(EJA) has revealed that energy corporation AGL has only set aside a small amount to rehabilitate its three coal-fired power stations as well as its coal seam gas operations.
EJA’s findingswere released on March 31 asAGL posted a $2.3 billion loss for the first half of financial year 2020–21,primarily from its coal-fired power stations.
It hassubsequently announced plans to separate its coal, oil and gas assets from its renewable energy assets in what critics have described as a cynical attempt to of itspolluting power stations.
Greenpeace criticised AGL for only pretending to move to renewables and that the announcement of two businesses — one to“house AGL’s token renewable energy assets”and a separate company to hold its coal assets including some of the nation’s top climate polluters was a fake branding exercise.
It said on April 8 that AGL’sstrategic plan includes relying on climate-wrecking coal-burning power stations to generate the bulk of its power for decades to come — in the case of Loy Yang A, until 2048.
An influx of renewable energy into the electricity market has pushed down wholesale prices, especially during the day, eroding the profits of coal-fired power stations.
AGL owns the Bayswater and Liddell power stations in the Hunter Valley in NSW, and the Loy Yang A power station in the Latrobe Valley in Victoria.
It bought the NSW power stations from the NSW government in 2014, and Loy Yang A and its associated brown coal mine from its previous owners in 2012. Loy Yang A was privatised, along with the rest of Victoria’s power stations, by the Liberal Jeff Kennett government in the 1990s.
AGLhasalso operatedthe Camden coal seam gas project in Sydney’s south westsince 2001.Following community campaignsdemanding it close, because of leaky gas wells and proximity to the rapidly-growing urban settlements, it announced in 2016 it would bring forward its plan to decommission the wells to 2023.
The energy giant announced in 2015 that the 50-year-old Liddell coal-fired power station would be closed by late 2022, and later revised that to April 2023.
Toxic legacy
AGL’s ever-less profitable coal-fired power stations and its CSG plant carry a vast toxic legacy.
Vastamounts ofash fromeach of thepower station furnaces is dumped in huge open air pits.showsthat the ash contains toxic heavy metalssuch asarsenic, lead, mercury, selenium, thallium and other toxic pollutants which can become airborne as dust blows off the dry dams.It can alsoleach into groundwater.
Liddell uses a large freshwater Lake —Lake Liddell —as its cooling system, an inefficient technique that was popular when the plant was designed in the 1960s.
The Liddell ash dam and nearby Bayswater power stationash dam both drain into Lake Liddell.Theanalysisof ash dam pollutionat NSW coal-fired power stationshas shownthatLake Liddelliscontaminatedwith pollutants including aluminium, iron, boron, selenium and very high levels of copper.
In 2016,AGL closedthelake, previously used as a public recreation area,after thewas discoveredin the water. This lake, as well as the enormous ash dam nearby will need to be cleaned up as part ofthe power stationdecommissioning.
Meanwhile, the Loy Yang A power station has its own large brown coal minefrom whereits fuelsupplyoriginates.The pit is shared with its twin power station, Loy Yang B,which isowned by Hong Kong-based Chow Tai Fook Enterprises.
This giant pit — 200 metres deep and three kilometres long — will need to be covered over when the twin Loy Yang power stations are retired.
Leaving the coal seams exposed to air creates a fire hazard.The nearbyin February 2014 and burned for 45 days, cloaking the region in thick toxic smoke.
The cheapest option to cover in the pit is to flood it with water. However, there is no indication that AGL will be given permission to use such large quantities of water, which would then require topping up, even during droughts, to compensate for evaporation losses.
As for the Camden Gas Project,anti-gasorganisers have spoken out againstwaste water from the gas wells being dumpedinto Sydney’s sewerage system, andgas leaking from wellshasbeen corroborated by residents who noticedaround well sites during flooding.
All the wells need to be decommissioned and capped and toxic residues and contaminated soils cleaned up.
Fund inadequate
EJA said that in its 2020 annual report AGL had only allocated $45 million for current and $299 million for non-current environmental restoration across Liddell, Bayswater, Loy Yang A and Camden CSG projects.
EJA lawyer Bronya Lipski said this amount falls well short of what is needed and is particularly concerned about AGL shirking the clean-up at Loy Yang A.
“There were already huge concerns about whether AGL would adequately rehabilitate its Loy Yang power station site ... Costs allocated for rehabilitation appear to be grossly inadequate and with this demerger there is a risk they will fall through the cracks altogether.”
Lipski said AGL, which did give a specific estimate of rehabilitation costs for each site, said the allocation of just $344 million “is less than half the $743 million Engie has stated it needs to decommission and rehabilitate the Hazelwood power station and adjacent mine”.
Withoutadequaterehabilitation funds,communities in and around the coal-fired power stations andtheCSG wells will have their health compromised and,eventually,be forced to foot the clean-upbillthemselves.