Hazelwood Power Station - Criticisms and Responses

Criticisms and Responses

The Australian Conservation Foundation have put the $400 million 2005 Hazelwood expansion in context by comparing it to Victoria's five-star energy efficient homes standard, which is expected to save 200,000 tonnes of greenhouse gases per annum. The ACF reason that Hazelwood's operations cancel out that benefit every four days. ACF Executive director Don Henry has said he would follow formal objections with legal action to prevent the grant of 'new' coal to IPRH. Most of the West Field coal reserves were allocated to Hazelwood in 1996 in the privatisation process. The ACF never mounted any legal objection to Hazelwood's allocated coal reserves.

Environment Victoria have pushed for alternative baseload generation through: biomass energy, wave energy, geothermal energy, new combined cycle gas fired generation plants, new cogeneration facilities, or increased imports of baseload electricity from interstate. In January 2005, the Clean Energy Future Group together with Environment Victoria released the report "Toward Victoria's Clean Energy Future", a plan to cut Victoria's Greenhouse gas emissions from electricity by 2010. It largely focused on cleaner alternatives to Hazelwood, and warned that continued support of coal-fired power development would lock the State into CO₂ emissions that would dwarf any current proposed measures for reducing emissions.

Greenpeace has pushed for a target of 20% clean energy for Victoria by 2020, allowing Hazelwood to be retired, and to invigorate the La Trobe Valley as a clean energy hub.

In June 2009, an anonymous letter purporting to come from the US-based Earth Liberation Front was sent to the home of the CEO of the power station, Graeme York. The letter threatened to harm property, but did not threaten physical harm against any individuals or animals, despite being portrayed as such in commercial media with good reason due the ELF activities overseas. ELF media spokesperson Jason Crawford defended the letter, but was unable to confirm that it had been sent by his organisation. The ELF letter was publicly condemned by Greenpeace, whose activists had engaged in nonviolent direct action at the plant six weeks earlier.

In late 2009, in response to the "Switch Off Hazelwood—Switch on Renewables" protests, the state of Victoria introduced penalties of one years' imprisonment for trespass, and two years' imprisonment for damaging, interfering, tampering, or attaching something to electricity infrastructure. This was legislated in the Electricity Industry Amendment (Critical Infrastructure) Act 2009 (Vic). The legislation has been welcomed by the power industry but criticised by green groups for supposedly criminalising non-violent civil disobedience, and has been compared to the lockdown powers of the Major Events Act 2009, which has been reportedly used to intimidate and disperse peaceful protesters in NSW.