The future of energy generation and storage

Let's put some hard numbers on Australia's energy resources. Once that is done, the sensible options start to become somewhat clearer.

I've used energy units, PJ (petajoules) here to enable comparison between different resource types which would be more difficult if the units were expressed as tonnes of coal, barrels of oil etc. A consistent unit of measurement helps simplify the overall picture.

First, I'll start with oil. That is crude oil, condensate (a thin, light oil that's a gas underground but liquid once brought to the surface - it's refined to produce petrol etc in the same way as crude oil but it can only produce the lighter products, eg petrol and kerosene. It's no good for making other petroleum fuels or things like bitumen for which actual crude oil is needed). Also included here is LPG (which contrary to common belief, is properly considered as a form of oil rather than a gas as such).

Here's where we are now with crude oil and condensate and the situation isn't too good. Past production and remaining reserves by state.

Victoria: Produced = 23,561 PJ. Remaining = 2420 PJ.

WA: Produced = 14,268 PJ. Remaining = 16,231 PJ.

NT: Produced = 3685 PJ. Remaining = 3673PJ.

SA: Produced = 2381 PJ. Remaining = 592 PJ. Note that some of this production occurs from wells physically in South-West Queensland, although all processing and delivery occurs in SA.

Tasmania: Produced = 22 PJ. Remaining = Remaining = 306 PJ. Note that offshore production in Tas is physically landed in Victoria although the fields are in Tasmanian waters.

Queensland: Produced = 250 PJ. Remaining = 43 PJ.

NSW: Nil.

National: Produced = 44,167 PJ. Remaining = 23,265 PJ.

What about consumption? We use about 2300 PJ a year of liquid petroleum products in total in Australia.

So pretty clearly we're not too well off when it comes to oil. Australia may well be a "resources country" but when it comes to oil we've got declining production and rising imports.

LPG

WA: Produced = 1763 PJ. Remaining = 3610 PJ.

Victoria: Produced = 2553 PJ. Remaining = 609 PJ.

NT: Produced = 386 PJ. Remaining = 1027 PJ.

SA: Produced = 682 PJ. Remaining = 172 PJ.

Tasmania: Produced = 8 PJ. Remaining = 237 PJ.

Queensland: Produced = 49 PJ. Remaining = 10 PJ.

National: Produced = 5441 PJ. Remaining = 5665 PJ.

Consumption is about 100 PJ a year nationally.

The overall supply situation is better than for conventional liquid fuels (petrol etc) but LPG is still an internationally traded product so we're exposed to international pricing. Also worth noting is that most of the reserves, that is in WA and NT, will be exported - we already import LPG into the eastern states from overseas.

My real point in this and the previous post is that whilst most discussion about energy in Australia focuses on ways to generate electricity, that's not where the real problem is. We've got a serious and growing import dependency for transport fuels in a country where oil-based transport is critical to practically everything. Transport fuels, not electricity generation, is the real problem we have with energy in Australia.

Oil = 23,265 PJ remaining in Australia.

LPG = 5665 PJ remaining in Australia.

That's about it so far as transport fuel is concerned. But for electricity generation and other purposes we've got:

Gas = 172,000 PJ

Coal = 5,356,000 PJ

Uranium = 955,000 PJ

Geothermal = Estimates vary as it's a relatively new thing for anyone to be looking for. For consistency with the above figures I'll use the Geoscience Australia data which puts it at 440,000 PJ. Other estimates put it very much higher (eg over 2,500,000 PJ).

Then there's solar, wind, hydro, tidal, biomass etc which are renewable and for which the annual supply vastly exceeds anything we could use to generate electricity with.

So overall, oil is a problem in the short term and at some point gas may well join that list. And those fuels are valuable for transport, industry etc such that using them to generate electricity, particularly for base load, is a tragic waste in my view.

Above data is from "Australian Energy Resource Assessment" (Australian Government) unless otherwise noted. A Google search will find the original document - beware that it's 364 pages long.

Smurf1976 said:

LPG

WA: Produced = 1763 PJ. Remaining = 3610 PJ.

Victoria: Produced = 2553 PJ. Remaining = 609 PJ.

NT: Produced = 386 PJ. Remaining = 1027 PJ.

SA: Produced = 682 PJ. Remaining = 172 PJ.

Tasmania: Produced = 8 PJ. Remaining = 237 PJ.

Queensland: Produced = 49 PJ. Remaining = 10 PJ.

National: Produced = 5441 PJ. Remaining = 5665 PJ.

Consumption is about 100 PJ a year nationally.

The overall supply situation is better than for conventional liquid fuels (petrol etc) but LPG is still an internationally traded product so we're exposed to international pricing. Also worth noting is that most of the reserves, that is in WA and NT, will be exported - we already import LPG into the eastern states from overseas.

My real point in this and the previous post is that whilst most discussion about energy in Australia focuses on ways to generate electricity, that's not where the real problem is. We've got a serious and growing import dependency for transport fuels in a country where oil-based transport is critical to practically everything. Transport fuels, not electricity generation, is the real problem we have with energy in Australia.

Oil = 23,265 PJ remaining in Australia.

LPG = 5665 PJ remaining in Australia.

That's about it so far as transport fuel is concerned. But for electricity generation and other purposes we've got:

Gas = 172,000 PJ

Coal = 5,356,000 PJ

Uranium = 955,000 PJ

Geothermal = Estimates vary as it's a relatively new thing for anyone to be looking for. For consistency with the above figures I'll use the Geoscience Australia data which puts it at 440,000 PJ. Other estimates put it very much higher (eg over 2,500,000 PJ).

Then there's solar, wind, hydro, tidal, biomass etc which are renewable and for which the annual supply vastly exceeds anything we could use to generate electricity with.

So overall, oil is a problem in the short term and at some point gas may well join that list. And those fuels are valuable for transport, industry etc such that using them to generate electricity, particularly for base load, is a tragic waste in my view.

Above data is from "Australian Energy Resource Assessment" (Australian Government) unless otherwise noted. A Google search will find the original document - beware that it's 364 pages long.

Click to expand...

Which is back where we started, when I joined this forum.
It is a bloody disgrace to put gas through boilers or turbines, to produce electricity, to boil kettles and run stoves to boil water.
We are far better off using coal, and accelerating the development of alternative energy.
Than depleting a clean fuel source that can be used in essential infrastructure. eg trucks, trains, planes, cars etc.

It is just dumb wastage, at this point of our technological development. Time will tell.

Not mentioned in my previous two posts is oil shale.

First, a note about terminology. "Shale oil" is what they're producing lots of in the USA via drilling and hydraulic fracturing. It's oil as such, just tightly held in the ground (hence the fracturing) but apart from that it's just oil.

What I'm referring to in this post is actual "oil shale". That's a hard rock which doesn't contain liquid oil as such. The rock is mined by conventional mining methods, put through a factory that has a few similarities with a metal smelter and oil refinery combined, and out comes some oil.

We'ge got a lot of oil shale, around 131,600 PJ according to official estimates, but the problem is with actually using it and that's why nobody includes it in oil reserve data.

Mining and burning the shale is pretty easy, Estonia is the world leader there and they do it on a scale comparable to what we do with brown coal in Victoria. And yes, the end product in Estonia is electricity. Using oil shale this way is pretty straightforward - mine it, burn it, then dispose of the vast amount of waste rock, now in powdered form, that is produced - somewhat messy but it works as a means of producing steam to run turbines (same as a coal power station).

Turning oil shale into liquid fuels (eg petrol, diesel etc) is much harder however since it requires that actual liquid oil be produced from what is a solid rock. It can be done, and it was done in the first half of the 20th Century in various parts of Australia (NSW and Tas being most notable) but suffice to say that even a century ago there were complaints about pollution and that was at a time when "environment" wasn't something anyone really thought about.

In more recent times all sorts of organisations have tried this one. The US government had a go, so did various major oil companies and so too have many junior "get rich quick" type companies. They built plants, ran them and either failed technically (or environmentally) or couldn't make it pay. Closer to home, the Tasmanian government had a serious look in the 1980's given that the state has a very high quality (and globally unique) oil shale resource "Tasmanite". Nothing new was built in Tas (the earlier operation having long since been abandoned) but a very serious look was taken and it reached the same conclusion as everyone else - it would be easier to just take the cash and set that on fire without going to the trouble of actually digging up the oil shale. In South Australia they do actually mine oil shale in order to get to the coal below it at Leigh Creek. But they dump the shale as waste since even if it's literally free (already mined so no additional cost) it's just not worthwhile doing anything with it.

So we've got a lot of oil shale, far more than we have actual crude oil and it's close to natural gas in terms of the resource size, but it's very doubtful that it will ever be used. There's no point mining it for electricity generation since there's other (cheaper) means of generating electricity. And so far at least, there's no point mining the stuff to make liquid fuels unless someone's got some cash they're looking to get rid of.

So, over 130,000 PJ of oil shale, theoretically enough to provide all our transport fuels for more than 50 years, but the odds high are that it will stay in the ground. That brings me back to the previous point - there's lots of ways to generate electricity, that isn't really a problem we jsut have to actually do it, but there's fewer options for process heat (gas, oil) and we've got a looming problem with transport fuel (oil). Well, we have unless electric transport makes serious inroads to displacing petrol and diesel in the not too distant future - possible for cars but we're nowhere near the point where it works for long distance trucks etc.

sptrawler said:

It is a bloody disgrace to put gas through boilers or turbines, to produce electricity, to boil kettles and run stoves to boil water.
We are far better off using coal, and accelerating the development of alternative energy.
Than depleting a clean fuel source that can be used in essential infrastructure. eg trucks, trains, planes, cars etc.

Click to expand...

Very strongly agreed there.

So far as I'm concerned, the sensible means of generating electricity is renewables as much as we can and coal for the rest. Using gas and oil to keep the lights on is akin to using gold and silver as road gravel - a tragic waste of a limited and very valuable resource (don't forget all the non-energy things that oil and gas are needed for - everything from plastic to fertilizer to medical drugs comes from gas and oil).

Smurph, why the hell don't they install h2 plants, next to major wind farm installations?

When they are producing excess generation, they could be producing hydrogen, a clean transport fuel.

It just seems like a logical fit to me, a bit like spinning reserve, shut it down as wind drops and bring on h2 fired gas turbine.

When reserve storage of h2 exceeds reserve requirements, sell the h2 on market.

As GG would say, that's me brain fart, for the day.lol

Smurf1976 said:

Very strongly agreed there.

So far as I'm concerned, the sensible means of generating electricity is renewables as much as we can and coal for the rest. Using gas and oil to keep the lights on is akin to using gold and silver as road gravel - a tragic waste of a limited and very valuable resource (don't forget all the non-energy things that oil and gas are needed for - everything from plastic to fertilizer to medical drugs comes from gas and oil).

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If we have electricity to burn so to speak, and a lack of transport fuel, then it would seem to make sense to electrify long distance freight rail, make that more attractive and get long distance trucks off the roads.

SirRumpole said:

If we have electricity to burn so to speak, and a lack of transport fuel, then it would seem to make sense to electrify long distance freight rail, make that more attractive and get long distance trucks off the roads.

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It is very difficult to to transport electricity over long distances, due to the lines becoming capacitors, the air between the lines becomes a dielectric.
This in turn causes an increase in voltage on the lines, especially when lightly loaded, there won't be an electric indian pacific or ghan in our lifetime.

sptrawler said:

Smurph, why the hell don't they install h2 plants, next to major wind farm installations?

Click to expand...

That idea isn't new. There was a plan to actually set up hydrogen "service stations" here in Tas a decade ago. We even put a hydrogen powered car in an actual car race (Targa) and were pretty well advanced with conversion kits to suit common vehicles.

It all works in theory and it works in practice from a technical perspective. Financial reality says otherwise unfortunately.

A bit more here (note this was 10 years ago). http://www.abc.net.au/am/content/2005/s1457459.htm

There used to be a plant here in Hobart producing hydrogen from electricity and using that to make fertilizer. Ultimately it just couldn't compete against production elsewhere using natural gas as the feedstock and so that was it, it was closed and has since been demolished. It can certainly be done technically, it was built back in the 1950's, but as with most of this stuff the problem is economic. Even when you've got cheap electricity (and it was ridiculously cheap back then), it's still cheaper to go the direct chemical route of extraction from natural gas (CH4).

Here's a image of the hydrogen cells I found online. All gone now though. It's old stuff in the photo but the basic technology hasn't changed - electricity into water splits it into oxygen and hydrogen gases. http://www.nla.gov.au/apps/cdview/?pi=nla.pic-an23167238

Smurf1976 said:

That idea isn't new. There was a plan to actually set up hydrogen "service stations" here in Tas a decade ago. We even put a hydrogen powered car in an actual car race (Targa) and were pretty well advanced with conversion kits to suit common vehicles.

It all works in theory and it works in practice from a technical perspective. Financial reality says otherwise unfortunately.

A bit more here (note this was 10 years ago). http://www.abc.net.au/am/content/2005/s1457459.htm

There used to be a plant here in Hobart producing hydrogen from electricity and using that to make fertilizer. Ultimately it just couldn't compete against production elsewhere using natural gas as the feedstock and so that was it, it was closed and has since been demolished. It can certainly be done technically, it was built back in the 1950's, but as with most of this stuff the problem is economic. Even when you've got cheap electricity (and it was ridiculously cheap back then), it's still cheaper to go the direct chemical route of extraction from natural gas (CH4).

Here's a image of the hydrogen cells I found online. All gone now though. http://www.nla.gov.au/apps/cdview/?pi=nla.pic-an23167238

Click to expand...

Meanwhile we pour money into solar, that has minimal expectation of viable storage at this point.

It all seems ar$e up to me, wind can produce reasonable grunt, but has no storage medium.

Financial reality, when compared to established fossil fuel will never stack up, but if you are producing a fossil fuel replacement from excess renewable energy?

The ABC link was interesting, they may have been ahead of their time.

sptrawler said:

Which is back where we started, when I joined this forum.
It is a bloody disgrace to put gas through boilers or turbines, to produce electricity, to boil kettles and run stoves to boil water.
We are far better off using coal, and accelerating the development of alternative energy.
Than depleting a clean fuel source that can be used in essential infrastructure. eg trucks, trains, planes, cars etc.

It is just dumb wastage, at this point of our technological development. Time will tell.

Click to expand...

+ 1 even if I'd prefer wind and solar to coal but as you say we must cover the transition and it can go quickly
but indeed, gas and petrol should be kept for transport while we transition some to electricity (cars first) and chemical manufacturing:
plastics, fertilisers, etc

sptrawler said:

It is very difficult to to transport electricity over long distances, due to the lines becoming capacitors, the air between the lines becomes a dielectric.
This in turn causes an increase in voltage on the lines, especially when lightly loaded, there won't be an electric indian pacific or ghan in our lifetime.

Click to expand...

you can cross Europe on fast electric train, it is more the fact we would not have enought traffic, but i would think an adelaide to brisbane via melbourne/sydney electric rail highway could replace a lot of the existing trucking

sptrawler said:

Meanwhile we pour money into solar, that has minimal expectation of viable storage at this point.

It all seems ar$e up to me, wind can produce reasonable grunt, but has no storage medium.

Financial reality, when compared to established fossil fuel will never stack up, but if you are producing a fossil fuel replacement from excess renewable energy?

The ABC link was interesting, they may have been ahead of their time.

Click to expand...

Hydrogene has a terrible tendency to leak, and for leaks to be pretty nasty...that is one key point as well as the need to compress it to store it
so i doubt we will ever see an hydrogen powered car in a standard household;
but hydrogen cells, even better than burning in a turbine would be a way to go;
Giant Hydrogen "batteries" next to solar farm/wind farms;
I do believe that Tesla style batteries can made a huge difference for households like mine:
plenty of storage space/roof space/technical knowledge to maintain
coupled with electric plug in car and just need another set of solar panel and i am cruising;

but I doubt these batteries are enough for major grid storage on the industrial scale 9even if tesla shows how it is feasible.
But you do need major storage anyway:
ternal solar which buffer day/night, when possible, reversed hydro (pump up storage and maybe giant fuel cells H2 or otherwise.
We have the technology, but we have to fight lobbies, a situatiion where fossil fuels are subsidised heavily with teh resource being basically free to the taker and people like Abbot who do not "like" windfarms.....
one major deal breaker could be fusion reactors with https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polywell and more interesting https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_beta_fusion_reactor
Note I did buy Lockeed shares

SolarEdge Launching Inverter Designed Specifically For Tesla Compatibility
​

One of the only companies out there currently that’s offering an inverter that’s compatible with Tesla’s energy storage solutions, SolarEdge, will soon be launching a new version of the StorEdge (a DC-coupled home storage solution) designed specifically with such compatibility in mind, according to recent reports.

The product (amongst other new ones) is expected to hit the market before the end of 2015, and will also be offered as a retrofit for those that already possess a SolarEdge inverter (applicable to those installed since January 2013, apparently).The new (updated) offering will, as can be expected, allow users to balance self-consumption of electricity and provide backup electricity. The company notes that those who previously were solar PV feed-in-tariff recipients in markets like Germany, where such rates have diminished greatly, could benefit substantially by allowing for self-consumption to be maximized rather than feeding generated electricity into the grid.

The company, which is based out of Israel (interestingly), won’t likely retain its near monopoly on Tesla compatibility for long, though, despite being designed with compatibility specifically in mind, as there’s now a lot of interest in that field.

Click to expand...

Saw this on Whirlpool. Thought l would cross-feed if that is ok?

Redflow.

Manufacturing batteries.

QLD based.

Website - http://redflow.com/

Products - http://redflow.com/products/

http://redflow.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/RFX-150623-Kick-starting-sales.pdf

Ok, help me out. My maths isn't the best....

Just received my latest electricity bill from Origin - Brisbane,QLD.

My 'daily supply charge' has skyrocketed.

Previous supply charge was 83.414 cents per day

New supply charge is 116.398 cents per day

83.414-116.398=32.984

32.984/83.414=0.39542

0.39542 * 100 = 39.5425%

Is that correct?

DB008 said:

Ok, help me out. My maths isn't the best....

Just received my latest electricity bill from Origin - Brisbane,QLD.

My 'daily supply charge' has skyrocketed.

Previous supply charge was 83.414 cents per day

New supply charge is 116.398 cents per day

83.414-116.398=32.984

32.984/83.414=0.39542

0.39542 * 100 = 39.5425%

Is that correct?

Click to expand...

Yes, spot on.

bellenuit said:

Yes, spot on.

Click to expand...

Cheers bellenuit

39% increase.

That's crazy.

Is it legal to raise the price that much when l am locked into a 12 month contract with them?

Oh well, Origin (and the other power companies doing this) sure know how to push customers away.

Jack up their prices while solar system prices are dropping like flies and battery tech is just around the corner.

There is literally a "power" revolution coming. A complete change in the way we get power. This might be the power companies last chance to milk us users. Good luck to 'em. As soon as l can go 'off-grid', l will...

DB008 said:

Cheers bellenuit

39% increase.

That's crazy.

Is it legal to raise the price that much when l am locked into a 12 month contract with them?

Oh well, Origin (and the other power companies doing this) sure know how to push customers away.

Jack up their prices while solar system prices are dropping like flies and battery tech is just around the corner.

There is literally a "power" revolution coming. A complete change in the way we get power. This might be the power companies last chance to milk us users. Good luck to 'em. As soon as l can go 'off-grid', l will...

Click to expand...

Question: What's the new charge for measured consumption, i.e. how did the charge per Kilowatt-hour ("unit" or "KWh") change? Could that have come down?

pixel said:

Question: What's the new charge for measured consumption, i.e. how did the charge per Kilowatt-hour ("unit" or "KWh") change? Could that have come down?

Click to expand...

Hi Pixel.

Here is a screen-shot.




Peak price has decreased : 25.378 to 22.238 (cents)

Tariff 33 has increased : 18.454 to 18.872 (cents)

Supply charge has increased : 83.414 to 116.398 (cents)

Only got the solar in recently.


What is interesting me at the moment (because I have a SMA Inverter) -

http://www.sma.de/en/products/battery-inverters/sunny-island-for-increased-self-consumption.html