Australia turns its coal shoulder - Alternatives are cooking with gas

Age
Thursday 20/11/2008 Page: 6

THE approach to emissions trading has virtually wiped coal off the table of options for new power stations in Australia, an official survey reveals. The Australian Bureau of Agricultural Resource Economics reports that of 29 power stations under construction or committed, only one will burn coal: a small, 416-megawatt station in Western Australia.

Australia generates three quarters of its electricity from coal, a dependence that has made it one of the world's biggest greenhouse gas emitters per head. But its power in future will be cooked on gas. The ABARE survey found 58% of the new capacity will be generated from burning gas, which emits only half as much greenhouse gas as black coal and a third as much as the brown coal used in Victoria.

Methane generated from coal seams is the second-biggest source of new power, accounting for 19% of new capacity, followed by wind with 11%. In Victoria, five power stations are under construction or committed, adding 1156 megawatts to the state's grid. Almost half that will come from the first stage of Origin Energy's 1000-megawatt gas plant at Mortlake, in the Western District.

Wind stations under construction in western Victoria at Waubra (near Ballarat), Crowlands (near Ararat) and Portland will add up to 466 megawatts to the grid, while AGL's Bogong hydro station will generate up to 140 megawatts. ABARE lists 16 other wind energy projects in Victoria at less advanced stages of planning. If all were built, they would generate more than 2000 megawatts on a windy day - more than the power stations in the Latrobe Valley.

Victoria has another 2000 megawatts of gas-fired stations in the pipeline but just one coal-fired plant - the 400-megawatt station in the Latrobe Valley to use HRL's new technology of drying and gasifying the coal before burning it, which promises to reduce emissions by 30%. It also includes Solar Systems' plan for a 154-megawatt solar thermal plant at Bridgewater, near Bendigo - now not expected to start until 2013 - and a 34-megawatt tidal power station planned by Tenax Energy for Port Phillip Heads.

Even in the rest of Australia, ABARE lists only five plans to generate electricity from coal. They include the path-breaking ZeroGen plan in central Queensland to build Australia's first power station using carbon capture and storage by 2012.

Global prospects for clean coal are becalmed. The Bush Administration pulled out of the FutureGen consortium in the US after project costs almost doubled, while Bloomberg reports that European Union plans to subsidise a dozen demonstration plants have stalled over funding.

Link www.abare.gov.au