Brown coal powers ahead - State to get $750 million plant

Age
Wednesday 2/7/2008 Page: 1

ONLY two days before Professor Ross Garnaut hands down his draft report designed to steer investment towards renewable energy, the Victorian Government will today announce the go-ahead for a $750 million brown coal power station. Energy Minister Peter Batchelor has signed off on the plant, to be built near the Loy Yang B power station in the Latrobe Valley. It is designed to contribute 400 megawatts to Victoria's capacity of about 8500 megawatts.

The project, a joint venture between Australian coal technology specialist HRL and Chinese power giant Harbin Power, has received $150 million in government funding. But Mr Batchelor has refused to reveal how much would be paid back to the state, saying the figure was "commercial in confidence." The plant is not expected to start operating until 2012-13. It was initially planned to be ready next year.

The State Government's green light has provoked anger from environmental groups, which have labelled the move "complete madness" that could compromise Victoria's target of reducing its emissions by 60% by 2050. On Friday, Professor Garnaut, the Federal Government's climate change adviser, will release his draft report on the economic impact of climate change on Australia.

The report, a precursor to his final assessment in September, which will provide recommendations for government, will set a clear policy direction for Australia to combat climate change, including ways to shift away from its reliance on "dirty" brown coal generators. Mr Batchelor said HRL's power station would be less emissions-intensive and use less water than conventional coal-fired power stations.

"The project uses a technique called integrated coal drying and gasification, which can reduce emissions of carbon dioxide from brown coal-fired power generation by 30%, and reduce water consumption by 50% compared to current best practice for brown coal power generation in the Latrobe Valley," he said.

But after those reductions, emissions will still be about as high as those generated by black coal. Mr Batchelor's spokesman said figures on how much carbon the plant would emit were not available. Environment Victoria chief executive Kelly O'Shanassy attacked the decision, saying a moratorium should be placed on so-called "clean coal" until the technology was proven.

"What's worse is that the investment that has gone into this could have gone into energy efficiency and renewables, which would reduce CO2, emissions as well as saving households and businesses money," she said. "If these coal-drying technologies are really believed in, then they should be retrofitted onto the existing power stations to reduce their emissions, not creating new power plants." Greenpeace energy campaigner Simon Roz said the move was a backwards step for Victoria.

"It seems that in this current day that it would be complete madness that any government would invest in coal-fired power," he said. "It shows we have a long way to go before governments take the issue of climate change seriously and grapple with the magnitude of the sorts of deep cuts in emissions we have to make."

Link www.hrl.com.au