Methane power more than GE hot air

Herald Sun
Wednesday 26/11/2008 Page: 61

POWER titan GE Energy is champing at the bit for Australia's carbon policy to crystallise and ignite investor confidence in its eco-technologies. Announcing the commissioning of a methane power plant at AngloCoal's Moranbah North coal mine in Queensland, GE Energy Australia manager Tim Rourke said yesterday he was looking forward to many more business opportunities when carbon trading began.

The potential to capture fugitive methane emissions from existing Australian coal mines could produce 500 megawatts of electricity, enough to power 600,000 homes, Mr Rourke said. Methane has 21 times the greenhouse warming potential of carbon dioxide. Also yesterday, International Energy Agency chief Nobuo Tanaka told a Queensland forum energy efficiency and renewable energy needed to deliver more than three quarters of the world's greenhouse gas cuts by 2030 if global warming was to be kept to a 2 degree Celsius temperature rise.

"On current trends, energy related emissions of CO2 and other greenhouse gases could push average global temperatures up by as much as 6 degrees in the long term," Mr Tanaka told the Clean Energy Council conference. The energy sector would have to play the central role in curbing emissions through improvements in efficiency and rapid switching to renewables and other low carbon technologies, he said.

Mr Rourke said the AngloCoal project represented "a bold effort to help Australia curtail its emissions". At 45.6 megawatts, and with a capacity to power 60,000 homes, the Moranbah North gas-to-electricity plant is the largest coal-mine generator GE Energy has fitted out in Australia.

It began operating seven weeks ahead of schedule and Energy Developments, which manages the gas plant, will be selling any power not used by the mine into the electricity grid. It uses hi-tech Austrian Jenbacher engines instead of traditional turbines, the supply of which struggles to meet current global demand. "As soon as CPRS (carbon pollution reduction scheme) and ETS (emissions trading) policies are spelt out, people will begin investing," Mr Rourke said. "Twenty dollars a (carbon) tonne would be a good start to stimulate investment." he added.