Its also very hard (and very expensive) to get new LNG terminals built. They’re about as popular as new nuclear power stations. Look at BHP’s attempts to build an LNG terminal in Malibu.

So for the forseeable future, localised peaks in gas production will continue to be a problem.

And the comment about gas hot water heaters was based around the assumption that piped gas was available.

Ok its unlikely to be a problem in Australia for a very long time, but its already a problem in North America (where US gas production has peaked and Canadian gas production is under pressure) and Europe (where North Sea gas production has peaked and Europe is hostage to Russian gas czars who have a nasty habit of turning off the tap).

a replacement with a gas system will be the cheapest alternative (and will have greenhouse emissions lower than solar-electric).

I think this is debatable, its certainly a close run thing. In my situation where there’s no piped gas and has to be trucked in, ample sun (28 degrees south) and 100% GreenPower then solar-electric wins hands down.

I think I understood the point of your post, but wanted to bring energy efficiency into discussion as a factor (clearly I think that’s important in policy… as these power stations have lives on the scale of decades).

You won’t get any argument from me on energy efficiency – the only arguments about energy efficiency we have on LP tend to be whether it should be mandated directly or “encouraged” through increased energy costs.

I was well overdue to be brought up-to-date on relative efficiencies.

Brown coal is certainly a poor fuel: so Victoria is “blessed” with huge quantities of a poor fuel.

I think I understood the point of your post, but wanted to bring energy efficiency into discussion as a factor (clearly I think that’s important in policy… as these power stations have lives on the scale of decades). Price fluctuations seem shorter term – ignoring the future carbon-pricing, whenever and however that arrives.

Cheerio

My questions: in the intevening 25-30 years, has gas-fired electricity generation become much more efficient?

Yes. The latest combined-cycle gas turbines achieve close to 60% thermal efficiency. Particularly when you throw in transmission losses and the like, however, it’s pretty hard to beat using the heat directly, though.

The greenhouse intensity of gas-fired power from the latest combined cycle turbines is roughly half that of black coal, and maybe a third of that of brown coal like Hazelwood.

The economics of coal and gas for baseload power in eastern Australia are pretty close right now – the point of the post is that gas is likely to get dearer, making gas-fired electricity dearer.

Latrobe Valley power unions, with some ‘green’ groups, opposed the planned Newport gas-fired power station, to be built near Footscray.

One of the arguments: “it is inefficient to pipe natural gas to Melbourne, burn it to produce electric power (losses in furnaces, losses in conversion, transmission losses in power lines etc.), to run domestic electric stoves & ovens & water heaters. Better to pipe the gas to homes directly, and use gas hot water systems, gas stoves.”

That seemed a convincing argument. After much delay & several Inquiries, Victoria got a small gas turbine plant in the Latrobe Valley (Jeeralang) and a smaller Newport power station.

My questions: in the intevening 25-30 years, has gas-fired electricity generation become much more efficient? or have domestic appliances become more efficient? is coal much worse for CO2 production than gas, per kilowatt-hour? or are the economics different at present?

cheerio