The challenges of energy transition are rumbling towards communities across Australia like an approaching freight train. It's been off in the distance for a while, but the roar of the locomotive is getting louder and louder. Communities that have been dependent on fossil fuel industries for generations have no choice but to pay attention.

Energy minister Chris Bowen said he was confident the gas-fired Hunter Power Project at Kurri Kurri can be converted to green hydrogen for $700 million. Questions about the feasibility of the conversion project, which Labor announced in February, have arisen in recent weeks.

About 1000 new clean energy jobs could be created from a green hydrogen production hub on the site of Liddell Power Station, early research suggests. The project's proponents AGL and Fortescue Future Industries announced on Tuesday they were expanding their feasibility study for project to include two of Japan's biggest energy companies - Inpex Corporation and Osaka Gas.

Offshore wind turbines could be operating off the Hunter coast within the next decade after the federal government said the region had "world-class" wind energy potential. Public consultation on the project, which industry estimates would create hundreds of clean energy jobs, is expected to commence in coming months.

Hunter leaders and community representatives have been invited to apply for positions on the region's expert panel. The panel will provide local knowledge and advice to the state government on projects and initiatives that will support economic diversification and create future jobs in coal mining communities.

When major coal mine projects fail or close without notice, they often leave a path of destruction. Thousands of workers are unemployed, communities left to count the environmental, social and economic cost and the whole industry and government's credibility takes a battering.

A MOUNTAIN of overburden six kilometres wide, the equivalent of 12 Sydney Harbour Bridges, was a difficult image to escape at a coal mine expansion hearing in Sydney on Friday.

Last week's census numbers are a warning for Muswellbrook. They reveal a shire with widening, worrying cracks. At the 2021 census, Muswellbrook shire was home to 16,357 people, up by a mere 271 over 2016. Muswellbrook isn't growing like Singleton and Cessnock local government areas down the valley.

Take the train from Armidale to Newcastle, and you'll know when you hit coal country. The rolling green hills of New England and wide skies of the Liverpool Plains give way to a view of coal trains. Endlessly long, slow, brown-ish grey wagons, piled high with black coal destined for power stations and export terminals.

Our current energy crisis has laid bare the risks we all face from our over-reliance on expensive and polluting fossil fuels like gas and coal. To safeguard our grid against international price pressures we need to speed up our shift to cheaper, cleaner renewable energy.

A high-profile national policy think tank has joined calls for a public authority to coordinate economic transition in the Hunter and says the NSW government should direct far more coal royalties back to the region. The Grattan Institute on Sunday published a report on how state and federal governments should steer the "next industrial revolution" to achieve the nation's 2050 net-zero target.

About $65 million a year needs to be invested over the next decade to ensure the Hunter is prepared for the economic changes and challenges facing the region, according to a new analysis.

In 2020, a Muswellbrook Council committee involving employers, unions and business groups commissioned a study by Australia's leading experts on regional industry change, from UniSA. The report lays out decades' worth of experience on how to manage the impacts of industrial closures and structural change. It deserves a read.

WHAT price can be put on the security of steady work and a plan for the future? Hunter Jobs Alliance analysis has found a just transition for the Hunter Region, one that protects the power industry's workers - and the communities they call home - from the full brunt of the shift to renewables, would cost about $65 million a year over the next decade.

A new roadmap out of gridlock for the national electricity grid has been developed to fast-track projects that have been on the drawing board for years. Releasing the 30-year plan for the National Electricity Market (NEM) amid an energy crisis, the market operator on Thursday acknowledged the need for new investment has "gathered momentum" in recent months.

Newcastle-based clean energy company MGA Thermal has unveiled the first stage of its new commercial manufacturing facility in Tomago. It is the latest chapter in the company's astronomical rise, which has been driven by demand for new energy storage to replace ageing or and increasingly unreliable coal-fired power stations.

THREE months ago the Newcastle Herald launched its Power and the Passion series. One of the key goals of the series, which examines the serious impacts of the massive global shift in energy supply, was to ensure both federal and state governments properly recognise the contribution that Hunter coal has made to treasury coffers for around two centuries.

SINGLETON will look to throw off its "mining town stigma" in favour of cycleways and cultural events, under the council's new 10-year strategic plan. Mayor Sue Moore said while regional economic concerns can't be ignored, "overwhelming" feedback from the community focused on "lifestyle and livability".

THE NSW government will rake in an extra $810 million in coal royalties this year - and almost $4 billion over the next four years - but has not put an extra dollar into a fund to help coal mining communities prepare for change.

Origin Energy has advised the Australian Stock Exchange that Eraring Power Station is running out of coal. The news resulted in the company slashing the profit target for the electricity business. It also threatens to deepen a worsening energy crisis engulfing Australia's east coast.

AGL employees and their communities must be among the top priorities in any restructure or revised time frame for the closure of coal-fired generators, Hunter business and employment advocates argue.

CWP Renewables is expanding in Newcastle, as the company prepares to spend $1 billion on energy projects this year. The Newcastle office is set to grow from a team of 25 to more than 40.

AS COAL mines along the Bucketts Way wind down, taking jobs and economic benefits with them, residents in the Upper Hunter town of Gloucester are "excited" about the potential of other industries in the area.

The University of Newcastle is among the beneficiaries of a $15 million state government investment to establish a decarbonisation innovation hub to help fast-track research, development and commercialisation of low emissions technologies.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison will visit the Hunter on Wednesday to announce a $50 million investment in a new business and research partnership that the government expects will create 1,600 jobs over the next four years.

To many in the Hunter, "transition" or "just transition" is a shorthand term for you are going to lose your job.  The phrases, initially developed by the trade union movement in North America to describe interventions to secure workers rights and livelihoods when economies shift from extractive reliant to renewables, are now dirty words.

IN today's Power and the Passion instalments, reporter Donna Page investigates concerns about the much-discussed "transition" away from coal.

JOB threats to 750 Centennial Coal mineworkers were examined at NSW budget estimates yesterday, which also confirmed that coal exploration would no longer be allowed around historic Wollombi.

The Hunter is in a race to cash in on an emerging global hydrogen market that will be worth an estimated $1.4 trillion by 2050.  Goldman Sachs estimates that, if realised, the region's hydrogen exports could eventually replicate if not exceed the value of existing coal exports.

The federal government's latest investment in Newcastle's hydrogen "hub" will help pay for a pilot plant at Kooragang Island.  Energy Minister Angus Taylor announced on Thursday that the government would spend $82 million on two hydrogen projects in Newcastle, in addition to the $100 million allocated to Port of Newcastle in last month's budget for infrastructure to help prepare the port for hydrogen exports.