Our National Day of Action opposing Wood-fired Power stations in Australia (how crazy is that idea!?) on June 1 went extremely well. We had protests in Sydney, Melb, Hobart, Launceston, Orbost, Bega. I was a bit disappointed we didn’t make the TV news, but we had photos in the Telegraph and the Herald, so that is something.
We are trying to stop the approval of the first station in Eden, now before the NSW government. Others are proposed around the country.
The Eden power station will burn the ‘waste’ – left overs – from woodchipping native forests for the paper and pulp industry. This will lock in the atrocious woodchipping industry for decades. But the economics of the situation will mean that whole logs will inevitably be chipped to supply power because whenever demand by the paper and pulp industry decreases, there is another income stream.
And the federal government has given this form of power its tick of approval– calling it ‘renewable energy’ and issuing Renewable Energy Certificates for burning native forest wood for fuel! In fact wood fired power produces four times more CO2 than burning coal, but neither the federal or state governments are interested in carbon accounting using the full life cycle of the fuel – i.e. the full carbon cost of cutting down, chipping and transporting native forest trees – and instead have constructed very narrow guidelines which make this form of fuel appear environmentally friendly.
Here's one of our gorgeous Kristina's with her trophy
