Port Augusta people demand clean power station

Vanguard June 2012 p. 4
Ned K.

In Port Augusta, South Australia, a broad community campaign is building for a renewable energy solar thermal power plant to replace the brown-coal-fired power plants first built in the 1950s and 1960s.

The campaign for solar thermal power is being led by the workers who currently work in the coal-fired plants, together with the local community, including the Mayor of Port Augusta Joy Baluch (left), environmental groups, CLEAN, Doctors for the Environment and The Australian Youth Climate Coalition. Even the owner of the power plants, Alinta, is supporting the switch to solar thermal power.

So far the state and federal governments are sitting on the fence. They are looking at the cheaper option ( in the short term only) of piping gas to the new plants from the coal seam gas fields of Queensland’s food bowl!

 

 

One would think the choice was a no brainer. But no; economic rationalism is alive and well. The initial cost of building solar thermal plants is $6 billion, compared to the initial cost of $1.5 billion for the gas fired plant. The people’s proposal is to pay for the cost of the solar thermal plant through a feed-in tariff of  1% spread across the national electricity grid.

 

 

However, the long term cost of the reliance on gas is hard to quantify when factors such as CO₂ and methane gas emissions, the loss of food production in Queensland, and the fluctuations in gas prices on the international market are taken into account.

 

 

For example, if gas from the coal seam gas fields in Queensland is owned by multinationals like Santos, where will they send their gas? If the price on the international market is $17 per gigajoule, but the price locally is $3 per gigajoule, where will Santos send the gas?

 

 

The solar thermal power plant will provide 1300 construction jobs, including local engineering jobs and 300 permanent full time jobs, and will produce 30 to 40% of South Australia’s power from renewable energy.

(Above: The Playford B coal-fired station at Pt Augusta)

The situation at Port Augusta is a “fork in the road”. The Labor Governments at both state and federal levels can choose to side with the people to boost local manufacturing, providing full time permanent jobs and renewable energy production at the same time. Or they can go down the low road of a quick fix, low jobs, destruction of food production in Queensland and continue the reliance on fossil fuels for an energy source. A pretty easy choice one would think, depending on one’s allegiances – to the people and sustainability, or to the mining multinationals.

The Port Augusta community and the environmental movement across Australia are watching to see what decision the governments make.