Verdant Earth Technology lodges scoping report to reopen Redbank Power Station as a biomass generator

Environment and conservation groups have vowed to wage a relentless campaign against the project that would consume about 850,000 tonnes of waste wood to produce energy.

But Verdant insists that, if approved, the plant would use sustainably sourced waste wood residues and become Australia's third largest 100 per cent green baseload power generator.

Verdant Earth Technologies chief executive Richard Poole told the Newcastle Herald last year that several "high net worth Australian families" had recently invested $80million in the company's biomass strategy.

Redbank opened as a coal-fired generator in 2001 and closed in 2014 after the collapse of owner Babcock and Brown.

The NSW Land and Environment Court last year rejected the company's appeal of Singleton Council's deemed refusal of the project.

The court ruled that changing the fuel used at Redbank from coal to wood was not permissible under the existing approval.

Mr Poole said Verdant had plans to establish more biomass generators in Australia in the near future.

"I think the idea of modern bioenergy and the idea that we can eventually grow our own (biomass) is a phenomenal solution and putting green hydrogen behind 24 generators is a significant uptick in terms of what we're planning," he said.

"I really like what we are trying to do and I hope we can do more of it."

Verdant's scoping report says the biomass material would be sourced from approved land clearings.

"The objective of the fuel replacement strategy is to transition the plant to using approximately a mix of native and plantation forestry residues, sawmill residues and uncontaminated wood wastes," the documents say.

"Forest residues will be sourced from forestry operations in private and public native forests, including hardwood and softwood plantations... from approved land clearing, bushfire hazard reduction and other

development, or disaster related activities."

The NSW Nature Conservation Council said the proposal, if approved, would trigger the logging of thousands of hectares of our native forests each year and drive up deforestation rates around the state.

"Redbank will provide a market for pulp logs - small and "defective" trees unsuitable for sawlogs. These would otherwise would not be logged, but will instead be harvested, wood chipped and burnt for biofuel providing incentive to clear everything in the forest," it said.

"This will worsen the impacts of logging and the consequences for biodiversity. A lot of this material will be sourced from highly unregulated private native forestry.

"The negative impacts on biodiversity will be massive. Logging and chipping to fuel the power station will pillage forests on the north and south coasts within a 400km radius of the power station. It will trigger the logging of thousands of hectares of our native forests each year. It would be an absolute disaster for nature."

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