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https://theconversation.com/how-australias-geology-gave-us-an-abundance-of-coal-and-a-wealth-of-greentech-minerals-to-switch-to-173988>
"Two recent announcements hint at a seismic shift about to hit Australia’s coal
industry.
Australian tech billionaire Mike Cannon-Brookes and Canada’s Brookfield put
forward an extraordinary joint bid to takeover AGL Energy, Australia’s biggest
emitting company, over the weekend. If successful, it would see AGL’s
coal-fired power stations shut down early. And last week, Origin Energy
announced that the country’s largest coal plant, Eraring, will close seven
years early.
These developments have confirmed what many already knew: the death of the coal
industry is now inevitable.
Australia’s coal industry directly and indirectly supports less than 1% of the
Australian workforce, with these jobs heavily concentrated in a handful of
small regions in Queensland, Victoria, New South Wales and Western Australia.
Coal is the reason some of these communities exist. If we don’t transition
carefully, these communities will break apart, as so many mining towns have
before.
But Australia is also abundant in many of the minerals and rare earth elements
our society will run on in the future, including lithium, cobalt and copper. If
government and industry pivot from coal to green energy, Australian jobs in
energy and the minerals industry will still exist. All we need is a plan."
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
