[Dooma]

Hazelwood coal-fired power station closure would aid shift to renewable energy.....

"News that French energy giant Engie is considering closing Hazelwood brown coal power station, one of the world's most-polluting power plants, provides an opportunity for government, industry and investors to engineer a smooth transition to renewable energy, clearly the future of electricity generation.

In recent days, Engie signalled it is looking at shutting down or selling the Hazelwood plant, as part of the partly French government-owned company's global shift from fossil fuels. Only weeks ago, the company bought a majority stake in US battery storage firm Green Charge Networks. Engie's chief executive predicts that as much as half of all electricity demand will be met by local generation, particularly solar panels.

Given there is a significant oversupply in the National Electricity Market (NEM), and in light of the international shift away from coal-fired power stations, it is unlikely Engie would find a buyer for the Hazelwood plant, which was built nearly 50 years ago. Recent advances in the battery storage technology are likely to accelerate the transition to renewable energy.

The Victorian government should welcome the prospect of the plant closing, and help make it happen. In its recent budget, the government pledged $40 million towards helping the Latrobe Valley economy evolve. The Hazelwood plant directly employs about 550 people, and has a further 300 contractors. Engie's signalling of the plant's end was unexpected; the state government will need to re-asses its strategy, and may need to increase its financial commitment to the local community. But the future can be bright. Renewable energy will create jobs, and there is no reason why battery storage technology, if well supported by investors, should not create employment in the Latrobe Valley.




There will be significant direct costs involved with closing Hazelwood power station, including site clean-up, and there is an argument that other coal-fired power generators should contribute to such costs, given that they would benefit from the plant's exit from the market.

Engie's deliberations follow by only a few weeks a decision by Alinta to shut down two coal power stations in South Australia because they couldn't compete with wind and solar power in the NEM. Developed nations are no longer building coal-fired power stations, and developing nations are increasingly moving away from them. Germany is close to generating all its power from renewable energy. Here in Australia, an orderly transition to renewable energy will require business confidence, which in turn requires consistent policies from governments.

The Age has long argued that a market-based price on carbon emissions is a crucial element of the right mix of disincentives and incentives for the necessary investment in renewable energy, and as the primary mechanism for reducing emissions in line with Australia's international commitment to the recent agreement in Paris.

The election in 2013 of the Coalition government led a sharp decline in investment in renewable technology, because then prime minister Tony Abbott and then treasurer Joe Hockey were seen to be in favour of the continuation of coal-fired power generation. That investment has started to return, and we would urge all major parties to maintain policies, including co-investment, to encourage the transition to renewable energy.

Central to this is a market-based price on carbon; the ALP has had the insight and courage to adopt it as policy, and we urge the Coalition to match that initiative. It is in the long-term interests of the nation and the planet."

[KaiserJeep]

Dooma, please fill in the blanks in your User Control Panel so that we know which country you are posting from, and how experienced you are with the topics we discuss here.

Your entire post appears to have been cut & pasted, but you gave no source description and provided no link to the original document, which gives us no basis for evaluating the material presented.

I take it that you are in Australia and that Australian dollars are the currency being discussed, but it should not be necessary to deduce these things from the context of your post.

I see you have posted 5 times in 10 months, but some of us are more obsessed with the topics we discuss. In any case, you are welcome here and we do appreciate any and all contributions to discussion.

[ROCKMAN]

And along those lines: the second largest single source of GHG in the US (a power plant in Texas just outside Houston) is having a 60 mile pipeline being built to an old conventional oil field. A combination of EOR and sequestration. Half of the plant burns even dirtier lignite. As pointed out before this project wasn't designed to eliminate coal burning but to extend for 100 years...the life of our huge lignite deposits. And while the plants gets half of its fuel from NG eventually as its price is certain to increase the plant will burn even more coal.

The largest CO2 sequestration project ON THE PLANT is being built in Texas to INCREASE coal consumption. Combined with one of the largest wind power capacities in the world Texas has less to worry about its future electricity supply then most (if not all) the other states.

[ROCKMAN]

Ha! LIARS!!! Hazelwood might be the most inefficiency plant but not the biggest source of CO2. The WA Parish plant the Rockman rerferred to above produces almost 25% more CO2 then that Aussie plant.

We're #1! We're #1! Or not but at least we beat Hazelwood. LOL. Too bad they can't figure a way to sequester: the plant is said to have access to a 500 year supply of relatively cheap coal.

[vtsnowedin]

Meanwhile Germany builds new Lignite (dirty coal) power plants.

https://carboncounter.wordpress.com/201 ... l-burning/

https://notalotofpeopleknowthat.wordpre ... oal-plant/

Gas

Hummm? That seems to disagree with this in the original post.

Germany is close to generating all its power from renewable energy.

Somebodies got it wrong.

[dohboi]

Note that the first of G's sources is from a year ago and the second is just some random denialist dude's blog.

But, yeah, it's hard for one of the major industrial powers of the world to ditch both nukes (which they seem to be committed to doing) and coal at the same time instantly.

Here's a recent article on the subject:

http://www.energylivenews.com/2016/05/3 ... ill-leads/

German green power up but coal still leads

Renewable electricity generation in Germany increased to 194 billion kWh last year.

That represented around 31% of the nation’s gross power production

So nearly a third of all power production is from renewables! That's a pretty major achievement! And the accelerating upward trend is even more impressive:

renewable electricity growth in 2015 was the largest in both percentage (19%) and absolute terms (32 billion kWh) in at least a decade.

But:

Last year, 44% of Germany’s electricity was generated from coal, 11% from other fossil fuels and 15% from nuclear energy.

But with renewables on the increase, they should be able to supply half of their energy with them in just a few years.

[vtsnowedin]

But with renewables on the increase, they should be able to supply half of their energy with them in just a few years.

Not on a cold calm winter night they won't.

[dohboi]

Yeah, that's averaged over the year. I don't know if they are any further than others on energy storage technology.

Super-insulation would be a good idea for those cold winter nights. Even if you have to be in the dark, at least you're not 'freezing in the dark' then.

More on the situation with renewables here: https://robertscribbler.com/2016/06/02/ ... ment-81596

Renewables are Winning the Race Against Fossil Fuels — But Not Fast Enough

We have to reverse global warming urgently, if we still can. — Stephen Hawking

[ROCKMAN]

Actually fossil fuels won the race long ago. And it's still sitting in the winner's circle. LOL. Of course the renewables have now entered the contest and are starting to catch up. But they are still eating fossil fuel's dust. But who knows: by the time sea level rises another few feet (or yards) they'll make up 50% of the global energy output.

The race ain't over until the fat lady sings unless climate change kills her first.

[toolpush]

Ha! LIARS!!! Hazelwood might be the most inefficiency plant but not the biggest source of CO2. The WA Parish plant the Rockman rerferred to above produces almost 25% more CO2 then that Aussie plant.

We're #1! We're #1! Or not but at least we beat Hazelwood. LOL. Too bad they can't figure a way to sequester: the plant is said to have access to a 500 year supply of relatively cheap coal.

Rockman,

Hazelwood, is very close to the ESSO/BHP Bass Strait oil fields that are in steep decline. So a short under water CO2 pipeline could be feasible, but Hazelwood is old, and needs to be closed down. The Latrode Valley where all the brown coal lie and historically nearly all Victoria's electricity has been produced has numerous other coal burning power stations of a more modern design, The trouble is, we have two political parties, one is totally for re-newables, and the other is for keeping the status quo. So as the populous like to be swap these political party every 3 or 4 years, it becomes very hard for the energy companies, on either side of the fence to make any successfull long term investments.

[ROCKMAN]

Interesting pusher. Thank goodness Texas politics is dominated by Republicans who are so focused on reducing our GHG emissions.

I did get the sense that the Hazelwood closure was more about economics then "saving the planet". It's not the boys down under are given up on coal. Sounds like they will just build more coal burning plants that while more efficient will collectively produce more GHG then Hazelwood. But the headline does give the appearance of helping the planet. And after all appearences are more important then reality for many politicians.

[Dooma]

Sorry guys, the post came from the Australian ABC news web site ( www.abc.net.au/news/). This power station was supposed to be shut down at least a decade ago, yet was kept in commission due to the lack of new generators being built.

[ROCKMAN]

Thanks dooma. But that only emphasizes what Texas is achieving with its expensive sequestration project: extending the life of a more polluting power plant many decades into the future. And doing so using an equally abundant and relatively cheap coal reserve. And doing so with a significant amount of financial govt support. Similar to how Texas has become one of the biggest wind producers on the planet.

And again this hasn't happened because Texas politicians and our public give a crap about climate change. It was based in purely good business plans that coincidentally help the planet. That and to avoid fights with the federal govt over future production of GHG.

So the big question: doesn't the Aussie govt have the same motivation?

[kiwichick]

@ roc.....stuffing the only planet that we have a realistic chance of living on , doesn't seem like that good a business plan

[Dooma]

Thanks dooma. But that only emphasizes what Texas is achieving with its expensive sequestration project: extending the life of a more polluting power plant many decades into the future. And doing so using an equally abundant and relatively cheap coal reserve. And doing so with a significant amount of financial govt support. Similar to how Texas has become one of the biggest wind producers on the planet.

And again this hasn't happened because Texas politicians and our public give a crap about climate change. It was based in purely good business plans that coincidentally help the planet. That and to avoid fights with the federal govt over future production of GHG.

So the big question: doesn't the Aussie govt have the same motivation?

Well ROCKMAN. At the moment we have a right-winged government in power and in my opinion, they would much rather continue as BAU. It is only because the climate change theory has gained so much traction with the public that the government knew it would be political suicide to be seen as doing NOTHING for the environment. We are currently in the midst of a Federal election campaign on so there will be BS flying everywhere.

As one of the other posters pointed out, the area contains enough brown coal to last several lifetimes. Considering that the fuel is dirt-cheap, you can see how temping it is-financially-to keep burning it. If Hazelwood was not like grandpa's axe, it would make sense to convert it to a gas-fired plant. Still CO2 emitting of course but way better than it's current emissions.

Until global warming came on the scene, there were plans to build another coal-fired generator. Now the government cannot get private industry on board to build a new one and because we idiotically privatised everything and they (government) are not too keen to make the public pay for such substantial capex.

There have been several attempts by Japanese-backed companies to convert coal to oil but it proved to be costly (in the 80's) and now it would be seen as an environmental no-no.

As far as carbon sequestration is concerned, there has been talk about it but that is a far as it has gone. The private generators are not interested in footing the bill for something that may not work geographically in the region. Most stations are owned by Chinese companies who are quite happy to run all of the stations into the ground and spend as little as possible on maintenance. But hey, that is what you get when you privatise an industry.

It is unfortunate that the valley with all the coal and electrical infrastructure is not ideal for a solar or wind generation. IOW, not enough sunshine or wind throughout the year.

I truly believe that coal should not be burnt to generate electricity. We should have had in place some mitigation strategies well over a decade ago. I do feel for the people who will be losing their job in an area with disproportionately high unemployment but this is what happens during a transition.

It is just a shame that there will be no "green jobs" to replace the old ones...

[Smurfs1976]

Hazelwood is old, the 8 units entered service between 1964 and 1971 (one each year) but it still generates close to a quarter of all electricity used in the state of Victoria.

Other power stations nearby, Yallourn and the two Loy Yang stations collectively generate most of the state's power along with Hazelwood. They run base load 24/7 with peak generation from gas (which is a diminishing resource in Victoria) and hydro with some wind and distributed (mostly on house roofs) solar making up the rest.

Hazelwood was built by the former State Electricity Commission of Victoria (SECV, government owned) and privatised some years ago along with the coal mine that supplies it.

Despite its age, Hazelwood is still incredibly cheap to operate since the vast coal deposits cost practically nothing to mine (open cut) and are right next to the power station. Same with Yallourn and Loy Yang. The cost of mining and using that coal is only slightly higher than the cost of running water through an existing hydro station - it's incredibly cheap by any measure.

Historically, the brown coal stations and the SECV itself were established due to a number of supply cut-offs of black coal which was previously shipped in from interstate. The SECV was set up in 1918 and disbanded in the 1990's with the power stations and distribution systems sold off.

Power stations in the Latrobe Valley:

Yallourn A (75 MW, 1924 - 1968)

Yallourn B (100 MW, 1930 - 1971)

Yallourn C (106 MW, 1954 - 1984)

Yallourn D (100 MW, 1958 - 1986)

Yallourn E (240 MW, 1961 - 1989)

Morwell power station and briquette works (170 MW, 1958 - 2014)

Yallourn W (1450 MW, 1973 (first half) and 1981 (second half) to present)

Hazelwood (1600 MW, 1964 to present)

Loy Yang A (2000 MW, 1984 to present)

Loy Yang B (1000 MW, 1993 to present)

Capacities are nominal rating from the time of original construction. Some, most notably Loy Yang A, have been uprated since construction (Loy Yang A being a bit over 2200 MW now).

All fueled by brown coal from the Yallourn (Yallourn power stations - all of them), Morwell (Morwell and Hazelwood) and Loy Yang (Loy Yang A & B) mines. A much smaller mine also operated at Yallourn North and supplemented production from the main mine.

All these power stations burn raw brown coal with a moisture content of 60 - 70% and the boilers are physically huge, about 3 times the size of a comparably rated black coal-fired boiler, due to the low grade nature of the fuel. They're huge structures.

Due to that moisture, under the right weather conditions the visible water vapour coming out the chimney stacks is massive and exceeds that of the cooling towers. There's a lot of water going through those plants, it's chemically bonded within the coal, but it all works. Brown coal in most other parts of the world is comparatively much drier in most cases.

For the record, the Yallourn A - E stations were all one big power complex with the buildings physically joined together despite being 5 separate power stations as such. So that's a total of 38 boilers, 17 steam turbines and alternators and 5 power stations as such all as one big complex. In its heyday Yallourn alone supplied the majority of the state's power until the newer and larger stations came online.

Associated with the earlier days of Yallourn was a complete town built to house workers at the power stations but since demolished and swallowed up by expansion of the mine in the 1980's.

Historically the SECV always saw that increasing the use of brown coal was a priority in order to avoid the use of oil, gas or black coal. They did build some significant gas-fired generation in the 1970's amid a blaze of controversy (even environmentalists wanted coal in preference to gas at the time due to concerns about resource scarcity) but the aim was always to get brown coal to around 85% of total generation and the rest from gas / oil and hydro. That aim was later revised to 90% after the resource scarcity concerns of the 1970's so it could be fairly said that the SECV was more aware of peak oil than most.

As for how "dirty" Hazelwood is, well it emits a lot of CO2 but apart from that it's not too bad despite its age. The coal is naturally low in sulphur, 0.3%, and somewhere I've got a photo of the plant with 4 units online and 4 offline. So 4 of the 8 stacks are active and with blue sky in the background it's impossible to tell which are running and which aren't since there's nothing much visible coming out.

I'm in favour of shifting to renewables certainly but all things considered I'd rather keep Hazelwood and the others going until they become obsolete due to renewable development. Building a new coal station, or worse still gas, would be just silly if we're only going to use it for a few years.

Gas is worse? Well if you're getting the stuff from coal seams at the other end of the country then I wouldn't call that "clean". There's definitely methane leaks (versus virtually no methane leaks from brown coal since it doesn't have much gas in it to start with). Then there's the pipelines that would be needed. Then there's the huge cost with gas prices in eastern Australia having doubled in recent times (to the point of being 20 - 40 times the cost of brown coal - hence nobody's likely to want to convert a brown coal station to use gas).

PS - Wholesale market power prices have gone through the roof since the relatively small (540 MW) Northern power station in South Australia closed a few weeks ago. That being so, I'd hate to contemplate what would happen with prices if Hazelwood did shut anytime soon. Ultimately it has to go but we're not ready yet.

[ROCKMAN]

@ the kiwi: then you and the other direct producers of the vast majority of GHG should stop burning so much fossil fuel.

dooma - And that's the point I keep trying to beat into folks: if they keeping playing the bullshit business vs the enviroment vs public interest vs political interest game the world is going to lose.

No: Texas would not be one of global leaders in renewable energy nor would it be building the largest CO2 sequestration project on the planet if it were 100% dependent on private investors. Nor would it have happened if it were 100% dependent on the govt and tax payers. In Texas we've managed to get all the parties together for a common goal despite having very differrernt motivations. Trust me, I'm not kidding: the vast majority if our business leaders, citizens and politicians don't give a crap about climate change. Likewise our greenies don't give a crap about the business interests. But by some bizarre fluke of nature they are cooperating. Again with differrernt motives but a common goal.

The Aussies can shut down all the coal plants they want. But they will still burn more coal in the future then they have consumed so far. Anyone who doesn't believe that is a fool denying human nature IMHO. There are potential methods to lessen the impact but not if both sides keep fighting the zero tolerance game.

No insult intended but our kiwi cohort might be one of those greenies that might vehemently object to any govt support of the fossil fuel industry even if there were some net benefit to the environment. Or maybe she isn't.