The future of energy generation and storage

qldfrog · 19 May 2024

sptrawler said:
True, but it is hard to get people to understand the current issues, without trying to get them to crystal ball gaze into a 20 year future.

ATM we are of this belief we are saving the planet and Chris is leading the way, the rest of the World wont even know what is happening here.

The only people who believe we will make any difference to climate change and or actually not send ourselves further down the toilet, are those with a fervent belief in the Labor/Green gospel and those who just want to believe in anything that fills the climate catastrophe void they are facing.

So I try and keep it low key and in the here and now, you are trying to walk into a church congregation and get the whole congregation to convert to atheism.

Yes very true, I believe for many the lack of spiritism/religion is replaced by these new causes: be it militant LGBT, eco radical etc..trying to give a meaning to (imho miserable) life, merged with the social media look at me.
Far from the key thread, but explains a lot how far gone we are with a very patient not to say indolent population, which is paying a high price now and sacrificing their kids future..
Ahhh well, I wonder how long it will be before off grid people are labelled as bastards and forced to pay a solidarity fee...

investor13 · 19 May 2024

sptrawler said:
This is the problem with a cart before the horse energy policy.
It all sounds good in the media, but in reality it is looking more and more add hock, as we move along.
Now we have a legislated target, that in reality has become 'open cheque book engineering' IMO.
So like the NDIS it is becoming a another Govt teat, that as usual the private sector work out ways to get on board and milk it for all it's worth.
Another brain fart in the pressure building phase unfortunately.
I don't know how many times I've said labor have great ideas, it's the implementation that blows their feet off, giving subsidies to the the coal generators and the general public is just forestalling the reality.
There is no money in power production, unless it is being sold, there is no value in energy storage unless it is free to charge it.
Very messy period coming up IMO.

They implemented them but only the lot that believe in Santa clause and the tooth fairy believe those are good ideas.

I mean most of his ideas have been tried and failed miserably over seas then the delusions of thinking they will still work

sptrawler · 19 May 2024

Unfortunately we seem to always be led by politicians, wanting to big note themselves on the World stage, rather than just being quiet achievers.

SirRumpole · 19 May 2024

sptrawler said:
Unfortunately we seem to always be led by politicians, wanting to big note themselves on the World stage, rather than just being quiet achievers.

They all have their sights set on lucrative positions on corporate boards after they retire.

investor13 · 19 May 2024

sptrawler said:
Unfortunately we seem to always be led by politicians, wanting to big note themselves on the World stage, rather than just being quiet achievers.

A specially filled with feminine, weak men and society filled with leftists will allow for that

investor13 · 19 May 2024

SirRumpole said:
They all have their sights set on lucrative positions on corporate boards after they retire.

and your mob the ALP and there 3 main stooges, Albo, Chalmers & Bowen are the main culprits of this! life long public leaches

SirRumpole · 20 May 2024

investor13 said:
and your mob the ALP and there 3 main stooges, Albo, Chalmers & Bowen are the main culprits of this! life long public leaches

They haven't retired yet, unlike Costello who somehow got himself a lifetime job on the Future Fund.

sptrawler · 20 May 2024

investor13 said:
and your mob the ALP and there 3 main stooges, Albo, Chalmers & Bowen are the main culprits of this! life long public leaches

I've never found it makes much difference which side of politics people come from, there seems to be three main personalities,
1. in there to sit quietly down the back for as long as possible,
2. in there to get as high up the pay scale as their level of incompetence allows,
3. in there to try and make a positive difference for the population.
Unfortunately their traits, are listed in order of their representative numbers IMO.

farmerge · 20 May 2024

SirRumpole said:
They all have their sights set on lucrative positions on corporate boards after they retire.

@SirRumpole Isn't that a requisite for a pollie who is about to retire or get kicked out of Parliament.

sptrawler · 20 May 2024

SirRumpole said:
They haven't retired yet, unlike Costello who somehow got himself a lifetime job on the Future Fund.

Or indeed Greg Combet, who seems to be following suit in the Industry Super Fund World, oh dear as i said it really isn't party specific.

Since leaving parliament, Combet has worked as a consultant to unions, governments and business and as a company director. Combet worked primarily with industry superannuation funds from 2013 to 2024 and in December 2018 became chair of Industry Super Australia and Chair of IFM Investors, a global asset management business owned by the industry superannuation funds.

qldfrog · 20 May 2024

Back to power grid.
As things go: I am soon going to turn a pro nuclear option; I am against nuclear plants for power as far too expensive on the long term vs coal gas hydro etc
I stick to that view/facts but just learnt we are going to spent 2.5billions to build a giant battery in Brendale, north Brisbane, 2 billions to get 2h max of battery power,,
And in 15y time, the value will be negative as we will have to dump the lot, WTF?
Battery tech is improving and we are rushing spending incredible amount of money : on tech which is obsolete even at design stage, not sorting the problems the gov created in the first place and with real costs in the future not to even mention environmental carnage.
At least, a nuclear plant would offer us a 50y proven solution , well past my lifetime, with plenty of domestic supply available for a bargain vs these hare brain schemes.

SirRumpole · 20 May 2024

sptrawler said:
Or indeed Greg Combet, who seems to be following suit in the Industry Super Fund World, oh dear as i said it really isn't party specific.

Since leaving parliament, Combet has worked as a consultant to unions, governments and business and as a company director. Combet worked primarily with industry superannuation funds from 2013 to 2024 and in December 2018 became chair of Industry Super Australia and Chair of IFM Investors, a global asset management business owned by the industry superannuation funds.

I did say they ALL did it, then someone else decided to single out Labor and dragged the discussion down.

SirRumpole · 20 May 2024

qldfrog said:
Back to power grid.
As things go: I am soon going to turn a pro nuclear option; I am against nuclear plants for power as far too expensive on the long term vs coal gas hydro etc
I stick to that view/facts but just learnt we are going to spent 2.5billions to build a giant battery in Brendale, north Brisbane, 2 billions to get 2h max of battery power,,
And in 15y time, the value will be negative as we will have to dump the lot, WTF?
Battery tech is improving and we are rushing spending incredible amount of money : on tech which is obsolete even at design stage, not sorting the problems the gov created in the first place and with real costs in the future not to even mention environmental carnage.
At least, a nuclear plant would offer us a 50y proven solution , well past my lifetime, with plenty of domestic supply available for a bargain vs these hare brain schemes.

Hydro lifetime can run into centuries with no fuel or decommissioning requirements.

It should be a no brainer except for a few people tying themselves to trees and our aboriginal brothers.

investor13 · 20 May 2024

Wonder where they will fit the batteries and solar panels next

One of the US’s largest nuclear power plants will directly power cloud service provider Amazon Web Services’ new data center.

Power provider Talen Energy sold its data center campus, Cumulus Data Assets, to Amazon Web Services for $650 million. Amazon will develop an up to 960-megawatt (MW) data center at the Salem Township site in Luzerne County, Pennsylvania.

The 1,200-acre campus is directly powered by an adjacent 2.5 gigawatt (GW) nuclear power station also owned by Talen Energy.

Amazon just bought a 100% nuclear-powered data center

One of the US's largest nuclear power plants will directly power cloud service provider Amazon Web Services' new data center.

electrek.co

investor13 · 20 May 2024

SirRumpole said:
I did say they ALL did it, then someone else decided to single out Labor and dragged the discussion down.

As it differs from the majority of your postings complaining about the NLP?

sptrawler · 20 May 2024

investor13 said:
As it differs from the majority of your postings complaining about the NLP?

You do have to cut people slack, or every debate turns into tribal politics, there are threads that are political and a bit of argy bargy goes on there.
With a thread like this one, we tend to try and keep it as close as possible to the technical issue as possible, sometimes politics can't be avoided obviously. But try to keep the thrust of the discussion to the actual technical bent if possible, otherwise all threads become a political ping pong debate and trying to get useful information from thread becomes impossible.
I'm not trying to knock you, it is great to get new members with differing ideas and you certainly have good points.
Just don't want the thread to lose its focus.

sptrawler · 20 May 2024

investor13 said:
Wonder where they will fit the batteries and solar panels next

One of the US’s largest nuclear power plants will directly power cloud service provider Amazon Web Services’ new data center.

Power provider Talen Energy sold its data center campus, Cumulus Data Assets, to Amazon Web Services for $650 million. Amazon will develop an up to 960-megawatt (MW) data center at the Salem Township site in Luzerne County, Pennsylvania.

The 1,200-acre campus is directly powered by an adjacent 2.5 gigawatt (GW) nuclear power station also owned by Talen Energy.

Amazon just bought a 100% nuclear-powered data center

One of the US's largest nuclear power plants will directly power cloud service provider Amazon Web Services' new data center.

electrek.co

Nuclear is really not going to fly in Australia, for a long time IMO, the grid (Eastern States) really doesn't lend itself to the large reactor deployment model IMO.
The problem is IMO, the large reactor steam turbine model doesn't have the turn down ratio required to allow for maximum renewable penetration in the grid and basically we need to get maximum sensible renewable deployment, before turning to sources with side issues.

That's a long winded sentence, but it is hard to separate the problem.

It isn't that I'm against nuclear, far from it, but a reactor basically makes steam to run a steam turbine/alternator unit and they aren't really suitable for on/off operation, they are designed to be running flat chat 24/7.

So they really struggle working with renewables.

Now if SMR's are developed, that run at much higher operating temperatures, than Generation 2 reactors that's a whole new ball game.

But they aren't up and running yet and many companies and countries are pouring heaps of money into their development, we can't build our future on a hope but we should be always vigilant and open to opportunities.

qldfrog · 20 May 2024

sptrawler said:
Nuclear is really not going to fly in Australia, for a long time IMO, the grid (Eastern States) really doesn't lend itself to the large reactor deployment model IMO.
The problem is IMO, the large reactor steam turbine model doesn't have the turn down ratio required to allow for maximum renewable penetration in the grid and basically we need to get maximum sensible renewable deployment, before turning to sources with side issues.

That's a long winded sentence, but it is hard to separate the problem.

It isn't that I'm against nuclear, far from it, but a reactor basically makes steam to run a steam turbine/alternator unit and they aren't really suitable for on/off operation, they are designed to be running flat chat 24/7.

So they really struggle working with renewables.

Now if SMR's are developed, that run at much higher operating temperatures, than Generation 2 reactors that's a whole new ball game.

But they aren't up and running yet and many companies and countries are pouring heaps of money into their development, we can't build our future on a hope but we should be always vigilant and open to opportunities.

Yes nuclear is base power..day and night
We just should stop this BS with net zero..the only solar/wind mixable alternate is gas turbine ..fast to ramp up for every night and some days...
But we are well past sensible solutions...
Greta has contaminated the brains of too many ..

SirRumpole · 20 May 2024

qldfrog said:
We just should stop this BS with net zero..the only solar/wind mixable alternate is gas turbine ..

Hydro ?

Too politically difficult I would suspect, which is why we have the current government backing gas for the next 50 years.

If we don't export it all first that is.

qldfrog · 20 May 2024

SirRumpole said:
Hydro ?

Too politically difficult I would suspect, which is why we have the current government backing gas for the next 50 years.

If we don't export it all first that is.

Hydro definitively but we have limited sites , and limited water every 18y cycle. and I am afraid probably not enough, even if reversed as battery for part of these dams.
We need more raw power if we want more than a subsistence economy, not to forget the EV mandated push where consumption of retail users would explode.

The future of energy generation and storage

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