Coal fired power is under enormous pressure, but where is the power storage capacity in the Australian grid to provide reliable power without baseload energy

Although both decisions are important, neither were unexpected.

Plenty of NSW mines have been approved despite the same sort of site-specific environmental impacts claimed against Bylong, but the addition of Scope 3 greenhouse gas emissions to the approvals equation is proving an enormous hurdle to overcome.

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KEPCO is part-owned by the South Korean government and would have used the coal in its Korean power stations.

Its opponents say the High Court refusal is the end of the road for Bylong, and 12 years after the company assumed control of the leases, they may well be correct.

AGL's tweaked closure date for Bayswater was announced at the company's half-year results presentation, and follows last year's decision to put its problematic power stations into a new company, Accel, which will list separately on the stock exchange in the coming months.

The target has also moved on its Loy Yang A brown coal station in Victoria, from 2048 in to 2045.

On one hand, it is obvious that no-one can guarantee what will happen a decade or two from now, and so the eventual lives of both stations may differ from yesterday's announcement.

On the other, the obstacles facing coal-fired power stations, and the coal industry in general, are becoming increasingly difficult to surmount, as Bylong indicates.

The Newcastle Herald has no doubt about the power generating capacity of solar farms and wind turbines.

Their ability - along with rooftop solar - to provide much of our daytime power needs, makes it harder for baseload power stations to compete, financially, in the existing power market.

Greenpeace criticised AGL's new closure dates as a token gesture, citing "majority" public support to get out of coal as soon as possible.

The problem, as we feel compelled to repeat, is a startling lack of energy storage, for the half of our lives that the sun does not shine.

If baseload stations are to shut as planned then we have a lot of batteries to install, and pumped hydro dams to fill.

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