{"id":588510,"date":"2026-04-06T05:49:21","date_gmt":"2026-04-06T05:49:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/588510\/"},"modified":"2026-04-06T05:49:21","modified_gmt":"2026-04-06T05:49:21","slug":"taupo-circuit-smoke-where-does-it-come-from-what-is-it","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/588510\/","title":{"rendered":"Taup\u014d circuit smoke, where does it come from? What is it?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>WHENEVER Supercars races at Taup\u014d International Motorsport Park in New Zealand, one question always comes up: \u201cWhat is all that white smoke behind the final corner coming from?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s a fair question too, as pretty much any and all photos and TV shots of the front straight show what looks like smoke in the background.<\/p>\n<p>The plume is a signature feature of photos from the Taup\u014d circuit, and its cause is certainly nothing for concern.<\/p>\n<p>The smoke comes from the Tauhara Power Station, which came fully online late in 2024 and generates electrical power via renewable energy.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/superstore.v8sleuth.com.au\/products\/v8-sleuth-magazine-subscription?utm_source=SRBuyButton&amp;utm_medium=website\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/sleuth-subscription-issue-3_1024x1024.jpg\"\/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>In this case, that energy is geothermal: hot water from underground reservoirs in the Tauhara geothermal system is channelled via wells to the surface where it turns to steam, which then drives a massive turbine to generate electrical power.<\/p>\n<p>The \u2018smoke\u2019 is actually excess steam being released as water vapour into the atmosphere.<\/p>\n<p>The station can produce up to 174 megawatts of electricity at its peak, which is enough to power around 200,000 households for a full year.<\/p>\n<p>The Tauhara station is the second phase of a wider geothermal energy project around Taup\u014d and was constructed by the Sumitomo Corporation in recent years.<\/p>\n<p>And if the name Sumitomo sounds familiar, it should: it\u2019s a sister company of Sumitomo Rubber Industries, which produces and owns the Dunlop tyres used by the Supercars Championship.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/superstore.v8sleuth.com.au\/products\/racing-the-lion-an-illustrated-history-of-holden-in-australian-motorsport?utm_source=SRBuyButton&amp;utm_medium=website\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/racing_the_lion_1024x1024.png\"\/><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"WHENEVER Supercars races at Taup\u014d International Motorsport Park in New Zealand, one question always comes up: \u201cWhat is&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":588511,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[572],"tags":[64,63,806,805,803,804,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-588510","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-motosport","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-motor","11":"tag-motor-sports","12":"tag-motosport","13":"tag-motosports","14":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/588510","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=588510"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/588510\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/588511"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=588510"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=588510"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=588510"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}