So – let’s deal with this – whole country & urban areas would be impacted if Australia decided to stop Coal Mining in a particular geographic area.

Let’s consider as a “thought experiment” then stopping the Coal Export & Carbon Producing Industry in the Victorian ‘brown coal’ Industry in South-Eastern Victoria.

I’d like to see a Coal Gasification Plant put infront of the Coal Mines & Power Plants in Victoria. Such that the Power Plants are fitted out to run on the output of the Coal Gasification Plants (which is far better over the long run for “power from coal”).

I believe that Coal Gasification presents the most environmentally & power-generation efficient method of using coal for base-load power generation.

Convert the Coal Export Industry into feeding local Australian Coal Gasification & Power Stations, so that there’s no exports from this region of Southern Australia of Coal & that legacy/pre-existing Coal Industry is then forced to deal with local demand for its products!

This ‘local demand’ may well want to end coal’s involvement completely over time, but immediately it will need to fund the cost of existing power stations being retro-fitted to be sourced by coal gasification plant output (coal gas) & run for (say) 15-20 years as such..

This “local demand” for power would create an inherent advantage to any power suppliers who could deliver power to the local grid & supply in these regional areas.

The “end game” for these then gas-fed power plants would be to be fed from the Natural Gas Fields of inner southern Australia, while paying the inevitable “carbon production cost” for using the natural source resource..

When it comes to base power load, we can commit to these 15+ year long contracts as a nation to a power plant owner who works with us now to convert to lower carbon output/impact base-load power generation.

In time (late 21st Century) we may choose to Close Down The Coal Industry, but that’s not viable for the current (early 21st century) societies.

For now we have to convert the local coal mining industry into feeding the most efficient & low carbon emitting processing of that coal for national base load power generation, which appears to be Coal Gasification & power station retro-fitting for gas operation.

In time that gas may come from non-coal sources, but not initially & for a contractable multi-year term..