Jackson Channon, an electrician at the Liddell power station, counts “three generations of generation” who worked at the Hunter Valley site, including a grandad who drove cement trucks used to build it and parents who first met while on staff.
Come 29 April, Channon will attend the closure of the AGL Energy coal-fired facility, joining hundreds of current and former staff, community members and even artists marking the end of what was Australia’s biggest power plant when it was built 52 years ago.
“They’re not such good jobs when you’re covered in coal and ash and all the other sort of stuff out there,” he says. “Once it closes, it will definitely be something to think about, the family aspect of it.”
Channon will be one of about 100 Liddell workers who will transfer to the nearby Bayswater power station, both bought by AGL for $1.5bn from the New South Wales government in 2014. The remaining 40-odd crew will retire or leave the industry.
In 2015, AGL declared a 2022 closure target for Liddell, a power station dogged by frequent breakdowns including 23 restarts last year. It relented to pressure from the Turnbull government – which included lobbying AGL’s board to sell the plant to rival power generator, Alinta – to extend its life a year.
As part of its defence, AGL even ushered journalists through the dingy, dusty and noisy “old lady Liddell” in 2018. Kate Coates, the plant’s general manager at time, displayed a smörgåsbord of pulverised or shredded piping, telling visitors: “We can’t ask [her] to run a marathon a few days in a row without her falling over.”
Initially generating 2,000MW at full tilt, it was downgraded to 1,680MW. With one of its four units shut last April, the plant has been typically generating at closer to 750MW lately, according to data group WattClarity. Excluding rooftop solar panels, NSW has almost 20,000MW of generation capacity prior to Liddell’s exit.
The mammoth multi-year demolition operation to turn the site “cool, dark and dry”, as staffers say, has already begun. Liddell’s two towering smokestacks will be toppled and its eight-metre thick concrete base excavated and crushed on site.
AGL expects more than 90% of the materials will be recycled, including 70,000 tonnes of steel, more than the metal used in the Sydney Harbour Bridge. Perhaps more difficult will be disposing of hundreds of thousands of litres of waste oil, acids and sludge and finding uses for a 200-hectare dam containing 39m tonnes of coal ash.
Before then, though, the company will be working to ensure the plant continues to operate safely until its large turbine stops spinning on 28 April.
Jarred Burns, who began his 23-year career at Liddell as an apprentice, expects a “mixture of emotions” when he turns up for that final shift. He’ll “be a bit relieved if it all goes out to plan … to make sure that it does do what it’s meant to do”.
Veteran worker Graeme McNeill said ageing equipment was a major cause of an incident that left him “pretty badly burnt” several years ago. Hearing the tell-tale rumblings of a transformer overheating, he fled “as briskly as I could” but not before it exploded, spraying him with superheated oil.
McNeill was flown by helicopter to Sydney’s Royal North Shore hospital, where he was treated for almost a fortnight.
“It was very painful and a challenging recovery” he says, adding he enjoyed his job and was keen to return to work soon afterwards, confident that implemented changes would prevent a repeat of the incident.
Rehabilitating the site itself won’t come cheap. Markus Brokhof, AGL’s chief operating officer, said AGL has set aside $1.5bn for the clean-up of its four remaining large generators: Liddell and Bayswater in the Hunter Valley, Torrens Island near Adelaide and Loy Yang A in Victoria’s Latrobe Valley.
According to AGL’s 2022 accounts, the twin Hunter plants face $687m rehab costs alone. One person knowledgable about the liabilities says the tab will probably exceed $1bn. “The assumption is that all of this has to go,” the person said.
Brokhof says the ash dam may end up being the most costly part.
According to the Hunter Community Environment Centre, Liddell’s coal ash totals 39m tonnes. Bayswater, presently slated to close by 2033 at the latest, adds another 45m tonnes.
Heavy metals including selenium, lead and arsenic have all been detected in Lake Liddell, says Jo Lynch, the centre’s coordinator, during a recent walk along the shores of the lake. “The contamination is severe.”
“There have been no plans stated for Lake Liddell,” Lynch says, with contaminants leaking in to the groundwater from the ash dump, and directly from the plant’s outfall.
AGL’s interest in an ash reuse plant seems to have waned. “There’s not enough money for that,” she adds.
Analysis by Environmental Justice Australia of data from the National Pollution Inventory shows Liddell power station recorded a 170% increase in mercury pollution from 16kg in 2021 to 40kg in 2022. Bayswater was the worst plant in the state, with mercury pollution reaching 112kg, Jem Wilson, an EJA spokesperson, said.
“Mercury is a neurotoxin, which means it can damage the nervous system, brain and other organs of humans and animals,” Wilson said. It is also a persistent toxic element – which means that once it is present in water, it is there to stay.
One hoped-for environmental benefit from Liddell’s closing will be the eventual reopening of Lake Liddell to swimming and waterskiing. AGL closed it “permanently” in 2016 after detecting the brain-eating amoeba Naegleria fowleri, possibly spawned by the unnaturally warm waters pumped out of the power station.
The amoeba can cause infection in humans through the nasal sinuses. Potentially fatal cases of primary amoebic meningoencephalitis are associated with jumping or falling into water, actions that can force water into the nose under pressure, according to a fact sheet pinned to a wall at a lakeside changing rooms.
The closure of a plant that was recently emitting 8m tonnes of greenhouse gases a year will also be a benefit, Lynch said. “From a climate perspective, we’re pleased to see the first closure happening.”
Despite his incident, McNeill, who has also served as councillor for the local Muswellbrook shire for more than a decade, remains very fond of the power station. “[It] has been such a backbone for the area in terms of economics, and the state as a reliable supply of electricity”, he says.
Employees – including McNeill’s son – are proud of the role they have played in “keeping the lights on” in NSW and beyond. “We all feel an obligation, in maintaining supply, working at Liddell,” he says. “Liddell has done this job. That’s its legacy.”
