NEFA: Please object to the Restart of Redbank Power Station by burning 850,000 tonnes of native forests each year, obtained from landclearing. SUBMISSIONS NEEDED BY 5:00pm on Monday 18 August 2025. MAKE YOURS NOW.
This month NSW’s Independent Planning Commission is deciding whether to approve a massive increase in landclearing in western NSW to burn 850,000 tonnes of ‘biomass’ each year into a disused coal powerplant at Redbank, near Singleton in the Hunter Valley.
This will be Australia’s first conversion of coal fired powerplant into a wood fired one.
The Independent Planning Commission is deciding Verdant Earth Technologies Limited’s proposal to restart the disused Redbank Power Station near Singleton by burning 850,000 tonnes of biomass from native forests each year. The original intent was to obtain the biomass from intensified logging operations, now they are saying it will mostly come from landclearing. This will require significant increases in the rate of landclearing, at a time when we need to stop it. There is nothing ecologically sustainable about clearing tens of thousands of hectares of native vegetation inhabited by millions of native animals, and converting it into carbon dioxide to worsen climate heating. To make matters worse they are claiming the 1.3 million tonnes of CO2 released when the wood is burnt doesn’t really exist, claiming it is clean and green because there are no emissions what-so-ever.
If this gets approved it will herald a new wave of clearing and environmental destruction as vast areas of native forests are burnt for electricity under the pretence that its clean energy because the millions of tonnes of carbon dioxide released doesn’t exist.
Please take a moment to make a submission. State that it is a Submission on Restart of Redbank Power Station (SSD-56284960).
Say that you object to the proposal. It’s most important that it’s a unique submission, so use your own words. It can be as short as you like, it’s the sentiment that counts.
Email: submissions@ipcn.nsw.gov.au
ITS WORTH THE EFFORT FOR THE FUTURE OF OUR FORESTS
If you want details, NEFA’s submission is here: https://www.nefa.org.au/submissions
Here are dot points, some of which you may wish to rearrange and incorporate:
· The forests of eastern NSW are part of one of the world’s 35 biodiversity hotspots because of their exceptional species endemism and extensive habitat loss.
· There is nothing ecologically sustainable about clearing tens of thousands of hectares of native vegetation inhabited by millions of native animals in the midst of a biodiversity crisis, and converting it into carbon dioxide to worsen climate heating.
· Landclearing and associated habitat fragmentation are the single greatest threat to biodiversity in NSW, and yet most clearing is unapproved and the approval process requires no surveys to identify habitat of threatened species.
· Landclearing and logging are not in the public interest – they do not have a social licence, and do not require public consultation through a Development Application process like other developments on private land.
· Land clearing has rapidly escalated over the past decade, making NSW part of one of the of the world’s 24 deforestation fronts.
· To supply the 850,000 tonnes of biomass required each year, will require a major increase in the rate of land clearing.
· Creating a market for large volumes of biomass will provide an economic incentive to clear land that would otherwise not have been cleared.
· They claim that most is from the clearing of Invasive Native Species (INS), which are native species which sheep and goats don’t like to eat. INS provide important habitat for a multitude of wildlife, including many threatened species found nowhere else.
· Land clearing needs to stop, not expand.
· Claims that over four years 56,000 ha of biomass crops will be planted to provide 70% of feedstock have not been planned, are not credible and unlikely to eventuate.
· The current proposal does not include logging residues, though if the other sources of biomass are found to be uneconomic there is a high risk that a variation to include logging residues will be made soon after approval. Its important that IPC specifically rule out the use logging residues.
· The pretence that burning 850,000 tonnes of biomass for electricity every year will result in no emissions of CO2, and is thus clean energy, is a nonsense.
· The power station will release over 1.3 million tonnes of CO2 each year, with increased emissions from debris and soils at the clearing sites, and from processing and transporting woodchips.
· Burning wood for electricity is far more polluting than coal.
· We need to reduce our emissions of CO2, not dramatically increase them as intended by this proposal
· The use of solar and wind as alternative power sources need to be considered, rather than just comparing the proposal to coal.
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NEFA.
