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Snowy Hydro float

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Smurf,

You must be in the energy business as well :) One thing though. Coal fired power stations can take days to start from a cold start not hours as you have big masses of metal to heat up evenly and slowly. If the station is already warm then it takes hours but this is expensive in itself as you are burning coal with no income. The new stations in NSW (Mount Piper, Bayswater) once the are running have a lot of flexibility and can ramp up and down fairly rapidly (Not as fast as snowy units though). Most Gas Turbines and some of the Victorian Coal plants don't have this flexibility as their efficiency drops off pretty rapidly.

I've had to mark to market a couple of the snowy options though, they are pretty complex. Enough even to give WayneL a headache.

MIT
 
Another gutless decision from a gutless government.


Have they changed their minds due to the considered economic analysis of Cate Blanchett?

Votes are more important than principle with this bunch of economic luddites.
 
Democracy works.
The Feds didn't own very many, the States could have floated still.
But the public, including myself thought it wasa foolishto sell such an important asset and were listened too.
Stop thinking of your hip pocket!
 
mit said:
Smurf,

You must be in the energy business as well :) One thing though. Coal fired power stations can take days to start from a cold start not hours as you have big masses of metal to heat up evenly and slowly. If the station is already warm then it takes hours but this is expensive in itself as you are burning coal with no income. The new stations in NSW (Mount Piper, Bayswater) once the are running have a lot of flexibility and can ramp up and down fairly rapidly (Not as fast as snowy units though). Most Gas Turbines and some of the Victorian Coal plants don't have this flexibility as their efficiency drops off pretty rapidly.

I've had to mark to market a couple of the snowy options though, they are pretty complex. Enough even to give WayneL a headache.

MIT
Click to expand...
Agreed about the time to start coal-fired plant from cold. I was thinking more in terms of response to market price / load from operating plant than the restarting of a completely cold plant.

I think it says rather a lot about future investment needs in the power industry when you realise just how much of the total generating capacity now in service outside of Queensland and some in WA came online at least 20 years ago. Take out Mount Piper and Loy Yang B and it's basically all (except Redbank which isn't exactly large) low cost plant in NSW, Vic and SA.

Whilst it's not a problem at the moment, in 20 years we will have the impending closure of Yallourn W and Hazelwood (and Morwell) as the associated mines are exhausted which in itself wipes out nearly half of Victoria's low cost generation. Munmorah and Liddel (NSW), Anglesea (Vic) and Playford B (SA) will be pretty old by then (it could be argued that Playford B especially is already old). Even the big gas-fired stations at Torrens Island (SA) and Newport D are early 1980's or older.

We're going to need a lot of new capacity in the future even without considering demand growth. Question is where it comes from?
 
The Snowy Hydro people already own gas power stations. My guess is that they will build more along with the power authourities such as Origin and AGl which are also building them.
 
Smurf1976 said:
Agreed about the time to start coal-fired plant from cold. I was thinking more in terms of response to market price / load from operating plant than the restarting of a completely cold plant.

I think it says rather a lot about future investment needs in the power industry when you realise just how much of the total generating capacity now in service outside of Queensland and some in WA came online at least 20 years ago. Take out Mount Piper and Loy Yang B and it's basically all (except Redbank which isn't exactly large) low cost plant in NSW, Vic and SA.

Whilst it's not a problem at the moment, in 20 years we will have the impending closure of Yallourn W and Hazelwood (and Morwell) as the associated mines are exhausted which in itself wipes out nearly half of Victoria's low cost generation. Munmorah and Liddel (NSW), Anglesea (Vic) and Playford B (SA) will be pretty old by then (it could be argued that Playford B especially is already old). Even the big gas-fired stations at Torrens Island (SA) and Newport D are early 1980's or older.

We're going to need a lot of new capacity in the future even without considering demand growth. Question is where it comes from?
Click to expand...


Only one solution. Nuclear. Hydro is OK but it will never be a replacement only a supplement.
 
I wonder if anyone has done much research into tidal power generation, unlike wind the tides will always be there (unless the moon falls out of orbit).

Every tidal creek and outlet could be equiped with turbines and hooked up to a network.The tides are at different times along the coast so while there is no tidal flow in one area, further up or down the coast there is tidal flow, creating power.

Since 95% of the population is on or very near the coast the network need,in the main, only follow the coastline.

Cheers ... Dave
 
i have heard of wave and tidal power generators, i don't know exactly which companies they were. but yeh, looks like green energy's the way to go these days.

Negative sentiments of the public towards GST, soldiers in IRAQ, Nuclear Energy and IR laws must certainly be greater than the sale of Snowy Hydro. yet he's pushed these. I get a feeling that with him drawing away from the sale..he's just putting a sweet butter over the IR laws, GST, Nuclear Power..he's neutralising the negativity that the government has caused within the public.

I hope that's not the case, because really...that was a big opportunity lost. He based his decisions on entirely public sentiment, sounds like he did not take in mind solid financial analysis behind it.

( But I'm hoping the new Nuclear Power Plant he's proposing would float instead..plenty of ways to skin a cat huh ?)
 
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