Clean Loy Yang costs huge

Herald Sun
Wednesday 27/8/2008 Page: 62

THE boss of one of Victoria's biggest power plants says it will be "very, very tough" for the state's brown coal-fired electricity generators to cut carbon output by 20 per cent by 2020 to meet Rudd Government targets. And he warns that the public will ultimately foot the $40 billion spend on Australia's energy sector needed to reduce carbon emissions in line with the target.

Ian Nethercote, head of the Loy Yang A power plant in the Latrobe Valley, said yesterday it would take at least 15 years for high-emission, brown coal-fired plants to transition into the new regulatory regime. "Some of the technologies required to meet the 20 per cent reduction targets by 2020 require a large change in the base plate that produces energy for Victoria and Australia," he said during a speech at the Victoria Resources Conference in Melbourne.

"Some of the technology is not there at the moment and I think it would take another five or seven years before it's at the commercial stage. "At that point, we know that a base plate plant takes around seven years to construct and become operational." Mr Nethercote estimated that it would cost $35 billion to install carbon-capture, sequestration and coal-drying technologies in Australia's existing brown coal-fired electricity assets.

He said a further $5 billion was needed to build new transmission networks connecting planned wind and solar energy sources to the national grid. "While the industry is embracing clean coal technology, the amount of money required is much, much greater than what we've already seen," he said. "It will be one that government have got to dig hard to put into - and that means that you and I as the general public are going to have to make a fair contribution to that as well. "It's not one that's going to be borne by a few."