How should societies balance their energy needs against their responsibility to protect the environm

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How should societies balance their energy needs
against their responsibility to protect the
environment

• Russell Center
• Senior Manager, Sustainablity
• Loy Yang Power

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Put more simply.

• ENERGY
• VERSUS
• ENVIRONMENT

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Energy

• Many forms of energy
• Nuclear
• Renewable
• Fossil
• Oil
• Gas
• Coal

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Environment

• Many environmental impacts
• Land disturbance/rehabilitation, biodiversity,
  heritage, air emissions (SOx, NOx), noise, dust,
  general waste disposal, visual amenity, ground
  water (subsidence), etc.
• GREENHOUSE
• WATER CONSUMPTION

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Loy Yang Power Profile

• Australias largest open cut mine
• Coal mined 90,000 tonnes/day
• Energy source for 50 of Victorias electricity
• Site area 6000 hectares
• 500 employees
• gt500 million annual revenue

• Owned by Great Energy Alliance Corporation
• Privatised in 1997 for 4.85 billion

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REGIONAL COAL RESOURCES

• Regional Coal Resources 200,000 Mt
• Economic Coal Resources 53,000 Mt
• At current usage rate 600-800 years
• Available Energy 545,000 Peta Joules
• A very significant Energy Resource

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Latrobe Valley Brown Coal

• Brown Coal a GREAT Fuel
• Low ash mostly alkali metals, Na, Ca, Mg, Al
  minimal heavy metals eg. Pb
• Very low sulphur
• Lowest cost mined coal in the world
• No methane released during mining
• Triple A rating (abundant, available, accessible)
• High Moisture (60-70 water)
• High GHG intensity

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When the lights go off
16 January, 2007
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Environmental vandals?

• Latrobe Valleys image as pollution centre of
  Victoria is WRONG
• Perception doesnt match reality
• Our environment is cleaner than Melbourne

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LOOKING IN THE MIRROR

• Show of Hands, if You
• Use airconditioning regularly (home/work/car)
• Leave your appliances on standby
• Use Incandescent Light Bulbs
• Have a 4WD, V8 or big car, drive instead of walk
• Dont live in a 5-Star Energy Efficient home
• Dont select appliances based on efficiency.

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• Humanity is sitting on a ticking time bomb. If
  the vast majority of the world's scientists are
  right, we have just 10 years to avert a major
  catastrophe that could send our entire planet
  into a tail-spin of epic destruction involving
  extreme weather, floods, droughts, epidemics and
  killer heat waves beyond anything we have ever
  experienced - Al Gore, An Incovenient Truth

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• People need to understand what would happen
  should Australia walk away from its 300-year
  supply of coal and source 100 of its power from
  renewable sources - the price increases, the cost
  to economic growth and jobsnot to mention the
  simple fact that electricity will become an
  unknown, unreliable quantity, unravelling life as
  we know it
• Federal Industry Minister Ian Macfarlane

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Seeking a Balance

• Economic development
• versus
• Environmental impacts
• versus
• Social effects
• Overall positive community outcome

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TRUEorFALSE
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• 85 of Victorias electricity comes from brown
  coal

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• Burning brown coal for electricity contributes to
  climate change

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• Victorian power stations produce approximately
  0.15 of world greenhouse emissions

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• If Latrobe Valley power stations were shut down
  tomorrow it would take China about 2 months
  to replace the greenhouse emissions saved as a
  result

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• Latrobe Valley brown coal power stations could be
  shut down tomorrow and replaced with cleaner,
  renewable energy sources such as solar, wind,
  geo-thermal and tidal power

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• To replace Loy Yang power station with wind
  power, would require one wind turbine every 250
  metres between Melbourne and Adelaide

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• Research and development is underway which could
  reduce CO2 emissions from brown coal power
  stations by more than 30

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• Nuclear energy can help solve the worldwide
  problem of climate change

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The Facts

• Scientific evidence is compelling - climate
  change is a serious global threat
• Dont panic!
• Climate change demands an international response
• There is no single answer to the challenge of
  global warming
• Renewables are unable to meet existing energy
  demand so coal will still have a role to play in
  the energy mix

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The Facts

• We have to embrace a range of responses to
  climate change
• More renewables
• Clean coal technology
• Nuclear power (probably)
• Energy efficiency

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What about your greenhouse contribution?

• Typical activities, their CO2 emissions, energy
  costs, and the number of trees required to be
  planted every year to offset them are
• Average car use per household per year 6
  tonnes, 4700, 200 trees
• Gas hot water service (gas) 5 tonnes, 400, 167
  trees
• Home heating and cooling 15 tonnes, 500, 1000
  trees
• Clothes washing 4 tonnes, 100, 133 trees
• Food decay and garden waste 3 tonnes and 100
  trees

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Latrobe Valley Inflows
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What does that mean?
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What will we do?

• To improve LYPs reliability we must
• Get more or more consistent rainfall out of our
  control and unlikely with impacts of climate
  change
• OR
• Find alternative sources of water
• OR
• Reduce demand.

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Measuring monitoring

• What you dont monitor or measure, you wont
  improve
• Started monitoring a number of parameters in 1991
  including water usage and discharges. Targets
  set.
• Total water consumption 3.6 Ml/GWhr (lt3.2
  Ml/GWhr)
• Demineralised water 6.0 Ml/day (lt2 Ml/day)
• Discharge to catchment 48 Ml/day (lt15 Ml/day)
• Excess saline waste 12 Ml/day (lt5 Ml/day)
• Challenging targets?

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Results

• Whats been achieved?
• 2006 results
• Total water consumption 2.10 Ml/GWhr (best 2.02 -
  2004)
• Demineralised water 2.4 Ml/day (best 1.83 - 2002)
• Discharge to catchment 6.9 Ml/day (best result)
• Excess saline waste 8.0 Ml/day (best 5.2 - 2001)
• Results achieved with significant increase in
  generation

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How did we do it?

• No - didnt introduce changes in technology eg.
  reverse osmosis, etc.
• House keeping - major effort to decrease
  steam leaks, stopped unnecessary FGS losses
  (hoses left running, etc.), systems maintained to
  operate correctly.
• Common sense changes - stopped watering
  grass, mines fire services dam topped up with
  drainage water, sample points not left running.
• Operational modifications - waste water from
  treatment plant diverted to cooling towers,
  increase in cooling tower cycles of concentration
  (purge directed as emergency ash make-up), acid
  mine drainage pumped into cooling towers
  (decrease water usage and acid dosage).
• LOTS OF LITTLE THINGS - they all add up!!!

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Where to next for LYP in the short term ?

• Community demands for water will increase as will
  industrial demand, particularly in the Latrobe
  Valley.
• Need to continue to pursue improvements.
• Most low hanging fruit have been picked.
• Increase artesian dewatering to licence limit.
• Reduce excess saline waste.
• Zero discharge to catchment - all site run off
  pumped back into low quality water supply line.
• Technically feasible, saves money, restores
  Traralgon Creek to natural flow regime but
  residents have come to rely on discharge from
  site to maintain flow in Creek ie. socially
  unacceptable. Flow management plan needed.

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Medium to long term

• Alternative water sources
• Recycled water (Eastern Water Treatment Plant)
• Sea water (either direct or desalination)
• Reduce demand
• Partial dry cooling
• Dry cooled condenser

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Value Added per Ml by Industry (2004/05)
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