Buller Coal For N.I.

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31111, 14 July 1966, Page 3

Buller Coal For N.I.

(From Our Own Reporter) WELLINGTON, July 13. The construction of a 600-megawatt coalfired power station on a site at New Plymouth developed by the Taranaki Harbour Board, to be approved for first operation in January, 1972, is one of only two new works recommended by the Planning Committee on Electric Power Development.

The decision was based on a report by the consultants who recommended the station, based on an assumed total of 600 megawatts in five 120megawatt sets. The sets would operate at 60 per cent lead factor and would consume 915,000 tons of West Coast coal yearly. Operating steam conditions suggested are 1500 pounds a square inch at 1000 degrees Fahrenheit with 1000 degrees Fahrenheit reheat, with an alternative of 1800 pounds a square inch. The consultant’s report says that calculations show that the cost of power transmitted to the North Island from a coal-field-based power station, compared with the cost of generation from a North Islandbased station, is equivalent to an additional 43s lid a ton of coal. As coal transport costs are estimated at 23s a ton, there is a margin in favour of North Island location. A ropeway from Stockton to Westport is now favoured, and

advantage can be taken of Westport port improvements. A modified collier design is proposed. Four sites were examined— Wellington harbour, Plimmerton, Wanganui and New Plymouth. In outlining the advantages and disadvantages of each, the consultants emphasised possible objections to smoke pollution and difficulties in disposing of the expected annual 30,000 tons of ash. “Buller coal has an average sulphur content of 3 per cent, and thus 30,000 tons of sulphur will be burnt a year,” the consultants’ report says. Sulphur extraction was not yet commercially feasible, but provision could be made for an extraction plant to be installed, if experimental work proved successful. “In any event the chimney height must allow for adequate sulphur dioxide dilution during periods when a sulphur extraction plant may

seem to shut down.” The idea of offshore loading at Ngakawau has been discarded as being too restricted by weather. A twin overhead ropeway from Stockton to Westport is suggested with a maximum capacity of 400 tons an hour. This would discharge into a 10,000-ton dockside bunker, with belt-con-veyor ship-loading at 1400 tons an hour. The meat wharf is the most favoured loading berth.