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Sources

Where is this information from?

The data in the Coal Impacts Index is collated from a number of sources, including government reports and tracking, corporate databases, research reports and self-reported data from power stations. If you see something at a coal power station in your community, tell us about it

Carbon emissions 

Annual carbon dioxide emissions data is sourced from the Clean Energy Regulator National Greenhouse and Energy Reporting (NGER)Annual emissions for each station are released annually by financial year. The Index collates Scope One emissions released directly from the coal power stations. 

Tarong and Tarong North Coal Power Stations are recorded as Tarong Power Stations. To provide emissions data for each station, the total emissions for both stations is divided by each station’s percentage of generation. 

Monthly emissions data from July 2019 is derived from AEMO electricity generation data and facility-level average emissions factors for 2017-19 NGER reporting periods.

Toxic pollutants

Coal Power Stations are required to provide their own data on toxic pollutants which they provide to the Government annually. This data is called the National Pollutant Inventory. While it is far from perfect, the NPI is Australia’s most comprehensive repository of information about toxic pollution. Each year, polluters are obliged to report estimates of their emissions to air, land and water. The Index tracks the air point pollution though due to rounding some of the numbers will differ marginally between the Coal Impacts Index and the NPI website. 

Information about the impacts from the seven toxic pollutants we track in the Index are taken from the NPI website:

Breakdowns

Data for breakdowns is taken from The Australia Institute’s Gas and Coal Watch. Breakdowns are unscheduled events where the power generated by a unit of a power station unexpectedly drops significantly (recorded as a ‘decrease’ ) or drops to zero (recorded as a ‘unit trip’).

Licence breaches

Licence breaches are collated from a number of sources. In New South Wales and Victoria, coal power stations declare breaches of their licences to the Environmental Protection Agency in their state. Non-compliances, penalty notices and enforceable undertakings data are from these reports as well as EPA media releases. Queensland does not release reports on breaches at coal power stations in the same way. Breaches in Queensland have been sourced through analysis of corporate Annual Reports from the corporations that own the coal power stations.

Some breach incidents happened on multiple occasions, or the incident breached more than one licence condition. In these cases, this will be clearly stated in the breach description but will appear as one post in the Index.

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