Indonesian Power Plants Shutting Down Due To Lack of Fuel  

China's Xinhua news agency reports some Indonesian power plants are having problems staying up due to fuel shortages.

A 750-megawatt power plant in Grati, Pasuruan, East Java Province of Indonesia, stopped operation on Monday as it ran out of fuel stock, the Antara news agency reported on Tuesday. As a result the Java-Bali interconnection will have a deficit of 658 MW in power supply and the stated-owned electricity company PLN will be forced to reduce power supply proportionally to various areas in Java and Bali island, including Jakarta. Those areas will have their turn of blackout at peak load, PLN said.

Meanwhile, another gas and steam powered power plant in Tambak Lorok in Semarang, in Central Java province is also facing shortage of fuel supply and may have to stop operation unless the government could cope with the fuel shortage. The 1,000 MW power plant has fuel enough only until Wednesday.

There is some discussion of this issue here. In related news, Reuters has an article talking about potential problems with coal supplies to some US plants - "US power plants could run short of coal".

It really would be most unfortunate if we fell over Duncan's Olduvai Cliff due to an inability to simply dig up coal and ship it around before we've even passed the peak oil point...

Elsewhere, the Swiss Rail Network ground to a halt for 3 hours on Wednesday due to power problems. This has been blamed partly on heat related issues (another side effect of global warming) and reputedly amplified by one of the local nuclear power stations (1165 MWatt Leibstadt) being out of service for 6 months due to a shortcircuit in the generator. Swiss trains - you used to be able to set your watch by them...

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