Swanbank Power Station is located in Swanbank

Swanbank, Queensland

Swanbank is a suburb of Ipswich, Queensland, Australia. The predominant land usage in Swanbank is industrial. The origin of the suburb name is from a place in Lanark, Scotland called Swanbank. It is named after the home of the Swan family birthplace of granddaughter Catherine, the wife of an early...

 within South East Queensland

South East Queensland

South East Queensland is a region of the state of Queensland in Australia, which contains approximately two-thirds of the state population...

, Australia

Australia

Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...

. It is coal

Coal

Coal is a combustible black or brownish-black sedimentary rock usually occurring in rock strata in layers or veins called coal beds or coal seams. The harder forms, such as anthracite coal, can be regarded as metamorphic rock because of later exposure to elevated temperature and pressure...

, natural gas

Natural gas

Natural gas is a naturally occurring gas mixture consisting primarily of methane, typically with 0–20% higher hydrocarbons . It is found associated with other hydrocarbon fuel, in coal beds, as methane clathrates, and is an important fuel source and a major feedstock for fertilizers.Most natural...

, and landfill gas

Landfill gas

Landfill gas is a complex mix of different gases created by the action of microorganisms within a landfill.-Production:Landfill gas production results from chemical reactions and microbes acting upon the waste as the putrescible materials begins to break down in the landfill...

 powered with a combined generation

Electricity generation

Electricity generation is the process of generating electric energy from other forms of energy.The fundamental principles of electricity generation were discovered during the 1820s and early 1830s by the British scientist Michael Faraday...

 capacity of 865 MW of electricity.

The coal for Swanbank comes from coalfields in South-East Queensland, including New Acland Mine

New Acland Mine

The New Acland Mine is located adjacent to Acland township, about 10 km north of Oakey on the Darling Downs in Queensland, Australia. It contains more than 500 million tonnes of coal that is removed by the open cut method. The mine is owned and operated by New Hope Coal and part of the...

, by rail and road. Water is supplied from Lake Moogerah

Lake Moogerah

Lake Moogerah, formed by Moogerah Dam, is a water supply and irrigation dam on Reynolds Creek, a tributary of the Bremer River in Southeast Queensland's Fassifern Valley. The lake is used for recreation, fishing and camping...

 and the Western Corridor Recycled Water Project

Western Corridor Recycled Water Project

The Western Corridor Recycled Water Scheme is Australia's largest recycled water project, located in South East Queensland. It is a key part of the SEQ Water Grid being constructed by the Queensland Government in response to population growth, climate change and severe drought.The A$2.5 billion...

 began to supply the power station with water in August 2007.

Components

Swanbank B was commissioned in 1973 with four 120 MW steam turbines, powered by coal. Swanbank E was commissioned in 2002 with a single 385 MW combined cycle gas turbine. The gas turbine of Swanbank E was the largest of its type at the time of its commissioning.

World record

In 2011, Swanbank E set a world record for the continuous operation of an Alstom GT26 gas turbine. It had been running for 254 days when it was shut down on 9 July 2011 for planned maintenance.

Decommissioning

Swanbank A Station, which was one of the coal burning stations, was decommissioned in August 2005. The three 133 m high, 7000 tonne concrete smoke stacks were collapsed on 20 August 2006. All three were collapsed at the same time with a 10 second delay between each stack. The deconstruction and demolition project, undertaken by Trio Industries, was scheduled to be completed in February 2007.

In July 2008, Greenpeace

Greenpeace

Greenpeace is a non-governmental environmental organization with offices in over forty countries and with an international coordinating body in Amsterdam, The Netherlands...

 activists occupied the smoke stacks of one of the remaining stations, vandalizing a message for government leaders to "Go Solar".

Emissions

Carbon Monitoring for Action

Carbon Monitoring for Action

Carbon Monitoring For Action is a website that contains a searchable database that estimates the carbon emissions of power plants and power companies around the world. Launched in November, 2007, its database is updated quarterly. It is produced and financed by the Center for Global Development....

 estimates this power station emits 4.28 million tonnes of greenhouse gases each year as a result of burning coal

Coal

Coal is a combustible black or brownish-black sedimentary rock usually occurring in rock strata in layers or veins called coal beds or coal seams. The harder forms, such as anthracite coal, can be regarded as metamorphic rock because of later exposure to elevated temperature and pressure...

. The National Pollutant Inventory provides details of other pollutant emissions, but, as at 23 November 2008, not CO₂

Carbon dioxide

Carbon dioxide is a naturally occurring chemical compound composed of two oxygen atoms covalently bonded to a single carbon atom...

.

External links

• Video of chimney demolition