Australian Activists Temporarily Shut Down Power Plant to Stop Greenhouse Gas Emissions
In an attempt to chain themselves to a conveyor-belt and ratchet up pressure on the coal industry, activists disrupted production and forced evacuation at the state-owned Tarong power station in northern Queensland, Australia.
The incident is the latest in a series of environmental protests against Australia’s coal-fired power stations and coal export industry, which has been blamed for half the nation’s greenhouse gas emissions. In July, environmental groups staged a six-day protest aimed at shutting the world’s biggest coal port, Australia’s Newcastle coal terminal.
Australia produces about 1.5 percent of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions making it one of the world’s highest per-capita emitters due to a reliance on coal for 80 percent of electricity.
Tarong Power produces up to 25 percent of Queensland’s electricity from three power stations. The coal-fired Tarong and Tarong North power stations use up to 7 million tons a coal a year from the company’s nearby coal mine.
“Australia’s greenhouse pollution is rapidly increasing, and our addiction to coal-fired power is the main cause,” protest spokeswoman Clare Towler told Australian Associated Press.
In December, the Australian government plans to announce its target for greenhouse emissions by 2020, and details of its plan for carbon trading, due to start in July 2010.
Photo Credit: Jon’s pics on Flickr under Creative Commons license.
That is the old Battersea power station in London, not a power station in Australia!
That is a photo of Battersea coal power station in London…
You know that’s a photo of batersea powerstation in london, england right?
Australia with a population of less than 4 crores should not pollute the environment to such an extent.
Where’s ma pig? What ‘a ye done with ma pig? Here, pig! Oh, bollocks, ‘e floated away again…
you’d think they would actually get a photo of the place there talking about – not a picture of a powerstation in england. They lost all credibility on this one
Well, the blokes would reduce their greenhouse emissions if it could get in their thick skulls that nuclear power is less polluting than coal despite the problems with nuclear waste. They have the highest reserves of Uranium but not a single nuke power station. While they debate on how good / bad that is , they continue to burn coal.
yeh the photo is diff coal mine but this did happen here, believe it or not the courts here wouldnt punish them because they were seen to be preventing the extinction of some 240 species among other reasons (they used an equation involving CO2 emmissions directly effection species extinctions) i hope to see more of this in the future.
Good for them, they got there message across by shutting them down.
With the huge areas of desertification they have in Australia, why don’t they go Solar/thermal electric like Spain, Portugal, Southwestern U.S.A.? Burning coal requires mining and transporting coal forever! Collecting solar requires making mirrors and planning? Once the solar is working, your done! time for a beer in the shade of the mirror and a place to plug in the Tele and cars and industry and water pumps and air conditioners and dishwashers and. . . WTF!