TaLin (大林） - Kaohsiung Coal Fired Power Plant Expansion

"In Kaohsiung today our usual warm, sticky summer. You can expect a high of 31 degrees and smokey outside, with an unlikely chance of rain." 

That's what the weather report might read in a few years if Mercy on the Earth Taiwan is correct when they say that the planned expansion of the Da Lin (大林） coal fired power plant will more than double the air pollution levels in Kaohsiung City.

Here we have 1 ton  of coal (this photo courtesy of scientificamerican.com)

The power plant at Da Lin currently burns about 1 600 000 of these each year. 

When the expansion project goes through it will burn 17 000 000 tons every year. 

The reason for this expansion, according to Taipower, is to replace the 5 really really old natural gas generators at the plant with "high efficiency coal fired generators." 

To their credit, Taipower is finally taking down the oldest (and probably dirtiest) natural gas generators in all of South Asia. What is not entirely clear, is why they're being replaced with coal fired generators instead of new natural gas generators, which are known to be cleaner. 

The obvious answer is: coal is cheaper. 

Not a brain buster. But there's more to it than that.

The odd thing is the federal government has recently cemented plans to bring down carbon emissions to below 2005 levels by 2020. Thus, building more coal fired power plants would seem an odd step. It also seems strange as most of the north of Taiwan has natural gas generation, which points towards why their air quality is significantly better.

On the other side of the argument, Taipower claims that instead of increasing pollution, the high efficiency scrubbing system will cut air pollution in half. Mercy on the Earth disagrees, as does the Mayor of Kaohsiung Chen Chu, who is opposed to the new project.

To be fair, it may be possible that today's coal is more environmentally friendly than 35 year old natural gas when one takes into account the advances in efficiency for coal powered generation. BUT, natural gas generation TODAY is still more efficient and less polluting than coal today, so their decision to build more coal instead of new natural gas generation makes little sense. 

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Perhaps the most crass and annoying part of this is that Taipower intends to build a sort of light spectacle around the smoke stacks in order to display the new algae culture growth mechanisms (intended to help cut pollution). So, we in Kaohsiung are meant to look on it in awe and amazement.

Do they really expect us to think positively about our coal fired power plant just because there are lights on it? 

That's just dumb. 

         Get real Taipower.