A consortium of major domestic and international energy players has devised a $2bn plan to fast-track Australia’s first hydrogen valley in the heart of the nation’s biggest coal province, using renewable energy to build an export industry and secure jobs in NSW.

Coal mining companies in the Hunter Valley have failed to set aside enough money to fill in their massive voids or maintain the vegetation required to restore the landscape once their mines come to the end of their lives.

National Australia Bank has agreed to help finance the world's largest coal export terminal and has linked loans to a new set of social and environmental goals.

Mushrooming rooftop solar and mild summer weather have driven demand for power from the grid to the lowest for 19 years for the peak summer quarter, cutting wholesale prices by up to 68 per cent and pushing major coal and gas power generators such as AGL Energy to the brink.

Australia's coal trade with China has plummeted from more than $1 billion a month to just $30 million in the first months of the year, as shocking new figure reveal the depth of Beijing's economic wrath.

When it comes to coal, politicians seem stuck in a short-term election cycle while the corporate sector is getting on with the business of transitioning to renewables.

SEOUL, April 23 (Reuters) - South Korean President Moon Jae-in announced on Thursday his country would end all new financing for overseas coal projects and would soon set a more ambitious schedule for slashing carbon emissions.

China will start phasing down coal use from 2026 as part of its efforts to slash greenhouse gas emissions, President Xi Jinping said at a summit of global leaders, a move that disappointed campaigners hoping for more ambitious pledges.

A treasure chest of mining royalties will be set aside in a future fund exclusively for coal towns to drive job creation and community support as the power mix changes in coming decades.

Coal mining in the Hunter Valley is set to decline, possibly rapidly, in coming decades, according to the NSW Treasury, market analysis and one of the region’s biggest miners.

As coal mines close, Newcastle environmentalist and founding member of the Hunter Jobs Alliance Georgina Woods is on the frontlines of the fight for sustainable employment.

CQ University researchers have found the coal mining industry’s lucrative pay packets will be overshadowed by negative long-term costs to regional communities.

As many of us in Victoria's Latrobe Valley have been expecting, EnergyAustralia last week announced that it will be closing the Yallourn coal-fired power plant in 2028, four years earlier than scheduled.

Last week’s announcement that the Yallourn power plant will close earlier than previously expected raises some big questions: will it be replaced in time, and are more such announcements around the corner? The answers have serious implications for not just Victorians but all Australians.

The future of NSW’s coal-fired power plants is under increasing threat from cheap renewable energy, which this week forced Victoria’s Yallourn coal plant to bring forward its closure date as analysts warn the end may come even sooner.

For more than 100 years, Collie has dug up coal. But Australia's demand for the black river of gold is drying up. The lights, the bells, and the boom gate coming down.

The Energy Security Board has warned that Australia’s remaining coal fleet could be forced to close earlier than expected.

The likely early closure of coal-fired power stations should trigger accelerated diversification investment in the Hunter economy, the Hunter Joint Organisation has argued.

China is today the world’s largest emitter of planet-heating gases, responsible for about 28 per cent of total global emissions.

The Hunter's economic transformation is being hindered by a 'culture war' over coal and energy policy, a new discussion paper about structural adjustment in the region argues.

Joel Fitzgibbon has been creating political mayhem by selling a false impression of the Hunter region. His high-profile focus on coal would lead you to believe the Hunter is populated by black-faced, hard hat-wearing underground miners straight out of the 19th century.

How the power of music is being used in one mining town in the Hunter Valley to create the workforce of the future.

Coal is under threat, regardless of what domestic climate change policies Australia adopts, and coal miners and their communities are owed honesty by their political leaders, shadow climate minister Chris Bowen says.

The Upper Hunter could be home to a manufacturing plant producing hydrogen-based energy modules that can be retrofitted to large industries, including coal-fired power stations.

ANZ has abandoned the Port of Newcastle, the world's largest coal export port, under its new climate change policy that all but bans loans to the coal sector.

Demand for thermal coal is expected to hold steady until the end of the decade before going into a slow decline out to 2050, with the Port of Newcastle expecting demand for its coal exports to peak about 2027.

Last Thursday, AGL Energy notably wrote down the value of their production assets and contracts by $2.7 billion. Origin Energy and the Queensland government’s coal generators similarly wrote down the value of their assets.

Stephen Long investigates how Australia's major thermal coal region is transforming itself for a greener economy.

A PROJECT billed as the largest proposed grid-scale battery in the world will be built at Kurri Kurri, specialist renewable energy fund CEP Energy has announced.

How can coal mining towns reinvent themselves to create new industries and provide jobs for the future?

A gulf has opened up between Aurizon and the broader sharemarket as the rail haulage group’s investors become more pessimistic about future demand for Australian coal because of more countries slashing carbon emissions.

At the Lochinvar pub in the NSW Hunter Valley, a couple of power industry workers meet for a drink and ponder the future.

Recent announcements that two big batteries will be built at coal-fired power stations in NSW are great news for the energy system and regional communities across Australia.

Fortescue Metals Group chairman Andrew Forrest says the time is right for Australia to develop its own big steel-making industry using the nation’s vast iron ore resources and emerging green technologies.

AGL has signed agreements with Finland's Wartsila and US storage provider Fluence for the supply up to 1000 megawatts of grid-scale battery storage.

Science says the switch to renewables needs to be fast but workers on the ground say it should also be fair. In the first of our explainer series Future Power, we ask, how did Germany do it? And could Australia really have a 'just transition' too?

ANZ was the last of Australia's big four banks to announce it will stop financing thermal coal projects in Australia. The Australian coal industry will now need to head overseas if it wants to borrow funds for new projects, and many government MPs aren't happy.

A report by Blueprint Institute says coal-fired power generation is in ’permanent decline’ and its end is ‘inevitable’

The federal government has revised its thermal coal export estimates for this financial year down by 9 million tonnes off the back of restrictions on coal trade with China and is tipping export earnings to sink by $5 billion

Chinese state-owned media appeared to confirm a ban on imports of Australian coal this week.  Australian officials are now trying to figure out how serious the threat is, and its implications.  If China stops taking Australia's coal, will other countries fill the gap? Could Japan, India and South Korea?

Glencore has confirmed two of its Hunter Valley mines will close in 2023. The announcement comes during a challenging time for the industry, which is taking a hit from China’s import freeze.

A new foundation has launched to assist with the creation of jobs and economic growth in response to scheduled power station and thermal mine closures over the coming decades.

Thermal coal exports to China from Australia's busiest coal terminal have completely stopped amid escalating trade tensions and an unofficial Chinese ban on Australian coal.