Electricity: price and reliability of supply

[noco]

What is "psychiatry counselling".?
Link?

The Victorian Government has put money aside to counsel those workers who maybe psychologically affected by the closure of the coal mine and the power station.......I doubt if they would be affected if they all receive $330,000 redundancy pay......I would imagine those workers would be laughing all the way to the bank.

:topic

 

[Tisme]

The Victorian Government has put money aside to counsel those workers who maybe psychologically affected by the closure of the coal mine and the power station.......I doubt if they would be affected if they all receive $330,000 redundancy pay......I would imagine those workers would be laughing all the way to the bank.

:topic

How much is the LIBERAL federal govt kicking in?

National Textiles anyone?

 

[noco]

How much is the LIBERAL federal govt kicking in?

National Textiles anyone?

Why does the Liberal Federal Government have to kick in?......Kick in for what?

In my mind it is a dumb decision by the Victorian Government to shut down a power station that is producing some 25% of their needs.

Time will tell as to whether the decision will have a dramatic affect on SA.

 

[SirRumpole]

Why does the Liberal Federal Government have to kick in?......Kick in for what?

In my mind it is a dumb decision by the Victorian Government to shut down a power station that is producing some 25% of their needs.

Time will tell as to whether the decision will have a dramatic affect on SA.

You don't get it do you ?

It wasn't the Victorian government that decided to shut it down it was the owners of the station Engie, a French based company.

Try to understand the basics of this. The Kennett government sold off Hazelwood in 1996 and therefore relinquished any government control over when it will be shut down, but of course your "blame Labor for everything" circuit cut in and shut down your reasoning capacity.

 

[noco]

You don't get it do you ?

It wasn't the Victorian government that decided to shut it down it was the owners of the station Engie, a French based company.

Try to understand the basics of this. The Kennett government sold off Hazelwood in 1996 and therefore relinquished any government control over when it will be shut down, but of course your "blame Labor for everything" circuit cut in and shut down your reasoning capacity.

So why didn't the Victorian Government buy it back?

The blame lays purely at the feet of the SA and the Victorian Governments for going over board on the unreliable and inefficient renewable energy which has been highly subsidized....It was the death knoll of the Hazelwood power station.......do YOU now get it or are turning a blind eye to it all?

Without reliable base load power both SA and Vic are heading for a disaster.

 

[Tisme]

Why does the Liberal Federal Government have to kick in?......Kick in for what?

In my mind it is a dumb decision by the Victorian Government to shut down a power station that is producing some 25% of their needs.

Time will tell as to whether the decision will have a dramatic affect on SA.

I didn't suggest they had to, just that are are going to....... whereis the fabian mole in that outfit?

Insofar as essential public utilities in private hands = stupid, (that's not to endorse the hands in pockets public servants who are paid to maintain plant and equipment, but require many hands to do light work).

The SA problem after clearing the line faults, was that there wasn't any inertial power that could cope with the startup current and the hundreds of generators they could have used were tied up in red tape.

Was a time when heavy industry factories had their own power stations.

 

[Smurf1976]

I'm on holiday at the moment so won't say much now but suffice to say there's more to the story with Hazelwood than is generally being said in the media etc.

In short, some of the chooks have come home to roost it seems and there's more on the way.

More in a week or so.

 

[basilio]

I'm on holiday at the moment so won't say much now but suffice to say there's more to the story with Hazelwood than is generally being said in the media etc.

In short, some of the chooks have come home to roost it seems and there's more on the way.

More in a week or so.

I suspect the chooks that are coming home are the tens of thousands of ex employees who were exposed to asbestos at the power stations and are now dying in their hundreds. This has been overlooked/forgotten but it is certainly on record.

http://www.abc.net.au/4corners/stories/s251859.htm
http://gards.org/asbestos-links/

 

[Tisme]

I suspect the chooks that are coming home are the tens of thousands of ex employees who were exposed to asbestos at the power stations and are now dying in their hundreds. This has been overlooked/forgotten but it is certainly on record.

http://www.abc.net.au/4corners/stories/s251859.htm
http://gards.org/asbestos-links/

Black lung is making it back into the news too.

 

[noco]

Is it any wonder the Hazelwood power station owned by Engie was not viable to operate...The Victorian Government made sure of that by tripling the royalties on coal costing Engie an extra $20 million.


https://au.news.yahoo.com/vic/a/33132671/hazelwood-herbert-up-in-vic-parliament/#page1

Hazelwood will close in March 2017 after the French owners Engie said it was "no longer economic to operate" it.

Federal Energy Minister Josh Frydenberg said the state government had tripled coal royalties, costing Engie $20 million.

 

[noco]

This renewable energy saga is madness and getting completely out of hand and costly and what is it doing to the Climate?....Absolutely nothing.......It is certainly causing a lot headaches for consumers and business.....Larger business is now having to install diesel generators as a back up and then producing more CO2 than coal fired power stations.

The use of renewable energy has to be curtailed.

http://www.heraldsun.com.au/blogs/a...e/news-story/a9a4c64686f022cd524499ca9ced178f

Alcoa: Warmist pollies spend to fix what they broke

December 21, 2016 7:19am

Victoria's Andrews Government drives the giant Hazelwood coal-fired power station out of business with its insane global warming policies. With power prices now soaring, it is offering $200 million to keep open a smelter which can't survive the logical consequences of its folly.

Madness on stilts:


Federal Industry Minister Greg Hunt and his Victorian counterpart, Wade Noonan, were due to meet overnight with the aluminium company’s chief executive in New York to lay out a package of government support to help the smelter recover from a power outage that shut its potlines three weeks ago.


The proposal is believed to include $200m from the Andrews government, a possible $30m from the federal government and the continued offer of low-interest loans from the CEFC.


But what makes this so insane is that all this taxing and spending and pain is actually for nothing. It makes no difference to the climate.


Alan Moran counts the cost:


Electricity from renewable energy costs three times as much to produce as electricity from coal and gas. For this year, the AEMC estimates the cost of existing federal and state renewable energy programs for the average household’s electricity bills at $191 in Queensland (7 per cent of the bill), $109 in NSW, $91 in Victoria and $155 in South Australia.


But these are only the direct costs. The indirect costs, in addition to renewable energy’s innate unreliability, are greater.


In the first place, this is because electricity market rules mean wind and solar will always run when they are able to do so. This forces other suppliers into stop-start operations, which coal and gas baseload power stations cannot easily accommodate. Those stations are being forced to close and each such closure ramps up the wholesale electricity price.


The AEMC estimates that next year the closure of Hazelwood in Victoria will cause a cost increase of $200 for each household in the state, with lesser cost increases in other jurisdictions.


Second, wind generators require increased network spending. The electricity market operator has put a $2.2bn cost on new transmission lines to link Victoria’s proposed wind generators to the grid. This stems from the wind generators wanting to locate in areas where there is weak transmission capacity.

Comments

 

[explod]

Your last post noco indicates that the umpires are from the same team. All just rubbish to maintain the oil coal and current power providers status quo.

Alternate wind /solar is working in many places overseas at the moment at almost the same cost. Battery life is said to be doubling this year and a new form of panel is coming onto the market in the form like roofing ion and will be no dearer than roofing ion. Another is in a roll and can work lying flat on roadways.

Time to get out of your chair noco as times, driven by public desire are a changing.

 

[noco]

Your last post noco indicates that the umpires are from the same team. All just rubbish to maintain the oil coal and current power providers status quo.

I guess you are entitled to your opinion....Time will tell.

 

[Tisme]

Larger business is now having to install diesel generators as a back up and then producing more CO2 than coal fired power stations.

I remember the steam locos getting the boot because of the inefficiency of coal compared to diesel. I was also under the impression the same still applied to coal Vs diesel generation .... do you have anything to prove different?

UK is closing its coal fired plants by 2025, Canada 2030, Austria 2025, Belgium is almost there, in France seven of the 11 coal fireds were shutdown last year leaving 4 and EDF/Engel are shutting them as maintenance costs bite into profit. China consumes more coal than the rest of the world, but has a cap and trade coming in next year.

What's the go with coal and Mercury, Thorium, Radium and Radon?

 

[luutzu]

I remember the steam locos getting the boot because of the inefficiency of coal compared to diesel. I was also under the impression the same still applied to coal Vs diesel generation .... do you have anything to prove different?

UK is closing its coal fired plants by 2025, Canada 2030, Austria 2025, Belgium is almost there, in France seven of the 11 coal fireds were shutdown last year leaving 4 and EDF/Engel are shutting them as maintenance costs bite into profit. China consumes more coal than the rest of the world, but has a cap and trade coming in next year.

What's the go with coal and Mercury, Thorium, Radium and Radon?

Mercury, Thorium... all natural stuff McGee. Coal powered stations simply spread all them organic goodness.

 

[Smurf1976]

Coal versus diesel:

Efficiency as a technical measurement, that is energy in versus electricity out, is roughly the same for both coal-fired steam turbines and diesel engines. Which wins in any given situation depends on the climate, operating regime and so on since there's not much between them.

CO2 emissions aren't much different either. Diesel is a bit lower CO2 at the power station but that's largely offset by the energy use and other environmental impacts of oil extraction, refining and transport versus the far shorter transport distance and no refining needed with coal.

The big difference is in the use of natural resources. Abundant coal with minimal other potential "easy" uses versus comparatively much scarcer oil with literally thousands of other uses.

Personally I'd take coal over oil any day if those are the two options. Resource use and wanting to leave some oil in the ground for future generations is one reason. Everything else related to oil is the other - the West's use of the stuff is doing everything from funding dictators and human rights abusers through to the impact of spills on water. Such issues are comparatively minor with coal.

CO2 is much the same and other air emissions are basically one nasty versus another too. Coal has advantages over oil in other ways however.

 

[noco]

I remember the steam locos getting the boot because of the inefficiency of coal compared to diesel. I was also under the impression the same still applied to coal Vs diesel generation .... do you have anything to prove different?

UK is closing its coal fired plants by 2025, Canada 2030, Austria 2025, Belgium is almost there, in France seven of the 11 coal fireds were shutdown last year leaving 4 and EDF/Engel are shutting them as maintenance costs bite into profit. China consumes more coal than the rest of the world, but has a cap and trade coming in next year.

What's the go with coal and Mercury, Thorium, Radium and Radon?

Stream trains needed a lot more start up time to get steam up to the required pressure to operate.....It was a two man operation and coal had to be manually feed into the fire box.......Steam trains also had to stop at various points along the track to fill up with water as you are well aware you need water to make steam....The same thing applied to steam rollers on road construction.
On the other hand when diesel was used in diesel electric trains they were much easier to operate by one man.
The UK and Canada maybe closing certain out of date coal fired power station but both countries also have nuclear power plants.....The Uk has something like 28 nuclear plants in operation today.....France has some 70 nuclear power plants......But what about China?.....They are commissioning a new coal fired power station each week...I read recently where China manufacture something like 80% of the World's solar panels but only use about 5% themselves.

 

[noco]

Stream trains needed a lot more start up time to get steam up to the required pressure to operate.....It was a two man operation and coal had to be manually feed into the fire box.......Steam trains also had to stop at various points along the track to fill up with water as you are well aware you need water to make steam....The same thing applied to steam rollers on road construction.
On the other hand when diesel was used in diesel electric trains they were much easier to operate by one man.
The UK and Canada maybe closing certain out of date coal fired power station but both countries also have nuclear power plants.....The Uk has something like 28 nuclear plants in operation today.....France has some 70 nuclear power plants......But what about China?.....They are commissioning a new coal fired power station each week...I read recently where China manufacture something like 80% of the World's solar panels but only use about 5% themselves.

Those figures quoted were some 5 years ago and have changed slightly since then but China is still commissioning one new coal fired power plant each week.

http://energydesk.greenpeace.org/20...wer-plants-china-carbon-bubble-waiting-burst/

 

[Tisme]

Efficiency as a technical measurement, that is energy in versus electricity out, is roughly the same for both coal-fired steam turbines and diesel engines. Which wins in any given situation depends on the climate, operating regime and so on since there's not much between them.

I remember engineering diesel gas turbines into high rise and at that stage they were 130% efficient over the conventional, while natural gas turbine was 110% over conventional. I'm guessing you are comparing conventional combustion engines to coal/steam turbines?

Stream trains needed a lot more start up time to get steam up to the required pressure to operate.....It was a two man operation and coal had to be manually feed into the fire box.......Steam trains also had to stop at various points along the track to fill up with water as you are well aware you need water to make steam....The same thing applied to steam rollers on road construction.
On the other hand when diesel was used in diesel electric trains they were much easier to operate by one man.

Well I hear what you are saying, but having played with steam systems I think the core argument I would make is that steam versus diesel electric in the power and it's dependent variable; torque, is very much the real reasons behind the demise. Sure you can refer to those other factors like manpower, shear size, pollution, consumables, even peak power, but in terms of thrust and wheel/rail engagement those necessarily big wheels on a steamer are not going to give a whole lot of traction and thrust. The steam piston itself is not a constant force machine, the pressure depleting over the stroke and the higher the reciprocating speed the less chamber clearance so a drop off in efficiency as the revs build, and a corresponding big drop in drawbar power. Put an equal power diesel electric and steamer on an incline and the constant torque electric traction motors will eat the steamer in speed because the peak torque on a steamer is at really low long stroke revs, while even a two stroke diesel will sing along and comparatively high revs in it's high efficiency band.

 

[Smurf1976]

I'm guessing you are comparing conventional combustion engines to coal/steam turbines?

I'm assuming typical "as done in practice" equipment.

So that's looking at sub-critical through to ultra supercritical coal versus internal combustion and open cycle gas turbines fired using diesel.

Obviously there's a difference between a 40 year old OCGT versus a brand new USC coal plant but comparing similar eras and approaches (cost versus technical aspects etc) there's not a lot of difference.

If you get 150 diesel generators (internal combustion) and put them into base load operation then the efficiency averages about 35% in practice on an HHV and sent out basis. Been there, tried that in Tas last Autumn.

That's pretty close to the real world efficiency of coal fired plant in service in Australia and indeed most countries except those where it's either all new (China most obviously) or they're broke and running antiques.

The only real outliers would be things like a liquid fuelled CCGT or a massive scale diesel IC engine, both of which can achieve efficiency over 50% quite easily. There aren't many actually doing that for power generation however so that's not the technical approach I've assumed to be used.