It all seems to be going from bad to worse…… Basslink may not be fixed in ages due to poor weather and visibility at the bottom of the sea. The biggest electricity consumer in Tasmania, an aluminium smelter of course, is going to reduce its consumption by 10%, which means that as it uses 25% of the whole state’s consumption (aluminium is soooo sustainable!), this will only reduce total consumption by a mere 2.5%. I guess you have to start somewhere.
The Government is urging households and small businesses to be ‘prudent’ about their electricity use. Domestic electricity use accounts for 40% of Tasmania’s energy demand. Just imagine how much power could be saved if the whole place ran as efficiently as we did in Queensland?
Hydro Tasmania has more than doubled the number of diesel generators on order to 200 because Basslink may not be able to fix the undersea power cable to Victoria by the target date of March 19. The cable has been offline since December 20, forcing Hydro Tasmania to rely further on already low water storages to meet the Tassie’s energy demands; I’m also told it doesn’t really start raining here until April or May… so how low will the dams go?
I heard talk on the radio of putting a second Basslink cable across the strait, at a cost of one billion dollars. Would it not be a whole lot cheaper to reinstate a decent feed-in tariff and get Tasmanians to install more PVs on their roofs?
Tasmania’s Energy Minister Matthew Groom is, according to the media, under pressure “to resolve a hold-up on a planned wind farm in the state’s north-west.” And… West Coast Wind has approval to build a 33-turbine farm near Queenstown but has not been able to secure agreement from Hydro Tasmania to buy the power it generates.
According to Hydro Tasmania, an existing wind farm at Musselroe is generating enough energy to supply the needs of up to 50,000 homes; equivalent to the residential power needs of Burnie and Devonport combined. With Tasmania blessed with loads of wind in the roaring forties in the North West, it seems that these wind farms work very well here….. and it must surely be better than burning Victoria’s brown coal.
What sort of morons run this state? And exactly how is it that Hydro Tasmania is more interested in profits than supplying power to their customers, no matter where it comes from? Another classic example of why doing things for money instead of doing them because they are essential….. and the shit hasn’t even hit the fan quite yet, though I find it hard to not think the economic death spiral has arrived.
One billion dollars would go a very long way to instigate an energy efficiency program to lower consumption everywhere. I’ve proven how much things can be improved efficiency wise.
I hope my batteries don’t take too much longer to arrive….
Damn the Matrix 