Coal power plants going CHEAP!

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From Fairfax:

Brisbane-based energy consultant Trevor St Baker and coal baron Brain Flannery paid the princely sum of $1 million to the NSW government for the Vales Point power station.

…The low price for the plant on the shores of Lake Macquarie – the backdrop for the film clip of the Midnight Oil hit “US Forces” – is sobering for the owners of other black coal power plants.

Though cleaner than Victoria’s brown coal plants, black coal plant is being squeezed out of the National Electricity Market in the absence of a carbon price by brown coal and renewable energy because its marginal operating costs are higher.

It was bought by the coal suppliers who can clearly see a margin in operating the two businesses. It was cheaper to give away than de-commission for the NSW government.

Any buyers?

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About the author
David Llewellyn-Smith is Chief Strategist at the MB Fund and MB Super. David is the founding publisher and editor of MacroBusiness and was the founding publisher and global economy editor of The Diplomat, the Asia Pacific’s leading geo-politics and economics portal. He is also a former gold trader and economic commentator at The Sydney Morning Herald, The Age, the ABC and Business Spectator. He is the co-author of The Great Crash of 2008 with Ross Garnaut and was the editor of the second Garnaut Climate Change Review.