Resisting Climate Hysteria

sptrawler said:

The elephant in the room is, the more we become sustainable, the more we populate.

It won't end well.

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It will end well.
Mass extinction, followed by striking change!


Mother Nature has an awesome agenda!!

sptrawler said:

The elephant in the room is, the more we become sustainable, the more we populate.

It won't end well.

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Not really. Once you get a decent level of education and access to health, population growth slows and eventually falls below replacement levels.

Australia hasn't been able to sustain it's population for decades witht eh local birth rate. Pretty much all the OECD countries are in the same boat.

Japan is on the right track already. The focus on GDP makes them appear stagnant, yet the share of wealth has remained relatively stead on a per capita basis as their population has been decreasing. Their population peaked 7 years ago. It will be interesting to see how they adapt to it.

Questions for Smurf and other engineering types:

The following excerpt is from a review of a book called Energy in Australia, by Graham Palmer. It's part of a discussion about the engineering problems with making effective use of renewable generatlon, especially solar, for the grid. I think.

It also seems to say that 96% of the world's electricity comes from turbines whose shafts are all spinning at the same speed, regardless of the size of the turbines themselves.

A startling figure from this discussion is the world’s electricity generation mix expressed, not as contributions from coal, gas, hydro, wind etc. as we usually see, but as the fraction from “synchronous rotary machines” – that is, mechanical generators with rotating shafts which are synchronized to the electrical frequency of the grid.* 96% of global electricity is provided by such machines.* In a sense, we have almost no diversity in electrical generation.

These machines are ubiquitous because they offer a solution to the historically difficult problem of grid control – making sure that electricity generation exactly meets demand at any instant.* This is done by frequency stabilization – the rotation of all the generators on the grid is synchronized, and as loads are connected to the grid, the rotational frequency drops, which is the signal used to bring on board new generation.

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http://bravenewclimate.com/2014/02/09/book-review-energy-in-australia/

My questions are:

1. Have I understood the term "synchronous rotary machines" or am I on the wrong track altogether?

2. Does this excerpt describe the way the Australian grid (excluding WA and NT?) works?

3. Is the absence of turbines a genuine problem in integrating small-scale solar generation into the Australian grid? If so, do you know of proven and available techniques that might work?

The excerpt comes from a website that promotes nuclear generation as the way to replace fossil fuels. I've only been able to find the book as a Kindle edition for $50, and I'm reluctant to fork out that much without a bit more confidence that I might understand the book and that it's worth the effort.

Thanks.

ghotib said:

Questions for Smurf and other engineering types:

The following excerpt is from a review of a book called Energy in Australia, by Graham Palmer. It's part of a discussion about the engineering problems with making effective use of renewable generatlon, especially solar, for the grid. I think.

It also seems to say that 96% of the world's electricity comes from turbines whose shafts are all spinning at the same speed, regardless of the size of the turbines themselves.


http://bravenewclimate.com/2014/02/09/book-review-energy-in-australia/

My questions are:

1. Have I understood the term "synchronous rotary machines" or am I on the wrong track altogether?

2. Does this excerpt describe the way the Australian grid (excluding WA and NT?) works?

3. Is the absence of turbines a genuine problem in integrating small-scale solar generation into the Australian grid? If so, do you know of proven and available techniques that might work?

The excerpt comes from a website that promotes nuclear generation as the way to replace fossil fuels. I've only been able to find the book as a Kindle edition for $50, and I'm reluctant to fork out that much without a bit more confidence that I might understand the book and that it's worth the effort.

Thanks.

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With out writing a book and I am sure Smurf can explain it better but try this

Most electric grids are either 60 hz USA etc or 50 hz Australia, UK, Europe.

To connect to one of these grids your supply must be running at "synchronous" speed in Australia's case 50hz and your phase rotation must be the same.

So your solar supply will have an output of 50hz and can connect to any supply generated by any device mechanical turbine, diesel genset or electronic device what ever as long as the phase rotation is the same (red to red white to white etc) and the frequency is 50 hz

There is a whole lot of other stuff that comes into play such as lead machines / stations, power factor etc.

Big turbine stations can create a stable frequency on which other supply's can connect to and not bounce the grid around to much from memory all grids wander a bit.

in my day supply authorities didnt like private connections to the grid as it could be a pain to control but these days I would expect the systems would be better but Smurf will know the answer to that.

ghotib said:

Questions for Smurf and other engineering types:

1. Have I understood the term "synchronous rotary machines" or am I on the wrong track altogether?

2. Does this excerpt describe the way the Australian grid (excluding WA and NT?) works?

3. Is the absence of turbines a genuine problem in integrating small-scale solar generation into the Australian grid? If so, do you know of proven and available techniques that might work?

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That's basically how it works and it's the same whether it's the Australian "national" grid (Qld, NSW, ACT, Vic and SA with Tasmania being linked by DC therefore not synchronised to the other states, but all machines within Tas are still synchronised to each other) and it's the same in WA and NT too within their grids (noting that WA and NT don't have a state-wide grid as such, but rather a number of separate grids. Mt Isa region is also separate from the rest of Qld with its' own power station and grid).

So using Tas as an example, the machines we have here don't all run at the same speed, indeed they run at a lot of different speeds. But they all produce electricity at the exact same frequency (50 Hertz, same everywhere in Australia) when running at their correct speed. For example, the 6 machines at Tarraleah PS run at 428 RPM whereas just across the road at Tungatinah PS the 5 machines there run at 600 RPM and not far away at Liapootah PS they run at 300 RPM. Or at Paloona PS the single machine there runs at just 106 RPM.

But they all produce electricity at 50 Hz when running at their correct speed, the actual speed of the machine being a function of how many poles the alternator has (and they were built differently to maximise efficiency with the available head - a situation that's unique to hydro and doesn't apply to steam turbines (coal, nuclear, some gas stations) which typically run at 3000 RPM with two poles).

And since all machines are synchronised, they all speed up or slow down together. If the grid frequency drops 1% (and that's a larger than normal variation, it's much more tightly controlled than that under normal circumstances) then everything slows down exactly 1%. Likewise if frequency rises.

To put frequency control into practice, again using the Tas system but it's the same principle everywhere, typically we'll have most machines running at a set load (their most efficient loading point where possible) and use a couple to control frequency. Those controlling frequency, will constantly vary their output in response to changing load (it's never quite constant). Load drops a bit = frequency of all machines starts to rise, machines on frequency control produce less = everything slows down. Reverse that when load rises a bit. Then, in order to accommodate larger changes over longer periods (the daily cycle), its' a matter of adjusting the number of machines running and their loading points.

One problem with unconventional (anything other than a rotating synchronous machine), is lack of inertia.

Suppose that everything is operating normally and then there's a fault which suddenly trips a machine, or even an entire power station, offline. Such things do happen from time to time. Frequency starts to fall but there's a lot of energy (inertia) in all those big rotating machines. They keep spinning, slowly getting slower, so long as energy out of the grid (to consumers) exceeds energy going in (from generation) but they keep spinning nonetheless. So the lights stay on in the time it takes for other machines to ramp their output up and stabilise the situation.

An analogy is a 800 tonne train rolling along the track pulled by 3 locos - turn one of the engines off and the train takes a long time to slow down. There's a lot of momentum there.

Things like solar PV don't have that attribute. The moment there's a wobble in grid frequency, that's it, game over. At best they keep producing the same output, they have no rotating mass of energy to contribute, and at worst they trip offline there and then. Not a problem if they're 1% of the grid, a bigger problem if they're a large share of total generation.

How to make it work? We have a somewhat unique situation in Tas in that we've got a large (478MW) inverter as a source of grid supply, that being the Vic - Tas link (Basslink) and we've also got some seriously big rectifiers (AC to DC conversion) as loads too (running the aluminium and zinc smelters plus up to 628MW into Basslink when transmitting Tas to Vic).

Now, in the middle of the night if we're going to feed 478MW in from that big inverter then there's a major problem if a (hydro) machine were to fail, losing not just its' own output but tripping that inverter off as well due to a frequency wobble. Or even if that inverter just tripped by itself (and that's happened plenty of times, inverters being far less stable than rotating machines).

We could easily end up with the whole grid collapsing under that circumstance since a drop (or rise) in frequency will of itself cause more machines to trip beyond a certain point. Inverter trips, frequency falls, something else trips, further frequency fall, a lot more machines trip, grid goes dead....

The solution, in short, is a very elaborate control system - there's basically automated control of certain big loads (primarily in the smelters) - they lose power in an instant if there's a problem, thus stabilising the situation. That goes way beyond normal under frequency load shedding (that every grid has), they're linked into the operation of transmission assets far more directly than that given the potential magnitude of potential supply loss at certain times.

Something like that is easy to do in Tas where the 3 smelters use around 60% of all electricity in the grid at off-peak times (middle of the night in Summer). It's not so easy anywhere else, where you don't have a small number of great big loads able to be easily controlled. Tripping half of Sydney off causes a lot more chaos than does a trip to the cell room at the zinc works.

Another aspect of all of this is that of distributed generation itself, regardless of the technology or source. In short, we can control the output of major power stations certainly but there is at present no means of controlling the output of a million small inverters in Australian households. If there's a need to cut generation, to keep frequency from rising, then that's a problem which in a worst case scenario would collapse the entire grid (though we'd need a fair bit more solar than we've got now to actually bring that scenario about). Also notable in that context is that the loss of major industrial loads, eg the smelters that have closed in NSW and Vic, makes that problem worse since they formerly played a significant role in stabilising the grid.

As for how solar inverters perform in practice, well I can assure you that certain grid operations will trip small solar inverters. Been there, seen that happen. They're decent quality inverters too, but nowhere near as stable as a steam or hydro turbine that didn't even notice the blip.

I've simplified all this and used layman's terms but that's basically how it works. In summary:

All turbine driven alternators synchronised within an AC grid. Eg Gladstone PS (Qld) and Torrens Island PS (SA) are both at the exact same frequency since they're both in the same AC grid.

Inertia with rotating machines versus lack of inertia with solar etc is an issue leading to reduced stability.

Loss of major industrial loads also leads to issues both technical and financial.

Grid frequency is very tightly controlled under normal circumstances. A 1% variation is outside normal, a 5% variation would be regarded as a major incident.

That small distributed generators aren't centrally controlled makes things difficult. We're losing controllable loads (heavy industry etc) and now we're losing control of some generation as well. That leaves the remaining centralised generation (power stations) with the task of balancing everything. A bit like trying to control a crowd of people, when increasing numbers have decided to cease following the directions and just do their own thing. A point comes where that ceases to work but we're not there yet.

All that said, using a high % of renewables in the grid isn't impossible. Eg King Island has run on 100% wind + solar at times. But then on KI we've got central control of the wind and solar generation rather than being distributed, we've got central control of some load too (smart grid), there's a big battery and a flywheel, and if all that fails there's still a nice big resistor to "burn off" any surplus power and the diesels are still there too. It works, it can be done, but it's costing an awful lot more than coal / gas / hydro does in a large grid. It's economic on King Island however because generation would otherwise be 100% diesel which costs a fortune.

ghotib

It also seems to say that 96% of the world's electricity comes from turbines whose shafts are all spinning at the same speed, regardless of the size of the turbines themselves.

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The shaft speed doesn't have to be the same.

Shaft speed is determined by the physical factors around the design for maximising HP and then combined by the number of poles wound onto the alternator to equal the supply frequency.

Its the shaft speed times the number of poles on the generator / alternator that determines the frequency / synchronous speed of the supply.

Yep, speed and poles = frequency.

Eg Tarraleah PS with 14 poles at 428.6 RPM, Tungatinah 10 poles at 600 RPM. Etc.

Small generators driven by petrol engines = almost always 2 pole, 3000 RPM since this is a good speed for the small petrol engine to run at (lawnmowers etc with similar engines also run at a similar speed)

Diesels = varies typically 4+ poles at 1500 RPM or slower. Generally speaking, bigger engine = more poles and runs slower.

Steam turbines = depends on the fuel source and temperatures but commonly 2 pole, 3000 RPM or sometimes 4 pole 1500 RPM.

Hydro = generally a lot slower than others. Eg Gordon PS with 22 poles running at 273 RPM (well, 272.73 RPM if you want to be precise).

The basic choice of speed is governed by the source of mechanical power. Eg petrol engine runs well at 3000 RPM but a hydro turbine runs best at a much slower speed. So the choice of speed is determined by the source of motion, it's not an electrical consideration as such since it's still producing 50Hz whether there's 2 poles or 40.

Another thing I haven't mentioned is voltage. Voltage as generated varies but typically it's high voltage (HV) as generated, that's stepped up to extra high voltage (EHV) for transmission (that's what the big transformers at power stations are for). Then that EHV is stepped back down to HV for the feeders around towns and cities, from which it's stepped down to LV (415 / 240V) for homes and small businesses. Very large users, eg smelters, are generally supplied at EHV and other large users (factories, office blocks etc) often at HV depending on their actual power requirements.

Note that commonly used HV and EHV voltages vary between states. Eg in Tas we use mostly 11, 22 and 33 KV for feeders (and one 44 KV line) but in other states there are some other voltages in use. Some states have 275 KV transmission lines, others have 220 KV. The highest voltage used in Australia is 500 KV.

As an example, at Gordon Power Station (Tas) generation is at 18KV then stepped up to 220KV for transmission. At Lake Echo it's 11KV generated then stepped up to 110KV for transmission. The 100 year old machines at Lake Margaret output 6.6KV, stepped up to 11KV for transmission a short distance to the rest of the grid. At Poatina generation is at 16KV and stepped up to 110KV (2 machines) and 220KV (4 machines) for transmission.

Key point about voltage is that it doesn't matter that much since it's very easy to change one voltage to another. Eg you end up with 240V at home no matter what voltage came out of the power station. Frequency is the real key in the grid, along with having enough energy input in the first place.

I Focus In reply to your post #124 Victorian election..transferred to the correct thread.

Don't believe a word of it.....that is great a exaggeration....it perhaps happened to one reef in the far south but not the whole of the reef.....

My mother was born and bred in Port Douglas in the late 1800......she often talked about dead coral washed up on the beaches....I have also observed the same thing in the 40's and 50's and again later in life.....The whole length of some beaches covered in dead coral....so what caused that common occurrence?

Do you know Moreton Bay near Brisbane had a massive amount of coral reefs hundreds of years ago...

Now can you tell me what caused the coral bleaching there long before white man existed in Australia...was it massive bush fires emitting huge amounts of carbon dioxide.....Bush fires and volcanoes are never mentioned by these so called experts....All they ever mention is the burning of coal and that coal should go....Australia emits just 1% of the worlds CO2.

Darra Cement Company dredged Moreton Bay for years and shipped the dead coral up the Brisbane River to Darra to make cement......you may have been too young to remember, that is if you were even born then.

noco said:

I Focus In reply to your post #124 Victorian election..transferred to the correct thread.

Don't believe a word of it.....that is great a exaggeration....it perhaps happened to one reef in the far south but not the whole of the reef.....

My mother was born and bred in Port Douglas in the late 1800......she often talked about dead coral washed up on the beaches....I have also observed the same thing in the 40's and 50's and again later in life.....The whole length of some beaches covered in dead coral....so what caused that common occurrence?

Do you know Moreton Bay near Brisbane had a massive amount of coral reefs hundreds of years ago...

Now can you tell me what caused the coral bleaching there long before white man existed in Australia...was it massive bush fires emitting huge amounts of carbon dioxide.....Bush fires and volcanoes are never mentioned by these so called experts....All they ever mention is the burning of coal and that coal should go....Australia emits just 1% of the worlds CO2.

Darra Cement Company dredged Moreton Bay for years and shipped the dead coral up the Brisbane River to Darra to make cement......you may have been too young to remember, that is if you were even born then.

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I am so disappointed there has been no comments to my post from the Global Warming alarmist...Come on comrades post your comments......I want you tell me what happened to those coral reefs in Moreton Bay......It may have also been a possibility that the Great Barrier Reef may at one time had extended to Moreton Bay....No man made CO2 in those days.

The silence is deafening.

In reply to IFocus post # 143 2014 Victorian election.

The great Global Warming scam followed by Julia Gillrad and Professor Tim Flannery

http://www.restoreaustralia.org.au/fabians-and-pm-gillard/

The Global Warming aka Climate Change Scam
Global Warming scam

Global Warming scam

Take the Global Warming scam for example. First they presented their pseudoscience backed up by “authoritative experts” like Al Gore. They trotted out various ‘scientists’ to back up their claims, and the people lapped it up because it all sounded so plausible and fuzzy feel-good. After all, the ‘experts’ couldn’t be wrong, could they?

But even a cursory glance at the credentials of these so-called ‘experts’ showed that they were not qualified weather experts. In fact, while some of them were indeed scientists, they were not qualified to comment on the weather…not even on the state of the weather outside their own windows.

Did you notice what happened soon after Al Gore went around the world crying out that the end of the world was neigh due to global warming?

Europe experienced its coldest winter in centuries, laying waste to the apocalyptic claims of Gore and his fellow scammers.

But they were undeterred. They just shrugged their collective shoulders and changed the name to “Climate Change” instead. Same silly claims, just a different name.

noco said:

Can someone from the Green/Labor left wing socialists Global Warming alarmist please give me an opinion or reply to my posts # 6028 6029 6030.......your silence is deafening!!!!

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What is the point ? You are not going to listen are you ?

And Noco it is totally pointless arguing with a person who simply rejects any evidence he/she doesn't agree with.

Or a person who either makes up totally wrong statements or repeats them when these statements have been clearly shown to be false.

Just no point mate..

SirRumpole said:

What is the point ? You are not going to listen are you ?

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I cannot believe I have you stumped....you do not have the answers so you revert to "WHAT IS THE POINT".

If you had any answers or opinions I am sure you would have had something to say.

Be honest and admit this GLOBAL WARMING caper is a scam.

basilio said:

And Noco it is totally pointless arguing with a person who simply rejects any evidence he/she doesn't agree with.

Or a person who either makes up totally wrong statements or repeats them when these statements have been clearly shown to be false.

Just no point mate..

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basilio, you posses to be an authority on this Global Warming con job, so why can't you or Rumpole explain to me what happened to the massive coral reefs that once existed in Moreton Bay? Are you saying my statement is incorrect?.....What statements are you saying I have made up?

Darra Cement dredged that dead coral for 40 odd years.

There is tonnes of dead coral scattered along beaches in North Queensland as has been the case during the last century.

All I want is your opinion as to why the coral died long before white man entered Australia.

Was it Global Warming?
Was it to do bush fires creating too much CO2 and the Oceans could not handle it?
Did it have anything to do with Sun spots and radiation?
Was it the crown of thorn star fish?
Did the Oceans become acidic for some reason?
Was it a mini ice age when the waters became too cold for coral?.....As we all know Coral prefers warm waters.
It certainly was not man made CO2.

So please, give me your opinion.

Smurf1976 said:

One problem with unconventional (anything other than a rotating synchronous machine), is lack of inertia.

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Taking this into account and combine it with the circumstance last year where their was an oversupply of electricity in Queensland from renewable sources to the point that it had no saleable value, At what point , if at all, does it start to make at a grid engineering/cost level, to have available capacity to use excess supply to pump water or push rolling stock up hill, anything so as to have a rotational inertia component to the extent necessary to maintain the security deemed appropriate to alleviate frequency induce failure.
There would have to be a very big reduction in steam generation before this would become important, would be my guess.
At an individual level the UPS was once the exotic domain of 'can't afford to fail' computer systems, soon it will be a standard component with your home/domestic run of the mill solar PV integrated battery system. Hat's off to gold platers of the transmission network that have made this an economic option.

Oh, and still on the theme of static mass; noco, get back to us as quick as you can on BHP's, The US Military, The Koch's Brothers and other 'associated Commo's' views on the AGW scam.

noco said:

basilio, you posses to be an authority on this Global Warming con job, so why can't you or Rumpole explain to me what happened to the massive coral reefs that once existed in Moreton Bay? Are you saying my statement is incorrect?.....What statements are you saying I have made up?

Darra Cement dredged that dead coral for 40 odd years.

There is tonnes of dead coral scattered along beaches in North Queensland as has been the case during the last century.

All I want is your opinion as to why the coral died long before white man entered Australia.

Was it Global Warming?
Was it to do bush fires creating too much CO2 and the Oceans could not handle it?
Did it have anything to do with Sun spots and radiation?
Was it the crown of thorn star fish?
Did the Oceans become acidic for some reason?
Was it a mini ice age when the waters became too cold for coral?.....As we all know Coral prefers warm waters.
It certainly was not man made CO2.

So please, give me your opinion.

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This site /blog discusses Australian weather over the eons, talks of the lakes throughout Australia 40,000 years ago coming from the glaciers around Kosciusko

http://austhrutime.com/climate_cycles.htm

macca said:

This site /blog discusses Australian weather over the eons, talks of the lakes throughout Australia 40,000 years ago coming from the glaciers around Kosciusko

http://austhrutime.com/climate_cycles.htm

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Thanks for that article macca....most interesting of Global Warming and freezing over the years and the evidence of ice core samples revealing what has taken place.

Perhaps that may have been the result of dead corals in Moreton Bay.

I found the attached link most interesting....because there has been no increase in temperatures for the past 17 years, perhaps we may be entering into a mini ice age which may extend over the next century or two.

http://austhrutime.com/global_warming_freezing.htm

I was just having a glance at the Lithium thread and on the tone of some realised that whenever global warming is touched on it raises considerable anger and strong words from those who oppose even the idea.

This to me is not just denial. It is as if one can make it go away out of a fear that it is correct and by apposing it one can stop its existence.

Preaching it from the pulpit will not bring it into existence.


Oh woops, wrong thread!