According to brief item published on ABC Gippsland Vic, Latrobe Valley unions representing members working in the coal industry are developing a project to kick-start a factory producing solar hot water systems by next year.
The LaTrobe Valley in Victoria has the unpleasant distinction of generating power from the filthiest of fossil fuels, brown coal. It’s the brown coal mined and burned in the area that have greatly contributed to Victoria’s staggering carbon emissions problem.
The Construction, Forestry, Mining and Energy Union has plans to create multiple factories around Australia in order to offer coal-fired power generation workers alternative employment.
David Kerin from the union says the organisation has partnered with a company that produces the solar hot water systems the union will be building in Gippsland. The partner will provide the training of the first workforce and provide assistance in fitting out the first factory.
The move by the Construction, Forestry, Mining and Energy Union will likely be applauded by environmentalists as a very positive indicator that some in the coal industry understand that the fossil fuel has an uncertain future in a carbon-constrained world; even though the Victorian Government is reportedly preparing to spend billions on "clean coal".
This recognition of the pathway relating to skills transfer into the renewable energy sector, forward thinking and action by the union may help to quell fears of workers in the coal industry of the spectre of mass unemployment, as summoned up by coal industry executives and shareholders eager for a business-as-usual scenario; rather than a phase-out of coal fired power generation.
