Submission to the license review of Victoria’s brown coal-fired power stations

The three coal-burning power stations in the Latrobe Valley are responsible not only for enormous amounts of toxic air pollution, but they are also by far Victoria’s biggest contributors to global warming. Our key concern with this review is that it must result in limits on greenhouse gases being inserted into the licences of Victoria’s three coal-fired power stations.

Continuing to allow unlimited climate pollution from these power stations would be a failure of the EPA’s responsibility to protect the environment and public from dangerous pollution and harm.

Submissions to this licence review process were not made open to the public, but were intended by the EPA to be limited to selected key stakeholders. Given this, and given the EPA’s recognition that it needs to ensure licences reflect community standards, Environment Victoria conducted a short survey of Victorians on our contact list. Over 1500 people completed the survey in January 2018.

Key findings include:

• 99% of respondents agree that the EPA should have a role in limiting climate pollution in Victoria
• 98% agree that there should be limits on how much greenhouse gas Victoria’s coal power stations are allowed to emit
• 99% agree that brown coal power stations should face strict limits on toxic air pollution, in line with international standards and the protection of human health

When asked how they felt about coal power stations producing almost half of Victoria’s climate pollution but facing no limits on how much CO2 they can emit:

• 63% felt angry
• 6% were surprised
• 26% were angry and surprised
• 2% were neither
• 3% were ‘other’

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