Is it just me, or could some of the stimulus package been spent on this?

[HiEquity]

The problems with your view is that theres an assumption that all baseload generators can start generating at the flick of a switch when the wind dies down. In reality most forms of generation, such as coal, require hours to make enough steam to start generating enough power. This makes the usage of wind power useless in reducing our current stock of CO2 emitting Baseloaders.

Yes gas generators help solve this problem but the cost of replacing all the baseload generators in Australia to gas would be so tremendous, that you may as well just put the money into reliable renewable baseloaders.

In regards to Geothermal plants, seeing as there are already hundreds in the world using the traditional methods along the tectonic plates, the technological issues are relying on exploration and drill/steam cycle implimentation. It isn't relying on undiscovered cure-all wonder technology, just funding, testing and time.

We don't need to replace existing coal power stations. The number of wind farms currently on the system is pathetically small. We can install thousands of MW of wind before we run into any of these problems. As the cheapest form of renewable energy, perhaps we should do this first before looking at the expensive options? This is evidenced by the fact that every form of renewable is eligible for the RET but wind is the one the market has decided blows the others away by far. If others could compete at large scale they would have a good chunk already but they don't.

As to the abilities of coal power stations, there are plenty of coal power stations that can handle a stable 40% min loading at reasonable efficiency, if they're designed for it rather than just for running "baseload". Retrofitting existing power stations to do this is relatively cheap - far cheaper than further subsidising the next cheapest large scale renewable technology.

And there are a heap of coal power stations in Australia that already get turned off every night and back on again in the morning without issue. There are plenty of existing gas turbines on the system to pick up the intermediate fast acting issues. It will be a loooong time before any of this becomes a problem anyway so perhaps we should just get on with it in the meantime?

As for geothermal - conventional and fractured rock technologies are worlds apart. Just ask Geodynamics / Petratherm et al! Go back ten years to their predictions then about how easy it was going to be and when the first plant would be running etc. They're still working on drilling issues! And for what? A bottom hole temperature of 300 degrees at best? And then you need a heap of water and hope it comes back out the other hole. The sheer volume of steam generators, heat exchangers and other plant to make power with that low temperature resource is huge. That cost base alone makes solar look cheap - and that's if it works!

BTW the fact remains that without the RET (or equivalent subsidy) there is no hope for geothermal, tidal, biomass or any other renewable technology in Australia. Wind is the most competitive of all of those by far and still needs the RET. Coal is just too cheap!

 

[Sunfish]

The reality is that every form of power generation has an environmental impact

So you agree about the "no free lunch principle"? Until "green proponents" start admitting this and include such factors in their discussion papers, I will use my own worst case assumptions.

And you will need ever increasing base load (think electric cars), not less, as we develop unless you expect our politicians to "come clean" and go to the polls telling the electorate that the good times are over. Not in my lifetime.

 

[HiEquity]

So you agree about the "no free lunch principle"? Until "green proponents" start admitting this and include such factors in their discussion papers, I will use my own worst case assumptions.

Absolutely. Although it's still relative. The environmental impact of new hydro / tidal would be much greater than rooftop PV for example. But by far the greatest effort should go to reducing demand either way... there is so much to gain there but a large chunk of that requires a price signal.

And you will need ever increasing base load (think electric cars), not less, as we develop unless you expect our politicians to "come clean" and go to the polls telling the electorate that the good times are over. Not in my lifetime.

Electric cars would just increase load on the system and make it flatter. That new load can just as easily be met (albeit at higher cost not allowing for externalities) with a combination of wind and gas, for example, as coal. There is still no requirement for one generation technology to hog all the load for itself. In my view the future of the electricity industry lies in handling greater diversity of energy sources, the past was all about giving one technology "baseload" and letting everyone else fight over the mid merit and peaks. That past was all predicated on not pricing externalities.

The irony here is that if EVs come onto the system soon in a big way it would shift load from peak (gas) to off peak (coal) and would actually increase our emissions intensity substantially as a result. The reduction in fuel use wouldn't go near to offsetting this from a GHG POV. Bit of an elephant in the room in the EV industry that one...

As to pollies coming clean, in my view there is a requirement for transport and stationary energy fuels to be made more expensive than just their cost of extraction over time. A transitioned approach ahead of the supply / demand dynamics to that effect (eg peak oil) is far more easily dealt with both economically and politically. In the electricity industry we have already seen substantial increases in tariffs Australia wide. Transport fuels are lagging that curve currently and are the most difficult politically but the momentum is now strong (eg Obama's push in the US) and I wouldn't be surprised to see modest movement in this vein (increasing prices) over the next year or two there as well. More politically palatable though might be strong "direct action" measures such as supporting EVs to get off the ground - I can certainly see that happening.

 

[Witzl]

im not hearing anyone talk about nuclear yet.

Yay lets go nuclear!!


*yes i am serious.

 

[HiEquity]

im not hearing anyone talk about nuclear yet.

Yay lets go nuclear!!


*yes i am serious.

Why would you? It's more expensive than renewables in Australia, the finance for it has to be guaranteed by government (unlike every other power generation technology) and it's not flexible enough to even vary its output. And please don't post up technologies that can't be bought yet. The only comparison that is valid is among existing technologies that can be built today. Otherwise I'll drag up the claims of every unproven renewable energy technology developer as well and we get nowhere.

The market has decided nuclear doesn't make sense here. Perhaps if electricity generation prices more than tripled... but then we would have a heap of renewables already so again wouldn't need it.

Makes lots of sense in other markets though - just not in a country (Australia) with some of the cheapest electricity prices in the world!

 

[Sunfish]

im not hearing anyone talk about nuclear yet.

Yay lets go nuclear!!


*yes i am serious.

Why wouldn't you be?

There are new power stations being built now. Does anyone have any projected costs? The metering/instrumentation/safety switching would be dirt cheap (and far better) compared with the old stations in the US and France.

I suspect that the "high cost" of nuclear would be aggravated by relatively short time lines they are depreciated over even though they have much longer lives.

Edit: An interesting pair of posts. It's beer o'clock. Bye!

 

[HiEquity]

Why wouldn't you be?

There are new power stations being built now. Does anyone have any projected costs? The metering/instrumentation/safety switching would be dirt cheap (and far better) compared with the old stations in the US and France.

I suspect that the "high cost" of nuclear would be aggravated by relatively short time lines they are depreciated over even though they have much longer lives.

Edit: An interesting pair of posts.

Hi SF

The high cost of nuclear is mostly to do with the cost of concrete and steel to withstand the impact of a 747 (or perhaps an A380 these days? ).

It's actually a very similar situation to renewables - high capital cost and low operating cost. The capital cost is much higher but the capacity factor is also higher (it needs to hog the load). Surprising as it may seem changing the life of the asset from 20 years to 40 years makes very little difference to the cost of generation for nuclear or renewables at normal discount rates in today's dollars. Dollars made twenty plus years out are almost worthless in today's dollars - the time value of money! Completely different situation in twenty year's time of course! The Panama canal would never have been built with DCF accounting methods! And the longer life of many renewables, such as solar thermal, than allowed for in their original business cases is also evident. Happens with pretty much all power gen technologies - owners work out a way to keep them going!

The problem is it's impossible to compare costs anyway. Renewable / conventional power developers have to find their own finance while every nuclear power station in the world has a govt guarantee for its finance sitting behind it. No way of comparing those two as the cost of capital is the key determining factor for capital intensive technologies.

The reason no nuclear power station has been built without a govt guarantee? Because no private investor or bank has ever been willing to take the risk. That very fact speaks volumes to me...

 

[Sunfish]

Would you care to give us a report on the "long" life of of the early wind generators?

I have heard hundreds have already been abandoned and that the operators didn't even bother feathering the blades so they spin merrily on.... killing birds, sending residents insane.

The greens (correctly) insist on new mines having a clean-up guarantee. Why not green projects?

BTW the great cost of wind is the steel and concrete too. Big mobs of it. But will the rare earths available be adequate for a large scale roll out? Nobody tells us the big picture.

 

[HiEquity]

Would you care to give us a report on the "long" life of of the early wind generators?

I have heard hundreds have already been abandoned and that the operators didn't even bother feathering the blades so they spin merrily on.... killing birds, sending residents insane.

The greens (correctly) insist on new mines having a clean-up guarantee. Why not green projects?

BTW the great cost of wind is the steel and concrete too. Big mobs of it. But will the rare earths available be adequate for a large scale roll out? Nobody tells us the big picture.

Hi SF

You are quite correct on the early wind turbines. The early Californian experience is an example of how not to go about it and few countries have gone that way since. Some mistakes were made in the early Australian industry but regulators are well awake to it all now. If you do your bird monitoring and don't put them on top of cliffs regularly used by eagles etc - you get the idea. The science and technology have both evolved - like any industry there are poor early examples - plenty in the coal industry too! BTW all Australian projects have a clean up obligation on the developer at end of life down to the foundation.

As for the current crop of turbines, it is highly likely that the fibreglass (some have composites in them) blades will require replacing but the steel and concrete bits will be fine at the twenty year point. They're pretty simple machines structurally, even if they have a 90 metre blade diameter... blades are relatively cheap compared to building whole new machines - you are quite correct that most of the cost is steel and concrete.

BTW there are no rare earths in any large mainstream wind turbine designs in Australia right now. I'm aware of one Chinese wind turbine design and one Danish design using permanent magnets and both are yet to install one in Australia. Quite apart from that my Chinese contacts assure me there is plenty of such material in China - take from that what you will. I haven't got time to dig out a ref for it.

Hope that gives you a big enough picture!

 

[Sunfish]

Hope that gives you a big enough picture!

No it doesn't really. If I, with my limited knowledge, have to draw the truth out like teeth, how much else aren't you telling us?

The science and technology have both evolved - like any industry there are poor early examples - plenty in the coal industry too! But you seem to dismiss the possibility that "science and technology" can progress in the nuclear industry. Why?

Don't you see that I have every right to doubt "selective" data?

 

[HiEquity]

The science and technology have both evolved - like any industry there are poor early examples - plenty in the coal industry too! But you seem to dismiss the possibility that "science and technology" can progress in the nuclear industry. Why?

I was referring to how the wind industry has already progressed to be where it is today in that post. The point I was making previously to that is that I won't bring up unproven renewable technologies if others don't bring up unproven nuclear technologies, as has happened here in the past. Both the nuclear and renewable energy industries have the potential to make major breakthroughs - that is pretty clear. Relying on them doing that however would equally be irresponsible, especially given the glacial change in the development of new large scale power technologies to date. Do the research and development work by all means but be prepared for the current situation to survive for some time as well.

I'm sorry you feel this process is like pulling teeth but I don't know what people don't know... ?

 

[Sunfish]

I'm sorry you feel this process is like pulling teeth but I don't know what people don't know... ?

I am not part of the industry so my source of info is strictly what has been published on the web and, reasonably, I don't spend my waking hours scouring that.

What we don't know is what you (industry insiders) believe we don't need to know. Fes up and tell me, warts and all, I am intelligent enough to understand.

My BIGGEST problem, which I have voiced before, is how long does it take for a wind generator to repay it's initial cost? I am not talking dollars I am talking barrels of oil equivalent. You must include the epoxies as they are derivatives of oil and you must allow for alluminium which is coagulated electricity. As with ethanol, I suspect the figures are deliberately kept secret.

 

[HiEquity]

My BIGGEST problem, which I have voiced before, is how long does it take for a wind generator to repay it's initial cost? I am not talking dollars I am talking barrels of oil equivalent. You must include the epoxies as they are derivatives of oil and you must allow for alluminium which is coagulated electricity. As with ethanol, I suspect the figures are deliberately kept secret.

For wind turbines it varies depending on the wind resource obviously. There are a number of studies such as highlighted here that I have seen and the general consensus is around 3-6 months for energy payback for wind turbines. Google "embodied energy for wind turbines" and you can see the variance that's out there. There is no aluminium in wind turbines to speak of. Certainly there is epoxy in the blades but the turbines produce a lot of power...

Solar technologies are around 1-3 years, depending on the solar resource and whether the cells have silicon (worse than aluminium....) in them.

Ethanol is a terrible one. In the renewable energy industry it is generally accepted that any biomass technology that competes with food (such as ethanol) ain't worth the effort. Of course only ethanol proponents are the ones who comment in the public domain and they don't go into all the downsides - everyone else keeps quiet because it's not their business. Suffice it to say at least it hasn't "taken off" in Australia. I hope it doesn't.

Power generation from bagasse however is a different matter so don't lump all biomass opportunities in the same bucket. Cofiring wood waste with coal or gasification of wood and leaf to raise heat - steam - electricity are both valuable existing technologies that will probably also get a piece of the RET this time around in proportion to the availability of their resource.

BTW nearly everyone in the renewable energy industry is hopelessly conflicted into pushing their own technology. I was when I was working for a developer. "Unbiased" advice is nigh on impossible to come by in the public domain as a result and impossible to recognise if you saw it - industry outsiders just don't have enough insight and the public debate is just woeful (eg the emphasis on "baseload"). That is also why I can charge clients, who are equally bewildered, so much for my advice!

 

[Sunfish]

I know of begasse. Are you aware that in the '70s - '80s sugar mills deliberately installed inefficient boilers so they could dispose of their waste? The power authorities paid so little it was not worth the effort to resell power.

Please do not present that as a new source. 'Twas always there.

 

[HiEquity]

Please do not present that as a new source. 'Twas always there.

I know, that is why I called it one of the

valuable existing technologies

Been around for ages. Same as gasification. They used to gasify coal in the war etc etc etc....

If only electricity was valuable hey?