5 February 2009

Gas-Fired Power Station component of Canberra Technology City to gas Canberrans

| Digga
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To all those that sat idly, awash with BS from the Chief Minister and his buddy-buddy proponents’ of the gas-fired power station and data centre… The issue’s not with the data centre, it’s the huge natural-gas fired jet turbines and their more than 3 million tonnes of output a year and what that contains for Canberra!

Here’s a graph of the small particle pollution measured at Monash. We already blow the maximums, so why not add a polluting gas-fired power station on top? Slowly gasing the electorate so eventually you won’t have a need for consultation as they’ll all be gone. In case you missed it, PM 2.5 is very bad for you, triggering Asthma, Cancer and other niceties.

Graph of PM2.5 pollution in Canberra

This info from a bunch of crackpots? No, from Dr James Markos (Respiratory Physician, Chairman of the Tasmanian Branch of the Australian Lung Foundation), Dr Dorothy L Robinson (Armidale Air Quality Group) and Dr Chris Klootwijk (Honorary Visiting Fellow of the Research School of Earth Science at the Australian National University).

NEPM (National Environment Protection Measures) maximum is 25 micrograms per cubic metre and a maximum of 5 days exceeding of this level a year is dangerous. So, how about 14 days in 2004 and 2005, 19 days in 2006 and climbing. Great – let’s stick that power station in the mix, after all it’s all “just pollution”.

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Skidbladnir: Actually, no – there are no points to be scored here, just awareness that needs to be increased. A lot of folk don’t know the Government’s had an ineffectual plan to reduce PM2.5 via home heating swaps from wood burning to gas-fired. The PM2.5 has continued to increase and as the area is already causing ill health, why compound the issue by not looking at alternatives to the massive gas turbines in this location?

sepi: In the original plan, the power station itself would have been ~1km from the nearest point of the suburb – the 600m figure was to the site boundary. The new site places it another kilometre or two further away.

I’m sure Digga came here thinking that they had a point that couldn’t be argued with, but I’m yet to find it.

On average, how many cars do you think are driving on the streets of Macarthur at any one time?

caf: Home gas heaters don’t output 3.2 million tonnes of exhaust per annum as do these turbines (they output at least Nitrous Oxides equivalence to 75 cars running constantly, Carbon Emissions equivalence to 45,000 family cars being added to the roads and they don’t move like cars do)

captainwhorebags: It’s at the junction of the 3 valleys; Tuggeranong, Woden and Jerrabomberra valleys. As the scientist said “you wouldn’t normally built it in hills and ridges areas; you’d do it on a large open plain)

Nothing wrong with being a nimby. We all live in Canberra because we like its bush capital amenity. No one wants a big ugly noisy gas turbine near them. In NT, they had to move one (1) from near residents to 20km outside of town because the 24/7 whining noise drove them all crazy. In Vic, they are in the middle of an industrial area with no residents anywhere near – and if they move there, the power stations were there first. None of these things apply here. All the Tuggers resi’s have been doing is minding their own business for 30 years, enjoying the bush around them. No wonder they (including me) are upset.

And I can confirm the inversion layer is a major problem in the area proposed and should not be added to with this development.

this one is within 600m of macarthur, not a few km away.

chewy14 said :

yoyo,
.
http://www.actpla.act.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0003/9084/appendixk.pdf
If you really cared about air pollution in Canberra you would be lobbying the LA to ban wood fires.

I am, I am! I have a family of asthmatics!!!

Probably because in places close to most residential areas the higher cost of the land outweighs the benefits from being closer to the electrical load. I also imagine that if you tried to site it actually in a suburb (as opposed to within-a-few-kilometres-of) it would no longer pass the emissions standards (it wouldn’t be because of particulates, though).

captainwhorebags1:29 pm 06 Feb 09

Is the proposed location actually in the Tuggeranong Valley? I have always seemed to notice hills in the way.

So why not put these power stations all thru residential areas then?
(genuine question)

Have you stopped to consider why it is that a gas heater is the mooted replacement for wood-fired? It’s because they put out next to no particulates, unlike wood heaters – and particulates are what this whole post was about…

The LA is already trying to phase out wood fires – they offer a 600.00 rebate to remove one and replace it with a gas heater. This rebate was introduced to combat the bad air quality in tuggeranong valley in winter, when the smoke sits in the valley.

So it is weird that they now think the same valley is a great place for a power station.

Digga,
so you are agreeing that the power station does comply with all current standards?

maybe you should be trying to get the standard changed.

You’re also using junk data and trying to use it to suport an opposing view, Digga.

Two wrongs just leaves everybody confused.

chewy14: They took unverified data sources from remote locations including the airport, Wagga Wagga, Bega etc. and pumped it through computer models with second-best geo mapping sources.

Not much effort to get the real picture. No site-specific data.

Digga,
No the report is from professional consultants paid for their time and expertise.
Are you saying they deliberately falsified results in the report? If so you are even crazier than i thought.
Why would a consultant risk their professional reputation for the small fee they would have got for that report?

If we all stopped eating meat then we wouldn’t have to worry about anything terrible happening in the world anymore.

It’s true: I saw it on a placard outside Parliament House!

chewy14: You realise that report you linked to is from the proponents’ or their advisors?

Sorry the graph was small, it came from one of the Dr’s submissions to ACTPLA (for whatever it’s worth).

Here’s a bigger version:
http://home.mysoul.com.au/dande1/aq/PM25_Monash_04_06.JPG

yoyo,
the ACT is classified as one region under NEPC and therefore only requires one monitoring station.

Deezagood,
the point is there are far more polluting things in Canberra than this power station.
Read the air quality report, and look at the levels of pollution produced compared to the standard.
http://www.actpla.act.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0003/9084/appendixk.pdf
If you really cared about air pollution in Canberra you would be lobbying the LA to ban wood fires.

I didn’t think the power station was going to be built in Monash. Perhaps you should publish the graph for Gungahlin so I can count the days until I die from the Lucus Heights nuclear reactor!

Ban the wood fires if you care about particulate pollution.

fnaah said :

This is why I love the RiotACT. 🙂 Thanks barking toad, Deano and Skid!

In the famous words of WMC: Digga, please collect your alarmist retard bumper sticker at the door, you retarded, alarmist alarmist retard.

Pretty harsh. Others have been moderated for far less…..

I wonder, is somebody a NIMBY if ‘it’ isn’t actually anywhere near their backyard? Is a Canberra resident, who doesn’t live in Tuggers but is genuinely conserned and protests about increasing the pollution level in an apparently already (wood-fire) polluted city a ‘NIMBY’? Why is it ‘selfishly arrogant’ to not want a privately-owned data centre adding to the pollution levels of Canberra?

So you are happy to discount the polution results above, but do agree that:

“an inversion layer in winter in the valley that the traps smoke.”

So a valley that is known to trap bad air has never seemed like a good candidate for a power station to me.

Digga,
Thank you for providing evidence that wood fires create pollution in Canberra during winter. Absolutely breathtaking research.
I expect that CPR will now utilise all its resources to have wood fires banned. When are the kids with gas masks going to be protesting at the local shops about this?
But back on topic, if you read the air quality study for the power station you will find that the maximum for PM10, is 2.5ug/m3.
The guideline amount is 50ug/m3.
Come back when you have another pretty graph.

And just in case you wondered, the independent 2003 report is here:
http://www.environmentcommissioner.act.gov.au/soe/2003actreport/indicators03/outdoorairquality03

It reports even more problems with air quality monitoring, but still says air quality is generally good.

Digga: We all know the data centre/power station was a monumental ACTEW-ALP debacle, but the ACT doesn’t seem to have the enrvionmental data needed to support any argument, from either side.

This is why I love the RiotACT. 🙂 Thanks barking toad, Deano and Skid!

In the famous words of WMC: Digga, please collect your alarmist retard bumper sticker at the door, you retarded, alarmist alarmist retard.

Ban all wood fired heaters

The environment commissioner has this to say about PM2.5

Data captured before March 2007 is considered suspect as work to stabilise the air conditioning in the balance room was not completed until March 2007. Part of the quality control for the PM 2.5 is that the balance room where the filters are weighed is kept within a specified range for temperature and relative humidity. It is thought that changes in the temperature and relative humidity may have affected the weights of the filter and/or its contents. Quality control testing of blank filters does not show a significant change in the filter weights between weighing sessions.

http://www.environmentcommissioner.act.gov.au/soe/2007actreport/indicators07/outdoorairquality07

Gee, the NIMBYs are getting more and more sophisticated. Still doesn’t make their selfish arrogance any more palatable or credible.

Wow, all that red on that graph must mean we’re all going to die!

Maybe if these gas turbines are so bad the ACT Govt should consider building a coal fired station in the locality instead?

Have you asked someone to analyse the dangers of all the local mobile phone towers too. After all, we all know they’ll fry your brain if you are anywhere within 1km of them!

Gee don’t sugar coat the bad news Digga, why not just say well all be rooned.

Further to the above comment at #3, the NEPM are standards derived from analysing samples in Sydney, Brisbane, Perth, and Melbourne.

All cities with nearby oceans, high humidity, and rarely experiencing dust storms.

Also, bushfire days are normally discounted for actual standards compliance, but are still reported as part of data gathering.

Your quoted scientists may not be crackpots, but you sure are.

So, you’re arguing based on data that is three years old, using an NEPM measure which EPHC.gov.au itself calls simply an advisory reporting standard (PM2.5).
Jurisdictions are required to report on PM2.5, but not do anything about it.

PM10 is still their only actual compliance standard for particles.

Also:
Their actual Ambient Air Quality Standards are here.
http://www.ephc.gov.au/taxonomy/term/23

Note that PM10 has a maximum concentration of 50 micrograms per cubic meter for particulate matter under 10 micrometers or less.
Also note that their 5 days exceeding that level are
goals for jurisdictions to achieve.

More NIMBY bullshit!

Apart from using a graph that is too small to read, you are sprouting a lot of mistruth.

Firstly, gas fired power stations are not high emitters of particulates and it would have minimal impact on the level of particulate pollution in the ACT.

Secondly, if you could actually read the graph you would see that the peak periods are in winter and due primarily to the use of wood fired heating coupled with an inversion layer in winter in the valley that the traps smoke.

If you were really concerned about pollution levels you would be campaigning for the banning of wood fired heaters and their replacement with electric heating from a gas fired power station.

barking toad4:23 pm 05 Feb 09

Well, it’s obvious Monash has too much gorebull warmening – but then, I can’t see the hockey stick in the graph.

Or is it that there are too many smokers in Monash putting those particulates into the pristine air? Or is it my roaring log fire on those cold winter nights? Or maybe the Monash kiddies should cut back on BBQ’s.

Other than that, I’m confused as to what the graph has to do with gas and data.

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