... an extension to Grrr's mind...: Power Stations

Wednesday, July 6, 2011

Counting chickens before they hatch

A few years ago there was a lot of controversy over a proposal by Mighty River Power to re-fire the Marsden B power station using coal.

A long drawn out series of protests and legal actions eventually led the electricity producer to drop the venture.

Greenpeace claims this one as a victory over coal. It isn't however. The plant is being dismantled and shipped to India, where, guess what - it's going to burn coal.

In my opinion, if anything, it's worse than had we fired it up, as I suspect maintenance and monitoring will be much less in India than it would've been here. A loss, not a victory for green ideals.

Tuesday, April 5, 2011

Omanawa Falls

On the way over to Tauranga, just on the far side of the Kaimai ranges lies this neat little waterfall, the Omanawa falls (which are logically located on Omanawa Falls Road).

The falls are a neat 20 minute walk from the road down a well formed farm track (the track is gravelled and could easily be traversed by a 4WD, where it not locked). After a walk through farmland and some bush, you get to a portal, which leads to a track along with excellent views of the falls (shown below).

Sadly, you cannot get access to the water. Access would be via the steel door at the end of the path, which is looked, but leads down to the old hydro powerstation at the base of the falls. The blue water does look appealing to swim in - but then again, it's probably icy cold! The other means to access the water would be via a flying fox - I'd love to have a go, but getting out could be a bit of a climb.

The hydro-electric station was approved in 1914, and first powered up in 1915. The power station fell out of use in the 1990's, but came back online after restoration in 2008 - it's still running the original turbine, and generates 200KW of electricity.