SA Premier turned down a $30m coal deal that could have saved a billion dollars

The SA blackout cost around half a billion, and building a new gas plant (with a $170b in green bribes) adds another half. It’s now emerged that Alinta offered Jay Weatherill a deal to keep Port August Power running which he turned down. If he had paid just $30m to keep the Northern coal fired station in business, there might have been no statewide blackout, and no need for regular load shedding. Wholesale electricity contracts in SA have risen from 8c per KWhr to 14c since mid last year.

Alinta offered to keep Port Augusta power station running — The Advertiser:

The owner of the now-defunct Port Augusta power station made a secret offer to keep generating electricity until mid-2018 in return for $25 million from the State Government — 22 times less than its $550 million power plan.

In the six-page letter supplied to The Advertiser by the Liberals, Alinta warns of significant risk to the security of South Australia’s power supply and a surge in electricity prices — costing the state $56 million to $112 million a year — if the power station and associated Leigh Creek brown coal mine were to close.

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