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No More Overseas Travel? - Running out of oil? 10-Nov-2007 At 4:56:32 PM uwhp510

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I've been doing access work on one of the chimneys at the Yallourn coal power station in the lovely LaTrobe Valley, for the last month or so, and the view from up there hits home the (non greenhouse related) environmental devastation involved. The station which supplies 23% of Victoria's power consumes 2400 tonnes of coal.... per hour. The open cut coal mine is absolutely mind boggling in size, as it would have to be considering the rate of coal burning (and so are the ash pits). Then there is the rate of corrosion of anything made from steel (you should see the non-stainless biners that get left up there) thanks to the gases coming from the portholes in the chimney due to brick collapses. Every moving part gets replaced every five years, so there's clearly a fair bit of energy embedded in that process. Burning brown coal is just so bloody 19th century.

In Germany I understand there is a requirement for power companies to buy power from residential and commercial rooftop solar panels at three times the market rate, which makes them a much more attractive investment and as a result almost every rooftop in Germany which has much less sun than we have, is covered in solar panels.