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The future of energy generation and storage

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SirRumpole said:
How about the proposal to turn hydrogen into ammonia for transportation ?

Viable or not ?
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I think so, for example on ships for export to asia but imagine ammonia tanks crashed in a city, Syria chlorine bombing will look like kid's play.
I even invested in IPL and Wes for that purpose.now out pending the big one ?but will be back.
You can even have ammonia as direct fuel for shipping container boats, trains etc.
But that is not what the narrative is...
And yes could solve some of the issues
 
An interesting and informative article, based on the U.K, but applies equally here.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/arti...es-to-cut-dependence-on-gas?srnd=premium-asia
excerpts from the article:
Britain, like most of Europe, is facing an energy crisis of epic proportions. Wholesale gas prices have surged again, putting the rocket under the UK’s price cap on household bills. Businesses are at risk of going bust as costs soar.
The UK’s dependence on gas, which constituted 40% of its power last year, makes it particularly vulnerable and exposes the need for alternative sources of energy to the fossil fuel. As more energy comes from wind and solar, the country will also need power sources that can be turned on when demand spikes and the wind isn’t blowing.
One option is batteries. Here, we take a look at the energy storage technologies, new and old, that are already taking hold.

Lithium Ion​

The UK already has Europe’s largest amount of grid-connected batteries, according to researcher BloombergNEF. Its lithium ion battery fleet currently has about 1.9 gigawatts of capacity and will more than quadruple by the end of the decade.
But lithium ion batteries have disadvantages. They can only provide power for relatively short periods of time. If there’s a period of more than a few hours this winter when the wind doesn’t blow, lithium-ion batteries won’t do much good. They’re more helpful to meet short bursts of demand or lulls in wind speeds.

Reservoirs up Mountains​

One old-school alternative that’s already established in Britain is hydro power. Giant reservoirs hold vast amounts of water that can be released in seconds to spin turbines and generate electricity, such as at the Dinorwig Power Station in the mountains of north Wales and Cruachan Power Station inside Ben Cruachan mountain in Scotland. But these plants only work in certain locations, limiting their potential.

Liquid Air​

One British startup is compressing air into liquid form, using electricity. It can then generate power when the liquid is heated, expanding back into a gas and driving a turbine.
“Think of it as pumped hydro in a box,” said Rupert Pearce, Highview Power Ltd.’s chief executive officer. “There’s no energy transition without long-term storage and green stability services.”

The company has hired boutique investment bank Ardea Partners to lead a fundraising round targeting £380 million ($448 million) to build a 50-megawatt site. If all goes to plan, the company will start construction later this year and then move on to its next project, an even larger development in Yorkshire that would cost £750 million.
Other large-scale projects are planned in Australia and Spain.

Car Parks​

Connecting to the grid is expensive, so it makes sense to build energy hubs with more than one use. Hence, a huge and long-lasting battery has been installed in Oxford close to an electric car charging station.

London-listed company Invinity Energy Systems Plc has paired one of its vanadium flow batteries with a lithium-ion battery at the site. The flow battery, which can last for decades, will be used more heavily by Electricite de France SA’s Pivot Power unit, which offers the charging service to passing vehicles. This system preserves the lifetime of the lithium battery that is more prone to wearing down.
 
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JUST IN - German benchmark year-ahead power price hits €1,000 per MWh, intensifying the region’s energy crisis.

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DB008 said:
JUST IN - German benchmark year-ahead power price hits €1,000 per MWh, intensifying the region’s energy crisis.
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At this price realistically Germany is no longer viable as an industrial economy or even sustainable as an advanced society.

It's simply cost prohibitive to produce pretty much anything requiring a substantial energy input at that price.

I tend to steer away from the politics but I'll say it - those who advocated the creation of this mess, and that is both ends of the political spectrum, really ought to be locked up and the key thrown away.
 
Well it isn't as though it hasn't been predicted, unless some common sense is applied to the debate, this will get a whole lot worse before it gets better.
As @Smurf1976 has said over and over, politicians need to get the hell out of the kitchen.
The other thing that we have gone on about that hasn't hit home yet is, there needs to be a hell of a lot more renewables installed than is actually required, the owners will want a return on investment so if people think electricity is going to get cheaper, tell em they're dreaming.
 
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SirRumpole said:
Hydrogen heating for homes ?

Not really.
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Hydrogen realistically will only be practical as a fuel for fixed generation and some transport applications.
With home heating air conditioners make the most sense, I have disconnected the gas to the house and put in a new high energy rating a/c, plus changed over the gas cooktop to inductive.
The money saved on the gas service charge and the daily supply charge, goes a long way to covering the extra electricity usage and the smell of the fumes has gone. Which has reduced the background noise from the other half.
 
SirRumpole said:
Hydrogen heating for homes ?

Not really.
Click to expand...

Yep, electricity wins hands down for heating buildings.

Point worth noting in the Australian context is that about 50% of all homes in Tasmania are heated by heat pumps and it's a decent % in SA now too.

Hydrogen does have some very real uses in industry though. There are processes requiring high grade heat where electricity is highly problematic and hydrogen does provide a workaround to that.

There's one in Tasmania that presently uses about 80MW of heat energy constantly, the present source of which is natural gas and with oil having been used historically. Heat pumps are out of the question due to the temperature required whilst any other electric technology is problematic due to the nature of the process. Hence that has given rise to the idea, which the company is actually investigating, of building a hydrogen production plant on site thus providing a means to electrify the process.

Plenty more like that, it's just one example I'm aware of.
 
Again exactly what we have being saying, it is o.k demanding clean energy, but it is completely another when you are responsible for delivering it and keeping the lights on.
Unfortunately Chris is in the hot seat and it is an even hotter seat than the franking credits debacle, because this one hits all levels of society, not just pensioners.
Welcome to the real world.

The pertinent part of you post @SirRumpole IMO was:
AEMO said those supply pressures were likely to get worse in the coming years as five coal plants closed, taking with them 14 per cent of the National Energy Market's total capacity.

Further complicating matters is an expected surge in demand amid efforts to electrify big chunks of the economy, such as the transport industry.
AEMO chief executive Daniel Westerman said that unless replacement capacity could be built in time, demand was forecast to periodically outstrip supply by 2025.


Maybe the Greens can come up with a way of enabling smugness to power the grid, because IMO they will need it, coal plants can't keep holding up the system forever and gas isn't allowed.

I can see why the Snowy Corp CEO pulled the pin, no win in this game, obviously it was Chris's way or the highway, well I would have done the same.
No point in setting yourself up as the scapegoat for a catastrophe, too hard to get employment in an engineering field after that.
I actually feel a bit sorry for Chris, when he was opposition minister for immigration I thought he was a really sharp guy, the problem is he has IMO become the fall guy for the Labor too hard basket, it really does leave him being the bunny all the time..

This sums up Chris IMO and it is a shame because he seems to have a lot of nouse, but maybe that's why he ends in this position all the time.

 
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Well, if hard decisions have to be made, then one might be to keep some coal plants running beyond their planned closure dates.

Getting that past the coloured parties is going to be the tricky bit.
 
SirRumpole said:
Well, if hard decisions have to be made, then one might be to keep some coal plants running beyond their planned closure dates.

Getting that past the coloured parties is going to be the tricky bit.
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Like I said, I wouldn't want to be in Chris's shoes, making the 43% reduction a line in the sand, has made a huge rod for their own backs.
Getting there is going to take some doing, either throw tax payers money at private enterprise to put renewables in with a guaranteed feed in price, whether it is required or not or the Government will have to put it in themselves.
Also paying coal generators to stay available when they don't want to, because they have to burn fuel just to keep the boilers and turbines warm enough to be available also wont cut it, saying we need to keep coal plants running when they have legislated the opposite is tricky.
Obviously from what the Snowy CEO said gas is a no go, so it sounds like a real wedgie coming on IMO.
Not many options that support reliable supply, but there is a promise of things getting better in the future, I bet they don't give a date.

It all smells of a rope the dope situation, where there is a huge requirement for renewables, but as we know we require a lot more installed than we actually need, so how do the renewables make money when the sun isn't shining? Demand the Government give them a guaranteed feed in tariff, whether they are producing or not, the tax payer in it again.

Poor old Australia is looking like there are going to be a lot more people pulling from the pot, than throwing into the pot, no wonder they want some immigrants with new money coming into the system.
At least it takes them a few years, to work out how the system works and then start milking it.

Thank god for the Nullarbor plain.?
 
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There's also the technical reality.

Liddell (coal) - 1971 (NSW)

Yallourn #1 (coal) = 1973 (Vic)

Dry Creek (gas) = 1973 (SA)

Yallourn #2 (coal) = 1975 (Vic)

Gladstone (coal) = 1976-82 progressively commissioned (Qld)

Snuggery (diesel) = 1978 (SA)

Torrens Island B (gas) = 1978 - 82 progressively (SA)

Vales Point B (coal) = 1979 (NSW)

Jeeralang A (gas) = 1979 (Vic)

Jeeralang B (gas) = 1980 (Vic)

Newport D (gas) = 1980 (Vic)

Yallourn 3 & 4 (coal) = 1981 (Vic)

Eraring (coal) = 1982 (NSW)

Of that lot:

Liddell now runs at reduced pressure to avoid it falling apart. The three (of originally four) units still in service can't go beyond about 84% of original capacity but generally not pushed beyond 70% to try and reduce the incidence of failures. The whole lot shuts April 2023, the end is near.

Yallourn 1 & 2 are unreliable but they do run to full capacity

Dry Creek looks rather old and tired from the outside and has been de-rated to about 91% of original capacity but it does run reliably. Just don't ask about the brown haze blasting out the stacks or the fuel consumption but it goes, it works.

Gladstone generally doesn't run to full capacity although it can still get there if absolutely needed. Generally avoided though.

Snuggery has been permanently de-rated to 84% of original capacity.

Torrens Island B has 1 (of 4) units out of service needing major work to return it (noting that there's no firm date for doing so).

Rest not too bad although Eraring has announced closure in 2025.

So the options to extend life are getting harder. A lot of this stuff is just old and worn out - to keep it going requires serious $ being spent. That plus time's running out to physically carry out the work even if someone does agree to fund it. Eg to extend Yallourn beyond 2028 requires extending the physical footprint of the open cut mine which feeds it and that doesn't just happen overnight....
 
Time is running out to get in alternative generation also, this isn't helped by procrastination about what fuel, what type of plant etc.
Apparently Chris is demanding Kurri Kurri is able to run on H2 from day one, that will put it back as there are no burners that can run Gas/H2 and diesel, so they will have to be designed.
Also there is talk about building a H2 plant to feed Kurri Kurri, sounds like another time and cost blow out in the making.
Ha politics getting in the mix yet again.

Why Paul Broad resigned from Snowy Hydro

Disagreement with Labor’s insistence to use green hydrogen at the Hunter Power Project has emerged as a key reason for the departure of former CEO Paul Broad from Snowy Hydro.
www.afr.com
Snowy Hydro CEO Paul Broad’s rejection of Labor’s vision for the controversial Kurri Kurri power station in NSW to be the world’s first to run on three fuels – gas, diesel and hydrogen – from day one was a key point of tension leading to his resignation last week.

On top of solving this huge technical puzzle, the lack of availability of green hydrogen and its cost should it be available are further challenges for Snowy as it struggles to meet the Albanese government’s stipulation that the power generator in the Hunter Valley run from the outset on the emerging clean fuel.
Federal Labor, which initially opposed the $600 million Kurri Kurri project when in opposition, reversed that stance early this year on the basis that it would require the plant to use 30 per cent green hydrogen as soon as it starts up – scheduled for December next year – and 100 per cent by 2030 or as soon as possible.

But Mr Broad ridiculed this in an interview with the ABC on Saturday, the day after his resignation was announced.

“While hydrogen is a wonderful opportunity, it is many, many years away from being commercial,” Mr Broad told ABC News.
“To think you can have hydrogen running into Kurri Kurri when there is no hydrogen being produced in Newcastle just doesn’t make any sense.”

Sources close to the company suggest that the green hydrogen instruction for the power station was a major factor in Mr Broad’s decision to step down, amid concerns that the economics of such a plan would not add up even if green hydrogen were available in the Hunter region.

Snowy is thought to have even examined options to produce green hydrogen itself on site. The federal government has reportedly earmarked another $700 million to cover the extra capital cost.
Mr Knox said Snowy has signed a memorandum of understanding with Mitsubishi, the company that is supplying the turbines for the Hunter Power Project, to develop “complex” burner technology to allow the generator to run on 30 per cent hydrogen, which then requires extensive testing.


“The challenges are getting a burner that runs on methane, hydrogen, and also diesel backup if we need it,” he said. “That’s really challenging, really challenging. Nobody’s done that before. So we’re working on that.

“We’re all learning how on earth we’re going to do this and how we’re going to produce the hydrogen.”
 

They always say "politics is the art of the possible", Bowen seems to be turning it into the art of the impossible, or at least the technically very difficult.

I reckon the best thing to do is build Kurri Kurri on gas, then have a test and development site next door to examine the practicalities of H2.
 
That's way too sensible
 
SirRumpole said:
I reckon the best thing to do is build Kurri Kurri on gas, then have a test and development site next door to examine the practicalities of H2.
Click to expand...
That’s my reasoning for wanting a much smaller one in a capital city.

Get all the technical stuff sorted out at a scale where failure won’t bankrupt anyone or bring the grid down but which is nonetheless a fully working facility.

Then once it’s sorted it can be scaled up.
 
Newcastle ?
 
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