­ty of the sit­u­a­tion: hav­ing wast­ed the last decade doing noth­ing about cli­mate change but car­ry­ing on increas­ing our green­house pol­lu­tion, we are now faced with the need to begin decom­mis­sion­ing pow­er sta­tions and wind­ing back coal exports.”

For fur­ther infor­ma­tion

Hol­ly Creenaune 0417 682 541
Georgina Woods 0438 223 771