Power Plant

Since my last post I had organised a trip for some international students to a mine and power plant. You can see a leadership perspective on the trip on my other blog site:
http://myuniqueentrepreneur.blogspot.com/2008/12/organising-trips.html

The power plant and mine is in Loy Yang. This is about 2 hours east of Melbourne, Australia. At first this does not sound like a place to go on a trip but when you see it you will be impressed. When driving to the plant you are surrounded by farmland that is scattered with trees but then you go over a hill and see the power plant's two yellow cooling towers and chimneys going high into the sky. On the tour I got to be in the mine that is about 200 meters deep and is 4km wide. I also got see the huge flame burning inside one of the chimneys. I was amazed by the technical achievement that comes from building the power plant Looking at this modern wonder it can be easy forget that the power plant is part of an important issue.

The power plant is brown coal powered, this is the most polluting type. The plant also supplies most of the electricity to the state. This causes a problem for the government. As part of the Kyoto protocol, the government will have add extra tax to polluting companies. The manufacturing industry in the state of Victoria has grown large. It provides many jobs and keeps the economy going. The growth has been caused by the state having cheap electricity. The concern is that the extra tax will make electricity too expensive and that many factories will close and production will be moved to China, where factories are allowed to pollute more.