What do you do with a giant pit mine once it closes? One option for the Hazelwood mine is creating a recreational lake – but there are economic and environmental issues to consider.
Hazelwood in happier times.
Centre for Gippsland Studies
Hazelwood power station will this week fall silent after a half-century during which it went from a beacon of progress to an emblem of fossil fuel pollution.
Hazelwood’s closure does not mean imminent blackouts for Victoria.
Takver/Flickr
In a year of coral bleaching, power blackouts, electricity arguments and Donald Trump, 2016 made the previous year’s climate of environmental optimism rather difficult to maintain.
Electricity price increases affect nearly everyone and are a sensitive political issue.
AAP Image/Dan Peled
The potential shutdown of Victoria’s Hazelwood power station could leave a large gap in coal-fired baseload generation. But other coal power stations have plenty of spare capacity to fill the gap.
The Hazelwood fire burned for 45 days in 2014.
AAP Image/Incident Control Centre Hazelwood
Two years after Morwell was blanketed in smoke from the Hazelwood fire, environmental charges have been laid against the mine’s operators. But the process should be more open and democratic - and quicker.
Despite firefighters’ efforts, the Hazelwood mine fire showered the nearby town of Morwell with pollution.
AAP Image/Country Fire Authority
I’m quite nervous about writing this. I’m going to stray from my familiar academic world into a political one, and it’s on an issue that may very well have killed several people. My reputation has already…
Coalmining poses risks that can’t be managed away.
AAP Image/Incident Control Centre Hazelwood
Fittingly for a report on a huge fire, the findings of the Hazelwood Mine Fire Inquiry act as a smokescreen for the bigger issues behind the disaster. Partly because of its narrow terms of reference, the…
The blaze was eventually extinguished 45 days after it was sparked by a grassfire.
Country Fire Authority/AAP
The Hazelwood coalmine fire, which burned for 45 days earlier this year, was a catastrophe for the town of Morwell in Victoria’s Latrobe Valley. Homes were blanketed in smoke and ash, many residents were…
Potentially catastrophic situation: the Hazelwood coal fire.
AAP
The fire that burned for more than 40 days at the Hazelwood coal mine in the Latrobe Valley earlier this year is the latest in a spate of mining failures over the past few years. It might seem like plain…
It is the role of academic researchers to challenge the relationships between government and corporations that allows society to be damaged – such as in the recent Hazlewood mine fire.
AAP
Corporations are involved in every area of our lives. In our education, health, welfare and criminal justice systems, they are ever-present. So obvious is this “fact” of life that it is often only in moments…
Firefighters say they have the Hazelwood mine fire under control, but it’s still expected to burn for some time.
AAP Image/Incident Control Centre hazelwood
The Hazelwood coal mine fire shows that Victoria’s current mining laws are not strong enough to prevent a similar disaster in the future. While the mine’s owner GDF SUEZ has vehemently rejected claims…
Firefighters battling the blaze at an open-cut coal mine in Victoria’s Latrobe Valley, with Hazelwood power station in the background.
AAP Image/Incident Control Centre Hazelwood
Victoria’s Hazelwood coal mine is still burning, nearly three weeks after it started from a grassfire during severe fire conditions. Police are currently investigating the original fire for arson. Meanwhile…
Compensation candidate: The Yallourn power plant in the La Trobe Valley.
Flickr/Dallas75
In some respects, we should be relieved by the collapse of the Labor government’s negotiations to decommission some of the most polluting brown-coal electricity generation plants. The notion that decommissioning…
With Australia’s highest carbon intensity, Victoria’s Hazelwood coal-fired power station is a prime candidate to close down part of its generating capacity.
AAP
Under its Clean Energy Future, the Federal government will negotiate to close 2000 MW of the dirtiest fossil fuel power generating capacity in Australia by 2020. With the price on carbon now in operation…