ROFL.
The armchair expert strikes again.
" You’ll get a good 50 years of service out of well maintained coal fired power plant. "
So, there's the first point and giant whopper that's used by the usual RWNJ suspects.
Baseload power stations don't " last 50 years " without intensive maintenance and constant investment .
I could easily use that argument for a wind turbine. Replace the blades every 20 years. Maybe replace the generator itself at the same time to utilise the crane and people . Otherwise, the structure, the base, the grid connections etc would be still be completely fit for service.
Badda bing. A 50 year wind turbine that doesn't need 24/7/365 operations and maintenance crew or a daily supply of thousands of tons of coal and water. Offline for a week once every 20 years and having minimal impact on the grid as there are many other turbines to pick up the slack.
Service the generator for resuse in the next wind turbine and recycle the material from the blades. A technology that has now entered the market.
https://reneweconomy.com.au/six-factories-planned-to-recycle-end-of-life-wind-turbine-blades-in-europe/A coal fired power station requires 24/7/365 operations and maintenance crews to keep it running. Without that it would grind to a halt in hours. So, there's 50 years of paying for all that. Unlike solar and wind that requires minimal maintenance in comparison.
Then there's the major servicing and maintenance. Such as the generators being sent to Germany for refurbishment multiple times in that period. On top of that, we have major turbine ' turnarounds ' where they are offline for months or sometimes years for repair.
Not to mention the annual or semi-annual shutdowns for boiler servicing, cleaning and repairs which take weeks and months to do.
" The Loy Yang A power station in Victoria currently generates 30% of Victoria’s power requirements every year. And when forwarder Fracht Sydney and Fracht Nuremberg needed to transport
a refurbished Siemens generator from Germany back to Australia, it turned to WW Ocean for help. "
https://www.walleniuswilhelmsen.com/insights/how-roro-delivered-a-generator-to-agls-loy-yang-power-stationOn top of that, there's the thousands of tons of coal burned each day. That's
thousands of tonnes of coal never to be seen again. Over 60% of the energy in that coal lost as waste heat.
And here's the kicker. With a large baseload power station, you are stuck with the old technology for the life of the power station. If you built a new station today, in 2070 you would still using the same expensive, polluting, inefficient power station. That would be like driving one of these as your daily driver today. Further to that, you end up with the giant environmental problem of the coal mine. A big billion dollar problem problem that Engie is experiencing with the Hazelwood mine in Victoria right now.
With renewables, we get a power system that is constantly upgrading itself as it goes. A very important point given how quickly technology is changing. No being stuck in the past with old inefficient technology. Rather than burning coal and wasting most of it, new renewables will be built with renewable energy and recycle 99% of their materials to be used again and again.
