Eight good reasons to cut HRL’s government funding
(and they only need one)
In 2007, then Prime Minister John Howard awarded a grant of $100 million to company HRL to support a proposed new coal-fired power station in Victoria. Five years have passed, and still HRL has failed to meet the conditions of that grant money.
Now, the funding is under review by the Gillard Government.
Environment Victoria is calling on the government to withdraw this outdated grant, and put the money into clean renewable energy instead.
Here are the top eight reasons for the Gillard Government to withdraw their funding of HRL:
1 |
The HRL coal-fired power station is highly polluting – HRL claim that their technology will have 30 percent less emissions than existing brown coal-fired power stations in Victoria’s Latrobe Valley. However this would make the new power station about as polluting as an existing black-coal fired power station in NSW or Qld. If the 600MW power station proceeded, it would produce around 4 million tonnes of CO2 pollution every year. |
2 |
The HRL project is uncommercial and lacks finance – Despite it being a grant milestone requirement the company still doesn’t have finance. In 2009 it was revealed that HRL had lost their major Chinese partner who withdrew their 50 percent stake and are no longer involved. In 2011 Australia’s big four banks all announced that they were not involved in the project. In October 2011 a number of international banks declared that they too would not finance the proposed power station, with HSBC indicating that HRL was too polluting for them to invest in. |
3 |
HRL’s project costs have blown out – Since 2007 HRL’s project costs have increased from $750 million to at least $1.1 billion, although industry experts suggest that the costs could well be significantly higher still. |
4 |
HRL lack the environmental approvals to build at commercially viable scale – In 2011 the Victorian EPA approved 300MW of the proposed 600MW power station. HRL have previously told the Federal Government that their power station would only be commercial above 400MW.
HRL are currently appealing the conditions of the approval at VCAT arguing that the full 600MW should have been approved. Environment Victoria and others are also involved in a legal challenge to the EPA at VCAT arguing that that power station should not have been approved at all. These challenges will not be resolved until at least March 2012, and then further legal challenges are possible if not likely. |
5 |
HRL’s technology is out of date – The power station is now years behind its original schedule. When state and federal grants were first announced HRL promised the power station would be operating in 2009. The technology that may once have been viewed as promising is now significantly out-of-date, with much higher emissions that what is required for Australia to meet our legislated emissions reduction target of 80 percent by 2050. We have much cleaner and more reliable options on the table in Victoria. |
6 |
Funding for the project is not supported by Victorians – A recent Newspoll survey in Victoria found that two-thrids of Victorian supported reallocating the $100 million earmarked for the HRL power station to support renewable energy.
Add to that the 12,667 people who hand-signed our petition on the issue it’s clear that Victorians want clean energy, not new coal. |
7 |
The federal government’s credibility on climate change is at stake – If the Gillard Government continues to support this highly polluting power station, it will raise serious credibility questions about the government’s commitment to action on climate change.
By passing the Clean Energy Future legislation, the government has shown that it is serious about the problem of climate change. To continue to support an unpopular and highly polluting new coal-fired power station is inconsistent with this commitment. Further, the Prime Minister committed at the last election that no new dirty coal-fired power stations would be built in this country. Should HRL go ahead, Environment Victoria and other state and national NGOs would consider this election commitment broken. |
8 |
The federal budget is tight, and spending needs to be targeted – This Howard era grant is inconsistent with the new policy directions that the Gillard Government has set on climate change and energy security. In these tight budgetary times, it is important for funding allocations to be consistent with the government’s existing agenda. |
