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What? They're selling it? Last time I was there (few months ago) they hadn't even finished building it yet!
The future of energy generation and storage
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What? They're selling it? Last time I was there (few months ago) they hadn't even finished building it yet!
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I've said it a few times in this thread and elsewhere. All power pollutes. All of it. We get to chose the location and form of pollution but none of it has no impact environmentally.
There's plenty of people hyping the supposed benefits of going off grid and installing batteries in recent times but they're by no means clean. We just swap one form of pollution for another and change the location but there's still a big impact.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/business/batteries/graphite-mining-pollution-in-china/
There's plenty of people hyping the supposed benefits of going off grid and installing batteries in recent times but they're by no means clean. We just swap one form of pollution for another and change the location but there's still a big impact.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/business/batteries/graphite-mining-pollution-in-china/
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Indeed so.
You may have written about this already, but I'm interested in the consequences of feeding intermittent power like solar and wind straight into the grid. Does this cause problems and if so what's the way around it ?
Your thoughts as always are appreciated.
No matter how much Jay Weatherall tries to cover up for the chaos he created for South Australia the truth is he has just gone too far with this subsidised renewable energy.
If he does not turn around and either build a new coal fired power station or go nuclear, South Australia will suffer the same fait.
Who would want to invest in SA with such unreliable power?...I can just imagine the cost blow out in building the subs in SA let alone the chaos the unions will create.
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/opi...s/news-story/967b0a585d40dfdc77825c8a01e25eea
The climax last week of Labor’s 14-year campaign to de-industrialise the state of South Australia was less than triumphant.
Premier Jay Weatherill’s oversized media machine was turning out cheerful press releases early last Wednesday boasting of the government’s preparation for the coming “weather event”, as we are obliged to call it.
Baptist Care would be opening its doors in Adelaide to ensure that homeless people would be warm and fed, we were assured.
There was silence, however, on the government’s crowning achievement: the mother of all Earth Hours that, for an uncomfortable evening, reduced carbon emissions to close to zero. This time, perhaps even Weatherill realised that his hokey, greenish socialism had gone too far.
It is barely two months since Weatherill demanded $100 million from Canberra to keep Arrium Steel working. Yet it was the blackout, a consequence of Labor’s renewables policy, that *finally shut the Whyalla plant down. Enforced idleness is costing Arrium about $4m a day.
Nyrstar’s Port Pirie lead smelter will be out of action for another fortnight. BHP Billiton is unable to say when it will restart mining copper at Olympic Dam.
Where is the old industrial Left when it’s needed? The communists merely wanted to take over the factories. The greenish Left wants to close them down.
When Labor was elected in South Australia in 2002, manufacturing provided more than 15 per cent of gross state product; now it’s less than 10 per cent and falling. The state government employs more staff than the manufacturing sector.
If Weatherill had the slightest comprehension of the damage Labor’s B-grade managerialism has caused he would struggle to crawl out of bed in the morning, let alone stand for re-election.
Economic growth is less than 1.5 per cent, half the national average; unemployment is the highest in Australia; investment has fallen by 0.5 per cent a year since 2011.
Which raises the question: why would anybody invest in South Australia, except out of sympathy? The state’s extraordinary economic growth in the 1950s and 60s that produced jobs, built homes and bought cars was driven by cheap, reliable energy. Who would risk entrepreneurial capital in Weatherill’s energy-deficient jurisdiction? Even basketweavers need a reliable source of light.
South Australian Labor has been boasting for years that its policies are making the state more “sustainable”. Yet if a measure of sustainability is keeping the freezer running, the unfashionably brown coal deposits from Leigh Creek were working better than subsidised windmills. A sobering report from Del*oitte’s last year noted the irony: “Renewable generation is already challenging the sustainability of the South Australian system.” Adding more renewable capacity, it said, would destabilise the system further.
The speed of South Australia’s transition from coal to wind and solar is breathtaking. The state’s renewable generation capacity has more than doubled in the past six years. Other regions that have made transitions on this scale, such as Denmark and Iowa, already had strong network connections with neighbouring producers, making it easy to buy in baseload power when the blades stopped turning. By contrast, as we saw last week, South Australia’s energy link to the outside world seems held together with sticky tape and string.
The state’s capacity to produce its own baseload power from fossil fuels has rapidly diminished. The state’s four largest power stations — two at Port Augusta, Pelican Point and Torrens Island A — will have closed or will be in mothballs by this time next year, made unviable by unpredictable deluges of cheap wind power.
The combined lost capacity of 1250MW represents a third of the state’s generating potential. What has filled the gap? You’ve guessed it: imported power from Victoria, generated mostly by the same brown coal deemed unacceptable in oh-so-clean South Australia.
Upgrading the national grid to give South Australians the comfort of a reliable energy supply will be expensive. The costs inevitably will push up power prices, passed on as another hidden cost of Labor’s carbon fetish.
The same challenge is facing Europe, where a rapid growth in renewable energy in Germany has thrown the energy market out of whack. Last year Germany opened a new coal-fired power station, much to the distress of the Greens. Upgrading cross-border supply across northern Europe is a priority; how else is Germany going to be able to suck up French nuclear power, the production of which is banned within its own borders? The cost of bringing the entire European network up to scratch could cost as much as $500 billion.
One would have thought even the most credulous admirer of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s modelling must concede that, short of sending half the planet back to the Dark Ages, their emission targets are impossible to meet. Convoluted interventions into the energy market to give wind and solar a helping hand have caused more problems than they solve, not least because the technology isn’t up to scratch.
There is no feasible way of producing baseload power without fossil fuels in Australia, a continent that lacks the mountains and rain required for hydro-electricity and the political determination required to press the nuclear button. At least one commentator last week suggested South Australia’s energy storage plans could be solved with batteries. Since no one has yet developed a battery capable of powering an iPhone for more than a morning, it seems somewhat ambitious to ask for one that would power a state.
Meanwhile, the South Australian Department of the Premier and Cabinet has invoked the Cuban response, urging consumers to ration consumption.
“Make a habit of turning off lights when you leave the room,” counsels the Easy Energy Saving Tips web page. “Use a shower timer to keep your showers to four minutes or less. Wash clothes in cold water … use a clothes line … hanging clothes out to dry is more energy efficient.”
Sadly, the South Australian government is a world leader in the emission of patronising, unsolicited advice. If only we could come up with a way of extracting the methane from this bureaucratic flatulence, pump it into a turbine and burn it for power.
If he does not turn around and either build a new coal fired power station or go nuclear, South Australia will suffer the same fait.
Who would want to invest in SA with such unreliable power?...I can just imagine the cost blow out in building the subs in SA let alone the chaos the unions will create.
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/opi...s/news-story/967b0a585d40dfdc77825c8a01e25eea
The climax last week of Labor’s 14-year campaign to de-industrialise the state of South Australia was less than triumphant.
Premier Jay Weatherill’s oversized media machine was turning out cheerful press releases early last Wednesday boasting of the government’s preparation for the coming “weather event”, as we are obliged to call it.
Baptist Care would be opening its doors in Adelaide to ensure that homeless people would be warm and fed, we were assured.
There was silence, however, on the government’s crowning achievement: the mother of all Earth Hours that, for an uncomfortable evening, reduced carbon emissions to close to zero. This time, perhaps even Weatherill realised that his hokey, greenish socialism had gone too far.
It is barely two months since Weatherill demanded $100 million from Canberra to keep Arrium Steel working. Yet it was the blackout, a consequence of Labor’s renewables policy, that *finally shut the Whyalla plant down. Enforced idleness is costing Arrium about $4m a day.
Nyrstar’s Port Pirie lead smelter will be out of action for another fortnight. BHP Billiton is unable to say when it will restart mining copper at Olympic Dam.
Where is the old industrial Left when it’s needed? The communists merely wanted to take over the factories. The greenish Left wants to close them down.
When Labor was elected in South Australia in 2002, manufacturing provided more than 15 per cent of gross state product; now it’s less than 10 per cent and falling. The state government employs more staff than the manufacturing sector.
If Weatherill had the slightest comprehension of the damage Labor’s B-grade managerialism has caused he would struggle to crawl out of bed in the morning, let alone stand for re-election.
Economic growth is less than 1.5 per cent, half the national average; unemployment is the highest in Australia; investment has fallen by 0.5 per cent a year since 2011.
Which raises the question: why would anybody invest in South Australia, except out of sympathy? The state’s extraordinary economic growth in the 1950s and 60s that produced jobs, built homes and bought cars was driven by cheap, reliable energy. Who would risk entrepreneurial capital in Weatherill’s energy-deficient jurisdiction? Even basketweavers need a reliable source of light.
South Australian Labor has been boasting for years that its policies are making the state more “sustainable”. Yet if a measure of sustainability is keeping the freezer running, the unfashionably brown coal deposits from Leigh Creek were working better than subsidised windmills. A sobering report from Del*oitte’s last year noted the irony: “Renewable generation is already challenging the sustainability of the South Australian system.” Adding more renewable capacity, it said, would destabilise the system further.
The speed of South Australia’s transition from coal to wind and solar is breathtaking. The state’s renewable generation capacity has more than doubled in the past six years. Other regions that have made transitions on this scale, such as Denmark and Iowa, already had strong network connections with neighbouring producers, making it easy to buy in baseload power when the blades stopped turning. By contrast, as we saw last week, South Australia’s energy link to the outside world seems held together with sticky tape and string.
The state’s capacity to produce its own baseload power from fossil fuels has rapidly diminished. The state’s four largest power stations — two at Port Augusta, Pelican Point and Torrens Island A — will have closed or will be in mothballs by this time next year, made unviable by unpredictable deluges of cheap wind power.
The combined lost capacity of 1250MW represents a third of the state’s generating potential. What has filled the gap? You’ve guessed it: imported power from Victoria, generated mostly by the same brown coal deemed unacceptable in oh-so-clean South Australia.
Upgrading the national grid to give South Australians the comfort of a reliable energy supply will be expensive. The costs inevitably will push up power prices, passed on as another hidden cost of Labor’s carbon fetish.
The same challenge is facing Europe, where a rapid growth in renewable energy in Germany has thrown the energy market out of whack. Last year Germany opened a new coal-fired power station, much to the distress of the Greens. Upgrading cross-border supply across northern Europe is a priority; how else is Germany going to be able to suck up French nuclear power, the production of which is banned within its own borders? The cost of bringing the entire European network up to scratch could cost as much as $500 billion.
One would have thought even the most credulous admirer of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s modelling must concede that, short of sending half the planet back to the Dark Ages, their emission targets are impossible to meet. Convoluted interventions into the energy market to give wind and solar a helping hand have caused more problems than they solve, not least because the technology isn’t up to scratch.
There is no feasible way of producing baseload power without fossil fuels in Australia, a continent that lacks the mountains and rain required for hydro-electricity and the political determination required to press the nuclear button. At least one commentator last week suggested South Australia’s energy storage plans could be solved with batteries. Since no one has yet developed a battery capable of powering an iPhone for more than a morning, it seems somewhat ambitious to ask for one that would power a state.
Meanwhile, the South Australian Department of the Premier and Cabinet has invoked the Cuban response, urging consumers to ration consumption.
“Make a habit of turning off lights when you leave the room,” counsels the Easy Energy Saving Tips web page. “Use a shower timer to keep your showers to four minutes or less. Wash clothes in cold water … use a clothes line … hanging clothes out to dry is more energy efficient.”
Sadly, the South Australian government is a world leader in the emission of patronising, unsolicited advice. If only we could come up with a way of extracting the methane from this bureaucratic flatulence, pump it into a turbine and burn it for power.
Tisme
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Not withstanding the nonsense link between nature's fury and renewables, wasn't it the Abbott Govt who gutted the SA and Geelong industries by wiping out incentives of the ALPs WW2 legacy of a local car industry?
I'm guessing the article you posted is another rubbish snipe piece from Newscorp? Twisted fantasy look at me journalism
Tisme, sometimes the truth hurts and that is evident from your terse comments...Time will tell if they continue to have strife with their power supply and the high cost there of to the SA consumers.
:topic
The car industry was domed to fail due to the lack of export sales and high cost of labour thanks to our beloved unions....It is called competition.....No more shoe factories....No more clothing factories.....No more woollen mills....And the steel industry is being heavily subsidised by the Australian taxpayers.
Gillard gave the car industry millions of dollars which were supposed to keep the car industry going until 2022...This 2016...6 years earlier.
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noco said:
The problem is my friend, as you evidently fail to realise is that fossil fuels are a non renewable resource and will one day run out. You and I will probably be dead by then but someone will have to deal with it and the longer they leave the decision the harder it will be to make.
There has to be a mix of energy sources. Storage is the key to renewables but it's too expensive for the private operators to invest in, so it has to be government. The Tories (your lot) think that private enterprise will do the lot and make the right long term decisions and investments. What a joke. There has to be a national energy security policy driven by our elected representatives, which is a shame since they spend most of their time talking about gay marriage.
Firstly, if you do some research, you will find there is enough coal to last 1000 years and South Australia has a heap of uranium for nuclear power......Secondly, I am well aware that fossil fuels are non renewable...What a lot of malarkey.....A grade 2 kid at school would know that.
How can it be possible to store enough power for a city as large as Adelaide......dream on Rumpy...That is all pie in the sky.
You say there will have to be a mix of energy source so it would appear you have suddenly woken up to the fact that we will always need base power from coal oil or nuclear power......That proves one thing, renewables are very unreliable and inefficient......Solar and wind power are only 15% efficient in comparison to the cheaper source of coal fired which is 35% .
But in South Australia Electra Net is a private company....Why doesn't the government buy them out and run it themselves?
Your argument is so weak.
It is the Green/Labor coalition who keep stirring the SSM crap instead of being more concentrated and cooperate on paying back the disastrous mess left by the Green/Labor coalition 2007/2013.
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If you do some research you'll find that the more coal that gets used the deeper you have to dig to extract more and the more it costs to get it out, so the price of coal will continue to rise as time goes on. Same with gas, but gas is a viable option for a while as it's cleaner than coal and you can burn it in different ways.
I've said we should be looking at nuclear if it stacks up in a cost benefit analysis. It's a lot more expensive than other sources though.
FFS don't insult my intelligence......you do not know what you are talking about.....I live in Queensland and the 95% of coal is open cut and I have visited these sites on business on more than one occasion....There is miles of open cut coal in Queensland that has not yet been exploited the likes of which you have no conception......So please don't talk as though you are some authority of what is happening in Queensland....Dig deeper????????.....The only thing we will have to dig deeper for is the subsidised renewable energy tax payer funds.
Yes but it (nuclear power) would be a bloody side more reliable than an overdose of wind or solar......
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If you want acres of land turned into a lunar landscape, why don't you move out of your comfortable little world and live next to an open cut coal mine ?
They are environmentally disastrous including depositing tonnes of coal dust into the atmosphere. Lets see how breathing that stuff in affects your health.
Once again you do not know what you are talking about....... according to law they have to control that dust and furthermore coal mines are normally in a remote area away from residential town.
Why don't you move out into an area and live amongst the wind farms ?......Listen to noise night and day and pick up the millions of birds killed each year by those ugly swirling blades...Why aren't you and your Greenie mates complaining about the loss of bird life...You complain every time a dam is proposed that there it is a red nosed hairy wombat or a rare green frog habitat living in the area so you can't build dam there....People living in the area of wind farms say it is a health hazard.
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I do live in an area near a wind farm and have never heard anyone complain about them.
I doubt if you give a stuff about birds anyway as you don't give a stuff about all the species habitat destroyed by open cut coal mines.
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Maybe no one's complaining no more because they've all gone deaf from the noise? jk
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Only on this thread and on this Board could we still have "people" still thumping the tub for polluting, non-renewable, green house gas producing coal fired power stations.
Just totally xxxxxxxx moronic..
Just totally xxxxxxxx moronic..
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Less and less of them though, and the ones that do are so bigoted that they will never see sense anyway.
How do y0u know that I don't give a stuff about birds.....I bred canaries and budgies for years.....I had all sorts of poultry......white leghorns, black australlops , bantams, Sussex, wine dots, game birds and Rhode Island reds.
Once again you are talking through your hat for I am a bird lover and that is more than I can say about the Green/Labor coalition...They don't give a stuff about the loss of bird life with ugly wind farms so long as they preach their daily monotonous propaganda on Global Warming, sorry it is now Climate Change because we don't have Global warming according to recent reports where by we may be entering into a mini ice age.
Same old monotonous reply as parroted by the Green/Labor coalition......One is bigoted if one does not agree with your propaganda....You seem to think free speech belongs only to you and everything you say is correct and you expect others to agree with you....If they don't then they are xenophobic or some other stupid saying now being used by the Green/Labor coalition.
You are a typical Fabian where as nobody else is allowed to express their opinion and if they do express that opinion contrary to yours you then you resort to character assassination by branding people with all sorts of derogatory names like being a bigot......
And you are not bigoted in your ideology......What a hypocrite.....You should have a long hard look at your self before you think you have the right to criticize others if they do not agree with you.
explod
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Real bird lovers want to see them happy in the wild.
Only right wing fascists keep things locked up.
Tisme
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LOL
