Australia to Build World’s Largest Solar Power Plant
(9 votes, average: 3.56 out of 5)
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by Mike Zazaian October 26, 2006 - 1:09pm, 9 Comments
According to Treasurer Peter Costello the Australian government will spend $420 million Australian ($320 million US) to construct the world’s largest solar power plant. The plant, which will be built in Victoria state, will have a capacity of 154 megawatts and will be built over the next several years, with a completion date set for 2013. Said Costello:
The project aims to build the biggest photovoltaic project in the world and this is by using mirrors which concentrate the sun’s rays on a power plant.
The effort comes amid fears that the demand for power within the country may exceed supply within the next five years, causing blackouts and shortages. Air conditioners are being pegged as the primary factor for the predicted shortages, with more and more units being installed in newer homes than ever before.
Australia, the world’s leading exporter of Coal, will also look to cleaner-coal technologies to boost the country’s energy supply. Along with the solar initiative the government announced funding of a A$360 million ($274 million US) project to produce cleaner energy through brown coal drying and carbon capture and storage.
But even with the cleaner-coal initiative environmentalists believe the government should move away from coal altogether. Said Danny Kennedy, a representative for Greenpeace:
We need a long-term energy policy that moves us away from our dependence on coal to real deep cuts in emissions and sustainable investment in genuine renewable energy technology. If we don’t move away from coal, we won’t deal with climate change.
Australia has yet to sign the Kyoto Protocol, a program which aims to lower greenhouse gas emissions and global warming. Currently relying on coal as its primary fuel source, Australia is one of the world’s largest producers of greenhouse gases per capita.
Via Wired
WOW ! After having one of the hotest countries in the world for over 180 years (austrailia was established in 1827), it has taken 2 or 3 generations to figure out that solar power was the best way to go ?
Gives a new meaning to “being thick”.
Peter Pan
|I use this for my science projecxt on solar power.Thank You very much.
Yalena Thurman
Peter Pan:
Firstly, it’s spelled “Australia”. If you read the article, you would have realised.
Second, Australia was settled in 1788.
IMHO, I think *you* have given a new meaning to “thick”.
Oh and “pwned”, too.
Michael Briggs
Michael Briggs,
Arrogant and small-minded, you are. You could understand his meaning, could you not?
Regardless of the date or the spelling, he has a point. Of course, there are a lot of countries with vast expanses of arid-land (U.S.A. for example) that have yet to do as much as Australia when it comes to harnessing the sun’s energy. There is a lot of investment in the infrastructure of our carbon economy and subsidies further complicate the situation and make change less appealing. Not to mention guys like Bush who support the Energy Industry’s idea of business as usual and the tentacles that stretch out from there. So…
Dukemaru
please send me more information about this ppower plant. I am pupils of india and i want to make report on this plant.
this power plant is life of australia.
harshad patel
On the surface as usual, this project, which is obviously going ahead with big business and governent money, goes along the path of central control of energy. Why? Alright you have the space to hide a monstrosity like this development and hopefully it will work, but why do these political types never think small scale. It is perfectly possible to make individual households self-sufficient. But that is not what it is about, is it? Here we have just another form of BIG BUSINESS taking away the power, literally, of the individual. There is no money in it, is there for power companies to think of converting individual homes and taking them off-grid. Hey, they want their long-term RENT, do they not? From government grants and permanent bills to you and me. Let us get rid of ALL power companies and do our own thing folks. There is a challenge that some are already living!
Kai Jansen
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAH
Jeffrey Star
Let’s hope the Saudies and OPEC boys like the taste of oil, because The Aussies are going to make oil worth a lot less with this one, and we won’t have to send those desert rats food anymore!
Uncle B
With the change of government is this project still going ahead– does anyone know?
Frank Lawrence