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2 Silicon Chip
Collie’s new coalburning power station
On Friday, 4th June 1999, Australia’s newest coal burning power station was formally
opened at Collie in Western Australia. When
all of the current issues are considered, it
should be the last of its kind. There is no excuse for building any more of these dinosaurs.
It matters not that Collie will be the cheapest
to operate of any coal-fired power station in
Western Australia, its capital cost means that
it should probably not have been built at all.
Its capacity is 300 megawatts, it cost $830
million, and it adds just 10% to WA’s grid. On those figures, it appears that
the Collie power station cost more than twice the price of equivalent power
stations in other states and a good deal more than the cost of a wind-power
generating facility.
As a basis of comparison, the average capital cost of recent coal-burning
power stations in other Australian states is around $1200 per kilowatt. The
cost of the wind-power facility at Crookwell (featured in our January 1999
issue) was around $2000 per kilowatt). However, a wind-power station burns
no coal or any other fuel.
In any case, you would think that a better option for a new thermal power
station in Western Australia would have been a gas-fired system. These days,
gas-fired combined-cycle power stations are capable of thermal efficiencies
as high as 60%, they have benign combustion products, particularly when
compared to coal-fired stations and they leave no huge scar on the landscape,
in the form of an open cut mine, ash dumps or cooling towers. And this is
without a mention of greenhouse gas emissions.
I am also of the opinion that the cost of coal extracted from open-cut mines
does not take into account the cost of reinstatement of the environment once
mining has stopped. In fact, when you think about it, it’s difficult to see how
environmentalists would let any new open-cut coal mine start operation.
Mind you, with the low export prices being obtained for Australia’s coal
these days, the trend to close rather than start mines will continue.
But the most obvious power station option for Western Australia is not
a gas-fired one but one based on solar panels. Maybe 10 years ago such an
option was not viable but with the advances in solar technology which are
forecast for the next five years or so, any future large power station project
must seriously consider the solar option. Australia can certainly make the
vast number of panels which would be required and I have no doubt we
could also make all the inverter and control gear required.
In fact, if governments seriously took up the solar option we could become
a world leader in this technology. Let’s do it.
Leo Simpson
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