The roar of the furnaces, the rattle of the conveyors, and the occasional whoop of a siren marked out both day and night at Hazelwood. The pungent smell of brown coal permeates the air, and the fine particles would work their way into your clothes, hair and shoes.
 |
| Noisy no longer, the turbine hall at Hazelwood is now offline. |
On quiet evenings you could hear it all the way over in the nearby town of Churchill, seven kilometres away. That distant hum has been a comforting one as the station produced power in all weathers, day and night, for more than five decades. For many in Churchill and the other coal towns of Victoria’s Latrobe Valley, the noise also represented continuity of employment for more than 450 workers.
Those old certainties are now disappeared. The eight units that make up the 1,600 megawatt power station were progressively decommissioned this week, all now shut off ahead of Hazelwood’s official closure on March 31. While some 250 workers will remain, the distant hum has settled to a whisper.
Read the piece on The Conversation by the Professor of History at the Federation University Australia, Erik Eklund - “Hazelwood power station: from modernist icon to greenhouse pariah.”
No comments:
Post a Comment