WEST AUSTRALIA

Evening Post, Volume CXXVII, Issue 61, 14 March 1939, Page 11

WEST AUSTRALIA

POWER PROBLEMS

NO HYDRO SCHEMES

5 How electric power difficulties .are overcome in Western Australia, where the streams become pools in the summar and there are no hydro-electric schemes, with one small exception, was described today by Mr. B. M. Holt, a former Wellington College Boy, who is now a consulting engineer in Western Australia. "There are no hydro-electric schemes in Western Australia," he said, "except one small one that does not supply j anything except a small portion of the power used. There are no rivers inland, and the majority of what rivers there are do not flow iri the summer,, but leave great pools of beautiful water. The power plants are run by fjiesel engines and coal. Right inland some of the power stations have producer gas plants, as wood is very cheap, and the freight on crude oil is very high.' The majority of the power stations along the coast are Diesel." Mr. Holt served his apprenticeship with Messrs. Crabtree and Sons in the early days, and was also two years with the late Mr. R. L. M. Mestayer, civil engineer, of Wellington. Leaving New Zealand in 1905 he went to Western Australia, working on the construction of the Fremantle. power station, after which he went to England to Messrs. Scott arid Mountain's engineering works on Newcastle on Tyne, whence he returned'to Western Australia. Mr. Holt will stay in Wellington for a While, and 'hopes to renew old acquaintances, and later to see something of the new work done at Arapurii.