Brown coal scheme designed to 'save' Latrobe Valley in disarray

The government is scrambling to develop a
 strategy to cope with the closure of Hazelwood.

A $90 million scheme to make Latrobe Valley brown coal cleaner and more profitable has all but failed, with two out of three projects shelved and tens of millions of dollars of public funding sitting idle.

Announced in August 2012, the flagship state-federal fund, known as the Advanced Lignite Demonstration Program, was touted as a saviour for the Latrobe Valley, opening up new markets for the state's vast brown coal reserves.

But more than four years later, two of the big projects awarded funding under the scheme have now collapsed. A third has been granted a six-month extension to allow it to meet key environmental and planning deadlines.

The scheme involved joint contributions of $45 million each from the Victorian and federal governments for carefully selected projects to transform the valley's plentiful but low-grade coal into higher-valued uses such as briquettes, fertiliser and liquid fuel.

Read the story in the Melbourne Age -“Brown coal scheme designed to 'save' Latrobe Valley in disarray.”