Coal future at risk for Collie – but how will the backbone of the West Australian electricity grid be propped up? Checkout this great AEMO site for WA with real-time generation graphics. Wind so often contributes little.
Does the WA Govt think they can copy South Australia and shut down coal fired generators? Adelaide can draw on the cable link to Victoria and pull in coal fired electricity to prop up their grid when wind, solar, gas and diesel can not cope. But WA has no “cable to a Victoria”.
The WA Govt idea looks impractical to me without a large expansion of gas fired generators – which are not mentioned in the article. Minister Nahan should check NemWatch at times and see how the various States generators perform.
Comment emailed via his phone by Mr Mick Murray MP for Collie-Preston.
www.mickmurray.walabor.org.au/
Hi Warwick, Nahan forecast for the future must be poor if he thinks that a 1000mw can be removed from SW grid (after spending $350million on Refurbishing 40yr old Muja station) Coal by far the cheapest, gas prices will increase, wind farm expensive and solar sales tipped to slow as lower social economic group can not afford. Not sure of Nahan’s replacement plan but it might be like his budget – flawed!
Regards Mick Murray
There may be a bit of a panic about recent opinion polls showing a 6 point loss by the Barnett Government. Colin is so on the nose with voters due to his arrogance, it’s time the Liberals changed their leader now, or it could be a ‘shock’ loss like Howard’s.
Our gas power station in Broome works a treat compared to the old diesel units. It’s a pity it has to be trucked from the Pilbara.
I don’t know quite where to start with the Collie Basin imbroglio
1) the previous owner of about half of the deposit was reckless with both careless, short term high grading and industrial relations
2) sold at a large loss to an Indian group who seem to have mis-assessed the actual Reserve and then tried to renege on supplying to the State power station at the contract price in force at the time of sale
There is indeed a large medium-grade Reserve left suitable for power generation but it is deeper and uneconomic at the current State-controlled price
To my knowledge, the workforce in general still think that as long as they can see the power station “down the road”, they have a job, irrespective of economic productivity
Politicians and their bureaucratic minders are useless here
“He said there was more than 1000MW of unneeded capacity in the South West grid that would need to be removed in coming years and it was probable much of it would be coal-fired.”
When I was young and the world was sane, this was called a “competitive advantage”.
The next election in WA is scheduled for March 11, 2017.
Unless there is an exceptionally cool summer in SA the effects of inadequate backup will be evident.
Unfortunately politicians like to take ‘courageous’ decisions in the months leading up to the election to remind voters they are still alive.
Has the solar revolution finally reached W.A? It is very unlikely. It is probably just a W.A. Premier’s brain snap. Even after a decade of rampant growth in solar energy, the U.S. output still barely moves the power needle in the U.S. Solar poweroutput there merely equals the amount of electricity that the U.S. generates from burning natural gas captured from landfill. It is only slightly more meaningful than the 7.3 million Mwh that the U.S. gets from burning human waste strained out of the municipal sewer systems. Wind Turbines are no better and just as unreliable. A cable to Victoria seems unlikely.
With gas prices falling along with oil and Gorgon coming onstream, we should have plenty of relatively cheap gas in WA. The coal from Collie only has one customer, the power station.
When I last visited the Collie Coalfields there were two companies -Griffin Coal which operated an open cut mine and were trialing surface miners (which I believe is used by Fortescue for iron ore) and Western Collieries (now Premmier Coal) which was underground using continuous miners. I believe Griffin is now owned by an Indian Company which looked at exports but the coal is of low quality -meta-lignite with an AD moisture of 12-15%. Both were inefficient basically because they had too many unionised employees and poor quality staff being remote from coal mining areas in NSW and Qld., plus being relatively small operators. I understand that Premier Coal now produces about 5 Mtpa by open cut truck and shovel with a large overburden ratio. These days with automation underground can be more efficient with remotely operated longwalls. The days are coming when mines will be operated by robots and no one underground. Firstly, however, one has to get rid of unions and replace old style management who think in terms of industrial relations.
The Premier is good at brain snaps, the first gave him the nickname Colin ‘Canal’, an election he lost. The second was his ‘Captain’s Pick’ of James Price Point as a gas hub when there were better sites. This cost him a seat he expected to win, Kimberley. His latest may cost him Collie and another election.
He is behind in the polls, and deserves to lose, although the alternative is probably worse.