Re: AS to DAR, financial drain for next 50 years.

["Al" <alpout@optusnet.com.au>]

"William Miller" <backtran@optusnet.com.au> wrote in message
news:3b02905d$0$25464$7f31c96c@news01.syd.optusnet.com.au...
>
> Tell <telljb@ozemail.com.au> wrote in message
> news:glu4gts2re5jh81vmvl1nd6ljq18sqn49o@4ax.com...
> > The Lake Phillipson coal deposits have a lower
> > calorific value than the very poor Leigh Creek deposits
> > which require supplementary firing with fuel oil at the
> > Port Augusta power station.!
>
> Northern Power Station at Pt Augusta would only need it for low load,
> start-up and upset conditions - the same as almost all large coal fired
> power plant. At high load there is no need for support energy at all. If
> they needed oil support more than this the plant would not run at all due to
> poor economics.

OT, but here goes.  One of my dad's friends is in the engineering department
at a power station just west of the Blue Mountains.  He mentioned to me once
that to fire up one of their boilers costs around $100K, depending on the cost
of diesel (around 100 000 litres used at start-up, and diesel was around a
$1/l then).  They don't generate power until they're fully coal burning
either.

Al