With Australia’s new carbon tax laws having been passed by the Senate last week, it is the perfect time to look at Victoria’s three major coal fired power stations. Located in the Latrobe Valley atop massive deposits of brown coal, together these power stations run 24 hours a day to supply the majority of Victoria’s baseload electricity demand, and in the process contribute more than their fair share of emissions in the environment. So why are they so dirty?
In the decade since 2001 wind farms have appeared around Victoria, driven by state government mandated renewable energy targets and subsidies. The young age of Victoria’s wind farms makes the state look like a laggard in the renewable energy states, especially when you discover Australia’s first wind farm opened at Esperance in Western Australia all the way back in March 1987. However, Victoria does have a link to that trailblazing wind farm at Salmon Beach, and it is found at the small coastal township of Breamlea: midway between Barwon Heads and Torquay, just south of Geelong.
Have you ever looked up at a power pole in Melbourne and seen one of these warning signs? They are quite easy to see on older electricity poles that carry high voltage power lines through the streets. So what do all those letters mean?
Australia’s Snowy Mountains Scheme is an example of a civil engineering project on a massive scale – construction spanned 25 years from 1949 to 1974. As well as being big, there are also some smaller elements hiding in the shadows.
As you might have worked out by now, I am a very observant person and it isn’t just limited to trains, if my experiences up in the Snowy Mountains are anything to go by. So what does rthis sign mean?
