The future of energy generation and storage

Value Collector said:

they need a decent return on capital or the investment funds will head to other oil and gas fields.

if the producers are having trouble getting projects started due to greens, and then get told the projects that do go ahead have price limits

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Not limited prices, domestic gas should be pegged to the market. As long as Australia receives a discount to the market and ensures we have an advantage.

Gorgon does have a domgas line so it is definitely feasible, all I am saying is that the Australian market should be supplied with discount gas. I really doubt this small extra burden would be a deal breaker in a $50b project

Depending on what source of data you look at and what assumptions you make about price, Australia has between 0.4% and 2% of world gas reserves.

Russia, Iran and Qatar are the big players in terms of gas in the ground. Depending on what data source you look at between those three they've got between half and two thirds of global reserves.

From the perspective of the Australian east coast (including SA and Tas) market is:

Cooper basin (SA) production is well past peak with around 80% of discovered reserves having been used.

Bass Strait reserves are roughly 50% depleted and in the case of the Otway basin production is in decline. Gippsland basin production isn't presently limited by reserves but it's not really worthwhile investing to increase the extraction rate given the short lifespan any new processing capacity would have.

NT, WA and Qld have plenty in the ground relative to consumption in those states but have committed the bulk of it to export. As such there's not all that much available to increase supply domestically.

Which leaves NSW as the only place known to have significant reserves which could be made available. Developing that will only help however if it's not exported.

That there was a long term deficiency of supply in SE Australia was known 40 years ago so it's nothing new. SA in particular was in a huge panic at one point - the recently closed coal-fired Northern power station being part of their steps to shift away from gas.

I'm not arguing for artificially cheap gas in the domestic market but physical volume ought to be assured with only actual surplus exported.

The LNG companies in Qld will no doubt say they're committed to contracts but if so that's a blunder in itself.

Firstly because surely they'd have realised that government would step in to ensure physical supply locally.

Secondly because plenty of other big oil and gas exporters routinely inform customers at to what % of contracted volume, and that means an amount less than 100%, will actually be delivered. Nobody's taking them to court over that or refusing to deal with them so if the Australian suppliers don't have that flexibility then pretty clearly they didn't negotiate the contracts as well as their overseas rivals did.

I don't begrudge AGL for pursuing it, they don't have many options and it beats doing nothing, but the idea of importing LNG is absurd in so many ways. First due to cost and secondly due to the massive energy loss and resultant emissions involved in the process.

Produce too much LNG in Qld thus reducing the flow of gas from Qld to Moomba (SA).

That then reduces the flow from Moomba into SA and NSW.

Then import LNG to Victoria to increase the flow from Vic to SA and NSW.

The net result is that it's importing LNG in order to enable more production of LNG for export.

Anyone with a shred of intelligence would see the logical alternative of supplying the export market with the same LNG we're proposing to import and skipping the physical steps of turning LNG into gas in order to turn gas into LNG. Just redirect a cargo of LNG is the obvious answer there saving a lot of $ and emissions.

As it stands now it's akin to depositing money in a bank account which incurs account fees and pays no interest and then borrowing money from the same bank which charges you fees and interest on the loan.

Nobody in their right mind would do that unless there's some ulterior motive involved.

Smurf1976 said:

Secondly because plenty of other big oil and gas exporters routinely inform customers at to what % of contracted volume, and that means an amount less than 100%, will actually be delivered.

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Wish I could like this post twice. I agree with the entire post but don't want to clog the thread with a massive quote. As always well informed and well written!!!!

The workplace where I am has been negotiating gas prices with 2 companies (both owned by the same parent) in Tasmania. They eventually got wind if intention of the workplace install their own tanks and importing and reduced price a little. The workplace is still considering the tanks. Gas and electricity are major input costs.

Seems governments crossed their fingers for too long hoping things would work out and it didn't. Unfortunately the higher costs for the consumer is the new reference point instead of 15 years ago + inflation.

How to con the taxpayers out of $729 million.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-10-...for-peanuts-becomes-730-million-asset/9077582

SirRumpole said:

So that is cost to the end user.

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Where are the facts to back that up.

SirRumpole said:

Regardless of what spin you put on it, it comes down to this



So that is cost to the end user.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-08-...australia-than-in-export-destinations/7680106

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This is the most important paragraph in that article

The exporters, struggling to fulfil contracted orders written years ago when the plants were in planning stage, have begun raiding gas from the domestic market to meet their contracts.

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They are struggling because they are not being allowed to drill.

Thats my point all along, its an artificial shortage, caused by politics, not geology or free market capitalism.

Value Collector said:

This is the most important paragraph in that article


They are struggling because they are not being allowed to drill.

Thats my point all along, its an artificial shortage, caused by politics, not geology or free market capitalism.

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There are two ways to have a shortage;

Not producing enough, or selling too much of what you have.

Why give the rest of the world an advantage from our assets without looking after ourselves first ?

If you were a dairy farmer I think you would supply your own needs before you sold the stuff elsewhere.

If oil companies over contracted for exports, that's their problem, they must have known that the government has the power to reserve production for local use.

I always wondered what all that steam was that you see venting at various places around New York.

Value Collector said:

I always wondered what all that steam was that you see venting at various places around New York.

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Yes that interesting. I thought the steam was just an effect in Batman movies.

Lots of steam pipes under NY and when they release some steam there's a big plastic pipe thing which sits over the vent (eg in the middle of the road).

Those also can be seen in the background in various movies and TV shows.

Those vent pipes get quite warm by the way but not hot. Smurf being Smurf had to investigate......

Smurf1976 said:

Lots of steam pipes under NY and when they release some steam there's a big plastic pipe thing which sits over the vent (eg in the middle of the road).

Those also can be seen in the background in various movies and TV shows.

Those vent pipes get quite warm by the way but not hot. Smurf being Smurf had to investigate......

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investigated that in my last trip there after seeing an "exhaust" in a street.have not watched the video but I was not aware until that trip and thought it was hot kitchen water in sewer or similar;
The US were so ahead a century ago, as China is now....

qldfrog said:

The US were so ahead a century ago, as China is now....

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Closer to home....

If you generate electricity from fuel then the waste product is heat and lots of it. Actually more heat than electricity comes out of all but the very best fuel burning power stations.

In Adelaide and Perth they've had fuel burning power stations running base load in the urban area for as long as they've had electricity.

East Perth, South Fremantle, Kwinana and whilst they're now closed there's modern plant still operating next to the old Kwinana station.

In Adelaide first it was Grenfell St (Adelaide CBD), then the two Osborne stations, then Torrens Island (still operating) and more recently a new plant at Osborne and also Pelican Point are all in the urban area and all produce hot water as a by-product.

Historically also thermal plant in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane indeed there still is in Melbourne although it operates intermittently.

So there's a massive amount of heat going to waste there. It's literally just dumped in the sea.

Meanwhile every house, office building, factory and apartment complex has at least one hot water service, the vast majority of which use electricity or gas to operate.

Plus there's also a significant space heating load in winter.

There's no reason apart perhaps from economics why we couldn't have put that waste heat to use. Doing so would have saved a truly massive amount of energy over the years.

It's silly when you think about the overall process.

Burn fuel to boil water to produce steam which spins a turbine to produce electricity. Historically two thirds of the heat has been lost in that process. Then we use quite a lot of that electricity to heat water or buildings. Silly when you really think about it especially when the other two thirds of that energy is going to waste not far away.

US coal production up as Trump vows to end 'war' on industry


https://twitter.com/twitter/statuses/925447637708496897

An update on the power supply situation for this coming Summer. This is all based on AEMO published data.

Vic and SA are both in serious trouble in the event that it gets hot (40+) on a working weekday and there's not overly much wind at the time. There's no way around that and the problem exists even with every coal, gas, oil and hydro station fully operational (itself an extremely optimistic assumption) and maximum supply from NSW and Tas. So it's all in the hands of the weather - a mild summer and there will be no problem. A major heatwave and not a lot of wind and there's going to be trouble. Even bigger problems if major plant failures were to occur.

The new generation in SA, which is now partly operational, and the big battery are certainly a help but they're by no means enough to address the combined problem between the two states.

NSW will scrape through but only just since there's nothing to spare. Even the slightest problem will require supply from Qld or (if available at the time) Vic to avoid blackouts. So a supply shortfall probably won't happen but it could if Liddell (or any other plant) falls in a heap again as happened last year.

Qld has some to spare. They'd need a few failures or to be sending a large amount into NSW to have a problem. Not impossible but unlikely in practice.

It would take multiple major failures to put the lights out in Tas. Not impossible but extremely unlikely. That said, the system will certainly need to be pushed pretty hard at times trying to keep the lights on in Vic and SA.

WA should have no problems as long as the gas supply doesn't fail.

NT should be OK but with a small system (in terms of capacity and output) like that there's always the vulnerability that one problem in a small system has a much bigger impact than if the same problem occurred in a larger system. So there's always the risk of equipment breakdowns etc but no problems as long as things work as they should, there's enough capacity as such.

So that's how it looks at the moment based on what's known. Obviously I haven't factored in things like natural disasters, industrial action or very major incidents (mines catching fire, gas plants blowing up etc) into that.

Smurf1976 said:

Vic and SA are both in serious trouble in the event that it gets hot (40+) on a working weekday and there's not overly much wind at the time.

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Well that's definitely going to happen this summer. Will be interesting watching the politicians blame everyone but themselves when the elderly and newborns start dying from heat exhaustion.

https://www.solarquotes.com.au/blog/will-the-tesla-powerwall-let-you-go-off-grid-for-3500/

I'd happily sign over the whole country to Tesla. Musk is trustworthy - politicians aren't.

Gringotts Bank said:

I'd happily sign over the whole country to Tesla. Musk is trustworthy - politicians aren't.

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The 100mw battery was a great publicity and advertising stunt for capitalist Musk and a smoke screen for Wetherall's butt for failing to consider energy generation for the state. The issue didn't suddenly happen one Summer day morning. Absolute incompetence and Musk is NOT the solution. We don't need foreigners making our future.

Wysiwyg said:

The 100mw battery was a great publicity and advertising stunt for capitalist Musk and a smoke screen for Wetherall's butt for failing to consider energy generation for the state. The issue didn't suddenly happen one Summer day morning. Absolute incompetence and Musk is NOT the solution. We don't need foreigners making our future.

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We clearly do need foreigners (of the right sort). You said yourself this has happened over a long time, caused by Australia's own pathetic, USELESS politicians.

Putting the SA battery (properly known as Hornsdale Power Reserve) into perspective:

Peak output is 100 MW and storage capacity is 129 MWh or 0.129 GWh

That compares with the largest individual generating unit in SA at 239 MW (of which there are two at Pelican Point power station) and the largest in Australia which is 750 MW at Kogan Creek (Qld).

The largest power station in SA, with all its generating units included, is 800 MW at Torrens Island B (4 x 200 MW) or you could say it's 1280 MW if you count both the A and B stations together (4 x 120 MW in the A station).

The largest power station in Australia is Eraring (NSW) at 2880 MW (4 x 720 MW). Alternatively it could be argued that it's Loy Yang (Vic) if the two adjacent stations, which have separate owners but share some common infrastructure, are counted as a single plant. Together they have a capacity of 3260 MW.

So the 100 MW from Hornsdale Power Reserve is not huge but it is significant. It's comparable to an older steam turbine generating unit (eg one of the units at Torrens Island A), a smaller gas turbine station (eg Mintaro (SA) is 90 MW) or a smaller hydro station (eg Bastyan in Tas is 80 MW).

That 100 MW is about 3% of SA's peak demand as another way of looking at it.

So all up it's an improvement but not a total solution. It reduces the gap between peak demand and available supply but does not of itself eliminate it.

The diesel-fired gas turbines the SA government has installed are more substantial with a capacity around 275 MW depending on conditions (ambient conditions affect gas turbines significantly so it's a nominal rating not a firm number).

Taken together the gas turbines and battery have roughly halved the supply gap in SA in a heatwave + no wind + no supply from Vic scenario. So a step forward certainly but the risk hasn't gone entirely.

So far as the politics is concerned, I think the best I can say there is that at least SA comprehend that they've got a problem. In contrast at some point Victorians and their state government are in for one hell of a surprise since they seem completely oblivious to what's heading their way.

The situation in Vic will be even worse if something breaks. That sort of thing does happen and as an example one of the generators at Loy Yang failed suddenly on 18 October and won't likely be running for a few weeks yet. Better hope nothing like that happens in late January or February when demand is high.....

Smurf1976 said:

That 100 MW is about 3% of SA's peak demand as another way of looking at it.

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We could have built 50 big batteries if billions hadn't been wasted on ceiling insulation, buildings for schools, failed NBNs, cash handouts (stimulus), plebiscites, Medicare rorts, welfare rorts, international companies evading tax,.... etc etc. This country has been absolutely buggered by politicians.