Liquid electricity continues to flow
March 2nd, 2010 by Robert Merkel | Published in Climate change, Energy, Policy, Trade, Victoria | 56 Comments
It seems that Victoria’s aluminium smelters will continue to operate into the never-never:
THE biggest consumer of Victoria’s brown-coal-fired electricity is to continue operating for decades after the surprise announcement of a long-term power deal for Alcoa’s controversial aluminium smelters.
Unions were celebrating and environmentalists reeling last night with the news that aluminium giant Alcoa, Victoria’s biggest exporter, had signed electricity contracts with generator Loy Yang Power for the smelters at Portland and Point Henry, near Geelong, until 2036. The existing power contracts expire in 2016 and 2014.
The Age‘s report also states that “Senior figures in the energy industry and government last night told The Age they found it hard to believe that Spring Street was not involved somehow in the latest deal.”
I could be horribly wrong, but I would have thought that the EITE provisions in the CPRS were going to insulate Alcoa from most of the extra costs at least until 2021 – with assistance equating to 94% of their extra costs in 2011, dropping to around 85% in 2021, even in 2021 the extra costs would be no more than 50 USD per tonne, in a market where aluminium sells for at least $2000 per tonne.
But, beyond 2021, it’s very hard to see how agreement could be reached. There are far too many uncertainties in the global energy and carbon market.
Unless, of course, at least one of the state or federal governments have indeed offered to bear some of that risk. Or, perhaps, the two companies are betting that future governments will simply capitulate when they squeal “we’re unviable – help us” in a decade’s time.
Ecocide par excellence.
I enjoyed this from Wiki: “Alcoa was named one of the top three most sustainable corporations in the world at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.”
It should bne astonishing news, except that it was utterly predictable. even sadder is the fact that the only protest will be from a handful of “extreme environmentalists”.
What I don’t get is how this can be OK with a public that by and large objects to nuclear power.
The Age says that the 2 smelters account for 15% of the state’s power consumption and that the deal saved Loy Yang [the most efficient brown coal power station] from decommissioning. The journalist unquestioningly reworded a Press Release.
Why would you decommission the most efficiently running brown coal power station when there is growing demand, insufficient alternate electricity generating capacity and no political will to reduce carbon emmissions.
Although the smelters consume 15% of energy they use much more energy because of the energy lost in transmission. The Portland smelter is close to the South Australian border over 500km from the power plants in the La Trobe Valley. About a third of the electricity generated in the La Trobe Valley is lost in transmission to Melbourne a distance of 100km.
An electrical engineer or linesman will be able to tell you what percentage of the states electricity is generated to service Alcoa. As Australia is a high cost processor does the state government balance the cost of providing electricity at below market value against the operational jobs in Portland and Geelong.
Oops forgot that the privatised company is in business to make a profit not add to the social good.
Kuke, surprisingly Alcoa has done a lot of research into revegetating its mine sites. It can rehabilitate to farmland but it can’t rebuild native forest.
HAHAHAHAHA! Lets hear Labor Outsider defend this one.
Is there anyone left who believes climate change is taken seriously by our leaders?
Congealed electricity, not liquid.
“What I don’t get is how this can be OK with a public that by and large objects to nuclear power”
A switch, indeed, seems relatively sensible.
Billie, I’m pretty sure transmission and distribution losses are well under 10%. You got stats to back that claim up?
“Is there anyone left who believes climate change is taken seriously by our leaders?”
As a point of difference from the other party , as a way to rally your support and get activists out campaigning for you but once the chinese meal is set in front of the factional bosses the ALP must respect the unions and their need for secure employment for their members.
Rudd promised to be a mold breaker but that looks increasingly unlikely.
Turnbull was genuine about the need for an ETS but apart from him the current Liberal party bosses aren’t leaders in any area of political thought or action.
Opposing for the sake of it isn’t a stategy – it’s an admission that their policy “bank” is empty.
No Robert I don’t have statistics, I do remember hearing a CSIRO boffin type whose research area it was many years ago and frankly I don’t think the technology hasn’t progressed much since I heard it. The loss was due to the resistance in the copper wires so unless they modulate the frequency of the electrons [I'm guessing here] the basic physics hasn’t changed.
Its not my area of expertise is it yours?
We still try to site electricity generating plants close to the population centres that use them
No, it’s not my field of expertise, but I’ve picked up the odd factoid here and there.
As a rough estimate, try the CIA.
Australia generated around 240 billion kilowatt hours of electricity in 2007, and consumed 222.
That works out to transmission and distribution losses of around 8%.
The transmission line to the Portland smelter is probably quite efficient because it’s very high voltage, though it would have cost a lot to build.
Perhaps of relevance to this thread is the news of the hefty rise in earnings of Hong Kong-owned Truenergy which runs the Yallourn brown coal-fired power station. Truenergy is an outspoken critic of the Australian ETS, and is at odds with rivals AGL and Origin Energy, who say a carbon price is needed to bring about greater certainty in the industry.
http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/business/carbon-scheme-critic-profits-up-20100228-pb45.html
As soon as you click the link, an audio immediately starts up, and it is worth listening to for some extra information. Also of interest is the smarmy and snarky rhetoric that the 2UE announcers use when they mention climate change.
Thanks Robert.
Silkworm has got to the nub of the foreign ownership problem. The water rights campaigners in Montana discovered that when the boardroom is not in the catchment and the board members are not effected by the results of their decisions they act to maximise their profit. Why should we expect a Chinese company to worry about Australia’s carbon emmissions or Australia’s environment. If we want to protect our environment then we have to legislate the activities of the organisations operating here.
So TruEnergy wants to hold Victoria to ransom like Enron ransomed California. We should just nationalise the power generating plants! We built em, sold em, you have your profit now go away!
TruEnergy were also the nobblers of the SolarSystems 154 Mw utility scale solar installation. They signed a $290 million agreement, came good with $40 mill (for a 20% stake) then pulled the rug out so the project folded. Which flies in the face of their repeated bleating “to preserve our balance sheet is very important if we are going to be investing in new generation”: their balnce sheet is being preserved alright, but where’ the investing in the new generation?
They’re going the gas route, surprise surprise with all the NG deposit lifting off the investment runway: natural gas is the new, cleaner, coal.
Richard McIndoe, the truenergy MD, was on Inside buisness a few weeks ago and coughed the numbers for conversion of the power stations to gas:
Billie & Robert
Page 16 of this introduction to the NEM;
“As electricity flows through the transmission and distribution networks, energy is lost due to electrical resistance, and the heating of conductors. The losses are equivalent to approximately 10 per cent of the total electricity transported between power stations and market customers.”
In the same way that the Japanese owned Eden Fibre Exports (to the rest of us it’s the chip mill) have had their spruiker all over ABC SE describing the conservation movement as liars with regard to the remnant Koala population in the Mumbulla state forest, which as I type is about to be logged to keep a foreign owned entity profitable.
Not much is worse than an arrogant incumbent, especially one that knows it is on the way out,whose endeavours at re-election see the environment as the first casualty.
What makes them the same is the total disregard for anything other than their own survival and in that the very weary and wary electorates in both states have the worst of worlds: no bloody choice between stupid and stupider.
NSW and Vic have never been closer, we’re both being done over by arrogant bum-holes.
Well said Robbo and it’s the same here in SA. Blatant pork barreling rolls over any sensible, sustainable plan for the future. Population and economic Growth trump public transport, affordable housing and quality of life every time.
Back on topic, Aluminium is an important metal and it’s lightness is going to become much more important in an energy constrained world. Australia also smelts aluminium at pretty much world’s best practice, which by no means is best possible practice but it does tend to support working at keeping an aluminium industry in Australia.
However, in a sustainable world there would be nowhere near the amount of new aluminium produced. Currently only 33% is recycled and since the metal was commercially manufactured in the 1880′s, about 25% or 175 million tonnes have been lost to unproductive use.
I would reduce our emissions by 40% by 2020, impose import restrictions on countries without similar cuts, impose strict recycling measures (esp refunds) and assist the aluminium industry by way of research into energy efficiency.
Me for President.
Salient Green, smelting aluminium with electricity produced using brown coal is not world’s best practice, no matter how efficient the plant itself is.
Agreed SG, the aluminium industry exists in its own capitalist bubble and the cold reality of a real ETS would bring some sense back into a world market. It is half hearted about recycling as reflected in the poor figures on returnable cans. The last occasion I bothered the payment of 90 cents a kilo was a huge disincentive on rates offered before the GFC (1.50 plus). It is a poor reflection on the industry that voluntary groups like scouts are faced with such disdain, particularly when smelting scrap aluminium consumes approximately one third the power required by raw bauxite. Three cheers for South Australia.
Makes you think that EPA’s and the Garret Veto may be appropriate for major contract extensions such as this one that has serious environmental implications. It also makes you wonder about Alcoa’s ability to scream foul when it went ahead well in full knowledge of the commercial risk that future governments may actually start acting to shut down brown coal.
Yes, John D, at the very least the EPA should do an environmental impact study before such a decision. But most of all that should be in the context of a strategy to phase out brown coal and all coal, for that matter. After a burst of rhetoric a few years ago, we just aren’t serious about climate change and it’s beginning to show quite unequivocally.
There was a segment about this on The World Today today.
Mark Wakeham from Environment Victoria:
Robert @ 19 I was refering specifically to the Aluminium industry’s efficiency but you are most welcome to the free bounce for the good point you make.
Pablo, the figures are even better than you mention. 2.8 kwh/kg of secondary metal from scrap compared with 45 kwh/kg metal from primary production and the CO2 produced from recycling is about 4% of that from primary production. This is the Consumer Society at work.
http://www.sustainablealuminum.org/pdf/publications/Recycle-FriendlyLMA06-06.pdf
Thanks for the understanding SG.
Within their little bubble the portland smelter is world’s best practice efficiency and emits few of those nasty PFCs that are potent greenhouse gases. And there is definitely a role for new (as well as recycled) aluminium in our future low carbon economy.
however, there’s no chance in hell we’ll be able to smelt with brown coal. This deal, which I struggle to believe had no government involvement, is entirely indicative of the Labor mindset in dealing with climate change.
It is par for the course for the aluminium industry in victoria though. We’ve been paying though the nose for decades.
Media advisor memo to John B for this week.
[Top secret email and will self destruct in 3 mins]
J should be making noises against Rudd and his health care plan and highlight what a terrific system of care Victoria already has. Practice look of surprise, while attending Green Energy Opening, when questions are asked about Alcoa/Loy Yang Power deal…”what?”, “who?”, “hands off approach” or similar should do.
‘Alcoa and Loy Yang Power employ more than 2500 people in Victoria’….
‘since the Cain government finalised a deal with Alcoa in the mid-1980s … the cost of subsidies could be more than $4.5 billion by the time the contracts expire in 2014 and 2016.’
$4,500,000,000 / 2,500 workers = $1,800,000 subsidy per worker over 30 years = $60,000 per worker per year. But first the taxpayers have to be taxed the 60k to hand over to the average Victorian coaluminium industry orc, so before tax it’ll be more like $200,000 of earnings needed to be worked by taxpayers so the Government can hand over the $60k to each of these environmental and economic rapists. Simplistic I know, but nonetheless indicative.
No wonder these filthy industries, and their fellow-travelling unions, are happy as pigs in muck with this lurk par excellence.
But if you think it’s bad here, spare a thouight for Iceland, Alcoa uses 50% of the nation’s power, what Alcoa says there, goes. Just like here, only more so.
Sounds like Tasmania and Gunns.
At least the electricity in Iceland is coming from non-emitting (geothermal) sources.
They get up to similar tricks in New Zealand.
http://www.stuff.co.nz/business/31457
(NB: Couldn’t embed link. Text disappeared .. odd)
Salient Green@43: On your figure of 45kWh/kg a $40/tonne CO2 would add about $900/tonne to the cost of producing aluminum using brown coal power. (About $800/tonne for black coal power and $250/tonne for combined cycle gas.)
The actual increase would, of course, be much lower if the system used to determine price did not depend on “putting a price on carbon”. If the increase simply reflected the increase in the average cost of production the price would ramp up slowly as the proportion of clean electricity in the mix increases. Even in this case a point will be reached when an increase in the already outrageous Portland subsidy would need to be increased to avoid the production being moved off-shore.
R.M.@28.
I’m not sure that Gunns need much electricity at the mo’ because the Japanese do not want their wood chips. Indeed, investors are cashing in their chips, as well.
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/gunns-under-fire-over-first-half-profit-plunge/story-e6frg8zx-1225834047101
Joe2: I meant it in terms in terms of the unhealthy influence one company has on governance in a small jurisdiction.
Robert Merkel @28: “At least the electricity in Iceland is coming from non-emitting (geothermal) sources.”
Perhaps Alcoa should consider moving their smelter next to our own geothermal source (hot rocks)?
Alternatively (and more achievably in the short term), perhaps they should contribute to building a CCGT (Combined Cycle Gas Turbine) plant nearby in Geelong, with the low grade steam available to other local industries?
Elise, because a) power from Loy Yang is significantly cheaper, and b) if Loy Yang shuts more jobs are lost in the Latrobe Valley (gas-fired power stations require bugger-all staff to run). That’s inevitable in the long run, but that doesn’t make it any less painful for the workers there.
Hence, the government, and the company would like to keep the status quo, and bugger the wider interests of the planet.
@29 Ahh yes, New Zealand, that place where our brown coal cheese comes from.
“Eight of Fonterra’s milk processing plants burn approximately 450,000 tonnes of brown coal per year. These emissions are exempt from an emissions trading scheme until 2015 and agricultural greenhouse gas emitters in New Zealand currently receive a $1.1 billion subsidy from taxpayers.”
http://sl.farmonline.com.au/news/state/dairy/general/climate-activists-shut-down-coal-mine-in-protest-against-fonterra/1685027.aspx?storypage=0
http://www.odt.co.nz/the-regions/southland/82319/greenpeace-protest-gore039s-new-vale-mine
WHOOPS: I stuffed up @30. Comments should read:
Salient Green@43: On your figure of 45kWh/kg a $40/tonne CO2 carbon price would add about $2300/tonne to the cost of producing aluminum using brown coal power. (About $1800/tonne for black coal power and $570/tonne for combined cycle gas.)
The actual increase would, of course, be much lower if the system used to determine price did not depend on “putting a price on carbon”. If the increase simply reflected the increase in the average cost of production, the price would ramp up slowly as the proportion of clean electricity in the mix increases. Even in this case it would not take much time before a point would be reached when an increase in the already outrageous Portland subsidy would need to be increased to avoid the production being moved off-shore. ($40/tonne CO2 appears to be the MRET credit price needed to spur wind farm builders into investing.)
Robert Merkel @34: “b) if Loy Yang shuts more jobs are lost in the Latrobe Valley (gas-fired power stations require bugger-all staff to run). That’s inevitable in the long run, but that doesn’t make it any less painful for the workers there.”
Perhaps it is not that inevitable? Perhaps the government just has to think about the problem more broadly?
For example, CCGT is best justified in a industrial park with other light industry in proximity. This light industry may well employ MORE workers than would be lost by converting Loy Yang to gas?
The Victorian government could think of offering incentives to small businesses to set up operations in the industrial park and employ a local workforce?
we do run out of gas eventually.
About 32 years is I think the best current estimate.
Wilful @38, Yep! Totally agree. We will run out of gas. No question.
It only buys us 2 or 3 decades to make the transition to something more sustainable.
However, we are a short-sighted lot (especially our former PM), and we have not prepared anything else which is operationally ready for the immediate future.
If not gas, then what are we going to use?
If we are similarly short-sighted with gas, then you would have to say about our planning skills: “unprepared once was careless and unfortunate, but twice is downright negligent…”
The Loy Yang story does not fill me with huge amounts of confidence, despite knowing that we have the technical and financial ability to make changes. Tragedy of the commons, over and over and over again…
Elise: “Perhaps Alcoa should consider moving their smelter next to our own geothermal source (hot rocks)?”
Sorry, too late, it’s all spoken for: Mar’n Fer’s'n quietly pulled off one of the more audacious bits of nose-thumbing to environmentalists everywhere when he decided most (153/235 mill)of the Renewable Energy Demontration Projects (REDP) money should be spent on delivering whatever geothermal-sourced energy to uranium mines: Geodynamics plans to sell to Olympic Dam, and Petratherm ( with op. cit. china-owned brown coal based lovelies, TruEnergy, as partners) flogging theirs to the Beverley mine,
( That’s a particularly nasty operation which Garrett gave the OK for expansion to, what with it being in situ acid leeching based, as in use explosives to fracture rock to bring groundwater, and dump scads of sulphuric acid into said groundwater. Whatever trials Garrett has been going through, he deserves every bit of rough treatement for that decision alone. IMO. )
So there you go, Mar’n's cynical triumph is to deliver most of renewables development money to service uranium mining operations. Neat huh.
John D that’s an enormous cost to bear when the world Aluminium price is around $2250 AUD.
Danny @40: “Mar’n’s cynical triumph is to deliver most of renewables development money to service uranium mining operations. Neat huh.”
The man is a disappointment, for sure. Not exactly a beacon of light and wisdom in a mad, crazy world.
The best thing that could be said for the Geodynamics-Olympic Dam hookup is that it makes some geographical sense, and Olympic Dam would be a big potential customer.
Regarding in-situ acid leaching for uranium, you may be interested to know that it was already being studied at AMDEL Laboratories (Thebarton, Adelaide) back in the early 80′s, if my memory serves correctly. That was almost 3 decades ago, and when further uranium mining was definately a no-no. As I recall, AMDEL and the company involved had permission from the SA government to do the testwork confidentially. Secret squirrel and all that…
I was there doing some testwork for a mineral sands project (extraction of tantalite), and had several discussions with the researcher working on uranium leaching. He wasn’t totally comfortable with the potential for contamination of groundwater, but assumed it would be only applied in a remote location.
BTW, sorry about not replying to your post about BlueGen before the weekend. I had to pack as we were heading off for a long weekend in the bush. Agree that those stocks will have long-term buy potential.
I reckon BlueGen REALLY makes sense when we also have plug-in electric cars. These BlueGen units will be able to fully charge the cars overnight, and provide household electricity during the day (or export to the grid, if you also have solar PV and the sun is doing its thang…), and produces efficient household hot water as a byproduct. A whole pile of synergy there, wouldn’t you say! ;)
There might be a few years of “induction” for households and body corporates to take hold of the technology. However, like BluRay players a few years back, I reckon it is a technology whose time is just arriving. How exciting can life be?!! :)
Robert @ 34:
Government is quite happy to sit back and watch manufacturing get devastated (as Australia morphs into a quarry) but if a few hundred coal shoveling jobs are at risk they’ll sign up for 25 years of environmental vandalism.
Its outrageous, and completely indefensible on every level.
@carbonsink:
A contributing factor is that these folks ‘shovelling coal’ still wield immense industrial power given that they effectively control the output of a non-optional station (hell, virtually all coal fired stations in Victoria are non-optional), and simply won’t pack up and go home quietly after having been coddled in a protected industry and ‘closed shop’ for the last 2-3 generations in many cases. Any government signing off on that deal would be in for one hell of a public backlash when Joe Average discovers that a handful of militant unionists have the ability to turn out their lights and prevent them from watching Neighbours until their demands are met. Historically these folks have thumbed their nose at the supreme court and got away with it, so putting the brakes on a trendy political issue is unlikely to cause them much of a problem.
Parx @44, so you say we are trapped?
What if the government and Joe Public decide they are tired of the monopoly power arrangment, and decide to make the coal-fired stations irrelevant?
How? By creating alternative generation capacity?
@ Elise:
Not trapped, just unlikely to encounter a government anytime soon with the balls to willingly enter this minefield.
Not that it’s government’s fault entirely, since a government is no more than a reflection of the people, the courageous government with an eye on the future will never receive many votes in the first place, so if you believe not enough is being done in this area – observe the apathy of those around you when it comes to this subject.. Your relatives, your workmates, your friends, your neighbours.. even uni students as they quietly enjoy the comfortable status quo and collectively say ‘Meh..’ These people are the root cause preventing change – governments are just an easy target for the lazy.
Lots of extremely well paid Latrobe Valley trade unionists are positively counting on human nature to remain true to form..
When was the last time anyone else had a job where they could negotiate their own Christmas bonus? lol
Danny@40: There is no shortage of hot rock geothermal power in SA. It is more likely to develop and convince people that it is a reliable source of power if it is serving large markets like Olympic Dam.
John D: “There is no shortage of hot rock geothermal power in SA.”
There may be no shortage of hot rocks in SA, John D, but there is an extreme shortage hot rock geothermal power there. In fact there is none of it at all.
Possibly a pedantic distinction in the context of the remark (a pedant? moi?), but I do think that in a thread railing about the evils of Loy Yang realism on what might replace it and when is essential. There are too many blithe assumptions of technological progress providing sure future answers in this sort of debate – and there are plenty of problems currently being encountered by the geothermal companies in SA with no guarantees of commercially viable solutions.
With regards to in-situ leaching, has any of this contaminated water gone anywhere near the actual biosphere?
RM: The go-to guy for uranium mining hydrogeology is Gavin Mudd:
From what I can gather, salient (ahem) points are: the company hasn’t done much work on how the ore bearing deposit aquifer connects to other aquifers beyond it’s immediate lease area, it’s an unknown; US homeland comapanies aren’t allowed to use acid ISL, Beverley was the first in the west to be allowed to go that low in environmental maltreatment, and there’s more to follow (Honeymoon); ‘excursions’ and accidents do happen. Basically they couldn’t give a toss about polluting a groundwater resource, even though there’s good reason to expect it might be needed in the future for servicing the “actual biosphere” as you put it.
Parx @ 44: If the Victorians shut down the smelters 25% of their electricity requirements would vanish overnight. Then build gas-fired stations to cover the remaining 75% and shut down La Trobe.
None of this will ever happen of course.
You are 100% correct that the root cause of the problem is indifference from the populous. The vast majority of people simply don’t care, and that majority is clearly getting bigger in recent months. Humanity is not equipped to solve this problem.
Richard McIndoe from Truenergy speaks with forked tongue: on the Inside Business program a few weeks ago he said teh 450 Mw gas-fired station near wollongong cost 700-750 mill to build. Elsewhere he says it cost $430 million.
These guys couldn;t lie straight in bed, cos they’re worried s’less whether they are gonna get away with loading their debts ( which they accumulated with bad business decisions, expanding their coal exposure) onto the cost of new plant. In their parlance they can’t invest in new, more environmentally responsible, plant unless they have a healthy balance sheet. IE, “We demand the right to send good money after bad”.
How about we just take them out of the equation, let them and their chinese masters swing with their debts, and new players take up the challenge with a clean slate.
Players financed by super funds, who are said to have over a trillion dollars in management.
At the mid-cost point of McIndoes various cost reports for Tallawarra, (430-750 mill), say 600 mill for a 450mW plant, Yallourn can be replaced with less than 2 billion. The entire latrobe brown coal fleet is 6000 Mw, so a mere 10 billion will see all that off to the scrap heap, and provide some extra capacity besides.
That’s only 1% of the national superannuation kitty. And that nice Mr. McIndoe informs us that a 20 increase in the cost of electricity will cover the running cost difference, which I feel sure a large percent of the popultation, with super, would reckon is an eminently do-able imposte. Their household power bills will probably still be less than that of their mobile phones.
So when you say the problem is indifference on the part of the poplulous (sic), that can be true and still have a (significant, partial, temporary) solution coming a minor portion of the populace’s resources, a few percent of the superannuation aggregate.
And don’t tell me the money invested will be wasted, non-productive. The drover’s dog could build a healthy business selling greenish energy to Victorians, including those nice people at Alcoa.
The likes of McIndoe just don’t want to, and are being allowed not to.
The problem here isn’t aluminium smelting. Aluminium is such a useful, important metal, and its use is not going away. The fact is you need to put electrical energy in to turn alumina into aluminium. If you could find a better way to do it, it would probably mean an overnight Nobel prize.
Sure, by all means, let’s encourage aluminium recycling, but the need for new aluminium isn’t going to go away. The problem here is brown coal fired power stations, not aluminium. We need to substitute the coal-fired generators for clean energy.
@Danny, 50: Gavin Mudd seems to be the go-to guy for conclusions that seem to be biased towards opposing any form of uranium mining wherever possible. Are there other experts and other independent scientists out there providing a separate body of research on similar issues that come to similar conclusions to Mudd?
Putting 18 tonnes of sulfuric acid into 7000 tonnes of water is indeed a very small change in pH. And contrary to what Mudd implies, that lixiviant is continuously being recycled through the injection wells.
It’s not true that in-situ leach extraction with an acid solution is not allowed in the US – it’s just that they normally use an alkali solution because that’s what’s better suited to their rock chemistry. More info in here somewhere.
Out there in the SA outback where the GeoDynamics and PetraTherm projects are, there aren’t many transmission lines and there aren’t many electricity users.
The mines such as Olympic Dam, Honeymoon and Beverley are some of the closest other developed areas.
There is a correlation in Australia between where those hot rock resources are and where uranium resources are – and that’s not a coincidence, since radioactivity makes that rock hot. They don’t want to build long transmission lines, and those mines are the closest consumers of electricity that they can connect up to to sell their energy.
Luke, nobody says we don’t need aluminium. However, we don’t need to burn brown coal to get the stuff.
Further to alternative power generation, here are some recent comments from Ceramic Fuel Cells Ltd (makers of BlueGen), about the large size of the future market for BlueGen, the need for feed-in tariffs, and their reactions to “competitors” Bloom (mentioned by Danny up-thread):
CSIRO predicts huge market for Distributed Generation.
The Australian Government research organisation, CSIRO, has released a detailed study of the value proposition for distributed energy in Australia.
The study estimates the value of wide-scale uptake of distributed energy in Australia could be worth as much as A$130 billion in today’s money by 2050.
Australian Academy of Science Calls for Fuel Cell Feed-in Tariff.
The Australian Academy of Science has released a report on ‘Australia’s Renewable Energy Future’.
The report includes a strong endorsement of the need to transform Australia’s energy system, and the role for highly efficient fuel cell generators.
The report recommends several options for encouraging the deployment of fuel cell products, including a national system of feed-in tariff rates for combined heat and power (CHP) domestic generation.
ACT Government – Electricity Feed-in Tariff Consultation.
The Australian Capital Territory (Canberra, for our overseas readers!) introduced a feed-in on 1 March 2009. The ACT Government is currently consulting on the possible expansion of the scheme.
Ceramic Fuel Cells has made a submission, calling for the scheme to be expanded to require electricity retailers to buy back power exported to the grid from small scale, low emission technologies like fuel cell generators, on a ‘1 for 1’ feed in tariff equal to the retail electricity price.
Ceramic Fuel Cells in the Media.
There has been a lot of PR recently about US company Bloom Energy. Bloom have been around for about 8 years (they used to be called Ion America) but have only recently come out of ‘stealth’ mode.
Bloom is also developing solid oxide fuel cell products, but for a different application and target market: Bloom is making large (100kW) units for commercial and industrial installations; we are focused on small generators (1-2kW) for residential markets. It is quite difficult to scale fuel cells up and down between these market segments. Fuel cells are a bit like batteries: they are best suited to certain sizes (eg a watch battery cannot be scaled up to power a car or vice versa).
We think it’s good news that Bloom has generated a lot of media attention. They can help educate the media, policy makers and the general public about fuel cells and the enormous benefits of distributed generation.
The full industry news release is available on their website http://www.cfcl.com.au
@ Robert: I couldn’t agree more.
@ Elise: Am I reading that correctly? They say that the grid should buy the electricity from the fuel cells, but only at the retail electricity price, not at an inflated tarrif?Normally I’m opposed to the idea of inflated feed-in tarrifs for solar photovoltaics, etc, but if they’re just paying for the electricity at 100% of the normal retail rate I can’t see any problem with that.