'Lying awake at 3am': job uncertainty taking a toll on Myuna Colliery workers - Newcastle Herald

Myuna Colliery, a coal mine near Newcastle, faces an uncertain future as its workforce grapples with job insecurity. The article documents worker anxiety about employment prospects and the human cost of transition uncertainty, with staff describing the psychological toll of not knowing whether the mine will continue operating.

Where this fits

This is a live picture of the transition's execution problem. Energy Realism's core point is not that coal is clean or that Australia should burn more of it. Coal's case is closed on emissions. The issue here is pace and planning. Australia is closing coal plants and coal mines faster than it is building firm replacement capacity. That gap is being filled by gas, which is expensive and still carbon-emitting, and by weather-dependent renewables that require grid firming. The workers at Myuna are collateral damage not of coal's retirement, but of a transition strategy that has no firm alternative ready at scale.

What it means

Abrupt coal closure without planned firm replacement creates a false binary: keep coal, or leave the grid short. Australia is choosing a third path that is worst of both worlds: closing coal while building a renewables-heavy grid that still needs gas. That delays emissions reductions, keeps power expensive, and leaves workers in limbo. The honest energy security question is not whether to retire coal. It is whether to replace it with nuclear, which is firm, low-emission, and could have been licensed and built by now, or to keep the gas tap open indefinitely. The current policy bans the one and half-commits to the other, leaving places like Myuna caught between a dead industry and no plan.