Science/Environment Moving Australia to 100% Renewable Energy would actually SAVE us money.

[Power Raid]

We ARE heading down the California path, and it sucks, and i think we need government intervention to prevent it.

Scenario:
I want to invest in Energy.

If I invest in a gas power station i can probably sell most of what i produce. BUT , i know others are investing in Wind and Solar, and the Government is working on the Snowy Hydro storage system ( will the cost of this be applied to renewable's )? This means i don't know how much of my energy i will sell as more and more renewable's come online. In ten years time i may struggle to sell any power if the wind is blowing and/or the sun is shining.
That makes it very difficult to amortise my costs over the life of the power station. What if a carbon tax is re-introduced or other costs associated with generating CO2.
If i was crazy enough to invest in this option, i would be looking to minimise my capital, rather than producing the lowest emitting power station.

If i invest in Wind or Solar, i will probably sell everything i generate. I can look up average solar /wind conditions to work out what i will produce per year and be able to amortise the capital comfortably. Its unlikely that the government will introduce new legislation to hinder or render less profitable these sorts of power stations. Therefore i choose this one. What if there is no wind or sun, and there is a power shortfall? Someone else's problem.

--------------
Should we expect an uninterrupted electricity supply?
Who should ensure that we have such an electricity supply?
Private power companies are not.

The answer is simple

Invest in profiteering infrastructure that kills the pig on points of failure rather than infrastructure that provides cheap, safe, clean, reliable power.

Who loses? Society

 

[Power Raid]

Doesn't change the fact they benefit from creating an under supply

What it does is creates an equal playing field.

Current system benefits intermittent power where reliable power is penalised.


And you’re wrong in your assessment as this places reliability commitments onto operators

 

[Ned_Flanders]

What it does is creates an equal playing field.

Current system benefits intermittent power where reliable power is penalised.


And you’re wrong in your assessment

I don't disagree it's better, but it doesn't fix the core problem

Private operators benefit from brown outs

Privatising our power sector has been a massive backward step

 

[Power Raid]

I don't disagree it's better, but it doesn't fix the core problem

Private operators benefit from brown outs

Privatising our power sector has been a massive backward step

Yes re the brown outs

The solution is to improve reliability and longer blocks puts pressure on price dumpers and encourages Invesment in reliability.

The shorter blocks means price gougers benefit for seconds not 6 minutes or more.

 

[SaintsSeptember]

Yes re the brown outs

The solution is to improve reliability and longer blocks puts pressure on price dumpers and encourages Invesment in reliability.

The shorter blocks means price gougers benefit for seconds not 6 minutes or more.

Sounds good in theory but in real terms you can't get "reliable" solar or wind.
Literally it changes with the weather.

If we end up with , for example , a surplus of Wind power and Solar, its a really nice windy night, all the wind turbine operators will all be trying to outbid each other to sell it.
Then the weather changes, the sun isn't up yet.

Mr Gas , arcs up his turbines and gouges the crap out the system to sell his electricity.
He has a right to do that , he HAS to do it.
He only gets to sell his electricity when there is no wind or sun, and he has a power station to pay for.

 

[Power Raid]

Sounds good in theory but in real terms you can't get "reliable" solar or wind.
Literally it changes with the weather.

If we end up with , for example , a surplus of Wind power and Solar, its a really nice windy night, all the wind turbine operators will all be trying to outbid each other to sell it.
Then the weather changes, the sun isn't up yet.

Mr Gas , arcs up his turbines and gouges the crap out the system to sell his electricity.
He has a right to do that , he HAS to do it.
He only gets to sell his electricity when there is no wind or sun, and he has a power station to pay for.

what it does do is, unreliable energy generation have to buy from the spot market and absorb the cost rather than the market being gouged by the spot price

this promotes reliable generation investment rather than short term gouging and price dumping

essentially we will see the true and full cost of solar and wind

 

[SaintsSeptember]

How much do people value their environmental ideals.
Is it acceptable to have rolling brownouts on still nights?
For me its a no, especially when it comes to things like home heating ( even my gas heater needs electricity ).

 

[Power Raid]

How much do people value their environmental ideals.
Is it acceptable to have rolling brownouts on still nights?
For me its a no, especially when it comes to things like home heating ( even my gas heater needs electricity ).

I personally don't care if we have rolling brown outs

- who cares if people die as their medical equipment fails and they don't have their own battery back up system
- who cares if industry closes shifting jobs and wealth to reliable power jurisdictions. All it means is wages are lower than they should be, which means I can have my pool and home cleaned on cheap labour and have university qualified people to make my coffee and wipe my arse when I'm in a nursing home
- who cares if we can't have a voice or a military when it comes to international affairs. As China will have our best interests at heart.
- who cares if unreliable power is leading to higher than it should be pollution levels


actually I do care about all these things

 

[SaintsSeptember]

I personally don't care if we have rolling brown outs

- who cares if people die as their medical equipment fails and they don't have their own battery back up system
- who cares if industry closes shifting jobs and wealth to reliable power jurisdictions. All it means is wages are lower than they should be, which means I can have my pool and home cleaned on cheap labour and have university qualified people to make my coffee and wipe my arse when I'm in a nursing home
- who cares if we can't have a voice or a military when it comes to international affairs. As China will have our best interests at heart.
- who cares if unreliable power is leading to higher than it should be pollution levels


actually I do care about all these things

All of that stuff can be allowed for.

A 10Kw Diesel Generator costs a business $8000 dollars.
Bigger ones are of course available.
Tesla batteries can be provided or subsidised for people with critical medical equipment.
Of course the Diesel Generators aren't helping the environment.

If we are in a situation where we know we have a grid like the power supply of the 4077 MASH mess tent, we can find ways to deal with it.

I'd vote against it , but maybe i've lost touch and we don't need a reliable power supply.
We can sit in the dark and watch movies on our mobile phones until the power comes back on.

Quality of electricity supply - country ranking 2019 | Statista

This statistic shows the countries with the highest quality of electricity supply in 2019.

www.statista.com

 

[JoondalupJ]

http://www.theguardian.com/environm...0-renewable-energy-would-save-australia-money

Unfortunately there's a catch - moving to renewables won't earn trillions for multinational fossil fuel companies or line the pockets of the Australian politicians in their possession.

So its business as usual, back to pretending climate change isn't real because there's too much money to be made polluting the atmosphere at the expense of our childrens' future.

Well sorry Mr Cut , but no one said climate change wasn't real, its the panic and bulldust about it, that is the problem, this planet has always had climate change and in fact a little warming is fine, much much better than cooling , which it will do again one day, we will have an ice age again , the point is the planet is going well at the moment in that sense, maybe going sh*thouse in the middle east and other places, but the planet itself is ok. And nature couldn'r give a stuff about humans . Yes true!
When cooling takes place thats when extinctions take place. So calm yourself down we could have another 1000 to 20,000 years yet before an ice age turns up.
Renewables won't do the job , nuclear will, and renewables also have a mammoth waste problem as well when all the millions and millions of solar panels that get to their use by date have to be dumped that'll be an eternal problem, never ending!

Remember there were deserts where there are now jungles, and jungles where there are now deserts.
Measuring sea levels , yeah right? Measuring ocean temperatures? EXACTLY so as to make predictions of the end of the earth hah. A gigantic moving changing body of 70% of the earth, water!! It is impossible to measure exactly anything near that to make wokery predictions!
So I wish people would stop saying climate change is not real, of course its real , it's just that its been real for millions of years, and we have no say in it , not even when the last ice age melted away?

 

[Pessimistic]

Can’t get over how predatory car manufacturers are.

so having car manufacturing move offshore, because we don’t subsidise them any more, now we are being told that imports have to be subsidised too?

surely there’s an onus on the industry to sort itself out?

Global car giant says Australia is 'missing out' on new, cheap electric car models

Electric vehicle experts say Australia is a "backwater" for global car manufacturers and is missing out on the latest EV technology.

www.abc.net.au

 

[Pessimistic]

Sounds good in theory but in real terms you can't get "reliable" solar or wind.
Literally it changes with the weather.

If we end up with , for example , a surplus of Wind power and Solar, its a really nice windy night, all the wind turbine operators will all be trying to outbid each other to sell it.
Then the weather changes, the sun isn't up yet.

Mr Gas , arcs up his turbines and gouges the crap out the system to sell his electricity.
He has a right to do that , he HAS to do it.
He only gets to sell his electricity when there is no wind or sun, and he has a power station to pay for.

The UK etc had pumped storage long before there were the current level of renewables. Its dealing with uneven demand. Not rocket science

 

[Power Raid]

Can’t get over how predatory car manufacturers are.

so having car manufacturing move offshore, because we don’t subsidise them any more, now we are being told that imports have to be subsidised too?

surely there’s an onus on the industry to sort itself out?

Global car giant says Australia is 'missing out' on new, cheap electric car models

Electric vehicle experts say Australia is a "backwater" for global car manufacturers and is missing out on the latest EV technology.

www.abc.net.au

I read the article and came to the same conclusion.

I get the idea that infrastructure may have to be subsidised, such as recharging stations a, to enable the electric car to exist in Australia. By doing this in the major city centers first, to provide a critical mass of vehicles to encourage and build momentum. I may also be reasonable to provide free recharging at these stations when renewable supply results in over supply in the grid.

but subsidising cars, so we can replace 250g/kwh diesel and petrol with 500+g/kwh grid doesn't make a lot of sense.

 

[Power Raid]

The UK etc had pumped storage long before there were the current level of renewables. Its dealing with uneven demand. Not rocket science

pumped storage will do the same, attested to by the price gouging of batteries and gas

 

[Pessimistic]

Ironically the UK thing came from a TV obsessed public all putting the kettle on at the same instant at the end of ‘Eastenders or Corrie’. I wonder if it’s different now there’s more streaming

 

[JackFlash]

A 100% renewable energy system is still difficult to manage. It is technically impossible and economically unsustainable.

 

[SaintsSeptember]

I read the article and came to the same conclusion.

I get the idea that infrastructure may have to be subsidised, such as recharging stations a, to enable the electric car to exist in Australia. By doing this in the major city centers first, to provide a critical mass of vehicles to encourage and build momentum. I may also be reasonable to provide free recharging at these stations when renewable supply results in over supply in the grid.

but subsidising cars, so we can replace 250g/kwh diesel and petrol with 500+g/kwh grid doesn't make a lot of sense.

There are still a lot of questions.
Is a car with 270km range that takes an hour to charge suitable in Australia.
Say you want to go and visit friends or family in Traralgon. Its too far to risk that you can get there and back without charging, but its a pretty normal sort of distance for many Australians to day trip.

OK there are charging stations there. They take 2 Tesla's and one "chargepoint" One of the fast ones, only takes an hour to charge.
Now unless the people you visit live conveniently close to the charging station what's the process.

Hang around for an hour? Do they have Valet service? can you bugger off ( Uber cost , or friends drive you )?
If there are a couple of other subsidised Nissan Leafs already there waiting, you would seem to be up for a 3 hour wait.

It seems to turn something simple, like an organised dinner at a pub for a birthday, into some sort of drama.

Meanwhile most of Australia seems to want to drive a AWD Monster Truck.

We could save on a lot of emissions if we could convince people you don't need a 3 tonne monster to drive to Chadstone from your house in Waverly.

 

[SaintsSeptember]

A 100% renewable energy system is still difficult to manage. It is technically impossible and economically unsustainable.

People need to stop their "All or Nothing" approach and focus on "Best way to improve the most ".

 

[SaintsSeptember]

The UK etc had pumped storage long before there were the current level of renewables. Its dealing with uneven demand. Not rocket science

We are going to have pumped storage via the Snowy System.
I think its a good move.
I can't see it being replicated, since the network of dams are unlikely to be duplicated.

 

[Pessimistic]

We are going to have pumped storage via the Snowy System.
I think its a good move.
I can't see it being replicated, since the network of dams are unlikely to be duplicated.

plenty of examples of old coal mines being re purposed.Some already have power distribution there already. Solar and wind farm with pumped hydro storage

 

[Power Raid]

There are still a lot of questions.
Is a car with 270km range that takes an hour to charge suitable in Australia.
Say you want to go and visit friends or family in Traralgon. Its too far to risk that you can get there and back without charging, but its a pretty normal sort of distance for many Australians to day trip.

OK there are charging stations there. They take 2 Tesla's and one "chargepoint" One of the fast ones, only takes an hour to charge.
Now unless the people you visit live conveniently close to the charging station what's the process.

Hang around for an hour? Do they have Valet service? can you bugger off ( Uber cost , or friends drive you )?
If there are a couple of other subsidised Nissan Leafs already there waiting, you would seem to be up for a 3 hour wait.

It seems to turn something simple, like an organised dinner at a pub for a birthday, into some sort of drama.

Meanwhile most of Australia seems to want to drive a AWD Monster Truck.

We could save on a lot of emissions if we could convince people you don't need a 3 tonne monster to drive to Chadstone from your house in Waverly.

At the moment it is NOT a solution for Australia but suitable for the majority of people in major city centres. One can always hire a car for long journeys and have a city run about for 99% of the time.

In time infrastructure will improve just as it did when cars replaced horses. It should be noted the first petrol station was built circa 30 years after cars were built. we'll also laugh one day when we allowed gasoline stations with all their carcinogenic chemicals.

the electric car/ hydrogen car is a fabulous idea but people shouldn't get too excited about slow adoption here in Oz. We have different challenges, as you highlight, making the gen 1, 2 and 3 less suitable for Oz.

 

[SaintsSeptember]

At the moment it is NOT a solution for Australia but suitable for the majority of people in major city centres. One can always hire a car for long journeys and have a city run about for 99% of the time.

In time infrastructure will improve just as it did when cars replaced horses. It should be noted the first petrol station was built circa 30 years after cars were built. we'll also laugh one day when we allowed gasoline stations with all their carcinogenic chemicals.

the electric car/ hydrogen car is a fabulous idea but people shouldn't get too excited about slow adoption here in Oz. We have different challenges, as you highlight, making the gen 1, 2 and 3 less suitable for Oz.

Electric car batteries with five-minute charging times produced

Exclusive: first factory production means recharging could soon be as fast as filling up petrol or diesel vehicles

www.theguardian.com

They are working on stuff that can potentially give us a good future solution.
But sure as hell, throwing money at greedy car companies to sell their current products, isn't going to help a thing.

Charging infrastructure will probably need to be replaced when that happens as well. So we shouldn't be throwing government money at charge stations for existing products.

Step 1: Fix the power grid so we aren't charging EV's with Coal.

 

[Power Raid]

Electric car batteries with five-minute charging times produced

Exclusive: first factory production means recharging could soon be as fast as filling up petrol or diesel vehicles

www.theguardian.com

They are working on stuff that can potentially give us a good future solution.
But sure as hell, throwing money at greedy car companies to sell their current products, isn't going to help a thing.

Charging infrastructure will probably need to be replaced when that happens as well. So we shouldn't be throwing government money at charge stations for existing products.

Step 1: Fix the power grid so we aren't charging EV's with Coal.

and WA is working with major battery players to replace graphite in lithium batteries improving performance by a factor of 10

 

[SaintsSeptember]

and WA is working with major battery players to replace graphite in lithium batteries improving performance by a factor of 10

LOL the technology for fast charge replaces the graphite with something else.
We may end up with different batteries depending what you replace the graphite with.
Your choice, lighter batteries with more storage, or heavier batteries you can charge fast.

 

[Power Raid]

LOL the technology for fast charge replaces the graphite with something else.
We may end up with different batteries depending what you replace the graphite with.
Your choice, lighter batteries with more storage, or heavier batteries you can charge fast.

the WA group has developed a 10 times improvement in charge density. So no weight difference but smaller with more charge.

a company notorious for vacuums has adopted along with a hand made british car manufacturer and a large well known german car manufacturer