Walkers urge power stations’ conversion

Updated Tue Sep 18, 2012 10:25am AEST

About 80 people are walking from Port Augusta to Adelaide as part of a campaign for Port Augusta’s two coal-fired power stations to be converted to solar thermal energy.

Solar panels are used to generate heat for conversion into power.

Gary Rowbottom works for the stations’ operator Alinta Energy and has taken time off to be part of the walk.

He thinks a conversion would benefit both Port Augusta and Australia more generally.

“The benefits spread across a great range of things, from potential new employees of the new facilities through to every citizen of planet Earth. Different people might rate benefits differently but they’re there and they’re all important to me,” he said.

Ellen Sandell of the Australian Youth Climate Coalition said the solar thermal idea had plenty of support in Port Augusta.

“In July we helped the community hold a vote and over 30 per cent of the community actually turned out to vote and 98 per cent of them voted to replace the coal plants with a solar plant rather than a gas plant, which would take the jobs outside the town, so the community’s definitely behind it,” she said.

Topics:activism-and-lobbying, pollution, environment, port-augusta-5700, adelaide-5000, sa

First posted Mon Sep 17, 2012 8:56am AEST