Australia is home to one of the dirtiest power plants in the world: 40-year-old Hazelwood power station in Latrobe Valley, Victoria, spews out an astonishing 1.58 million tons of CO2 every month.

Yet deliberations are currently being held to decide whether to extend the life of Australia’s most polluting power station to 2031. Hazelwood would be allowed to keep polluting for another 22 years, as decommissioning was planned for 2009.

WWF analysis has revealed that Hazelwood is the dirtiest plant of its scale on a list of power stations operating in leading industrialised countries. It produces more CO2 per unit of electricity than the dirtiest plants in countries like the United States, Germany, Canada, the United Kingdom and Japan.

In many ways Australia can be regarded as a modern country that plays a leading role among industrialised nations but not when it comes to electricity generation,� says Australian PowerSwitch! campaigner Anna Reynolds.

Hazelwood - built in 1964 using technology from the 1950s � is a perfect example. Despite a $ 500 million upgrade over the past eight years, climate pollution from the plant increased by 2.7% between 1998 and 2004.

But the Victorian government still has not ruled out that more CO2 will be pouring out of Hazelwood’s dirty smokestacks. A lifetime extension of 22 years would cause additional pollution of about 340 million tons of CO2 - the equivalent of putting an extra eight million new cars on the road.

This stands in sharp contrast to the government’s intention to reduce Victoria�s greenhouse gas emissions by up to 8.3 megatons a year by 2012.

Victoria’s 5-star energy efficient homes standard is expected to save 200,000 tonnes of greenhouse gasses per annum within five years. Just five days of Hazelwood’s operations would cancel that benefit, says Anna Reynolds.

According to WWF research, Australia’s future energy can be met from cleaner energy sources already available and reductions in demand rather than increases in highly polluting sources such as brown coal. The PowerSwitch! from coal to clean is possible.

Today Australia is one of the most coal-dependent countries on Earth, after Poland and South Africa. 78 per cent of Australia’s electricity is generated in coal-fired power stations like Hazelwood, producing tons of CO2 emissions every minute.

CO2 is building up in the atmosphere, causing a dramatic increase in the Earth’s temperature. This greenhouse gas pollution from coal power stations is driving global warming, says Anna Reynolds.

Climate Action Network Australia, a WWF partner organisation, has set up an action to urge Steve Bracks, Premier of Victoria, to decide against the Hazelwood extension.

PowerSwitch! activists are asked to support the fight for a switch from coal to clean in Victoria and send a fax to Premier Bracks.

Original press release: No extension for one of the world�s biggest polluters! (WWF)