Originally Posted by
Flying Binghi
certifs, So, if as yer say it takes ten years to get things done in the coal station building game do that mean it will be ten years before they slow down the 'two a month' new station opening regime
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No, of course I don't. Its much easier to stop building than to start. That's why about 150 coal power station projects have been cancelled or put on hold in the US in the last 10 years. But when you make silly strawman comments such as these I wonder how much you do understand. The "building" of a power station doesn't begin when someone turns up to clear the site, that is quite late in the process.
For those interested, the process in Australia and other similar western economies (ie non command economies) goes like this:
Finance
A prospective builder has to think that the idea of building a new power station is a good one. They then have to do some basic market research to confirm they aren't mistaken, then they have to convince some financer that its a good idea and get them to promise to stump up a big wad of money when needed. You'll need a good part of a year to do this.
Environmental approvals
Since no one can plonk this stuff down any old place, there's a whole lot of federal, state and local government approvals to get done. This costs money and takes time. Never less than a couple of years. I notice the Carmichael coal mine is in its sixth year of this process and still not finished.
Ordering
No one in the world (even the Chinese) keeps major power station components on the shelf on spec in case someone wants to buy them. You will have at least 2 years lead time for major parts like turbines and step up transformers. If the boiler is coal its design will need to be optimised to burn that particular grade, so lead times might even be a bit longer for that.
Detail design
Once you know your major parts, from all the different suppliers, then all the bits, down to the simplest valve, pipe and motor must be designed to work together. 100s of thousands of hours of design work here. Probably a year or two in design work.
Now some of these things can overlap a bit, but if you can get all of that done in less than 5 years you will be lucky.
And then you can start clearing the site. The actual build time 2-3 years. Add on 6 months to a year for every additional unit in your power station because you need to stagger the work force you have you wont have enough skilled worked to build two, three or four unit simultaneously.
So, a single unit power station with a bit of luck about 7 years. Something with more than one unit 8+ years. Issues with approvals or long lead time equipment not being ready can blow this out past 10 years easily.
Australia was locked into this situation by the creation of the national electricity market nearly twenty years ago, long before renewables were even a remote thought.
A thermal power station is enormously expensive with no return on investment for the best part of a decade. And you can howl at the moon as much as you like but that is why no private entity will ever build another meaningful coal station in Australia and they will be few and far between in the rest of the western world. Gas fuelled boilers (not combined cycle) will follow the same pattern in years to come.
Certifs