SM,

You should read the 2014 Report on the Hazelwood Mine
Fire. It had a disastrous effect on people and the
surrounding area. Also Morwell has a higher incidence
of cardiovascular and respiratory disease and the
percentage of people who need assistance due to a
disability is twice the rate of the rest of Victoria.
Do your research on the issues regarding Hazelwood.

Dear Shadow minister,

You wrote;

“black coal in NSW or QSL generates nearly 3x the amount of power per GJ, due to the wetness of the brown coal? Tripling the tax is rightly called gouging.”

You never have been that good at figures have you my friend.

Okay, GJ or gigajoules are a measure of energy. One can not get three times the amount of power out of a GJ of energy, one can only get a GJ. I can explain further if you continue to be confused by this.

It is the wetness which reduces the amount of energy that can be realised from Victorian brown coal. Which is why the royalty is calculated per GJ not per tonne of coal. Would you really rather it be per tonne?

Bringing the royalty per GJ to parity with the other states is perfectly acceptable unless you would rather it go into the pockets of the multinational company who own our highly profitable coal power plants rather than toward ordinary Victorians.

Why do you continue to be so enthralled with these multinational companies at the expense of ordinary Australians?

SR,

I wondered whether you would be dim enough to make that mistake.

The reason that Brown coal emits 2-3 times as much CO2 as black coal is that brown coal is saturated with water (roughly 50%) of which means that 4-5 tonnes of brown coal needs to be burnt to burn off the water before steam and power can be generated which is why 2-3x as many GJ of latent energy is used to produce the same power (thus the 2-3x as much emissions) that a black coal plant generates.

If these multinational owned coal plants were as wildly profitable as you claim, they wouldn't be closing down.

Foxy,

The emissions were from the mine, not the generation plant. Given that the brown coal has the habit of spontaneously combusting, how is the plant closure going to improve matters.

Secondly as most country towns typically have higher levels of heart disease and disability (for a variety of reasons) this is a furphy.

Dear Shadow minister,

You wrote;

“The reason that Brown coal emits 2-3 times as much CO2 as black coal is that brown coal is saturated with water (roughly 50%) of which means that 4-5 tonnes of brown coal needs to be burnt to burn off the water before steam and power can be generated which is why 2-3x as many GJ of latent energy is used to produce the same power (thus the 2-3x as much emissions) that a black coal plant generates.”

Oh don't be so slippery. Your comment was made in conjunction with the tax per GJ of energy produced not with latent energy.

And anyway where does this 'latent energy' come from? It is not GJs being added but rather energy foregone because it is consumed by the process.

Unless you are making the case the tax will be on the forgone energy as well which is ludicrous.

As to profitability;

“AGL Energy has reaped the financial rewards of diverting its focus from green energy investments after the massive Loy Yang A brown coal generator it bought last year underwrote a large increase in earnings in the last six months. The 2,210MW Loy Yang plant – which produces 30 per cent of Victoria’s electricity, and which is the largest single emitter of carbon emissions in the country, although also one of the lowest cost facilities – enabled AGL Energy to treble earnings from its wholesale markets division in the half to $518 million, and lift underlying earnings by more than 20 per cent”
http://reneweconomy.com.au/brown-coal-power-underwrites-agls-clean-profit-boost-17793/

Plants are closing because they are past their use by dates, especially after years of skimping on routine maintenance by their private sector owners.

SM,

The facts speak for themselves.

The miracle is more that Hazelwood has been able to
pump out cheap and dirty baseload power for a
decade longer than anyone expected. However like an
old car Hazelwood is beyond its use by date.
It is dangerous. Also the facts remain that there is a
higher incidence of cardiovascular and respiratory disease
in that particular area and the percentage of people
who need assistance due to a disability is TWICE the rate
of the rest of Victoria.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-03-24/hazelwood-latrobe-valley-not-the-first-or-the-last-to-close/8380760

SR,

Let me use small words. Mining royalties apply to the properties of the product mined, fuel is measured in GJs, electricity in MWhrs.

If you managed to extract the water from the brown coal before burning it, it would have the same energy content per ton as black coal.

Roughly 2t brown coal - 1t water = 1t black coal equivalent.
So roughly at the same GJ tax rate, 2t brown coal would be taxed at the same rate as 1t black coal.

However, as the extraction process is not feasible the brown coal goes into the boiler with all the water. Where 1t black coal generates roughly 8t steam, to generate 8t of steam from brown coal you would need between 4-6tons.

To summarise, for the same energy input the brown coal plants put out less than half the electricity, but the same CO2.

None of this addresses the elephant in the room that Vic is losing 1/4 of its power generation today, and that avoiding power outages is no longer guaranteed.