It’s essential to save the steelworks, but that
s just the start.
It’s a long way from most places, but it is about to host a bigger battery than the world’s biggest, molten salt solar and pumped hydro generation, and a much bigger steelworks.
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Far from being wiped off the map as was once predicted, Whyalla is coming back in an unlikely way, as potentially Australia’s biggest steel producer powered almost entirely by renewable energy.
With the steelworks under a cloud, Whyalla continues to fluctuate between hope and despair.
Gary Sauer-Thompson/flickr
Decades of expansion for Whyalla were followed by decades of contraction. Whyalla has seen optimism and idealism but also, if not despair, then its close neighbours, alienation and apathy.
The threat of the closure of Arrium’s steelworks in the SA town of Whyalla is just one of many that could disrupt the state’s economy.
Mick Tsikas/AAP