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The future of energy generation and storage

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Some of the private owners are far better than others.

There's at least one that has technical competence, has been reasonably open about what they're doing and does seem to "get it".

There's another that's fairly well known in the industry for doing precisely the opposite of what makes sense.

There are others who are OK with the business side but lack technical knowledge.

There are others who aren't so interested in power at all and are more focused on something else. Their power stations do at least work however so they must be employing the right people even if the board is focused elsewhere.

Then there's those who decided that they didn't need walls on their nice new plant. Walls cost money you see. One of these days they might get it working as well as the early 1980's power station not far away which government built. One is running nicely and one isn't - no prizes for guessing which is which.

So it's a mixed bag as with anything.

To be fair the old state utilities weren't perfect either although they usually got it right.

The former SECV wins the prize there. You know things have gone wrong in a big way when it's not just that it stopped generating but the whole power station physically moved a couple of metres from where it was previously. Now that's a failure! I don't think anyone was hurt thankfully and the plant has since been repaired and still operates today but it was certainly a major incident at the time.

To their credit though they had a properly designed and operated system as a whole so the loss of that generator didn't result in even one blackout to anyone. Easy when you've got sufficient reserves in the system to cover things going wrong.
 
Regarding the recent policy announcement, like just about everyone I'm yet to see all the details but one thing I'll note is this.

It is NOT an energy policy.

At most it is an electricity generation policy.

The reasons for that comment are simply this.

So far as electricity is concerned it focuses on generation only. It doesn't seem to do anything with networks and it doesn't do anything with retail apart from placing some obligations on retailers to keep generation in business.

Ordinary consumers don't generally care too much about power stations so long as they exist, are working as intended and aren't causing a fuss with things like the environment or safety.

What consumers of all kinds (individuals, business, anyone) do care about is that the energy they purchase is affordable, safe, reliable and acceptable in terms of the environment and other matters.

The trouble is that electricity is not the only energy form used by end consumers indeed it's not even the largest. Nationally electricity accounts for 20.0% of energy supplied to end consumers.

Oil is the big one at 51.5%

Gas comes next at 20.2%

Electricity is 20.0%

Wood and other solid biomass are 4.4%

Coal is 3.5%

Solar used on site is 0.3%

Refined biofuels are 0.2%

All figures rounded to the nearest 0.1% from Australian Government data.

Note that this is for energy sold to consumers. So I'm not including coal going into power stations so as to avoid double counting with the end product (electricity). These figures are for the electricity, gas, petrol and so on as used by households, industry, general businesses, public services and so on.

We've seen rather a lot of fuss about ethanol over the years. An awful lot given it's only 0.2% of the energy supplied to end users.

Now we've got a new policy for how to generate, but not how to transmit, distribute or retail, electricity.

I don't disagree with the but a policy which covers one part of the industry which supplies 20% of the energy used by end users isn't a national energy policy by any means.

Meanwhile the elephant in the room is met with deafening silence. Yep, the 51.5% of energy supplied to end users in the form of petroleum, over 60% of which is imported.

If the oil stops arriving then to be blunt we're stuffed. Nothing that's happened with blackouts in SA or power price hikes in various states comes anywhere near to the chaos an oil supply disruption would unleash.

For those interested, some more facts and figures.

The largest end use sector is industrial (including mining) which is 42.3 of end use energy. Of that, gas is the largest source supplying 35.2% of the total. Oil 30.2%, electricity 19.7%, coal 7.8%, wood 7.2%

Second largest end use sector is transport which is 38.2% of end use energy supplied. Oil supplies almost the whole lot being 98.2% of all transport energy. Of the other sources, electricity and refined biofuels are 0.6% each, coal 0.4%, natural gas 0.2%

Third largest end use sector is residential at 11.5% of energy supplied to end users. Of that electricity is 47.8% of the total, gas is 34.2%, wood 11.6%, oil 3.7%, solar used on site 2.6%

Fourth largest end use sector is non-industrial business (which also includes public services) at 8.1% of end use energy. Of that 73.8% is electricity, 15.9% is gas, 9.7% oil, 0.3% coal, 0.3% solar.

Compiled by Smurf from various official Australian Government statistics sources.

Note that by definition LPG is a petroleum product and is included in the "oil" figures. This approach is used internationally.

So what about coal? Well the primary use of that is to generate electricity and at the national level it is by far the largest source of electricity. Use for other purposes is far less although it is significant for industrial purposes.

At a state level the major variations from the national figures are:

Gas is the most important fuel in WA with oil in second place. A lot of WA's electricity is also produced using gas in addition to that very high level of direct use.

Oil and electricity account for virtually all energy in the NT with everything else being trivial at most. That said, most electricity in the NT is produced from gas but other uses of gas, apart from power generation, are very minor.

Electricity is in top spot in Tasmania, an unusual situation even at the global level, very closely followed by oil. The use of gas is low compared to the national average on a per capita basis but the use of coal (in heavy industry) and wood (mostly residential) are above average.

I've posted all this hoping that it puts things into perspective in terms of how it affects end users. Electricity is essential to modern life but it certainly isn't the only form of energy used by individuals or business indeed except in Tasmania it isn't even the largest.

Oil's the real danger and there's some emerging gas supply constraints in Vic and SA too. This winter was OK but getting the storage in SW Vic filled over summer is going to be problematic if there's a need to run gas-fired power generation at reasonably high levels in Vic as seems likely unless it's an abnormally cool summer.
 
Yes, any decent government Labor or Liberal would come up with an energy security policy that covers all of your quoted inputs, but as usual they are focussed on the short term hit the other side over the head type stuff.

This article shows that the military is concerned about oil dependancy, and surely the government would listen to them ?

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-02-...south-china-sea-tensions-nrma-advisor/7149648
 
An oil disruption is a plausible event.

There was trouble during WW2, in 1973-74 and again in 1979.

The first one affected Australia greatly. Then rapidly increasing production from Bass Strait saved us on the latter two occasions although some oil products became physically scarce (heavy fuel oil in particular).

So it's in the "probably happen someday" category. Given the extreme consequences such a risk warrants a plan to address it.

If it was a workplace safety issue then with that combination of probability and consequence even the most basic WHS training will tell you that it's unacceptable to not have a plan to manage the risk.
 
There is probably a, "she'll be right, as long as it doesn't happen on my shift", going on.
Whichever side of politics addresses the problem, will give the budget a very,very, very big hit.
 
SirRumpole said:
So how much subsidies have been given to fossil fuels over the years ?

I don't necessarily begrudge those subsidies, but it's pretty hard to argue that subsidies for fossil fuels should remain while renewables shouldn't get any.
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I would say most of the fossil fuel was originally put in by the Government, then sold off.
So how you would work that out would be difficult.

I don't think the subsidies are the issue, it is the fact the public is paying for companies to put in renewables, with no regard for reliability or to be more accurate system stability. That is the issue.
 
I wonder sometimes why there is any argument. Renewable power from combined wind and solar is taking over efficiently around tge world. Know a bloke at Little River (towards Geelong from Melbourne) who's been off the grid for five years now. He's never had to start his engine driven generator backup. Many countires, particularly Europe are passing the fifty percent margin.

Admittedly weve had plenty of cheap coal to hold things and quite apart from the environmental aspect, wind and solar are now as cheap and a little bit of effort (from Guvnmints) towards aiding willing consumers we could do so much more. On a hot day for example an airconditioner could run off a few solar panels independant of the grid.

We offer (rightfully) huge incentives to medical science as one example so why not for further alternative energy research. And as pointed out by Sir Rumpy, at least match what has been going in to hold up coal.
 
explod said:
I wonder sometimes why there is any argument. Renewable power from combined wind and solar is taking over efficiently around tge world. Know a bloke at Little River (towards Geelong from Melbourne) who's been off the grid for five years now. He's never had to start his engine driven generator backup. Many countires, particularly Europe are passing the fifty percent margin.

Admittedly weve had plenty of cheap coal to hold things and quite apart from the environmental aspect, wind and solar are now as cheap and a little bit of effort (from Guvnmints) towards aiding willing consumers we could do so much more. On a hot day for example an airconditioner could run off a few solar panels independant of the grid.

We offer (rightfully) huge incentives to medical science as one example so why not for further alternative energy research. And as pointed out by Sir Rumpy, at least match what has been going in to hold up coal.
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I think everyone is in agreement with you, on the fact renewable energy is the future, the only debate is how fast we pursue it.
S.A has shown, less haste may in fact, produce a faster and better result.
 
sptrawler said:
I didn't realise we were discussing the Finkle report.
But on that subject I thought most of the report was adopted, it was just the target that was in disagreement.
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Yes, funny how he could get 49/50 so right, but completely **** up the CET isn't it ? :rolleyes:
 
I'd certainly like to see a move to renewables. Even without the CO2 issue it's a reality that non-renewable resources are just that, a finite resource that will become increasingly expensive over time as the best sources are used up first.

With oil that's already underway. Sure, there's no shortage of petrol or diesel at the pumps but nobody in their right mind would be drilling in huge depths of water, near the North Pole or messing about fracking tiny wells in the US which deplete incredibly fast if there was still plenty of cheap and easy oil available from traditional sources. We're not out yet but we're going down the curve certainly.

In due course gas and finally coal would end up following the same path indeed that there's already an industry tapping relatively more expensive gas from unconventional sources tells the story there.

Then there's the political aspects. For both oil and gas a handful of countries, many of them unstable or not politically friendly, hold most of the reserves. Russia, Iran and Qatar between them have two thirds of all known gas reserves globally.

Then there's all the non-CO2 environmental effects of which there are plenty.

And of course there's CO2 as another problem with fossil fuels.

So renewables are inevitable in the long term. Ultimately it's either that or sit in the dark. We're not going to be using coal etc forever that's a given.

The problem with renewables however is that apart from hydro and biomass they're akin to a reverse casual worker. An arrangement where the workers not the business sets the hours.

Now suppose that you run a business which operates either 24/7 or at night. Would you have an arrangement where all your staff choose their own hours? No you wouldn't because your 24/7 fast food outlet just isn't going to work when nobody turns up to work in the middle of the night or simply because it's a nice day and they've gone to the beach. Your restaurant's going to do even worse when most of your staff decide to work 9 to 5 and nobody turns up on Saturday night.

So we need power generation sources which work when we need electricity not just at random.

If we're going to use renewable resources then the workaround is to store energy when it's available to use it when we need it. Hydro and biomass do that by default but they're limited in this country which leaves things like wind and solar which are intermittent by their nature.

Solution to that is to build separate storage systems. Pumped hydro is proven, efficient and durable. Batteries aren't overly durable but they work and are another option. Then there's possibilities with compressed air, heat storage and some really "out there" ideas like running trains full of concrete up and down hills not to deliver the concrete but simply to store and release energy.

Making it work isn't impossible. We just need to get the politicians out of the way and let the engineers and others get on with it.

10 years and 5 prime ministers is a long time to be arguing about how to spin magnets inside coils of wire (which is in fundamental terms how a generator works - everything else is about how to produce the mechanical power to make it spin).

We just need to get this one sorted. Then with a bit of luck we can start addressing the real energy elephant in the room and that's oil not electricity.
 
SirRumpole said:
Yes, funny how he could get 49/50 so right, but completely **** up the CET isn't it ? :rolleyes:
Click to expand...

That is, of course, if in fact a CET is the way to go.
Everything is very subjective at the moment, which isn't the ideal situation, with something as important as power security and distribution.

There are numerous ways of bringing about a reduction in emissions, and I'm sure as technology improves, it will get easier.

The problem at the moment is, it is a political point scoring excercise.
When in fact it should be a sensible bipartisan approach, that achieves the desired result, with the minimum cost to the tax payer and a reliable supply of electricity.

Currently all the talk is about the emission reduction, that's easy, just have rolling blackouts over peak periods or periods of low renewable output. lol
People would soon focus on security of supply then.

I get the distinct impression at the moment, politicians are focused on their wage packet, rather than what is best for us. Not that that is unusual.IMO

We would probably get better outcomes if all politicians recieved the same pay, instead of if they are opposition or not.
 
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SirRumpole said:
Yes, funny how he could get 49/50 so right, but completely **** up the CET isn't it ? :rolleyes:
Click to expand...

It looks as though you don't need to worry yourself about it, apparently it isn't a **** up.
Billy will be unhappy, he will look like a real dick, if he opposes it.
Maybe some, who are on the boards of renewable companies, will be pissed because the gravy train is slowing.
But we, the general public, will be far better off.IMO

Quote:
Chief Scientist Alan Finkel has also given his tick of approval, saying that it is not much different to the proposed clean energy target which had the enthusiastic backing of Labor.

Indeed, Finkel said this week that had he modelled the NEG alongside the CET and Labor’s first preference of an Emissions Intensity Scheme and there would be little difference in the price between the policies for consumers.

While slightly different to Finkel’s recommendation (perhaps mainly that it didn’t mention the word “clean”), the Chief Scientist said the Government’s alternative policy would still meet the same objectives as a CET.

“The important thing is that they’re effectively adopting an orderly transition that covers a trajectory encouragement of low-emission energy into the market and ... an obligation on the system to deliver electricity when needed,” he said.

Far from the cries of catastrophe coming from the renewables sector and the Greens, Finkel said the policy was “logical”, would still serve as a “credible mechanism” and would allow Australia to meet its emission target obligations.

https://thewest.com.au/opinion/sara...has-a-clean-energy-breakthrough-ng-b88634230z
 
Meanwhile a local council wants to build a coal-fired power station in Tas.

They're looking for ways to create jobs in their area and I don't blame them for that, they've got coal in the ground so there's some logic there, but I reckon there's more chance of me landing on Mars and getting there on a sleigh drawn by flying pigs than of such a power station being built.

Same idea has been looked at previous in the late 1960's, again during the great dams debate of the early 1980's and again in the 1990's and didn't stack up financially on any of those occasions since something else was always cheaper.

Nothing's impossible I suppose.

On another note pensioners in Tas will be getting a cheque for Christmas from the state government. Yep, there's an election due early next year....
 

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