A new report suggests that Victoria’s brown coal industry is ‘unlikely’ to suceed pointing to low quality coal and transport costs.
The report commissioned by Environment Victoria says that it is unlikey ‘a large scale coal export project will be financially viable under current circumstances.’
The report goes on to say that due to the coal’s low quality it is expensive to transfer and warns that ‘any attempt to develop a major export industry is a gamble..’.
The analysis also found that any plans by the government to open up coal fields in the Latrobe Valley would do little in the way of creating jobs.
However, Victorian Energy Minister Michael O'Brien was sceptical of the findinigs stating that any report commissioned by the green group could not be taken seriously due to its ''political and irrational opposition to clean coal technology,'' SMH reported.
The Victorian Department of Primary Industries (DPI) says there is a proven resource potential of 430 billion tonnes of coal located in the state, which is a significant proportion of the world’s stores of brown coal.
IBISWorld figures show Victoria has a quarter of the world’s brown coal reserves, 90 per cent of which are in the Latrobe Valley.
About half of the brown coal is deemed to be “potentially economic” and the Victorian Government has not yet allocated about 13 billion tonnes of it to potential developers.
The development of a major coal industry in Victoria has come under fire by The Greens since it was announced in March.
Greens MP Adam Bandt has accused the Victorian premier of being an ‘environmental vandal’.
"Scientists have told us we need to be decarbonising the economy by the middle of the century, meanwhile, Ted Baillieu has got his foot on the accelerator in the other direction," Bandt said.
The Greens say they will look at what action can be taken by the Federal government to slow down the push.