The decision to decommission the polluting Munmorah power station is welcome and long overdue, but is not primarily due to the carbon price, according to the Nature Conservation Council of NSW.
The Munmorah power station, built in the 1960’s, is one of the country’s oldest and most inefficient electricity generators. Power generation at the plant was placed on standby in August 2010.
“Closure of the Munmorah plant is an important step towards a clean energy future for our state, but the decision is not primarily due to the carbon price,” said Pepe Clarke, Chief Executive Officer of the Nature Conservation Council of NSW.
“Munmorah power plant was mothballed in 2010 because it is old, inefficient and expensive to run.”
The plant’s state-owned operator, Delta Electricity, has made it clear that the plant would be closed regardless of the carbon price, with the company’s chief executive officer, Greg Everett, stating that:
“To be honest, Munmorah would have been closing with or without a carbon tax.” [1]
In a public statement, Delta Electricity attributed the closure of the plant to a range of factors,
including falling energy demand, high maintenance costs and competition from more efficient
generators and alternative energy sources. [2]
“The decision to close Munmorah is commercially sound and environmentally responsible. Permanent closure of the plant will reduce our state’s carbon emissions and remove one of the largest sources of industrial pollution on the Central Coast,” said Mr Clarke.
In the year before it was placed on standby, the plant released more than twelve million kilograms of pollution into the air, including sulphur dioxide, hydrochloric acid, sulphuric acid, heavy metals, fine particulates and hexavalent chromium. [3]
Sources
[1] ABC News
[2] Delta Electricity
[3] National Pollutant Inventory, 2008/2009 report for Munmorah Power Station
