Chapter 6
I Construction During The Settlement Years
II The Use Of Timber As A Structural Material
III Structural Steel
IV Concrete Technology
V Housing
VI Industrialised Pre-cast Concrete Housing
VII Ports And Harbours
VIII Roads
IX Heavy Foundations
X Bridges
XI Sewerage
XII Water Engineering
XIII Railways
XIV Major Buildings
XV Airports
XVI Thermal Power Stations
i Steam Power Stations Using Brown Coal
ii Fabric Filters for Coal Fired Power Stations
iii Thermal Electricity Generation in Queensland
iv Conversion of Kwinana Power Station from Oil to Coal Firing
v Remote Area Power Supply Alternatives in Western Australia
XVII Materials Handling
XVIII Oil Industry
XIX The Snowy Mountains Scheme
XX The Sydney Opera House
XXI The Sydney Harbour Bridge
XXII Hamersley Iron
XXIII North West Shelf
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Since the early 1920s Australia has generally followed practices overseas in its development of thermal power generation. Coal, fuel oil and more recently natural gas are the main fuel sources. With the exception of the Northern Territory and Tasmania, the power supply system in each State is now based on several steam-power stations which incorporate one or more steam-driven turbo-generators. Supplementary generation, particularly for peak or emergency purposes, is also available from smaller generators driven by gas turbines or diesel engines and varying amounts of hydro are also used.
The installed capacity of the power system in each State was (1983-4 figures):
- N.S.W.
- 11204 MW
- Western Australia
- 1954 MW
- Victoria
- 6844 MW
- Tasmania
- 1943 MW
- Queensland
- 4216 MW
- Northern Territory
- 247 MW
- South Australia
- 2193 MW
The bulk of the power generated is produced by steam thermal power stations, and it is in the development of these and particularly in dealing with the special characteristics of our coals that new challenges have arisen. This involves the aspects of mining, storage and handling of coals, milling and combustion, boiler fouling, ash precipitation and ash disposal. Description of some of these can be relegated to the three main types of coal used i.e. black coal (NSW, Queensland and Western Australia), brown coal (Victoria) and lignite (South Australia).
This section has been confined to the following specific subjects: Thermal Power Stations Burning Brown Coal in the La Trobe Valley, Victoria; the Development of Fabric Filters for Dust Precipitation in New South Wales; the Development of Sound Attenuators for Power Stations Discharge Stacks; a Review of the Development of Thermal Electricity Generation in Queensland; the Conversion of Oil Fired Boilers at Kwinana Power Station to Coal Firing and other measures taken by the State Energy Commission of Western Australia to reduce the dependency on liquid fuels for electricity generation.
People in Bright Sparcs - Sutherland, K. N.
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Australian Academy of Technological Sciences and Engineering |  |
© 1988 Print Edition page 398, Online Edition 2000
Published by Australian Science and Technology Heritage Centre, using the Web Academic Resource Publisher
http://www.austehc.unimelb.edu.au/tia/394.html