Good News & Bad News, page-10940

Hi Thesi...

FWIW it seems to me Renaissance has been ready to go since at least October last year [20/10/20 Energy Renaissance lithium-ion gigafactory breaks ground in Tomago, NSW]
... and that story hints at another reason the Hunter Valley a [major coal hub] may have been chosen...

“The Hunter region has all the right skills, natural resources, expertise and an abundance of solar energy for us to develop a successful battery manufacturing business,” said Mark Chilcote, Energy Renaissance (ER) Managing Director..”​

As coal is phased out there is potential coal workers ( a ‘resource’ drawn from generations of local people) will find work as the world transitions to green energy, so a lot of popular votes are behind this move as well as geographical logic?

As far as the geography goes , it was also considered strong in relation to green steel production;
see Grattan Institute Report of last May;

“..Using Australia’s plentiful wind and solar resources to make energy-intensive ‘green’ commodities could create tens of thousands of jobs in regions that currently employ tens of thousands of coal miners and other ‘carbon workers’ whose jobs are threatened by global efforts to tackle climate change by cutting greenhouse gas emissions.[ref]​

cheers