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10 comments on A new geothermal power station for Birdsville
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10 comments on A new geothermal power station for Birdsville
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GAIA Host Collective
So the 50% replacement subsidy is $4.3Mill... Therefore project cost = around $8.6Mill.
16,000 litres of diesel fuel saved per annum (say @$1.40 /litre) = $22.4K
Payback period=384 years (!)... Estimated life of new kit (same as the old one): 20 years...
Required diesel cost for payback within 20 years = $43 per litre
Population of Birdsville= ~ 100 people
(I'm not normally a fan of solar PV, but couldn't it do the same job at a tiny fraction of this capital cost???? It's not as if there's a lack of sunshine in Birdsville. And how do we haul the new geothermal power plant components to Birdsville every 20 years? - By diesel truck, natch...
Improbability sum complete!)
;-)
Ummm - the article said 160,000 litres of diesel.
And this is the capital cost of the plant you are comparing too, so you should add in the cost of the diesel generators too.
I'm sure it still works out to be relatively expensive, but nowhere near as bad as your initial reckoning.
Whoops my mistake - never post with jetlag! ;-)