No New Coal

When a power company received government backing to build a new coal-fired power station in the Latrobe Valley, the Greens called for the grant to be withdrawn, and the money made available to renewable energy projects.

It was estimated the new plant would have average emissions of between 0.78 and 0.89 tonnes per megawatt hour. But the average emissions intensity of power stations across wealthy nations is half of this - about 0.45 tonnes of gas per megawatt hour.

To illustrate these troubling figures, I created a graph made from smoke stacks.