Northland reassured over power station plans

Jitters over the national coal supply will have no effect on plans to run a Northland coal-fired power station.

State Owned Enterprise (SOE) Genesis Energy has put plans for two 400MW coal-fired power stations at Huntly on hold due to concerns over the availability of cheap coal in the Waikato.

The company's chief executive Murray Jackson said the company had concerns about a shortage of coal in the Waikato.

Even with imported coal, there could be doubt over enough supplies to run the stations.

The company also had concerns about the lack of progress in sequestration technology.

Sequestration is the removal of greenhouses gases such as carbon dioxide from the atmosphere by plants or technological measures which would bury the CO2 underground.

The news has prompted calls for fellow SOE Mighty River Power to rethink its plan to fire up Marsden B power station, south of Whangarei, using coal.

"It is good to see a State Owned Enterprise (Genesis) talking some energy sense here in New Zealand," said Greenpeace campaign manager Cindy Baxter.

Mighty River Power should take a leaf out of the Genesis book, and keep -- and grow -- its expertise in clean, renewable energy sources, she said.

However, Mighty River chief executive officer Doug Heffernan said Marsden B's proximity to Port Whangarei meant it was ideally positioned to take advantage of imported coals and was a low risk in terms of supply.

"The important thing about Marsden is its location. It has a good port infrastructure.

"It's the ideal place for any coal-fired plant in New Zealand.

"It doesn't need to be dependent on one particular coal mine which the Huntly projects were going to have to be," he said.

Unlike Genesis Energy, Mighty River Power had not banked on sequestration being available for the project.

"We are keeping an eye on sequestration but the Marsden programme did not bank on having sequestration.

"We looked at the project on the basis of having to pay a carbon tax."

Sequestration was still a "laboratory idea" and was not yet commercially proven, he said. Mr Heffernan has said the company was prepared to make Marsden B the cleanest coal- burning plant in Australasia.

It would spend $45-60million on a flue gas desulphurisation unit to minimise emissions. It would also build a 120-metre-tall chimney stack with filters to remove dust.

Ash from burning about 35,000 tonnes of coal every two weeks would be collected by a filter system, then placed in a landfill that would be safer than any domestic landfill, according to Mighty River Power.

Mighty River said yesterday it might sink up to $1 billion into developing geothermal power stations in the central North Island in the next five years.

It is also set to announce a $20m gas exploration programme in Taranaki.

- NORTHERN ADVOCATE