TWO CAVERNS LARGE ENOUGH TO FIT INSIDE SYDNEY OPERA HOUSE
Snowy Hydro is pleased to announce another major achievement for the Snowy 2.0 pumped-hydro project, with the breakthrough of the final three metres of the power station’s 223-metre long transformer hall cavern crown. The Snowy 2.0 delivery team began excavating the transformer hall and machine hall caverns in June 2023. The Snowy 2.0 power station will be located approximately 800m underground at Lobs Hole in the Snowy Mountains. When completed, the Transformer Hall will be 223 metres long 18 metres wide and 46 metres high. Machine Hall (below) will be 251 metres long, 240 metres wide and 52 m high.
Together they will form one of the largest and deepest caverns in the world, big enough to fit the Sydney Opera House inside. So far, about 17,000 cubic metres of material has been excavated from the central heading of the Transformer cavern crown. The heading has been advanced in 3-4 metre rounds from either end of the cavern for a total of 77 blasts.
The dirt/spoil from excavation will increase by approximately 30 % when first handled with the majority of it being dumped into the two reservoirs.
The total area of 60,240 m2 is more than triple the turf area of Marvel Stadium.
The playing area of Marvel Stadium is a 19,000m² natural turf area, with 17,600m² of natural turf and 1,400m² of synthetic turf. The stadium dimensions are 169.5m from north to south and 140m from east to west, with a boundary line of 5 meters from the fence line for AFL matches. The distance between the north to south goal lines is 159.5m and from the east to west boundary lines is 128.8m.
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It might take a few years to claw back the CO2 trace gas emissions it has generated during construction. NASA said: “Carbon dioxide is a different animal, however. Once it’s added to the atmosphere, it hangs around, for a long time: between 300 and 1,000 years”. “Thus, as humans change the atmosphere by emitting carbon dioxide, those changes will endure on the timescale of many human lives”. Revelle said the atmospheric residence time was about 7-10 years. More recent data published have defined a CO2 residency of only 4 to 5 years,
Most Carbon Dioxide graphs published today have excluded the years before 1964. This was because there had been no increase in Carbon Dioxide emissions to speak of since 1900. That’s 64 years without any notable increase in CO2 emissions despite the two world wars, the fire-storm bombing, and the industrial and motor car boom that followed in the 1950’s.
The theory concerning carbon dioxide’s short-term residency in the atmosphere was shown to be true when the temperature reached 14.31 C in 1944 but then dropped to 13.89 C in 1964 the same temperature that was recorded in 1851. Despite the the post war boom and one billion people added to the world’s population, temperatures had dropped to a “net zero level” (13.89 C) in 1964
They tell us that we are responsible for only one percent of the world’s CO2 emissions, yet here we are spending 42 billion on this mammoth Snowy 2.0 project, which will generate the same amount of emissions in its construction as what we would emit if we did nothing.
The coalition government has abandoned its net-zero policy and has decided to support Nuclear power. It might be exactly what the public wants, but it will be too late to halt construction of Snowy 2…what a mess!
Australia adds about one per cent to the world’s total emissions annually, so why do we need the Snowy Two? It will be decades before we offset the huge amount of emissions generated by its construction.