The future of energy generation and storage

[Belli]

Perhaps you can explain that data and how it relates to hydro power for those interested.

NASA explains it better than I.

How does climate change affect precipitation? | NASA Global Precipitation Measurement Mission

Current climate models indicate that rising temperatures will intensify the Earth’s water cycle, increasing evaporation. Increased evaporation will result in more frequent and intense storms, but will also contribute to drying over some land areas. As a result, storm-affected areas are likely to...

gpm.nasa.gov

"Current climate models indicate that rising temperatures will intensify the Earth’s water cycle, increasing evaporation. Increased evaporation will result in more frequent and intense storms, but will also contribute to drying over some land areas. As a result, storm-affected areas are likely to experience increases in precipitation and increased risk of flooding, while areas located far away from storm tracks are likely to experience less precipitation and increased risk of drought."

So it is feasible a site currently suitable for hydro may not be in the future.

 

[SirRumpole]

NASA explains it better than I.

How does climate change affect precipitation? | NASA Global Precipitation Measurement Mission

Current climate models indicate that rising temperatures will intensify the Earth’s water cycle, increasing evaporation. Increased evaporation will result in more frequent and intense storms, but will also contribute to drying over some land areas. As a result, storm-affected areas are likely to...

gpm.nasa.gov

"Current climate models indicate that rising temperatures will intensify the Earth’s water cycle, increasing evaporation. Increased evaporation will result in more frequent and intense storms, but will also contribute to drying over some land areas. As a result, storm-affected areas are likely to experience increases in precipitation and increased risk of flooding, while areas located far away from storm tracks are likely to experience less precipitation and increased risk of drought."

So it is feasible a site currently suitable for hydro may not be in the future.

In that case the only thing that won't change enough to make a difference is the ocean, it will always be there as the lower reservoir and having pumped hydro site near the coast with associated off shore wind farms to provide the pumping power would seem to be the way to go ?

 

[sptrawler]

In that case the only thing that won't change enough to make a difference is the ocean, it will always be there as the lower reservoir and having pumped hydro site near the coast with associated off shore wind farms to provide the pumping power would seem to be the way to go ?

Makes a lot of sense, unfortunately it is not that common and the activists will pour out of the woodwork.

 

[SirRumpole]

Makes a lot of sense, unfortunately it is not that common and the activists will pour out of the woodwork.

Rolling blackouts in the TEAL seats may change their minds. ?

 

[sptrawler]

Rolling blackouts in the TEAL seats may change their minds. ?

They just have no idea, have you seen the look on Bowens face, now he has been brought up to speed on magnitude of the issue.
It will be interesting to see if they legislate the 43% and if we have to pay some other country for their credits to achieve it.

Chris Bowen to announce review of carbon credits system after expert labelled it a ‘fraud’

Climate change minister says inquiry needed as carbon offset scheme is integral to target of 43% emissions reduction by 2030

www.theguardian.com

 

[SirRumpole]

They just have no idea, have you seen the look on Bowens face, now he has been brought up to speed on magnitude of the issue.
It will be interesting to see if they legislate the 43% and if we have to pay some other country for their credits to achieve it.

Chris Bowen to announce review of carbon credits system after expert labelled it a ‘fraud’

Climate change minister says inquiry needed as carbon offset scheme is integral to target of 43% emissions reduction by 2030

www.theguardian.com

If they don't need to legislate they would be silly to do so in view of the world situation.

My guess is that climate change is going to take a back seat to power prices for a while, and the teals will be gone at the next election if they and the Greens hit consumers with power bills they can't afford.

 

[sptrawler]

If they don't need to legislate they would be silly to do so in view of the world situation.

My guess is that climate change is going to take a back seat to power prices for a while, and the teals will be gone at the next election if they and the Greens hit consumers with power bills they can't afford.

Yes going stupid at the moment wouldn't end well IMO.
Pushing up fuel costs further and power costs up, could be the straw that breaks the camels back.
The next two years are going to be interesting.

 

[Smurf1976]

I wonder how many hydro sites there are in Darwin ?

The only developed one is Lake Argyle just over the border in WA. At present that's underutilised following closure of the mine but a new transmission line could be run between the existing substation at Zimin Drive, Katherine, NT to the existing substation located 34km south of Kununurra, WA.

This would connect the presently isolated system in that part of WA to the existing Darwin – Katherine system in the NT with the benefit of enabling now surplus capacity at the existing Ord River hydro station to be used to supply the NT, replacing some use of natural gas / diesel for that purpose and adding capacity.

The Ord River hydro now being substantially unused following closure of a mining operation previously supplied from it.

This would initially operate base load, that being the design basis of the hydro station, but a second stage of development would be to increase installed capacity of the hydro station and operate it intermittently to provide deep firming to intermittent renewables.

Length of line approximately 420km in a straight line, bit more for practical construction.

Line voltage 132kV strung on dual circuit towers. One circuit would be required for initial operation, second circuit to be installed later for the second stage with hydro station expansion.

The economics wouldn't be all that wonderful but it serves a real practical purpose, putting a now unused source of firm renewable energy to use with a resultant saving on gas presently used for generation in the NT.

It might also have some value as an employment creation thing during construction. There's no fundamental reason why local people couldn't be employed to build it under direction. That's temporary obviously but could be seen as a positive.

 

[Smurf1976]

Is it worth noting that all hydro electric schemes require "surplus" power to pump the the water uphill, so is this surplus going to be available and where will it come from , given that we are running pretty tight in generation right now ?

A pumped storage scheme requires energy to pump water yes, ultimately it's a storage scheme, but I'll add that an on-river dam doesn't, it's energy positive as such.

Snowy 2.0 is in that regard a hybrid. It's a pumped scheme yes but the upper reservoir does also have natural inflow.

The existing Tumut 3 station is also a hybrid. It's primarily an on-river scheme but 3 of the 6 turbines do incorporate pumps to enable partial re-use of water, pumping it back from Jounama pondage (downstream) back up into Talbingo (upstream).

An attribute of SH2 is that it does have the ability to pump water discharged by Tumut 1 & 2. That is, it can take their discharge which ends up in Talbingo Reservoir, pump that up into Tantangara then, via the existing infrastructure, that can be sent back to Lake Eucumbene from where it came in the first place.

If, as a future project, a pump were to be installed from Blowering Reservoir to Jounama pondage, and if the 3 non-pumping turbines at Tumut 3 were equipped with pumps, then it would be possible to pump from Blowering > Jounama > Talbingo > Tantangara then natural flow to Eucumbene and thus recycle all water in the northern end of the scheme if desired. That's not proposed at present but it's a relatively straightforward add-on. Bearing in mind that the capacity of Blowering Reservoir is equal to just under 92% of its annual inflow or 101% of the annual discharge from Tumut 3. That being so, short term inflows become irrelevant in any scenario other than a truly massive flood.

Shoalhaven (NSW, Origin Energy) and Wivenhoe (Qld, CleanCo) are both "pure" pumped storage schemes without natural inflows.

The other Snowy stations (Tumut 1, Tumut 2, Blowering, Jounama, Guthega, Murray 1, Murray 2) are all on-river dams not pumped storage (though Murray 1 and 2 do involve some pumping, in one direction only, from Lake Jindabyne).

Barron Gorge and Kareeya (Qld), Lake Argyle (WA), the AGL hydro stations in Vic and all the Hydro Tasmania stations are on river. They're net energy positive with any pumping being a one-way diversion not pumped storage as such. Same with the various minor stations associated with irrigation or water supply dams.

A fact not well known to most Australians is that the Snowy scheme has never been completed to its full potential. SH2 as now proposed is simply a modernised version of a project first identified in the late 1950's. It's not the only one that could be added.

 

[Value Collector]

Value Collector jumped on a mistake I made in naming the current Snowy, 2.0 and commenting without listening to the audio.

Commented without listening because I was confused by your statement, because I already had a good understanding of 2.0, your comments didn’t make sense so was just asking for some clarification on what the problem was before I committed to a 29min podcast.

However, I did later listen to your podcast and still think your original comment was pretty irrelevant in the grand scheme of things, I mean who cares that for a few days the output of a piece of infrastructure was limited due to heavier rain fall, when it has served us well for over 50 years.

That exact set of circumstances eg

1. coal power station failure
2. at the time of heavy rail fall
3. At a particular point of historical transition

Is pretty rare, and in no way reflects badly of the snowy scheme or 2.0, so I am still confused by the passion in your original comment.

 

[JohnDe]

TLDR

Not actually interested in discussing this with you any further,

 

[JohnDe]

But as I said I am not interested in any further debate with you,

 

[Value Collector]

Obviously if you mention my name in a comment and seem confused about why I said something, I will explain myself.

 

[JohnDe]

Value Collector continues to confuse building long term energy infrastructure with politicians spending tax payers $’s to buy votes, such as the Turnbull governments Snowy 2.0 NSW exercise.

$10 billion could have built a lot more energy infrastructure than Snowy 2.0 will ever give to Australia.

Senate Estimates papers confirm the announcement was cobbled together in less than two weeks after the concept was floated by Snowy Hydro.
How did it come to this — the energy crisis we had to have?
Does Australia need Tasmania to become a multi-billion-dollar 'Battery of the Nation'?


? Sorry couldn’t help myself, someone left a door wide open for me

 

[Value Collector]

Value Collector continues to confuse building long term energy infrastructure with politicians spending tax payers $’s to buy votes, such as the Turnbull governments Snowy 2.0 NSW exercise.

$10 billion could have built a lot more energy infrastructure than Snowy 2.0 will ever give to Australia.

Senate Estimates papers confirm the announcement was cobbled together in less than two weeks after the concept was floated by Snowy Hydro.
How did it come to this — the energy crisis we had to have?
Does Australia need Tasmania to become a multi-billion-dollar 'Battery of the Nation'?


? Sorry couldn’t help myself, someone left a door wide open for me

Sorry, since you continue to bring up my name in a discussion I have already said I am not interested in continuing with you, especially because you just repeatedly quote the same nonsense about things I have already explained I am going to have to block you for a while.

 

[JohnDe]

Value Collector

Sorry, since you continue to bring up my name in a discussion I have already said I am not interested in continuing with you, especially because you just repeatedly quote the same nonsense about things I have already explained I am going to have to block you for a while.

Millennials ?

 

[SirRumpole]

From the sidelines It appears to me that enhancing an existing asset is preferable to starting from scratch with all the design works, site finding, EIS'S and paperwork that needs to be done for a new installion.

But this is really an engineering issue. I haven't heard of Snowy being unable to generate in flood times before, and flooding of coal mines would be unusual also. Wind farms can't generate when the winds are too high. Every grid module has their faults that have to be allowed for.

I don't believe Snowy 2.0 was a vote buying exercise. The public doesn't generally get excited by things they won't see for 10 years. Using $10 billion to reduce power bills now would have bought a lot more votes but would have been a waste of money in the long term.

 

[mullokintyre]

A lot of the proposed engineering work from the 50's got put on hold.
One of my neighbours, since passed away, was a senior engineer with the old SRWC in Victoria.
One day back in the early 90's we were talking about the (then) flooding that was occurring along the Goulburn river.
He said that he had worked with others to produce the original plans for the Eildon dam which had the wall about 40 KMS further west at a place called Trawool. The river at that point is around 140 M above sea level, which is about 160 metres below the level of the existing eildon water level when full. When full, Eildons deepest part is now about 80 metres, so one can see there is an enormous potential for storage.
It would have made the size of Eildon dam, already fairly big in its own right, about five times bigger than it eventually was.
It would have meant that the small towns like Yea and Alexendria Molesworth and Cathkin would have to be shifted as they would be inundated.
Given that the entire town of Tallangatta was shifted to make way for the Hume, this was not an insurmountable problem.
What was an insurmountable problem was that a lot of national Party supporters and some National Party members owned some extremely profitable and fertile land growing cattle along the flood plains of the river valley which also would have been inundated if the dam wall had been built at Trawool.
They had sufficient clout to can the expanded dam and retreat to where it was eventually sited.
The original dam wall was raised twice in 1929 and 1955 to where it is now.
The four AGL owned turbines produce up to 150 MW, but they are used intermittently, as Eildon is used mainly as irrigation supply and flood management.
However, had those original plans been operational, it would be a very different story today.
The cost of relocating those towns plus all the infrastructure would probably just make the \whole exercise prohibitively costly now.
But imagine what might have been.
Mick

 

[JohnDe]

From the sidelines It appears to me that enhancing an existing asset is preferable to starting from scratch with all the design works, site finding, EIS'S and paperwork that needs to be done for a new installion.

But this is really an engineering issue. I haven't heard of Snowy being unable to generate in flood times before, and flooding of coal mines would be unusual also. Wind farms can't generate when the winds are too high. Every grid module has their faults that have to be allowed for.

I don't believe Snowy 2.0 was a vote buying exercise. The public doesn't generally get excited by things they won't see for 10 years. Using $10 billion to reduce power bills now would have bought a lot more votes but would have been a waste of money in the long term.

I also believed in Snowy 2.0 but the deeper I look the more short comings and conjuring I find. We were duped.

Turnbull gave 2.0 to the public and his party in the midst of the coal debate, his own environmental policy was causing fractures in his party and threatening his leadership.

Soon after, he lost his position and Morrison took over and an election was on the cards. A coal advocate leading a country looking for a green sustainable energy policy.

Snowy was unable to generate during flooding, this is fact.

Snowy 2.0 – Is the reward worth the risk?​

…there are several competing projects that do not appear to have been considered. And the costs of competing technologies appear unusually high, which when displaced by Snowy 2.0 in the analysis, produce more benefits than would otherwise be expected.

An even bigger threat to Snowy 2.0 returns comes from alternative modular technologies, especially battery energy storage systems (BESS). Snowy 2.0 is a large capital and irreversible investment – once committed it cannot be unbuilt. Alternative technologies, especially BESS are modular and have little economies of scale.

They can be committed in small quantities at many locations and can be expanded to adapt to the market over time. Snowy Hydro investing in Snowy 2.0 has none of this luxury…

Coalition throws another $1.4 billion to try and make Snowy 2.0 stack up​

Prime minister Scott Morrison has given the go-ahead to the Snowy 2.0 pumped hydro scheme, but it has needed an extra $1.4 billion of taxpayer’s money to get the pet project of predecessor Malcolm Turnbull – the man the Coalition dumped because they didn’t trust him on climate and energy policy – over the line.

Morrison and energy minister Angus Taylor rushed to the Snowy Mountains on Tuesday to make the announcement, the latest in a series to try and diffuse climate and energy policy as an election issue.

It follows the modest extension of the discredited Direct Action scheme, now rebranded as “Climate Solutions” fund,and a stream of other measures that will focus on energy efficiency, the vague promise of an electric vehicle strategy, and $56 million to “fast-track” Tasmania’s rival to Snowy 2.0 – the “Battery of the Nation” pumped hydro scheme and links to the mainland.

Snowy 2.0 doesn't measure up economically or environmentally​

Snowy Hydro works by using power, during periods of low demand, to pump water uphill. In periods of high demand, this water is allowed to flow downhill, through a turbine, to generate power. It takes much more power to move the water uphill than is generated when the water flows downhill.

Shocked. Shocked! Snowy 2.0 turns $10bn black hole​

The nation-building vision was for a big battery to be added to the Snowy Mountains Hydro-Electric Scheme. It was to be completed in four years (that is, by last year) at a cost of $2 billion without any taxpayer subsidy, bring down electricity prices, generate renewable energy and incur minimal environmental impact on Kosciuszko National Park.

Inspiring stuff. But not one of these grand claims has turned out to be true. Worse, Australian taxpayers and NSW electricity consumers will be up for billions of dollars in subsidies and increased electricity costs, all while Kosciuszko is trashed. Let’s have a quick recap.

 

[Belli]

But imagine what might have been.

It would have meant I would have been unable to ride the BMW R60 on those gorgeous curves between Coldstream and Yea. Such a lovely bike.