# Alternative energy?



## y0ud (5 January 2009)

i have spent a bit of time reading about solar/alternative energy sources and wondering wether now is the right time to have something installed. i read a few magazines which spoke of geothermal energy and advancement this/ advancement that, sounding a whole lot like the computer market.
at the moment most of the solar energy systems say that your alternative energy system will pay its self off with the money you save over the next 8-15 years. with all the fuss in the market, and companies being forced to throw money into alternative energies, would it be wise to wait a while?

what other facts can you fine forum'its bring to the table about alternative energy


go forth


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## Stormin_Norman (5 January 2009)

youre better off spending the money converting your house to low voltage.

from there powering it will be easier and in the meantime u can have substantially lower bills.


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## Smurf1976 (5 January 2009)

I think I've said just about all that can be said on this topic in the various climate change and peak oil threads.

Bottom line is this: WHY do you want to produce your own energy at home?

If the reasons are anything other than not being able to obtain a reliable supply from the grid at a reasonable price then I'll ask a second question:

WHY not produce cars, furniture, computers, butter, washing powder or anything else at home? Why go into the energy business rather than some other business? 

And if you are going into the energy business, what is the reason for wanting to do it on a very small scale with consequent high costs? Would you open a car factory in the backyard? Or an oil refinery? So why build and run a tiny power station? Why not just buy shares in a company that owns much larger power stations and produces electricity at far lower cost through the benefits of scale?

If the reason has something to do with alternative energy as a solution to all hte problems caused by fossil fuels, then you'd surely want to be producing that energy in the most resource efficient manner possible? Doing anything on a very small scale almost always ends up being far less resource efficient than large scale production - that's essentially the principle that the likes of Henry Ford worked out a long time ago and it applies to power generation just as it applies to anything else.

So yes, you can put some solar panels on the roof which will generate electricity at about $1000 per megawatt hour not counting the costs of providing grid infrastructure and conventional power stations that will still be needed, on average, 83% of the time. 

Even if every house in the country did it, we'll still be burning coal for the majority of total generation due to the technical and economic limits on household solar panels. In short, it doesn't scale. 

Overall, it's a nice idea but it's just not going to happen that we get more than a trivial share of total generation from such systems. We can get 25 times more bang for the buck, over and above the cost of fossil fuel generation, investing in large scale renewables instead.

We could just put up wind turbines at $80 per megawatt hour that operate with twice the capacity factor (time running as a % of total time) that solar does.

Or we could go for large scale geothermal that, in theory at least, ought to also be around $80 but it's a true baseload power station that's an actual replacement for coal or nuclear.

Conventional coal-fired generation costs are in the order of $40 per MWh as a reference point. Gas is very similar. Oil at present prices (US$46 per barrel) would be around $120, hence the disappearance of virtually all oil-fired power generation. 

I'm NOT saying that you shouldn't put some panels up if you want to. But don't be thinking that we're about to see the idea take over electricity generation on a meaningful scale. We'd need to see massive cuts in labour costs for that to happen and I don't see much chance of that. 

If you want to do something positive then I'd:

1. Stick with the grid.
2. Make the house inherently efficient. Windows, shading, insulation and so on.
3. Get a heat pump / gas / solar for hot water (which is best depends on the situation)
4. If suitable for the area, go for evaporative cooling in preference to air-conditioning.
5. Heat pump / gas / wood for heating (will depend on location and lifestyle)
6. No incandescent or halogen lighting apart from limited short running applications requiring immediate full brightness. 

That lot will give you far more bang for your buck than generating your own power and you'll still end up with fairly low overall consumption. 2twocents


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## y0ud (7 January 2009)

thanks for the post!

how do you think the energy system will change over the next 10 or so years?


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## Sir Osisofliver (7 January 2009)

Hi Smurf,

I don't think I have the energy to go through the peak oil and climate change threads, (pun intended) to read what you have said before, so I'll just ask my questions and hope you come back to this thread.

1) Can I get the source for those Megawatt hours you quoted please? $1000 a megawatt hour for solar panels sounds..... exorbitant.

2) Have you factored in transmission losses?

3) Did you price in the effect of carbon credits? (Not that K Rudd didn't make that a complete freaking joke).

4) The performance of solar panels varies drastically depending upon location. The performance of a solar panel in Townsville vs the same solar panel in Melbourne will be vastly different - where is your panel that you base your assumptions on?

I persoanlly find that there are several concepts and projects that I would like to see rather than coal or even gas fired power stations

Sir O


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## Happy (12 January 2009)

I totally agree with what Smurf says, but I am little bit of just in case person, so price per MW becomes kind of irrelevant if for example State supply of electricity for some reason dries up.

We don’t know yet how ugly the recession head is going to look.
Will it be just simple downturn, recession, or it will be total collapse of community fabric, as we know it.

With return to everybody for himself rule of the jungle so to speak, where gangs and survival groups will roam the streets trying to protect their interests with complete lack of state support.

The only problem I see is no good to have grid-feeding system, as nothing will come back.
But storage battery system is prohibitively expensive and needs to be replaced every 5 to 20 years.

Probably water head (mentioned by Smurf) as stored energy is the only viable solution, but you have to be on bigger block of land than your average sub-quarter-acre.


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## jbocker (1 April 2020)

I asked the following question in the oil analysis thread. But thought I would ask it here (without creating a new thread) Basically with Oil Price being very low for maybe quite some time, what impact does it have on alternative energy companies in the supply / development business?
The current environment has a supply glut due to a price war and we also have the caronavirus locking down an increasing number of nations.
What impact will prevail on alternative energy. It is a bit of a hard one to answer in my mind if oil price should stay very low for a considerable period. 
The coronavirus is making the world rethink about many things and self sufficiency is becoming a topic starting to be asked. so is that an opportunity or will cheap oil curtail it?


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## basilio (7 June 2020)

Seems to be an interesting opportunity for safflower oil in terms of alternative energy.  It is a renewable bio fuel and it is suited to very dry land farming conditions including salty soils
CSIRO has developed new strains with far higher oil contents.

*Safflower oil hailed by scientists as possible recyclable, biodegradable replacement for petroleum*
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-06-07/safflower-oil-new-biofuel-to-replace-petroleum/12321028


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## Trav. (7 June 2020)

basilio said:


> CSIRO has developed new strains with far higher oil contents.




The title of the article had me thrown a bit as a replacement for petroluem was a but to good to be true but it is a step in the right direction and there appears to be demand for it ( soon anyway )

_"It's a breakthrough, a gamechanger for bio-based lubricants," Dr Maglinao said.

The US has mandated all government departments, including the military, must move to using plant-based lubricants by 2025, and Go Resources is aiming to secure some supply contracts._​


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## Dona Ferentes (7 June 2020)

ten years ago, or more or less, recyclers set up to collect used cooking oil as an alternative to diesel.

(that was when the price of diesel was higher). Everything has a price.


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## qldfrog (7 June 2020)

oil is nearly back at its $40 a barrel price which I see medium term average.
There is a very strong and I believe still increasing demand with asia ramping up, India after china...world consumption will carry on for a while, oil is still safe market for a while even with GW etc.
tobacco companies are selling cancer making products, taxed heavily yet:


invest in oil, use sunflower oil for your donuts...


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## frugal.rock (7 June 2020)

Alternative energy...
Me, trying to give up the smokes.


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## frugal.rock (7 June 2020)

Dona Ferentes said:


> ten years ago, or more or less, recyclers set up to collect used cooking oil as an alternative to diesel.
> 
> (that was when the price of diesel was higher). Everything has a price.



Mostly used to manufacture bio diesel.
I stopped making bio d around 10 years ago.
I believe, bio diesel has never taken off due to legislation that prevents legal use in road vehicles if percentages greater than 10%...
I think...

F.Rock


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## Smurf1976 (7 June 2020)

A key point to remember in all this is that the overwhelming majority of "alternative" energy involves the production of electricity as its output.

Wind, solar, tidal, wave - they're "alternatives" which produce electricity as their only useful energy output.

Nuclear and hydro are conventional non-fossil fuel options but also in practice produce electricity as their overwhelmingly dominant energy output. Other application isn't zero but it's minor.

Landfill gas and any other low grade biofuel is commonly converted to electricity in practice since that tends to be easier than upgrading the fuel via chemical means. 

There are exceptions such as ethanol and biodiesel which do produce liquid fuels to replace oil, and there are exceptions with the direct use of wood to fire boilers etc, but in general most alternatives do have the common attribute of producing electricity. That is, they don't produce jet fuel for example.

Now if we go back to 1973 then 25% of world electricity production was from oil (38% coal, 22% hydro, 11% gas, 4% nuclear) but today oil is down at about 3% (38% coal, 23% gas, 16% hydro, 10% nuclear, 4% wind, 2% solar, 2% biofuels etc, 1% other renewables). Figures don't add to 100% due to rounding.

So to the extent it's oil versus renewables, it's more complex:

1. If the oil price were to drop below the price of gas or coal such that oil does become competitive for electricity generation.

2. To the extent that gas and coal prices fall along with oil. That tends to be a localised thing more than a global one. In some cases prices have come down, in others they haven't and remain well below the cost of oil anyway.

3. Efforts to replace oil, particularly in transport, with either electricity directly (electric trains, battery powered cars, etc) or indirectly (hydrogen produced from electricity generated from renewables).

4. The effect of government policies and taxation on point (3) in particular.

That's all about the short term of course. If someone's giving away oil well then sure that can be used to generate electricity. $40 per barrel isn't low enough to undercut coal and gas yet however, it needs to go lower to do that.


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## sptrawler (7 June 2020)

frugal.rock said:


> Mostly used to manufacture bio diesel.
> I stopped making bio d around 10 years ago.
> I believe, bio diesel has never taken off due to legislation that prevents legal use in road vehicles if percentages greater than 10%...
> I think...
> ...



Biodiesel or chip oil diesel, is o.k in older style diesels, they will just about burn anything. The more modern common rail diesels have a bit more of an issue with diesel quality, the pump pressure is very high so the fuel is required to lubricate it.
Also a lot of the nitrile rubber used in the seals etc don't react well with bio diesel, add to that the variable cetane factor of home made bio fuel and it all becomes a bit hard.
Just get a 20 year old diesel with an old rotary pump, all good, except for the people following wondering where the smell of fish and chips is coming from.


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## frugal.rock (7 June 2020)

I prefer oil used to cook donuts for the smell factor...


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## Smurf1976 (7 June 2020)

frugal.rock said:


> I believe, bio diesel has never taken off due to legislation that prevents legal use in road vehicles if percentages greater than 10%...



It can be used but has to be identified at the pump if there's more than 5% biodiesel in the mix.

There are certainly some who are using higher blends, 20% or even 100%, in things like power generation (remote towns), lighting towers and so on.


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## Smurf1976 (7 June 2020)

Smurf1976 said:


> Wind, solar, tidal, wave - they're "alternatives" which produce electricity as their only useful energy output.



I should add there that use of wind and solar for other purposes isn't zero, eg solar hot water or wind to power sailing boats, but in terms of overall energy supply they're trivial in all but a very few places on earth such that wind and solar are, for practical purposes, mostly sources of electricity so far as commercial scale energy production is concerned.


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## frugal.rock (7 June 2020)

Have often thought I would like a personal mini nuclear reactor to provide electricity.
Not available on the hardware shelves yet though! 
My fission is still concentrated around flatheads and garfish...

I believe the guv is pushing hydrogen again...


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## sptrawler (7 June 2020)

frugal.rock said:


> Have often thought I would like a personal mini nuclear reactor to provide electricity.
> Not available on the hardware shelves yet though!
> My fission is still concentrated around flatheads and garfish...
> 
> I believe the guv is pushing hydrogen again...



Hydrogen is a good storage medium for excess renewable energy, if the wind is blowing overnight and there is no load, it might as well be converted to hydrogen if there is no other storage medium e.g the pumped hydro is full and batteries charged.


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## Smurf1976 (7 June 2020)

frugal.rock said:


> Alternative energy...
> Me, trying to give up the smokes.



"Smoking is old fashioned, obsolete and no longer required" 

That's actually a quote from an electric heating advertisement from the 1990's by the way, referring to smoke from wood fires that is.


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## frugal.rock (7 June 2020)

Another option,
Bio gas/ digestors.
Lawnies and tree fellers probably happy to supply for free.
Dunno, lots of options really.
Apparently hemp burns very hot, as does Black Wattle. The tanner's use to love it, the black bark for tanning agent and the timber grain is tight and dense and burns up to 4x longer than other hardwood. A proper chainsaw killer...


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## Smurf1976 (9 June 2020)

jbocker said:


> I asked the following question in the oil analysis thread. But thought I would ask it here (without creating a new thread) Basically with Oil Price being very low for maybe quite some time, what impact does it have on alternative energy companies in the supply / development business?




Assuming you're thinking in terms of Australian companies (?) one point to consider is this.

We have to build _something_ or we'll be sitting in the dark.

That's by no means an overstatement of the situation for it's simply the reality that we're heavily dependent on plant that's now past its design life and time's running out. There's plenty on both "sides" of the debate all to aware of that reality. Plenty on the environmental side of the debate who've come to see the problem not as how to close coal but that it might close involuntarily before we've got a replacement. Plenty of engineers fretting about the same scenario.

Sunday 7th June 2020 at 13:33 and we have another incident with a major power station in NSW falling in a heap. All running OK then down we go, the whole station straight to zero and that's where it still is right now. I'm not aware of exactly what's happened but overall it's not really surprising since 1970's machinery's getting a bit tired and worn out these days so things will go wrong yes. The lights stayed on because load was taken up but other plant as far away as Adelaide and in Queensland.

Overall the situation varies between states but some serious building of new generating plant, using whatever technology and resources, is going to be required in some ares if Australia is to remain a developed country.

In NSW over 60% of total electricity supply on an annual basis is coming from facilities that'll be shut by the middle of next decade so there's plenty needing to be built indeed the first of the closures is only 2 years away.

Vic, SA and Qld also have significant reliance on plant that's coming to the end of its of technical lifespan. Part of the NT too, although the small scale there makes replacement somewhat more straightforward up there.

WA's in much better shape. Not without issues, but they've got plenty of modern plant overall.

Tas no real drama, just keep maintaining it all and it'll keep going, building things is more about supplying increased load (industry, electric cars, interstate) than any actual problem with what's already there.

As for what all that means with renewables, well I'll keep out of politics beyond noting that the answer to the question is to significant extent a political one. From a technical perspective it could be done with renewables no worries but then it could also be done with fossil fuels or if someone's keen nuclear. 

So it's a political and economic question - but if nothing gets done then ultimately existing plant won't run forever no matter how much yelling and screaming anyone in a suit wants to do.


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## jbocker (10 June 2020)

Smurf1976 said:


> Assuming you're thinking in terms of Australian companies (?) one point to consider is this.
> 
> We have to build _something_ or we'll be sitting in the dark.
> 
> ...



I would think it is an ideal time for building infrastructure. 
Firstly a HUGE hole to doze all the political BS into and then some micro medical engineering to replace some undersized bollocks on a politician of note.
It would seem that the prevailing policy is keep dodging the bullet and let someone in future take a bite at it.
I am sure either party would be welcomed to at least attempt to be innovative and make a renewable on a grand scale. Do this along with some smaller back up new traditional generators to ensure the baseload. Smurf do you think that there is anything happening in that realm?


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## Smurf1976 (10 June 2020)

jbocker said:


> Smurf do you think that there is anything happening in that realm?




Plenty of engineers have some well thought out plans. Different approaches from different people but ideas certainly.

AEMO has crunched a lot of numbers and come up with a lot of scenarios but their hands are tied in doing anything since they don't own any of the generation or network assets, they're only the market operator.

At the corporate level AGL (ASX: AGL), Origin Energy (ASX: ORG), Hydro Tasmania (Tasmanian state government owned) and Snowy Hydro (Australian government owned) have all put forward ideas and specific proposals approaching the problem from a national or at least multiple states perspective as have others.

Where the problems arise is with the lack of any real direction at the government level.

Despite their government ownership Snowy and Hydro Tas are ultimately run as for-profit businesses and that goes a lot further than you might expect. There's a board, CEO, they run private sector style accounting, employees are not covered by any PS conditions of employment or pay rates, they pay tax and are expected to make a profit and so on. AGL and Origin are of course investor owned companies and run to make a profit for shareholders.

So they all have the same basic issue that they can't go and spend $ billions without there being a sound business case behind that decision. Investors in AGL or Origin have no obligation to ensure the nation has adequate power and the Tasmanian state government obviously has no obligation to ensure the lights stay on in Victoria. They'll invest only if it stacks up as an investment and the problem there comes down to one word - RISK.

So long as there's political squabbling over it, nobody's going to risk blowing their money on one approach only to find that government's now going in the opposite direction. We are, after all, talking about very long term investments here spanning 30 - 100 years and that's a key point, this all extends over decades hence the desire for certainty.


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