Sep 9 2009, 09:07 AM
QUOTE(rexis @ Sep 8 2009, 11:04 PM)
Sabah and Sarawak are facing a shortage of power,
Sabah may have a power shortage but they're already planning to build a coal power plant in Sandakan to cater for the area with the worst shortage i.e. the east of the state. Sarawak currently has an adequate reserve margin of 16% in a situation where there are no attempts to reduce wastage or tap other less environmentally evasive hydro power sources that are closer to the areas where the power is used. Further there has been no effort at all to explore other renewable energy options like tidal power. I've read somewhere that to make Bakun economically viable, the price of power from the Dam will have to be higher than from other sources. Even the proposed aluminium smelter reeks of poor business. If as they claim this smelter will soak up a large proportion of the power from Bakun, won't this make the Dam entirely reliant on one customer? In any business, when a customer has monopsony power they will negotiate lower power prices for themselves. In essence, the retail electricity users will have to subsidise the power supplied to the smelter to keep the smelter from closing down. See the example from Comalco's Tiwai Pt aluminium smelter & the Manapouri hydro power station.
QUOTE
Comalco never built the power station. With the company complaining that it could not afford to build the power plant, the government agreed in 1963 to build the Manapouri plant itself and to sell electricity from the station to Comalco at bargain- basement prices that have still not been officially revealed. The original Comalco rate was 13 times less than the rate paid by New Zealand householders and one twentieth the rate charged to other industries and farmers. The government even granted the company the right to take electricity from the national grid at Manapouri prices; Comalco exercised this right in 1974, when a drought caused a severe drop in Lake Manapouri's level.
Comalco has not given up its aspirations to retain access to Manapouri power at discount rates. Now it is employing the tried-and-true multinational strategem of pitting regions and countries against each other.
In March 1992, the Comalco board of directors met at Tiwai for the first time since 1984, told the anxious local media that it could only afford to upgrade one smelter at a time and announced that it would make its decision on which smelter to upgrade within the next six months. Chief Executive Nick Stump suggested several possible options: construction of the fourth Tiwai potline (with extra power needed from Electricorp); privatization of the Gladstone power station and expansion of the Boyne Island smelter in Queensland, Australia, or replacement of the Bell Bay potlines in Tasmania. "They are all [NZ]$500 million plus projects. The question is who is going to be first cab off the rank," Stump said. And he introduced a wild card - a pre-feasibility study on a new smelter in Chile.
Invercargill, the major city closest to Tiwai, has benefited handsomely from Comalco money and smelter jobs. The local National MP urged Bolger to step in to assure that the smelter expansion would take place in Bluff, and not in Chile or elsewhere.
Comalco has not given up its aspirations to retain access to Manapouri power at discount rates. Now it is employing the tried-and-true multinational strategem of pitting regions and countries against each other.
In March 1992, the Comalco board of directors met at Tiwai for the first time since 1984, told the anxious local media that it could only afford to upgrade one smelter at a time and announced that it would make its decision on which smelter to upgrade within the next six months. Chief Executive Nick Stump suggested several possible options: construction of the fourth Tiwai potline (with extra power needed from Electricorp); privatization of the Gladstone power station and expansion of the Boyne Island smelter in Queensland, Australia, or replacement of the Bell Bay potlines in Tasmania. "They are all [NZ]$500 million plus projects. The question is who is going to be first cab off the rank," Stump said. And he introduced a wild card - a pre-feasibility study on a new smelter in Chile.
Invercargill, the major city closest to Tiwai, has benefited handsomely from Comalco money and smelter jobs. The local National MP urged Bolger to step in to assure that the smelter expansion would take place in Bluff, and not in Chile or elsewhere.
Quote
0.0114sec
0.32
6 queries
GZIP Disabled