The future of energy generation and storage

[Value Collector]

Also @Smurf1976 in addition to the extra pipeline APA is building to connect the Beetaloo to the east coast grid, they are already expanding the capacity of the grid by 25% and also adding more storage capacity in Meloboure.

So they are working on moving a lot more gas east but also having more storage in Melbourne via the new ring main.

 

[Smurf1976]

Also @Smurf1976 in addition to the extra pipeline APA is building to connect the Beetaloo to the east coast grid, they are already expanding the capacity of the grid by 25% and also adding more storage capacity in Meloboure.

Meanwhile Venice Energy, Viva Energy, Vopak and Squadron (one of Andrew Forest's companies) are all planning separate LNG import terminals.

Venice's is at Outer Harbour (Adelaide).

Viva and Vopak both at Geelong.

Squadron at Port Kembla.

Thus far the Port Kembla terminal has had physical works done, so money spent, and the Outer Harbour terminal looks the next most likely to proceed. Related to those two projects are enabling the Eastern Gas Pipeline (Vic - NSW) to flow south and enabling the Port Campbell (Vic) - Adelaide pipeline to flow east. At present they flow from Victoria to NSW / SA only.

Reason is simply that nobody is planning to bring anywhere near enough gas from NT + Qld south thus far. APA may well upgrade the pipeline from NT through to Mt Isa and then through to Ballera and I sure won't be raising any objections to that but it doesn't overcome that there's still a very major constraint on the ability to move gas between Qld and the south-eastern states.

As for the WORM (Western Outer Ring Main - western Melbourne that is), that does highlight my point does it not?

11.5 years to go from starting the paperwork to getting a 51km gas pipe through farmland that's easy commuting distance from a major city. That pace of progress is what has many worried - about 93% of the total timeline being the various forms of paperwork and bureaucracy, the other 7% being the actual physical construction on site.

Once built the primary benefits are increased ability to move gas eastwards during the summer season, that is to fill Iona storage from the Victorian (gas) Transmission System using gas from outside the south-west region.

During the winter season, primary benefit and main reason for building it is it overcomes the present restriction on flows from the west into Melbourne. This enables greater peak day utilisation of the Iona storage, plus also benefits the future conversion of the Port Campbell - Adelaide pipeline to enable bi-directional flow, that is to flow from Adelaide to Pt Campbell, thus enabling LNG imported into Adelaide to ultimately find its way into Victoria albeit in limited volume. It also has benefits to the Victorian LNG import terminals if they're built.

None of that's saying any of the projects are crap, just that there's a reason why there's concern about the pace of all this. 10.5 years of engineering evaluations, environmental impact assessments, cultural heritage assessments, regulatory assessments and so on then less than 1 year to do the actual construction.

All up things are being built but not quickly enough is the basic problem. Lots of time spent in offices leaving not enough time spent on site when any competent engineer, or indeed anyone with construction experience, knows full well that things can and do go wrong. If there's to be a time blowout then it ought be on site not in an office.

Hence even the normally guarded and conservative AEMO is now publicly ringing the alarm bells loud and clear:

The energy transition is far too slow, AEMO warns

Investment in generation to replace accelerating coal plant closures is falling behind what is required, the head of the Australian Energy Market Operator has warned.

www.afr.com

The energy transition is far too slow, AEMO warns​

Investment in new, clean electricity supply is not happening fast enough to replace closing coal power stations and the grid build-out lags what is needed for the energy transition, the head of the Australian Energy Market Operator will warn on Tuesday.

Daniel Westerman will say that investments are also urgently needed in “firming” technologies – such as pumped hydro, batteries and gas – to fill in the gaps when renewable energy is not available, with storage needing to expand by a factor of 30 by 2050.

Note it says nothing about emissions and there's a reason for that. The concern's about the lights going out, he's not lamenting the state of the planet just the state of the electricity grid.

So yes find gas in the NT and upgrade the pipelines through to Ballera to get it into the Qld gas system. Also build the Port Kembla and another, likely Adelaide, LNG terminal. Also build Snowy 2.0 and another cable across Bass Strait and also build the various "big battery" projects.

That still leaves plenty more needing doing though, we're nowhere close to being finished. That's the point that's raising concern - the % of time used is far greater than the % of required building achieved thus far so a real speeding up is required. That's what AEMO and many others are on about - we trying to outrun a bull but thus far the bull's running faster than we are.

 

[Value Collector]

Meanwhile Venice Energy, Viva Energy, Vopak and Squadron (one of Andrew Forest's companies) are all planning separate LNG import terminals.

Venice's is at Outer Harbour (Adelaide).

Viva and Vopak both at Geelong.

Squadron at Port Kembla.

Thus far the Port Kembla terminal has had physical works done, so money spent, and the Outer Harbour terminal looks the next most likely to proceed. Related to those two projects are enabling the Eastern Gas Pipeline (Vic - NSW) to flow south and enabling the Port Campbell (Vic) - Adelaide pipeline to flow east. At present they flow from Victoria to NSW / SA only.

Reason is simply that nobody is planning to bring anywhere near enough gas from NT + Qld south thus far. APA may well upgrade the pipeline from NT through to Mt Isa and then through to Ballera and I sure won't be raising any objections to that but it doesn't overcome that there's still a very major constraint on the ability to move gas between Qld and the south-eastern states.

As for the WORM (Western Outer Ring Main - western Melbourne that is), that does highlight my point does it not?

11.5 years to go from starting the paperwork to getting a 51km gas pipe through farmland that's easy commuting distance from a major city. That pace of progress is what has many worried - about 93% of the total timeline being the various forms of paperwork and bureaucracy, the other 7% being the actual physical construction on site.

Once built the primary benefits are increased ability to move gas eastwards during the summer season, that is to fill Iona storage from the Victorian (gas) Transmission System using gas from outside the south-west region.

During the winter season, primary benefit and main reason for building it is it overcomes the present restriction on flows from the west into Melbourne. This enables greater peak day utilisation of the Iona storage, plus also benefits the future conversion of the Port Campbell - Adelaide pipeline to enable bi-directional flow, that is to flow from Adelaide to Pt Campbell, thus enabling LNG imported into Adelaide to ultimately find its way into Victoria albeit in limited volume. It also has benefits to the Victorian LNG import terminals if they're built.

None of that's saying any of the projects are crap, just that there's a reason why there's concern about the pace of all this. 10.5 years of engineering evaluations, environmental impact assessments, cultural heritage assessments, regulatory assessments and so on then less than 1 year to do the actual construction.

All up things are being built but not quickly enough is the basic problem. Lots of time spent in offices leaving not enough time spent on site when any competent engineer, or indeed anyone with construction experience, knows full well that things can and do go wrong. If there's to be a time blowout then it ought be on site not in an office.

Hence even the normally guarded and conservative AEMO is now publicly ringing the alarm bells loud and clear:

The energy transition is far too slow, AEMO warns

Investment in generation to replace accelerating coal plant closures is falling behind what is required, the head of the Australian Energy Market Operator has warned.

www.afr.com

Note it says nothing about emissions and there's a reason for that. The concern's about the lights going out, he's not lamenting the state of the planet just the state of the electricity grid.

So yes find gas in the NT and upgrade the pipelines through to Ballera to get it into the Qld gas system. Also build the Port Kembla and another, likely Adelaide, LNG terminal. Also build Snowy 2.0 and another cable across Bass Strait and also build the various "big battery" projects.

That still leaves plenty more needing doing though, we're nowhere close to being finished. That's the point that's raising concern - the % of time used is far greater than the % of required building achieved thus far so a real speeding up is required. That's what AEMO and many others are on about - we trying to outrun a bull but thus far the bull's running faster than we are.

I doubt the LNG terminals will all go ahead, but if they do that’s even move gas that will be available.

Building a pipeline through the desert is very fast.

 

[basilio]

In plain language. Chris Dodds sums up the current energy transition issues and costs.

Higher power prices the 'new normal' as Australia moves towards cleaner future

Australia's energy transition has reached a tipping point, and experts are warning consumers to brace for a bumpy ride over the next decade.

www.abc.net.au

 

[sptrawler]

Firstly I agree with the article Bas, but isn't it funny how everything the loonies were arguing about 5-6 years ago, has now been turned on its head and all the arguments the technical people were saying are proving correct.
It is very much a "I told you so" from a technical aspect and we have not seen the worst of it yet.
As was said many times, everyone wants coal gone, but it has to be done in an orderly manner, it is starting to get to point where it could turn disorderly very, very quickly IMO.
Hopefully it doesn't happen, but if it does power prices will get crazy, also as @Smurf says they are building gas import terminals, so gas isn't going to get cheaper.
Making the house as energy efficient as possible should be peoples priority ATM, because IMO the price of energy is going no where but up. I can't see the Governments sending out power relief cheques for ever.

 

[Smurf1976]

isn't it funny how everything the loonies were arguing about 5-6 years ago, has now been turned on its head and all the arguments the technical people were saying are proving correct.

It's all rather like the Titan, that little sub which imploded on its way to the Titanic.

Marketing gurus and so on can say all they like but physics always wins in the end. Someone might get away with unsound practices for a while but at some point the inevitable happens.

No engineer or other competent person will try and say exactly when it goes bad, but they'll observe that if the current trends continue then it's inevitable we will get to that point.

The good part is significant wind and solar (Variable Renewable Energy, VRE) has been built and if we look at the past 12 months, its contribution to total demand on a state by state basis has been:

Queensland = 23.1%
NSW = 24.3%
Victoria = 34.0%
Tasmania = 17.7%
SA = 70.3%
WA (SWIS only) = 34.4%

What's lost on most, that is the general public and media, is it's not simply a question of scaling it up. Using WA as the example, we can't simply triple the installed base of wind and solar and then say great, we now have 100% renewable electricity. That seems to be what many think, but there's a serious flaw in that idea.

Right now, right at this moment, VRE is supplying just 5.6% of electricity in WA. 5.6% yes and that's a long way short of the 34.4% average and there's the problem.

Variable Renewable Energy.

Talk to a group of engineers, technicians and others about all this and the first thing they'll do is separate the wind and solar farms out from the rest of the data and put them in a separate group. So VRE in one, fossils, hydro and batteries in the other. That's not due to any inherent bias as certain sections of the media seem to think but it's simply due to the practicalities of the situation.

What determines supply adequacy is the ability to meet demand in real time.

Over the past 3 days in SA, VRE's ability to meet demand has ranged from more than 100% to a mere 0.4% and that's the reason for separating VRE into one group, fossils, hydro and batteries into the other, and focusing far more on the latter.

Coal, gas, diesel, hydro and batteries, collectively known as dispatchable generation, most certainly do have outages and at some point each of them individually goes to zero. A point that VRE enthusiasts go to great lengths to highlight.

What differs however is they don't all do so at once. There's no precedent for the entire fleet of dispatchable plant all failing at once and mathematically the probability, whilst not literally zero, is incredibly remote. Versus VRE which does go to effectively zero very frequently across the fleet.

For a fleet of thermal and hydro plant that's well designed and run, as a general rule of thumb it's safe to assume at least five sixths of it will work at any given time. So if peak load is 1000MW, then install 1200 MW of capacity and you should have no problems so long as it's well designed - which will limit any individual machine to not more than 100MW in that example. If there's a desire to use larger machines then the reserve requirement needs to be increased accordingly.

That's what it really all comes down to. Those expressing concern about all this at the technical level are basically observing that one or more of the following apply:

1. Dispatchable capacity has fallen below 120% of peak demand such that there's a reliance on particularly good performance being achieved and/or VRE happening to work during the peak.

2. Plant is so old and decrepit that it's no longer safe to assume five sixths of it works and we now need some greater reserve margin to allow for the increasing rate of breakdowns.

3. There's an actual or at least plausible lack of fuel with which to run some or all of the generating plant(s). Either because the fuel source is running out as such, or because there's some problem with getting it out of the ground quickly enough.

4. There's some single point of failure which, if it fails, will put enough plant out of service to be a problem.

With the key point of relevance being that all four of the above points presently apply in NSW, Vic and SA.

From there well it's back to that little sub and much the same situation. We know things aren't as they should be, we know there's a risk of failure, but it's anyone's guess as to the timing. What we can say thus far is there's been a number of near-misses, some highly publicised others kept quiet, and price is a definite problem. Thus far however well the lights are on so long as you can afford to run them.

Back to the VRE. It does generate electricity yes, it does have value and it saves fuel but the reason it's not what technical people focus on is simply the above. It's the adequacy of dispatchable generation, including storage, that's lagging. That's the likely trigger for failure in practice and no amount of VRE will of itself get around that. We do need more VRE yes, not denying that, but it's the situation with dispatchable generation and/or its fuel supply that'll be the trigger for any crisis that emerges.

The other issue is price and that's now at the point of being problematic in many ways.

Impacts on household budgets are obvious but beyond that it gets more serious in terms of long term implications.

Business costs, inflation and potential relocation of business overseas is one obvious risk. There's already two hydrogen projects which look to be dead, and a broad expectation that more will follow. The idea of Australia becoming a major hydrogen exporter depends on having cheap electricity and thus far, that's a problem. Impact on manufacturing industries likewise is a problem.

The other is on the "energy transition". At the residential level it's hard to sell an "electrify everything" argument when the news media's full of stories about electricity prices and households are receiving emails from their retailers informing them of 50%+ increases effective 1 July. Even if mathematically it still stacks up, it's a hard sell against those headlines.

At the business level it's much the same. There's one significant user building it's own base load (fossil fuel) power station to run the plant. It's either that or go overseas. Location = NSW. Others are doing various fuel conversions and so on too and mostly in the "wrong" direction. But it is what it is - the energy price mess isn't without long term consequences, including environmental ones.

 

[SirRumpole]

I'm continually amazed and delighted by your willingness and patience to explain the technical issues of this subject with suck clarity Smutf. Poster of the year I reckon.

THANK YOU.

 

[SirRumpole]

I'm continually amazed and delighted by your willingness and patience to explain the technical issues of this subject with suck clarity Smutf. Poster of the year I reckon.

THANK YOU.

*SUCH* clarity. But you know I meant that.

 

[mullokintyre]

China has given a license to its first Thorium reactor generator.
From Some Chinese propaganda outlet

China’s nuclear safety watchdog has issued an operational permit for the nation’s first thorium reactor, marking a significant milestone in the country’s pursuit of advanced nuclear technologies.
The reactor, a two-megawatt liquid-fuelled thorium molten salt reactor (MSR), is located in the Gobi Desert city of Wuwei in Gansu province and is operated by the Shanghai Institute of Applied Physics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences.
The permit, issued by the National Nuclear Safety Administration on June 7, allows the Shanghai Institute to operate the reactor for 10 years and it will start by testing operations.
The permit specifies that the Shanghai Institute is responsible for the safety of the reactor and must comply with all relevant laws, regulations and technical standards.


Thorium MSRs are a type of advanced nuclear technology that use liquid fuels, typically molten salts, as both a fuel and a coolant. They offer several potential advantages over traditional uranium reactors, including increased safety, reduced waste and improved fuel efficiency.
Thorium is also a more abundant resource compared with uranium, and China has significant thorium reserves.

We are probably some way from these being readily accepted., at least ten years given the testing period specified.
But they are cheaper to build, less dangerous, don't need huge amounts of cooling water, and don't produce weapons grade material.
Mick

 

[SirRumpole]

Why building pumped hydro is so hard.

MSN

www.msn.com

 

[mullokintyre]

Why building pumped hydro is so hard.

MSN

www.msn.com

One of the pumped Hydro plants, Borumba, comes with a 14.2 billion price tag.
From Queensland Hydro

I wonder by how much the 14.2 billion will be short.
Not many guvmint projects come in under budget, most go over.
Unfortunately, although the environmental parts are spruiked, the engineering parts are not.
The datasheets say that the pumped hydro scheme can provide 24 hours of hydro electricty.
We will assume thats a full 2,000 MW for the 24 hours.
So what happens if the period of low VRE is longer than 24 hours?
Mick

 

[SirRumpole]

So what happens if the period of low VRE is longer than 24 hours?

Batteries won't do the job so it looks like the only alternative is gas turbines.

I think you would need to build a lot of those to fill in the gap as well.

I have no idea how much that would cost.

There was probably a lot of criticism over Snowy Hydro when it was first built but it's done the job over many years.

The thing with pumped hydro is that it's in service far longer than other mechanisms so the cost is spread out over a long time and may well turn out the cheapest option in the end.

 

[basilio]

I highlighted this comapny a couple of years ago and I believe it is on the way to offering a quick, cost effective pumped hydro option to firm solar and wind power.

Elegant and on test data well proven. Well worth checking out the research and data on their site. The FAQ page covers many relevant questions.

HOW IT WORKS

---

How it works​

At times of low energy demand, with associated low costs, the High-Density Fluid R-19 is pumped to the top storage tanks. The low-cost electricity is often provided by abundant renewable energy, such as wind and solar power.

As energy prices rise the HD Fluid R-19 is released and it passes through the turbines, regenerating electricity to supply power to the grid.

Because we use a high-tech fluid with a density 2.5x that of water RheEnergise projects can operate on low hills rather than high mountains.

Projects are 10MW to 50MW of power. This means that they can be connected onto existing grid infrastructure and can be co-located with other renewable energy projects.

The high-tech fluid also means that projects can be 2.5x smaller for the same power.

65% of pumped energy storage project costs are civil engineering construction costs, making projects 2.5x smaller offers huge savings opportunity.

System set up​

Storage tanks (buried) are located at the top and bottom of a small hill.

The storage tanks are connected by underground pipes, called penstocks.

Next to the lower storage tanks there is a power-house containing the pumps and turbines.

RheEnergise High-Density Hydro - How it works

If you want to know how RheEnergise pumped energy storage works

www.rheenergise.com

RheEnergise: Pumped Energy Storage

RheEnergise Pumped Energy Storage: Lowering the levelised cost of energy storage. Increasing the availability of sites. Exceptionally fast reaction times. Long Duration. Long life. Highly flexible. High-Density Hydro®

www.rheenergise.com

 

[mullokintyre]

Batteries won't do the job so it looks like the only alternative is gas turbines.

I think you would need to build a lot of those to fill in the gap as well.

I have no idea how much that would cost.

There was probably a lot of criticism over Snowy Hydro when it was first built but it's done the job over many years.

The thing with pumped hydro is that it's in service far longer than other mechanisms so the cost is spread out over a long time and may well turn out the cheapest option in the end.

I was wondering what it would cost to build the equivalent gas generator and came across this from The Guardian

The Morrison government has confirmed it will spend up to $600m to build a new gas-fired power plant in New South Wales’ Hunter Valley despite experts warning the fossil fuel investment makes little commercial sense.

There are those experts again. Are these experts, economists, engineers, environmentalists or public servants?
No information on what they based this on.
If a 660 MW plant that is not intermittent and can run for periods of months , let alone days, and can be built for 600 million does not make economic sense, how does the 14.2 billion for an intermittent pumped hydro plant make economic sense?

The government announced on Tuesday night it was dedicating unallocated funding in last week’s budget to the publicly owned Snowy Hydro Ltd plan to build a 660 megawatt gas plant at Kurri Kurri.


It follows Scott Morrison warning last September that taxpayers would step in if the private sector did not commit to building at least 1,000MW to replace the Liddell coal-fired generator in 2023. EnergyAustralia announced last week it would build the 316MW Tallawarra B gas-hydrogen plant with $83m in state and federal support.

Mick

 

[mullokintyre]

From The evil Murdoch Press

Funny how they AEMO never charges the VRE suppliers when they don't deliver.
Stupidity of the highest order.
No wonder the owners of the fossil fuel generators want to close them all down ASAP.
Dealing with AEMO charges can just be eliniated.
Mick

 

[SirRumpole]

I highlighted this comapny a couple of years ago and I believe it is on the way to offering a quick, cost effective pumped hydro option to firm solar and wind power.

Elegant and on test data well proven. Well worth checking out the research and data on their site. The FAQ page covers many relevant questions.

HOW IT WORKS

---

How it works​

At times of low energy demand, with associated low costs, the High-Density Fluid R-19 is pumped to the top storage tanks. The low-cost electricity is often provided by abundant renewable energy, such as wind and solar power.

As energy prices rise the HD Fluid R-19 is released and it passes through the turbines, regenerating electricity to supply power to the grid.

Because we use a high-tech fluid with a density 2.5x that of water RheEnergise projects can operate on low hills rather than high mountains.

Projects are 10MW to 50MW of power. This means that they can be connected onto existing grid infrastructure and can be co-located with other renewable energy projects.

The high-tech fluid also means that projects can be 2.5x smaller for the same power.

65% of pumped energy storage project costs are civil engineering construction costs, making projects 2.5x smaller offers huge savings opportunity.

System set up​

Storage tanks (buried) are located at the top and bottom of a small hill.

The storage tanks are connected by underground pipes, called penstocks.

Next to the lower storage tanks there is a power-house containing the pumps and turbines.



View attachment 158885

RheEnergise High-Density Hydro - How it works

If you want to know how RheEnergise pumped energy storage works

www.rheenergise.com

RheEnergise: Pumped Energy Storage

RheEnergise Pumped Energy Storage: Lowering the levelised cost of energy storage. Increasing the availability of sites. Exceptionally fast reaction times. Long Duration. Long life. Highly flexible. High-Density Hydro®

www.rheenergise.com

50MW is not a great deal of power. What is the cost per MW I wonder ?

 

[basilio]

50MW is not a great deal of power. What is the cost per MW I wonder ?

It isn't Rumpy. But it can be scaled up. Just a bigger tank and perhaps more head.
It is intended to time shift energy from a solar or wind farm so that unused energy can be stored for later use. The value lies in the small footprint, turnkey installation process, quickness of build and extremely wide range of suitable sites.

It isn't one of those massive builds that floods valleys, takes decades to construct and years to get approvals.

 

[sptrawler]

From The evil Murdoch Press
View attachment 158890

Funny how they AEMO never charges the VRE suppliers when they don't deliver.
Stupidity of the highest order.
No wonder the owners of the fossil fuel generators want to close them all down ASAP.
Dealing with AEMO charges can just be eliniated.
Mick

It will just cause the coal generators to shut down their plant sooner, plan B needs to be sorted out very quickly IMO.

 

[moXJO]

How badly do things like bushfire smoke effect solar panels?

Or a major once a blue moon volcanic eruption. Was reading that in history there was a case of 18 months of darkness.

I'm not sold on renewables being a reliable source without something that doesn't rely on the weather.
In fact it's a stupid idea.

 

[Smurf1976]

50MW is not a great deal of power.

It isn't Rumpy. But it can be scaled up.

In the context of commercial application, that is beyond lab or prototype scale where the only real question is the technology itself, it comes down to cost per unit.

Cost per unit as in cost per MW and cost per MWh of storage.

Bearing in mind there's no real room for fat in all of this. Cost is already a problem now, there's no room to be spending more than absolutely necessary. Indeed cost is, and has been for at least the past 40 years, the only real barrier to using renewable energy since technically it's not that difficult as such. It's doing it economically that's difficult.

All other things being equal, large scale does win and there's a point where small scale is uneconomic. Eg there's an abundance of 2 - 3 GWh potential pumped hydro sites nationally but the economics of them are poor for daily storage and outright shocking for long term storage. Technically it's very doable, just prohibitively expensive.

Therein lies the inherent conflict. There's a reason engineers tend to go looking for steep river gorges and mountainous terrain - it means nature has already done almost all the work. Nature's built the bath, humans just need to put the plug in and if a dam is viewed in the context of the overall reservoir that's exactly that it is, a plug.

The downside is of course the ecological one and on that note I'll mention that tomorrow marks the 40th anniversary of the High Court ruling against the Gordon-below-Franklin scheme in Tasmania.

On that one though, without aiming to re-start an old debate, I'll point out that even those you might expect to be screaming from the rooftops to celebrate this anniversary have become very noticeably subdued in recent times. There was a big fuss at the 30 year mark but not so much now, and it's not simply due to their own age.

Nobody's planning to revive that project so far as I'm aware but from private discussions I'll say that even within the conservation movement the "No Dams" stance, the origins of which are a decision in 1981 to oppose all large hydro-electric dams, is now viewed as flawed by many. Or in simpler words, what could be termed a pro-dams faction within conservation movement has emerged. Not damming everything, but an acknowledgement that not all dams are the devil's work and that we're not going to end the use of fossil fuels without both nuclear and hydro being scaled up from present levels. That is, the question is where not whether.

The overall task, in terms of the required outcomes technically, economically, geopolitically and environmentally is massive on all four measures and realistically requires an "all of the above" approach to it in terms of the technologies used.

Dam the lot? No. But there's a place for them yes.

My personal view on that remains that species extinction or the loss of unique biological features needs to be avoided at all costs. Wiping out species is one hell of a price to pay in order to turn an alternator. Far too high a price and it ought be off limits. But that's where it ends - if we're just talking about generic unremarkable bushland or some scenic views then my argument is that, all things considered, if there's a need to flood it well get on and flood it. It's not the ideal solution but it's ultimately far more sustainable than fossils as a means of providing deep firming to VRE.

As a case in point well the Rubicon hydro scheme is on the Victorian Heritage Register and also on the National Estate and yet, if someone had tried to build it in recent times, they'd have been shot down in flames by those opposed to damming anything in the first place.

If it were up to me then I'd complete the Rubicon scheme, it was never finished to its potential due to a preference for coal, and I'd likewise complete the Kiewa scheme, also in Victoria and never fully completed. Both come with the benefit of being able to run flat out during winter when required - exactly what's needed to partially replace gas for VRE firming. Bonus that in both cases the roads and much other infrastructure including transmission is already not far away.