Western Port
Features inside
Western Port’s
HISTORY
PAGES 25–27
No. 1
FOOD AND ENTERTAINMENT
PAGES 28–29
newspaper
WESTERN PORT SCOREBOARD
PAGES 30–34
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7 August – 13 August 2012
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Fix danger crossroad call SEALING the southern part of Boes Rd has made its intersection with Graydens Rd a deathtrap, says David Lines who lives nearby. Mr Lines has been lobbying Mornington Peninsula Shire to make the crossroad safer, and says he is appalled it has taken a ratepayer to draw the shire’s attention to the inherent danger of the intersection on the boundary of Hastings and Tyabb. The making of Boes Rd had seen an increase in traffic, he said. “With Flinders College and Tyabb Primary School being the destination of many drivers, it has now become a highrisk place,” he said. Mr Lines has been emailing and calling the shire for more than a year. “I’ve been given information about the long and drawn out process for getting a roundabout at the intersection, but my contention is that this should all have occurred before Boes Rd was sealed.” He said the shire erecting two signs saying “Crash risk” on Graydens Rd was a joke. “Nearly every week, there are minor accidents. Do we have to see someone killed before the shire makes it safer?” Cross and unhappy: David Lines at what he says is the dangerous intersection of Graydens and Boes roads. Picture: Yanni
Crib a coal destination By Mike Hast EXPORTING of dried brown coal is the heavy industry most likely to be set up at Crib Point on the old BP refinery site on The Esplanade. The News reported two weeks ago the Baillieu government’s existing policy is for no heavy industry at Crib Point (‘Industry eyes Crib Point’, 24/7/12), but growing demand for energy to drive developing economies could overwhelm government restrictions. Last week the federal and Victorian governments announced a fund of $90 million for new brown coal technology projects in the Latrobe Valley including for export. The governments have chipped in
$45 million each for companies developing technology to dry brown coal and converting it to fertiliser as well as fuel such as briquettes. In 2009 the Labor state government secretly backed plans to mine, dry and export 12 million tonnes of brown coal from the Latrobe Valley each year to India and Japan for its power stations. The Baillieu government could be pressured to reverse its policy on the old refinery site at Crib Point, one of only two places in Australia with vacant industrial land next to a deep water jetty. The site is jointly owned by Shell and Exxon Mobil through a company called Crib Point Terminals, which has no plans for the site. The key to the project is removing
moisture from Victoria’s brown coal, the “wettest” in the world. When “dewatered”, the brown coal can compete in the export market at comparable prices to black coal. (High moisture content is the main reason the state’s three major power stations are said to be the dirtiest carbon emitters in the world.) Companies around the world are experimenting with ways to “dry” coal to cut its emissions when used in power stations. A Victorian-based company, Exergen, is a frontrunner with its “continuous hydrothermal dewatering” technology, which it claims can reduce moisture and make it one of the cleanest coals in the world.
Proponents of drying coal say it can reduce moisture content from more than 60 per cent to about 25 per cent and cut emissions when burned by about 30 per cent. Exergen is one of several companies bidding for the right to extract billions of tonnes of Latrobe Valley brown coal and convert it for export. It wants to build a 150-kilometre underground pipe to carry the dried coal from the Latrobe Valley to Western Port in a “slurry”, with water carrying coal pellets along the pipe. The water would be mechanically separated from the pellets and returned to the Latrobe Valley, treated and used to cool power stations or put through the Wonthaggi desal plant.
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Last December, Jack Hamilton of Exergen told a parliamentary committee chaired by Hastings MP Neale Burgess that his company would use an existing pipeline easement from Yallourn to the old BP refinery site in Crib Point to build a slurry pipe for dried coal and a return pipe for the water. The pies would run under Western Port south of French Island. Exergen’s partners in the project include Indian energy company Tata Power and Itochu Corp of Japan. The slurry pipe to Western Port would be substantially cheaper than building a new port in Gippsland or expanding the embryonic Port Anthony near Esso’s Barry Beach site, which services Bass Strait oil and gas.
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