THERMAL POWER PLANTS

Press, Volume LXXXIV, Issue 25608, 24 September 1948, Page 3

THERMAL POWER PLANTS

PRACTICABILITY DOUBTED BY N.Z. ENGINEER

EXPERIENCE IN JAPAN QUOTED

“The Press” Special Service AUCKLAND, September 23. “Irate consumers can dismiss at once the possibility of quantities of thermal power from Rotorua or Ngawha,” said Mr A. Main, general manager of the Waitemata Electric Power Eoard, in a statement to-day. “There is only one way to augment our electric power supply, and that is by erecting urgently fuel-burning plants and having a plentiful supply of coal mined for the purpose.

“We can only point out the solution. It is for the people to implement it by pressure on the Government at once.”

A cabled report of the views of the Commissioner of Works (Mr E. R. McKillop) on possibilities of using thermal nower in New Zealand was referred to by Mr Main. Mr McKillop had thought that it was much too early to make any definite statement whether power and similar products could be obtained from thermal areas in New Zealand. He had mentioned that the chemical comoosition of steam in the Rotorua area differed from that at Lardarello and that the differencemight create special problems in turbine design. “One of the few thermal areas in the world where steam has the same chemical composition as at Rotorua is Eeppu in Japan,” Mr Mam said. “I was in Beppu in 1935, when American engineers, who had installed large hydro and fuel-burning steam generating plants for five private companies, which owned the generating stations in Japan, informed me that harnessing that thermal area was impracticable because of the chemical composition of the steam. The turbines would have to be renewed every three months at enormous capital cost and this, together with the question of their erection in unstable volcanic country, made the use of that form of power unsuitable.

‘ Kir McKillop, from memory, thought the thermal area in North Auckland at Ngawha closelv resembles Lardarelld, at least as far as the presence of boric acid is concerned. Ngawha is a small area outside Kaikohe, where there are hot springs, possessing valuable curative properties, and where many people dig out . their own mud baths with spades. The use of that small area for large quantities of electric power is a ridiculous suggestion.”