MATAURA COAL DEPOSITS

Timaru Herald, Volume CLV, Issue 22791, 15 January 1944, Page 3

MATAURA COAL DEPOSITS

Not Economic Source

Of Power

The proposal made by Mr J. D. McDonald, a research chemist who visited Southland recently, that by means of a coal carbonization plant deposits of coal at Mataura could be used to supply enough electric power to maintain all the essential services in the South Island, was described by Mr W. H. Gregory, district electrical engineer, as impracticable. He expressed this opinion in an interview with a representative of “The Southland Tinies.” Mr Gregory gave facts and figures to support his contention. Mr Gregory said that in 1942 the South Island electric power stations produced 364,978,838 kilowatt hours. He estimated that to produce this amount of power about 1,000,000 tons of carbonized coal would be required, and that to produce this amount of carbonised coal it would be necessary to have 5,000,000 tons of the brown lignite coal such as W'as found in the Mataura district. Some idea of what would be involved in the mining of such a huge quantity of coal might be gained from the fact that in 1942 the total amount of coal produced in all the mines of New Zealand was 2,680,000 tons.

Yallourn Scheme

To put it in another way, the carbonisation plant proposed by Mr McDonald would require 2750 iwas of carbonised coal a day and lo get this amount it would be necessary to have 13,750 tons of coal. In arriving at this estimate he had taken into consideration the fact that the average value of New Zealand lignites was 9600 British thermal units per lb., compared with an overage value of 12,000 B.T.U. for better class coals.

Mr Gregory referred to the Yallourn electric power scheme in Victoria which he investigated 10 years ago. This plant with a capacity of 60,000 kilowatts used 6000 tons’of lignite coal dally. However, in the Yallourn district the coal was in thick seams only a little way below the surface. The coal could, therefore, be won from open cuts which permitted an extensive use of machinery and a minimum of labour. The result was that the coal was delivered into the bunkers at the Yallourn plant at less than 2/6 a tbn. Conditions in the Mataura district were in no way similar to those in the Yallourn district, and therefore it did not follow that because the Yallourn scheme was a success a similar scheme at Mataura would be a success. In addition to the cost of mining the coal there were other factors which Mr McDonald had apparently not taken into consideration. There was, for example, the question of transporting the coal to the carbonisation plant. The power plant could not be erected anywhere. It must be near a sure and plentiful supply of water, since water would be required for the boilers and many other purposes. Then there was the important question of the transmission of power. Water Power Cheaper In any case, Mr Gregory added, it had been proved conclusively that it was much cheaper to generate electricity by water power than by steam power. There was ample water power in New Zealand and that being the case it would be economically wrong to allow this power to run to waste and at the same time make inroads on the country’s coal reserves, which might be required for other purposes in the distant future. It was estimated that at the present rate of consumption the Dominion’s coal deposits would last about 800 years, but this long stretch of years would be reduced very considerably if coal were used to provide all the electricity New Zealand required. The quantity of coal mined annually in New Zealand was only about sufficient to provide electric power equal to the combined output of the hydroelectrw plants in the country.