Water shortage 'will lead to power cuts'

By Paul Carter
May 19, 2007

AUSTRALIA'S eastern seaboard faces electricity brownouts because coal-fired power stations are running out of water, the Greens say.

NSW Greens MP John Kaye said the NSW Government should abandon any idea of building another coal-fired power station, after it last week commissioned an inquiry into the construction of a new plant.

Dwindling dam levels were threatening power supplies, he said.

"NSW and the eastern seaboard of Australia faces brownouts, largely because many of the state's coal-fired power stations are running out of water," he said.

"Building another coal burner would only increase our vulnerability to droughts and increase the risk of electricity brownouts because of water shortages."

Some energy experts believe NSW will face power brownouts next year, because its main emergency generator, the water-powered turbines of the Snowy Hydro, may have to sit idle as dams drop to record lows.

The NSW Government is apparently contemplating how it can guarantee baseload capacity, without privatising the rest of the electricity industry.

Dr Kaye said renewable energy technologies and energy efficiency would continue to operate through droughts and reduce the risks of brownouts.

Wind generation, solar photo-voltaic panels and energy efficiency took almost no water to operate while hot rocks geothermal, biomass and solar thermal used some but could be designed to be less thirsty than coal, he said.

Greens leader Bob Brown said 30 per cent of the eastern seaboard's energy need could be met with better efficiencies and renewable energies that didn't need water.

"What we are seeing here is that the very core of the climate change problem, burning coal, is now being hit itself by climate change," Senator Brown said.

"It requires huge amounts of water, and yet both Labor and Liberal want to export more coal, and burn more coal in this country."

Labor's environment spokesman Peter Garrett said the possibility of brownouts showed how unprepared Australia was for the impact of climate change.

"We will see an intensification of droughts and an intensity in terms of increasing periods of hot weather, increasing periods of weather where there is not much rain as a consequence of failing to address climate change," he said.

Damn dams

Posted by mrpickwick at 4:56 PM, 19/5/2007

Snowy, the dams are nearly empty, what is the point of creating more empty dams (and destroying even more fertile and biodiverse valleys in the process?). The Labor (and of course Liberal) Parties must get out of the mindset that the answer to all problems is to create more environmental problems. Coal fired power stations running out of water (as would your favourite nuclear power stations) is the perfect illustration of the futility of this approach. Just like burning more power to desalinate water and then destroying marine life with the waste salt. This is really dumb economics, and even dumber conservation.

You really shouldn't keep teasing me like this - I know you know better, but you know I can't resist reacting. Bad Snowy.

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Grin

Posted by snowy at 5:11 PM, 19/5/2007

I don't do it to deliberately upset you, Mr Pickwick. (although that's a bonus ;o) )

I just get so frustrated with Bob Brown's non-solutions. The technology he refers to just isn't going to deliver what he claims it will. I want him to do the hard yards and come up with real solutions. He hasn't done so yet, and until he does, he really shouldn't be throwing bricks at anyone

And he still hasn't come up with an alternative to building dams. To claim that we should not build more dams because we can't fill the ones we have, ignores the reality that millions of litres of water are still flowing out to sea every time it does rain. More dams in different catchment areas will provide more water, will it not?

Edited by snowy on 19/5/2007 at 3:02 AM