Comments on: Opportunity comes knocking, but the Premier doesn’t notice http://hourann.com/blog/2007/04/11/opportunity-comes-knocking-but-the-premier-doesnt-notice Hourann’s illogical blog Sat, 31 Dec 2011 01:56:17 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.2.1 By: The Pencil Guy » Comparing some recent global warming policies http://hourann.com/blog/2007/04/11/opportunity-comes-knocking-but-the-premier-doesnt-notice/comment-page-1#comment-13208 The Pencil Guy » Comparing some recent global warming policies Wed, 06 Jun 2007 03:46:16 +0000 http://hourann.com/blog/2007/04/11/opportunity-comes-knocking-but-the-premier-doesnt-notice#comment-13208 [...] about WA’s boom coming to an end: I do believe that if the State government were to lift its silly ban, selling uranium to China would keep us prosperous for quite some time [...] [...] about WA’s boom coming to an end: I do believe that if the State government were to lift its silly ban, selling uranium to China would keep us prosperous for quite some time [...]

]]> By: Thia http://hourann.com/blog/2007/04/11/opportunity-comes-knocking-but-the-premier-doesnt-notice/comment-page-1#comment-13123 Thia Thu, 12 Apr 2007 02:23:45 +0000 http://hourann.com/blog/2007/04/11/opportunity-comes-knocking-but-the-premier-doesnt-notice#comment-13123 The thing about power in Australia is that we've somehow managed to locate most major cities relatively near reasonably high-grade coal deposits, which means that we don't have a lot of the cost associated with coal-fired power that other places do - most countries have the cost of transporting coal from the source to the power station if the stations close to the consumers, or the energy loss of transporting the power from the power station to the consumers is the station's near the coal. Either way, it's a significant cost that we just don't have here. Which is largely why we have some of the cheapest electricity in the world. It also makes it that much harder for alternative power sources to compete, because the Australian populace is used to not paying very much for their electricity and for the most part probably doesn't want that to change. (I could make some comment about Howard's spending at the last election showing how attached the average Aussie is to their hip pocket, but... oh wait, I just did. Never mind, then.) If they start charging for greenhouse emissions, or go for clean coal, then alternative sources will have a better chance. (iirc, figures in the SMH today said that coal was $35 per kW h while the likely cost of hot rocks would be ~$45 per kW h. Clean coal was about $60 per kW h. Not, of course, that the SMH should be considered a reliable source of such figures.) The thing that I've found particularly interesting about the Esperance port fiasco is that everyone' screaming about omg lead! but the nickel's barely blipped on the radar. (For the record: nickel is defined as hazardous by Worksafe, nickel oxide is a carcinogen and inhaling it increases the risk of respiratory cancer - don't know how much, but I don't think I'd like to be a worker on the Esperance-Kal railway, even though they do get the workers a certain disance away when such a train comes through.) The thing about power in Australia is that we’ve somehow managed to locate most major cities relatively near reasonably high-grade coal deposits, which means that we don’t have a lot of the cost associated with coal-fired power that other places do – most countries have the cost of transporting coal from the source to the power station if the stations close to the consumers, or the energy loss of transporting the power from the power station to the consumers is the station’s near the coal. Either way, it’s a significant cost that we just don’t have here. Which is largely why we have some of the cheapest electricity in the world.
It also makes it that much harder for alternative power sources to compete, because the Australian populace is used to not paying very much for their electricity and for the most part probably doesn’t want that to change. (I could make some comment about Howard’s spending at the last election showing how attached the average Aussie is to their hip pocket, but… oh wait, I just did. Never mind, then.)
If they start charging for greenhouse emissions, or go for clean coal, then alternative sources will have a better chance. (iirc, figures in the SMH today said that coal was $35 per kW h while the likely cost of hot rocks would be ~$45 per kW h. Clean coal was about $60 per kW h. Not, of course, that the SMH should be considered a reliable source of such figures.)

The thing that I’ve found particularly interesting about the Esperance port fiasco is that everyone’ screaming about omg lead! but the nickel’s barely blipped on the radar. (For the record: nickel is defined as hazardous by Worksafe, nickel oxide is a carcinogen and inhaling it increases the risk of respiratory cancer – don’t know how much, but I don’t think I’d like to be a worker on the Esperance-Kal railway, even though they do get the workers a certain disance away when such a train comes through.)

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