Types of Power Plants in Australia

ELECTRICAL POWER
By Name
Course
Instructor
Institution
Location
Date

Types of power plants being constructed more in Australia
Most of the energy in Australia is generated centrally and mainly depends on the conventional
sources of energy that are often referred to as fossil fuels. To the tune of about 8 percent of the
electricity in the country is generated from such fuel types where about 73 percent is from coal
and natural gas accounts for 13 percent. Australia depends on coal-fired electricity production
due to its cheap nature of production. It is as well available in abundance besides being reliable.
This is what tends to render it quite a challenge for the renewable options, for instance, solar and
wind to compete with fossil fuels in basically financial aspect [1].
Coal is a nonrenewable source of energy meaning it will finally be exhausted. It is of utmost
importance that the coal resources are preserved and techniques or methods of production of
electricity that are friendlier to the environment are sought.
The remaining 14 percent of the source of energy for powering the power plants is linked to
renewable energy. Hydropower which started contribution to the generation in Australia in the
1950s remains to be the largest source of renewable electricity with a contribution to about 60
percent of all available renewable generation as well as 7 percent of the cumulative electricity.
Snowy Mountains is the most famous source of hydroelectric power and tends to be less
expensive in comparison with mining fossil fuels besides not contributing to environmental
pollution and greenhouse effect
Of all the sources of generations that produce emissions, brown coal has been established to be
the most emissions-intensive meaning it generates more greenhouse gas emissions for every unit
of production which is then closely followed by gas and black coal. The cumulative emission
from every fuel is a factor of the intensity of the emissions of the fuel itself as well as the share

of the cumulative emission is experienced. Coal produces 88 percent of generation emissions in
which 3 percent is derived from brown coal and the remaining 3 percent extracted from black
coal.
Most of the coal-fired power plants in Australia are aged, inefficient as well not likely to be in a
position of being retrofitted with technologies of carbon capture storage. Within a period of ten
years, about have of the coal-fuelled generation fleet in Australia will be more than four decades
of age with a few of them at the moment operating stations tending to 60 years all of which
adopting obsolete subcritical coal technology. Such older plants would most likely be quite
outdated, carbon-intensive as well as inefficient to be qualified for retrofitting technology.
Impacts of coal-fired power stations on:
Human & animals
Some of the submitters to the research into the inquiry made comments that pollution from
power stations that are powered by coal results in the ongoing damages on the environment as
well as health issues for the neighboring communities.
Coal-fired power plants have been established to be a significant source of air pollutants that
result in substantial health issues. The three major pollutants included sulfur dioxide, nitrogen
oxides mixture besides particulate matter in the size ranges of PM10 and PM2.5. Sulfur dioxide
and nitrogen oxides are very powerful respiratory irritants resulting in chronic lung disease,
asthma as well as restricted growth of the lungs among children. Fine particle pollution results in
similar respiratory changes even though is as well linked with ischemic heart disease, increased
mortality and lung cancer [2].