{"id":408794,"date":"2026-01-12T18:48:11","date_gmt":"2026-01-12T18:48:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/408794\/"},"modified":"2026-01-12T18:48:11","modified_gmt":"2026-01-12T18:48:11","slug":"explosives-used-to-demolish-bell-bay-power-station-smokestack","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/408794\/","title":{"rendered":"Explosives used to demolish Bell Bay power station smokestack"},"content":{"rendered":"

The last remaining structure at the Bell Bay power station has been demolished.<\/p>\n

One of Tasmania’s tallest structures, the 110-metre-tall smokestack was razed in a controlled demolition by Hydro Tasmania on Monday morning.<\/p>\n

It is the latest in a series of demolition efforts undertaken by the state-owned energy company at the site, which has sat idle since being decommissioned in 2009.<\/p>\n

Demolition works began on site last year and Hydro expects work on the site to be completed in the coming weeks.<\/p>\n

\"Smokestack<\/p>\n

The Bell Bay power station was built in the early 1970s. (Supplied: Hydro Tasmania)<\/p>\n

‘Very complex’ task<\/p>\n

A video of the smokestack demolition was shared by Hydro on Monday afternoon, showing a series of explosions on site before the tower begins collapsing.<\/p>\n

Having been perched on the edge of the Tamar River for the past 50 years, the tower falls away from the water and crashes to the ground in a cloud of dust and debris.<\/p>\n

Hydro said the demolition was conducted by a specialist contractor using 41 kilograms of explosives.<\/p>\n

“The demolition of the stack was a big moment the team had been waiting for and they did a fantastic job,” project director Aaron McCreath said.<\/p>\n

“Bringing down such a tall and narrow structure is very complex work and requires a highly skilled specialist team.”<\/p>\n

During the demolition, a 400-metre exclusion zone was put in place, and Marine and Safety Tasmania also issued a prohibited area notice for all waters within 500m of the site.<\/p>\n

Similar operations were undertaken on site in October, when the boiler room was demolished, and in September, when the control building was toppled.<\/p>\n

‘Signifies’ move to renewables<\/p>\n

The power station was built in the early 1970s as Tasmania sought to diversify its power infrastructure away from being solely reliant on hydroelectricity.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

The tower, as seen in 2009. (ABC News)<\/p>\n

It was originally built to operate when dam levels were low and provide energy security, first as an oil-fired thermal power station.<\/p>\n

It was converted to run on gas from 2003, but operations shut down in 2009 after the state’s first energy connection with the mainland, Basslink, was built in 2006.<\/p>\n

In 2023, the site was announced as the future location for Bell Bay Powerfuels, a methanol fuel plant proposed by ABEL Energy.<\/p>\n

That is a $1.7 billion project, which aims to use Tasmania’s renewable energy resources to make green hydrogen and methanol fuel.<\/p>\n

Michael van Baarle, ABEL Energy executive chairman, said the demolition was a “great milestone”.<\/p>\n

“It’s great to start off your project with a success story,” he said.<\/p>\n

He said the company was in the process of seeking investors and was hoping to begin construction before the end of the decade and commence operations by the end of 2030.<\/p>\n

Susie Bower, Bell Bay Advanced Manufacturing Zone chief executive, said it was “pretty cool” that a former fossil fuel power plant site would become a renewables hub.<\/p>\n

“It’s a big milestone towards that operation being a little bit closer,” Ms Bower said.<\/p>\n

“I think [it’s] pretty cool. I think it really signifies what Tasmania is all about; we are about renewable energy.”<\/p>\n

At the outset of the demolition process, state Energy Minister Nick Duigan said green hydrogen was “critical” for Australia’s energy future.<\/p>\n

“Today is a symbolic milestone in Tasmania’s renewable energy journey, removing the old thermal power station to make way for the future of renewable energy, green hydrogen production,” he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The last remaining structure at the Bell Bay power station has been demolished. One of Tasmania’s tallest structures,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":408795,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[125965,216514,15402,104700,43,4250,44,41,39,42,40],"class_list":["post-408794","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-abel","tag-bell-bay-power-station","tag-demolition","tag-explosion","tag-headlines","tag-methanol","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/408794","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=408794"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/408794\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/408795"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=408794"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=408794"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=408794"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}