Victoria
Given Victoria’s southern latitude, weak sun and “500 years of brown coal supplies,” the state should become Australia’s carbon capture and storage research and development center. If carbon capture and storage proves viable, it can be rolled out elsewhere.
Victoria is already moving ahead in this direction, investigating potential carbon sequestration locations in the Bass Strait. If these prove workable, existing coal-fired power plants could be confidently be replaced with clean coal technology, which would then have to compete with renewables on price. To date, however, carbon capture and storage has proven a technology marked by grandiose promises and missed deadlines.
If this technology were adopted without proof of viability, Australia could be saddled with three generations of coal industry subsidies.The first would fund construction, the second would fund 45 years of uncompetitive power generation and the third would fund the mess left over from backing the wrong horse. Given that proof of the viability of carbon capture and storage remains the better part of a decade away (see below), Australia should concentrate now on getting proven, cost effective renewables up and running to replace existing coal fired capacity already due for retirement. When 2015 and 2020 comes, the nation can take stock of carbon capture and storage and nuclear power. A referendum can then be held on nuclear power, perhaps followed by one on carbon capture and storage. Why not let the public decide?
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Carbon Capture and Storage is a technology
that won't even be ready until 2012-2015. Renewables are ready now |
Clearly, anything that reduces the dirtiness of Victorian power should
be applauded. Some of the world's dirtiest power plants are in Victoria. The state desperately needs
solutions.
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Victoria has the nation's dirtiest
coal-fired power plants |
Unfortunately, Victoria's choices are more limited than elsewhere for generating power in-state. To date, these choices have pretty much revolved around either clean coal or nuclear. Clean coal and carbon sequestration is controversial since no one is sure what geological hazards there are in long-term storage of carbon waste. For instance, the possibility of earthquakes in Victoria needs to be carefully monitored. To give an example, 13 people were killed in 1989 near Newcastle, New South Wales after pressures in a geologic fault were released by coal extraction and water pumping which changed the stress profile of the rock. These same hazards apply for nuclear. Given this, carbon capture and storage should be trialled in the state, but under highly controlled conditions.
Skeptics of carbon capture and storage are broadly spread. One of them is the former head of BHP, Paul Anderson, who remains on the company's board. He told the Sydney Morning Herald that if people are dubious about nuclear waste disposal underground, they'll be even more skeptical about the ability of gases to be stored there for long periods without escaping.
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| There is the potential for volcanic eruptions in Victoria |
Source: Sydney Morning Herald |
But that doesn't mean Victoria doesn't have options. In fact, it has several exciting ones.
Victoria has the the potential for geothermal power. A number of companies have signed up to prospect for the resource beneath Victoria. But at this point the resource has to be considered speculative. Better yet, northern Victoria is where Solar Systems is building a solar dish concentrating solar power plant. The company also is experimenting with hydrogen production using its technology, a path US researchers are also investigating. Potentially, new carbon capture-equipped brown coal power stations built inVictoria could pipe their carbon waste to places like Mildura where outfits like Solar Systems could transform it into transport fuel using concentrating solar power. These kinds of avenues are where the BHPs, Toyotas and Googles of the 21st Century will emerge.
If none of these work out, Victoria can always import power from New South Wales and South Australia, provided the infrastructure is in place for it to share in the solar, geothermal and, potentially, nuclear, power generated from in and around Roxby Downs.