Coal to power Queensland ‘as long as sensible and needed'
Queensland's energy future will remain based on coal, Treasurer David Janetzki has told a resource industry conference, as he pledged to extend the life of the state's coal-fired power stations.
Janetzki, also Queensland's energy minister, was among the speakers at the Australian Energy Producers Conference in Brisbane on Tuesday, which attracted more than 2000 attendees.
The LNP government would take a more aggressive approach to using fossil fuels, he said, and would extend the use of gas and coal.
'[Coal-fired power stations] will remain open as long as it is economically sensible and systematically needed, not [closed on] an arbitrary date to fill a headline for a day,' he said.
His comments came a day after the Queensland government cancelled the Moonlight Range Wind Farm proposed near Rockhampton, which would have seen 88 wind turbines installed and generated enough energy to power 260,000 homes annually.
Speaking on Monday, Deputy Premier Jarrod Bleijie said 88 per cent of locals opposed the project.
'The local government in Rockhampton did not support it, they had no community buy-in, there was limited consultation to start, [and] it was assessed on two-codes-old [legislation],' he said.
Bleijie put other wind farm projects on hold earlier in the year, calling for greater scrutiny on new renewable energy builds. He said the state was expected to pass new legislation in several weeks' time that would require social impact assessments for renewable energy projects.
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