Appeal against Gina Rinehart's Alpha mine dismissed but project claimed 'unviable'

A conservationist case against the coalmine was dismissed in the supreme court on Friday on the grounds blocking it would have no effect on carbon emissions

Gina Rinehart's plan to dig an open cut coalmine in the Galilee basin is "unbankable and unviable", an analyst says, despite the dismissal of a supreme court appeal against it by conservationists.

A Queensland judge on Friday rejected a challenge to the Alpha mine, upholding an earlier land court ruling that while the mine's share of global carbon emissions was "both real and of concern", blocking it would have no effect as the world market would find coal elsewhere.