Random power generators. Photo JoNova
Wind and solar power are the intermittent freeloaders on the electricity grid. They are treated as if they’re generators, adding power to the grid, but instead they provide something the grid doesn’t need — power that can’t be guaranteed.
Random gigawatts has the illusion of looking useful, but it’s the gift of a spare holiday house you don’t know if you can use til the day before. It’s the spare fridge in the garage that overheats in hot weather, the extra turkey for thanksgiving that might not arrive til the day after. The bills, the storage, the clutter, the chaos.
As I keep saying in RenewablesWorld fuel bills go down, but the land-maintenance-staff-insurance-FCAS-storage-and-capital costs all go up.
RenewablesWorld is a place where a lot more people and machines sit around and watch cat videos on youtube.
Here’s a great plan by Terry McCrann.
The one rule that would expose wind power’s true cost
Terry McCrann, The Australian, Business Review
If you wish to sell power into the grid, the NEM or National Energy Market, you will have to guarantee a minimum level of supply and guarantee that minimum level of supply 24/7.
And critically, that minimum level can be no lower than 80 per cent of the maximum amount of energy you will be permitted to sell into the grid.
He gives the example of the 1,000MW wind farm that either has to promise 800MW or more like 200MW. If it’s 800 — which means the team has to buy a gas plant out the back (or a fixed deal with a group that owns one), and if you own that gas plant, you’d just run it, who needs the wind turbines? If it’s 200MW, then you the owner can only profit on sales up to 250MW max.
In the simplest example, you would have to build an (at least) 800MW gas power station next to your wind farm, which you would only use intermittently, on the whim of the weather. Suddenly, wind would not look so cheap; it would be exposed as certainly not being “free”.
Critically, you would not be allowed to sell up to that 1800MW into the grid, using both the gas and the wind turbines when the wind did blow.
And if they did generate 1800MW, the same group would need to blow away the 800MW, or pay for the battery or dam to store it.
Which leads to the obvious question:
Why would I build two so-called power stations, the real gas one and the fake wind one? Why wouldn’t I just build the one, the gas one?
Ur, yes. But in a really rational world you’d just build the one coal-fired station…
But the problem with what McCrann is suggesting is that it only works in that old anachronistic thing called a free market. The RET’s got to go. No renewable energy target to force the transition we don’t need to transit to.
The good thing about McCrann’s idea is that we could finally find out what wind and solar cost.
Its like a “free market” but Soviet designed, yes?
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Da, Boris. Is better we no step in it.
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Its not just the RET. The PARISite agreement needs to go. The hangers-on will ALL go with it.
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Hate jumping in on the first post….but gezuspriest,Terry! You are a bit late to the party. Us on JoNova have been sayin this for years now. Dispatchability means just that. The means to generate a guaranteed amount, the dependability to bid, a day , a week or a month in advance the amount of power you can deliver to the grid.
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Just celebrate lights coming on (pun intended) whenever , wherever. If a few hundred people read it and think “Jeez, he’s right you know” that’s fantastic.
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Right Jonesy.
A contract to supply needs to be a contract to supply. No if, no buts.
Am I blue in the face yet?
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Around this area
“Renewable energy is a blackout risk, warns National Grid after chaos during biggest outage in a decade”
And comments
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2019/08/19/renewable-energy-is-a-blackout-risk-warns-national-grid-after-chaos-during-biggest-outage-in-a-decade/
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We call such a thing “Guaranteed Contract for Delivery”. When generators bid to supply power for “day ahead” and “peaking”, they have to provide the contracted power during the contracted period or themselves pay for delivery of that contracted power from another entity regardless of cost.
Nobody is foolish enough to guarantee what they cannot deliver as the penalty for failure to perform is limited only by the actual cost of market price power from anyone with capacity.
There are exceptions for the Renewable Portfolio , but wind and solar comprise such a small amount of US Grid capacity that they are more a nuisance than a real problem.
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This. The “semi-scheduled” desigination applied to renewables to allow them market priority access is a travesty that totally undermines an otherwise efficient, reliable, market-driven deployment and operation of generators.
One rule for all is the basis of a truly fair and efficient market.
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The RET’s got to go. That is the crux of the matter.
I have written repeatedly to my MP, who just happens to be Angus Taylor, telling him exactly that. I am quite sure that Angus “gets it” and the problem lies elsewhere in the Liberal Party. I had hoped that replacing Malcolm Turnbull by Scott Morrison, and the election of Scott Morrison, would see an end to the feebleness in the Liberal Party, but it seems that the Greens still have them running scared. Something will eventually end this nightmare, but I’m getting very tired of waiting.
Some of my letters to Angus have been shoft and just reinforcing the point, but in some I have spelled out the reasons for the RET having to be scrapped. For example:
To: Angus Taylor
2 June 2018
Power Prices
Hi Angus –
The federal government has reportedly called on power producers to cut prices.
Please can you explain to Josh Frydenberg and the cabinet that it is the federal government’s own policy that is driving up prices. The reason is simple, but a bit tricky to understand:-
The federal government’s MRET (Mandatory Renewable Energy Target) requires power providers to use renewable energy in preference to other sources of energy, even if energy from other sources is available and cheaper. As more and more renewable energy gets onto the grid, the other energy sources such as coal and gas are used less and less. But …
… the fixed costs of coal and gas don’t change. This means that, as use of coal and gas is forcibly reduced, their fixed cost per unit necessarily increases.
So, even if the cost of renewable energy is itself reducing, the MRET is necessarily forcing up the price of electricity.
This may seem counter-intuitive, but I assure you that it is correct. You can verify that quite simply by observing that the highest percentage use of renewable energy in the developed world is in South Australia – and South Australia has the highest electricity prices in the developed world. On a national basis, the highest percentage users of renewable energy are Denmark and Germany – and they have the two highest national electricity prices.
Forcing people to use renewable energy has been an unmitigated disaster, wasting people’s money and making Australian industry less competitive. Please get the federal government to change its policy very very soon – before there is even more damage.
Note that the supposed reason for forcing renewable energy on us – climate change – is ridiculous. Even if the current science of climate is absolutely correct it is demonstrably the case that using renewable energy instead of fossil fuels will make no measurable difference to global temperature.
Yours
…
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I totally agree, Mike. An alternative exists – simply reduce the $65 / MWh penalty in the legislation for retailers not buying these subsidy certificates, say to 1 cent. This is a perfect market mechanism which allows retailers to choose whether to buy intermittent power or reliable power. By the way at least one retailer has chosen to pay the full $65 penalty rather than buy intermittent, so the system works.
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Mike Jonas, I’ve given up on both major parties a long time ago. I agree Morrison so far is somewhat a disappointment but I’m willing to give him a little more time. The test is what he will do when the next coal fired power station is about to be closed down. His action should not be left that late but so far he’s not really interested in doing anything. If Trump was out PM he would by now would be extending the life of existing coal fired power stations with incentives and loans.
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Yep, it took a while to screw up. It wont be fixed overnight no matter how many people dream of the stroke of a pen fix.
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BTW, Morrison is a strong advocate of reducing our emissions, possibly because he wants to appease those who do believe we should do so to save the planet from global warming/climate change, something that is of course impossible to do even if it were true, which it isn’t. Japan alone as those who bother to read is building far more coal fired power stations than what we can close down to try and “save the planet”. Then bring in China into the equation and those who promote emission reductions, including Morrison, are just being outright stupid.
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The RET is not the crux. It is a major component but market priority access (ie generate whenever, whatever and you can sell it) is just as important as the RET in enabling renewables to undermine the grid. That you don’t see it shows the opportunity that is presented for its removal since the vast majority of greentards won’t, either, so it won’t be defended like the RET
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You can’t un-see this:
China provides $1 billion in ‘green’ finance to coal projects in first half of the year
“China Energy News, a publication run by the Communist Party-owned paper the People’s Daily, reported this year that more than 80% of a central government renewable energy fund was used to fund fossil fuels like coalbed methane and shale gas in 2018.
China also approved 141 million tonnes of new annual coal mining capacity in the first half of this year, compared to 25 million tonnes for the whole of 2018.
More coal-fueled power stations are also expected to be built, with an industry lobby group predicting total coal-fired capacity to peak at 1,300 gigawatts, meaning another 290 GW could go into operation.”
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-china-greenbonds-coal/china-provides-1-billion-in-green-finance-to-coal-projects-in-first-half-of-the-year-idUSKCN1V90FY
I see treason.
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Beijing’s flirtation with renewables came to an end earlier this year.
‘China has said it will not approve wind and solar power projects unless they can compete with coal power prices.
‘Beijing pulled the plug on support for large solar projects, which had been receiving a per kWh payment, in late May. That news came immediately after the country’s largest solar industry event and caught everyone by surprise.’
Forbes
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You see treason. I see China doing things as usual, saying one thing to the foreign media while doing what is rational. You can do that if you control the media in country, and censor the foreign media.
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I too don’t see treason on the part of our government. I just see plain old fashioned stupidity and gutless inaction. China on the other hand (and Japan for that matter) are behaving as though they are part of the real world. We behave as though it’s our duty to save the planet form some mythical CAGW on our own by not taking into account what other countries like Japan, China and India are doing. Some might see that as treason but it’s not necessarily so. It’s really a reflection on how scared our two major political parties are on what they perceive is the public opinion on climate change issues, real or imaginary. In other words they are gutless and the public are clueless, by and large. WHo is to blame? The MSM and education system of course. Universities in particular are in effect spreading total distortions of the truth by covering up and ignoring the truth. Universities are meant to be our “high priest” of the truth. Today they are the “high priest” of propaganda and untruths.
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The four pillars supporting the AGW structure: science, politics, education and media. A change of attitude within particular sections of the MSM should bring the whole tent down.
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Not so much of the science !!
Just politics, lack of education, and the media.
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G’day e g,
May I suggest an improvement? Use “science” instead of science, and I’d agree 100%.
Cheers
Dave B
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Were the MSM to start telling the truth, I absolutely guarantee the entire edifice of teetering Greenism would topple within a month … the outrage, sackings and dismantling of substantial parts of universities, institutions, ‘scientific’ bodies, government climatism charades, UN IPCC, UNEP, ECOSOC, followed smartly by a very, very long and enraged queue of litigants pursuing redress.
It is not entirely beyond the realm of possibility.
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The MSM is the crucial link in the cycle. It moulds public opinion, which politicians in turn pander to with stupid policy, with education funding for institutions where free speech and proper scientific standards are banned, and with funding to the “scientists” who produce alarmist reports that the media love and need to sell papers. The pollies then have imaginary threats to save us from to further justify their interventions in our lives. The cycle feeds upon itself.
We need to break the back of the MSM somehow (no idea how) to swing public opinion and redirect the politicians to rational policy, and to give them confidence to act or a pitchfork to the rear, whichever is required. This will have no effect on the Greens and radical Labor Left of course, who will carry their ideology to the grave, no matter how hard reality hits them in the face, but they could be relegated to irrelevance.
If only we had a public broadcaster with a charter of impartiality, and if only we had a PM who wasn’t a fence-sitter. But I dream.
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I fully agree.
No matter how true or convincing the science, the facts, or the evidence, is…if you cannot communicate those points to the wider public ..effectively, ..then you cannot win…and that requires a MSM presence continuously.
Leaders and dictators throughout history have known and demonstrated this point repeatedy.
We need more like A bolt, Jones, Credlin, etc etc…a Farage/Monkton type figurehead with a national platform and support base to argue the case at all levels of public debate.
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Does Jo have a sceptic app?
That might be useful reaching the snowflake generation…..
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Ita’s brief is to bring the ABC back to the centre.
“Creative people, the kind of people who work at the ABC, are very sensitive people,” she said.
“You’ve got to understand that – that’s why they do the sort of things that they do.
“So they’re a little more fragile than some workers. They have to be patted a bit, and reassured that all is well,” Buttrose said.
SMH
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The little petals! Quite happy to bully those of us who don’t share their views, however. We are not allowed to be sensitive little melting snowflakes.
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Ita is the ABC chair and practicing satirist …
‘… the use of humour, irony, exaggeration, or ridicule to expose and criticize people’s stupidity or vices, particularly in the context of contemporary politics and other topical issues.’
31
I see treason.
Politicians of all stripes have engaged in destruction of our energy system, and stupid can’t be the excuse.
They know what they do. And so do we.
Blowing up our coal-fired power energy system whilst knowing China is doing that, telling us lies, is more than criminal.
They even signed the Paris agreement to do it.
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Bring on the inevitable Climate Nuremberg Trials….its only a matter of time….
31
Actually, a 2nd Rule needs changing.
The overhead cost of the infrastructure and maintenance per kWh or MWh ought to be assigned to the price of the wind and solar who are avoiding those costs while preventing the thermal plants / utilities from realizing said revenue which drives up the apparent cost of the thermal plants. A patently unfair accounting system that subsidizes the wind/solar at the expense of thermal and hangs the full cost on the taxpayers and ratepayers.
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I have at various time suggested that wind, and electricity I supply in general, be measured by a “reliability factor”
That being the percentage of name plate they can be relied on to supply 95% of the time.
For German wind power in 2015 and 2016, that was around 3-4% of nameplate,
For German Solar, the reliability factor was obviously a big fat ZERO.
Coal just sits on a steady 80-90%, 24/365
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They’re beginning to
find outexperience the cost in the UK.Doubtless, as many may know here, over in the UK …
Such extravagance defines economic unsustainability, while creeping despair and destitution add to a recession from which there may be no recovery unless the scourge of the Green Death is obliterated from the political landscape.
Western technology and prosperity has indulged and enabled far too many idiots and ideologues for too long. Their expiry date is due. They have an urgent destiny to fulfil, the lithium and cobalt child slave mines of the Congo.
The silver lining of their Green nightmare requires a polish.
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Latus Dextro:
Very little lithium comes from the Congo. Were you thinking of Zimbabwe?
Actually Australia, Chile and Argentina produce more than them (as also China).
41
Run with Cobalt then, they dwarf the rest of the world. The point remains the same.
21
A minimum would shut the wind industry. The removal of the RET people’s cash for nothing would shut the windmills.
The move to DC would remove the threat from windmills, but there is a fundamental problem with non commandable occasional power, what to do with it?
The Dutch used windmills to drain the marshes and lower the sea level. This is a never ending task but speed was not important. It just had to be done.
Pumping water is still a task like that. There must be other tasks. Desalination perhaps. Lifting water over hills in a North South pipeline?
The problem is that if you start to list the uses of random power, you quickly run out, which is why the world abandoned windmills the moment the steam engine appeared. They are a blot on the landscape and the few dilapidated skeletons from a medieval age of windmills look cute from England to Holland to Spain to Myknos. Even in Gibraltar the side of the mountain which collected water still collects water but it is not needed. Power is still far cheaper and more reliable supplied steadily from fossil fuel.
So it’s all about the myth that fossil fuel is bad for you. Or that electric cars can be charged let alone rapidly from an outlet powered by something not yet discovered.
Until the idea that fossil fuel is killing the planet is slain, the insanity, the illogical, the massive ripoff will continue. We are being robbed under Australian law, without our knowledge or permission.
We don’t need more giant batteries. We don’t need Snowy II. We don’t need to save the Great Barrier Reef. We don’t need to prevent rapid sea level rise like the Dutch boy who put his finger in the dyke and saved the town. We need real science from real scientists, not Al Gore and Tim Flannery and Hollywood. In the Day after Tomorrow, the truth will out.
Repeal the Renewable Energy (Electricity) Act 2000, the RET and electricity prices would halve the next day and the march of the windmills across our country would stop. Please.
REXIT. Renewable Energy EXIT
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The RET is NOT the only thing that could derail the renewables. It is a major component but market priority access (ie generate whenever, whatever and you can sell it) is just as important as the RET in enabling renewables to undermine the grid. That you don’t see it shows the opportunity that is presented for its removal since the vast majority of greentards won’t, either, so it won’t be defended like the RET
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The RET is what pushes electricity through the roof. Windmills get paid even if they do not sell the electricity. This is no longer made clear by government web sites, but it a reward for generation, not a bonus on sales.
That is because LGCs and electricity are of necessity sold separately. Retailers who buy wind or solar do not need to buy STCs or LGCs.
It’s people who buy evil ‘ineligible’ electricity under the Act who have to buy these special carbon indulgences at up to $85 a Megawatthour.
Private Hepburn Wind gets around $900,000 for their electricity. They get $800,000 in additional cash for their LGCs.
You the consumer have to pay for both. One is worthless and the cash goes, often tax free, to the owners for nothing at all.
90
Incidentally in the market where you have a choice to buy Wind energy with no penalty or Coal energy with a penalty and at the same price, which would you buy? That is the origin of the ‘market priority access’. If you cannot get LGCs for your dirty coal electrons, you have to pay a penalty set by law at $60 a Megawatt hour anyway. The limit for solar penalties is $40 a megawatt hour.
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This is how it works.
Consider two coffee shops. Opposite sides of the street. Same coffee.
Coffee at one shop is $4 but you have to pay the other approved guy $4 for the right to buy from the first. If you do not, the government fines you $4 anyway.
So one coffee costs $8 but the owner only gets $4. The other $4 goes to the man who can make coffee when no one wants it.
The other guy also charges $7.99 because he knows the customer has to pay $8 and he will get $4 regardless. The government calls this a free market.
He also knows that he can tip coffees down the sink at 4am and he will still get $4 a coffee.
The first coffee shop shuts as he can only get $4 and people will not buy his coffee unless the other guy runs out.
Also he has to keep the store open and the machine hot and staff ready in case the approved guy runs out of coffee. He does not get paid for this.
So the second coffee shop now gets all the business and increase his charge to $12 but quickly runs out of coffee. A black out.
Or he speeds up the process and buys the first distressed coffee shop for almost nothing and shuts it down so he can get the $12. Picture AGL and Liddell for which they paid $0.
This is why the biggest, cheapest, most reliable, commandable coal power stations are shutting. Not priority access to the market. The illegal RET.
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Sounds like the start of one of those Industry Super adverts 🙂
30
And about as relevant.
31
You really need to read the legislation on the “semi-scheduled” designation. It absolves the generator of the need to guarantee supply for bids for which all other generator types get heavily fined.
Get that through your head before you post again. The LRET has NOTHING to do with “semi-scheduled” designation and market priority access.
RickWill has even posted about how the RECs are becoming ineffectual due to the falling price of the LGCs.
http://joannenova.com.au/2019/08/just-change-one-rule-so-the-world-can-see-what-wind-and-solar-really-cost/#comment-2178050
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Sure, so this is a key phrase which is legally significant? Just point me to the relevant Act. Canberra must have been busy.
As for ineffectual and falling, they are still selling at over $42 a Mwhr and going up, not falling. This is having gone over $80 each just a year ago. However I have read that companies are able to legally delay their purchasing for a year, an interesting technique which forces cash poor windmill companies to sell lower. These are just money games. The total for these worthless electronic certificates is still in the billions for nothing and of course it is at the wholesale level, so we pay double. For nothing and you think this is not pushing up prices? That’s the whole point, to force coal and gas generators out of business and it is working.
40
Seems like a good idea.
By the way in the AEMO corporate plan, they are forecasting renewable supply to make up near 50% of the mix by 2023. (About page 13). There is also planning to improve grid reliability.
https://www.aemo.com.au/About-AEMO/Our-vision-mission-and-values
In other news the reliability of NSW and Victorian power plants would also be exposed if such a guarantee was introduced
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“In other news the incredibly good reliability of NSW and Victorian coal fired power plants would also be exposed if such a guarantee was introduced.
Fixed it for you . PF
Did you know that if Germany had a “reliability factor” that looked at how much electricity wind turbines could guarantee to deliver 95% of the time, it would be a feeble 3-4% of nameplate.
Pathetically unreliable, wouldn’t you agree, PF.
What do you think it would be for a coal fired power station.
Even the 3 remaining very old turbines at Hazelwood were up near 100% 24/7 in the few months before its idiotic closure.
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They may as well throw in Middle East peace, its about as possible.
40
Seems like a good idea.
By the way in the AEMO corporate plan, they are forecasting renewable supply to make up near 50% of the mix by 2023. (About page 13). There is also planning to improve grid reliability.
https://www.aemo.com.au/About-AEMO/Our-vision-mission-and-values
In other news the reliability of NSW and Victorian power plants would also be exposed if such a guarantee was introduced
024
Interesting. Haven’t read the pretty public relations brochure but I am sure you can explain how they intend getting the wind to blow at a steady rate all the time.
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PF is not very good at explaining his fantasies.
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Look at what the AEMO are saying, and stop blaming the messenger. This is a very good reason for the full costs of all forms of power generation to be exposed.
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The gullibility of the messenger, who is apparently without any ability for rational thought.
That is the issue.
” the full costs of all forms of power generation to be exposed.”
And the benefits, like those of coal, being that it is totally responsible for basically all of the developed world.
There is NO benefit from using wind or solar, period.
Neither helps produce anything or further human development.
.. in fact, they are proving to to be doing just the opposite.
A HUGE burden on society and on the environment.
Neither has any benefit at all to anything except the subsidy farmers.
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Another benefit from coal are the release of CO2 into the atmosphere,
A further benefit from coal is the production of highly useful by-products such as ash, which is used to make a large range of construction products. Without it, many constructions products would be a lot more expensive.
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So, you do not support the exposure of coal fired generation to the same rules that you want to apply to renewables (but not hydro)
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Do you support wind and solar being exposed to the same rules as coal-fired power?
Reliability of supply is what coal gave to modern civilisation that allowed civilisation to advance.
It is the first and foremost necessity
Wind and solar just cannot meet this necessity in any way whatsoever.
A total failure, in fact
If wind and solar had to meet this very basic requirement, they wouldn’t even exist !
Cost always have to be offset against benefits.
Coal has many benefits.
Wind and solar have NONE, just costs.!
80
Again, your lack of comprehension of hydro is quite hilarious.
But its all you have to troll with, isn’t it, PF. 🙂
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Come on PF, lets see how you would get Hydro to power, say Sydney, 24/7.
Coal has done so for many years.
Tassie Hydro still even can’t be guaranteed to power Hobart 24/365 without Bass-Link.
Waiting to see you explain Hydro for Sydney.
Slap-stick comedy ’twill be for sure.
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Seriously Andy ? you expect him (assume its a him) to defend your assertion when he said nothing of kind. Sometimes you are more illogical than PF
03
While I don’t believe that man made global warming is a thing, nor that the seas are rising etc. I do think that the passion displayed here against solar and wind power gets a little out of hand. The issue is not that these forms of electricity generation are entirely useless, it is that we have stupidly opted to use them for mainstream power supply in places where better alternatives, hydro, coal and gas exist. Remote sites that would otherwise rely on diesel generators can obviously benefit from solar and wind power with batteries. As to Hydro not supplying Tas’s needs in full without bass link, I think you’ll find that had the green/labor muppets not run the dams dry selling “green power” to gullible Vics (burning out the cable in the process..)Tassie would do just fine. For many years without Basslink Tas was self sufficient with hydro and the oil then gas fired plant at Bell bay sat idle. Also if we’d dammed the Gordon back in the eighties, not only would there be an amazing lake with associated adventure tourism activities in the South West but twice the generation capacity Tas has today. That ridiculous hypocrite Bob Brown has many things to answer for, and stopping Gordon below Franklin is top of my list. Also before I get green bashed, yes I have spent a lot of time in the area and while undeniably beautiful, the lake would have been a better outcome for the state.
30
I don’t expect PF to support anything he ever says.
Its not part of being him. !
He is saying coal, hydro, wind solar should all have the same rules.
I couldn’t agree more.
If they did, wind and solar would not exist except as a tiny niche market,
and hydro in Australia would never be anything more than bit player it currently is.
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Want the same rules, then wind and solar and hydro must be able to supply what is needed when it is needed.
Therefore, my comment on hydro supplying Sydney by itself, like coal has for many decades, is totally logical.
40
The real costs is not just monetary. It’s also lives. Moving to a more expensive, less reliable source of power based on renewables murders people. Those who promote renewables too heavily such as here in Australia have blood on their hands.
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The recent UK blackout sent a shiver down the spine of insurance companies, fearing the cost of a 24 hour blackout would be incalculable.
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Splendid. That will be one industry less likely to Virtue Signal about renewables in future.
80
Climate catastrophe gives insurance companies the amunition to set higher premiums. Pricing of risk is predominantly set by historic claims and the competition in the insurance markets. However climate catastrophe provides a great basis for raising premiums when competition is poor despite a good claims history.
With new projects, insurance requirement can result in higher engineering standards than legislators require. For example, some companies simply do not insure buildings with expanded or extruded foam sandwich panels. The risk of devastating fire is too high.
40
So clear and logical Jo, yet still the pollies don’t/won’t get it.
To add to your facts:
From the nameplate wind capacity of 6,702 MW connected to the AEMO grid, there have been days this year when wind has delivered a minimum of 140 MW and a maximum of 700 MW. And there have been weeks when wind has delivered an average of just 1,000 MW. So essentially wind must be 99% backed up by reliable generators. Yet some weeks wind delivers an average 3,000 MW forcing reliable generators to be on standby with little or no income.
And of course when it comes to solar, every evening solar must be 100% backed up by reliable generators. Solar delivers a variable 2,500-6,500 MW around midday, forcing other generators to curtail production but still be ready for the evening peak.
But that’s not the only costs. The networks have also made increased investments to cope with the maximum output from these widely distributed intermittent generators, all paid for by consumers. And then governments have been building their own bureaucracies to monitor this madness, and handing out taxpayer dollars to further support the renewable (ruinable) investors.
Writing to ministers seems to achieve nothing. Perhaps we need to generate a petition to present to each parliament?
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So many examples in Jo’s. recent threads of the dysfunctional Political Engineering.
Token Solar roads, token wind “power”, token hydro, token rooftop solar etc.
Why is Tokenism so Rampant?
Votes! > control > skim > riches beyond imagination.
KK
100
Article 28 of the UN euphemistically termed, “Transformational Agenda” spells out the nightmare clearly:
We all know what the end looks like, if the dismantling is allowed to continue, which I don’t believe it will.
[Beware the word fraud in a URL. It will put you into moderation as easily as if you typed it yourself. ;-)] AZ
70
Token Atlantic cruises
30
Robber – in summary the LRET is one of the most cunning, misleading, disruptive pieces of legislation that our federal parliament has ever had put before it, and worse, has passed into law. I would love to find out where the design of this nasty legislation originated. I’m pretty sure that few if any of our pollies have the degree of rat cunning needed to dream it up – it must have originated somewhere closer to our enemies.
20
For Wind Farms read fake power plant – I like it.
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Here you have the whole fleet of wind power in Australia with a Nameplate of 6702MW.
It’s currently operating at a Capacity Factor (CF) of around that yearly average of 30%. (29.05% in fact after 46 weeks)
So, it’s averaging just on 2000MW.
Perhaps the same argument could be used for coal fired power.
It has a Nameplate of 23000MW, and its current average power delivery is 16450MW, so its operating at a CF of 71.5%.
The wind power fleet is not operating at maximum all the time, because it is dependent upon the wind.
However, the difference here is that those coal fired Units which are not delivering power are off line for maintenance. At any one point in time, almost 15% to 25% of that coal fired fleet is off line being serviced, and that is done on a carefully planned basis, so that there is always that huge amount of power available to supply a grid which has a minimum power consumption of 18000MW.
For those operational Units, feed in coal and they can actually deliver (up to) 100% of their power. On a daily basis, coal fired power ramps up and down by an average 3000MW to 5000MW, and when they are needed the most, at the evening peak, those Units currently on line are delivering their power at a CF between 90 and 95%.
Read that again. Coal fired power ramps up and down on a daily basis by 3000MW plus, and yet the average power delivery from all wind power is just 2000MW.
While the cost for wind power is large, the fact that they actually fail to deliver is just as important.
Would you (personally, by you own private decision making process) buy a new car if you KNEW it was only going to work one time in three every time you wanted to use it, and in the knowledge it was going to be a more expensive choice as well.
Tony.
250
With regard to the car analogy it is worse thab you suggest Tony.
You might get in the car and it starts then it stops halfway to the destination then it randomly starts and stops multiple times. It operates at variable speed in a random manner.
In the end you abandon the car and take a reliable bus.
150
Or, if the bus service is affected too, a reliable pair of legs
Ain’t that progress (/s)
50
Tony,
The car analogy to me would be;
Would you buy a new car if the sales man was honest and said “You can’t sell your old car cause we don’t know when this new one will work or how fast of far it will go when it does work!”
There are obviously NO HONEST WIND ENERGY SALES MEN
70
“they can actually deliver (up to) 100% of their power”
Weren’t a couple of them delivering over 100% of their nameplate capacity at some stage?
60
I was watching the VIC coal plants not long after Hazelwood shut and a few times I noticed at least 2 stations delivering 109-110% of CF as they tried to take up the slack. On those days every coal and gas plant was screaming to meet demand.
When they are being worked to death it is no wonder some break down. “Unreliable coal power stations” the ABC yells.
150
“buy a new car if you KNEW it was only going to work one time in three every time you wanted to use it”
Then you have to use a rental when you absolutely need a car, at great expense. !
80
Good
Analogy.
60
Tony,
If I get it correctly the “choke point ” for the fossil fuel units is around the top of their production needed to cover anticipated loads – in which space is where maintenance is scheduled?
Unlike renewables where the “choke point” is around the worst expected and then where almost the entire load needs to be picked up by alternative sources (and fossil/nuclear are the only sources available)
50
Tony has covered this before.
Generation required peaks in summer, and can be high in winter (unlike Europe & the UK after Brexit where peak demand is in winter). In Autumn and Spring a coal-fired plant engineer’s fancy turns to scheduled maintenance, and plants are shut down by arrangement while leaving plenty of reserve.
The recent breakdowns causing concern about probable (partial) blackouts in Victoria** this coming summer have happened in the past, but then there was plenty of reserve. Shutting down coal-fired (and gas) plants for ideological reasons and pushing the remaining plants hard during peak demand don’t help reliability, but more stress is caused by the ramping up and down imposed by variable supply from renewables.
Thanks to politicians who have NO IDEA at all about electricity generation we are getting close to people needing their own generator, and to your own generator probably being cheaper to run.
**and feeding on to SA and Tasmania.
110
Thanks Graeme No.3,
That has been the biggest revelation I have had during this taking of this daily power generation data, the fact that wind power has no effect whatsoever on coal fired power generation. When I first saw it early on in the process, I thought it was an abberation, but it happened every time.
Whether wind power is high or low, coal fired power is the same, day in, day out.
The only effect it does have is if wind power is high, then the other three non coal fired sources (natural gas, hydro, and those smaller Other sources) are lower by virtually the same amount as wind is up, and vice versa, when wind power is low, then those other three are higher by around the same amount wind is down.
Coal fired power ramps up and down on a daily basis, following almost precisely the Load Curve for total power generation from every source, and you could go back to the dawn of power generation, and coal fired power did that same thing, ramp up and down following that Load Curve for the total every day, every week, every Season. It has always ramped up and down by that range of 3000MW to 5000MW, every day.
And Graeme is also correct when he mentions that there is now NO rolling reserve, which was the sole province of old coal fired plants approaching their 50 year (and more) use by date, and they would be fired up to be hot and ready when Maintenance time came around for those operational Units, so that as the ‘In Service’ Unit wound down, the rolling reserve Unit took its place delivering power. The same applied for the rare breakdowns. There they were, ready to take over with the large amounts of power that a coal fired Unit can deliver. Hydro would come in at the point in time of that failure, almost instantaneously delivering some replacement power as the rolling reserve came on line, and when that was up and running, the hydro would roll down to zero again, with that hydro Unit(s) sometimes on for less than an hour.
Now, that Maintenance schedule has become critical, and there actually are problems at times of those rare failures, all of them handled so well by those AEMO engineers, so well in fact that the public doesn’t even know, until a few days later when those anti coal fired power people twig that it actually happened. I see those rare failures as they happen now, and I then can chase down and explain exactly what happens.
Tony.
220
Tony,
Whilst that may well be true for Wind, it is very apparent that solar (RT and Utility scale),.do significantly influence the output of the coal plants.
It is clear on the NSW nemlog charts that during peak solar periods, , approx 2 GW of coal generation is displaced by Solar input. Gas, Wind, Hydro change little, but the bulk displacement is on the coal plants
Obviously the effect is different in different states…QLD has more solar, and the same effect can be seen there also.
Most of the solar contribution could be/filled by coal capacity, even at its currently reduced capacity…and often is when the weather fails solar.
60
Chad,
I thought exactly the same in fact.
However, after so many years of the availability of Load Curves, those Greenies have finally discovered them, and attributed the false explanation to them.
They see that Load Curve for coal fired power, and how it dips between the morning peak and the evening peak, and its their “AHA” moment, as they loudly proclaim ….. See how coal fired power ramps back during that time, you know, just as solar plant power and rooftop solar power kick in. This conclusively proves that solar power is having an effect on coal fired power.
Coal fired power has been ramping back during those two daily peaks since the very first coal fired Units came on line.
I went back as far as I could go and looked at Load Curves isolating just coal fired power, and they ramped back as much then as they do to this day.
Again, it is natural gas fired power and hydro where rooftop solar has the biggest impact, as their proportion of the total during that dip has shrunk across the years.
When there is actual Consumption during that dip of 20000MW, the vast bulk of that as always is delivered by coal fired power, now, and back then also.
Tony.
140
Tony’s daily data clearly shows that across the AEMO grid, as wind and solar ramp up and down the major impact is on hydro and gas. That impact is most evident in the Vic/SA/Tas area where 2/3 of wind generators operate. (in SA all they have is gas, wind and solar, and then the Vic interconnector.)
However in Qld, with little wind, gas and hydro used, the coal generators do have to respond to midday solar.
60
You forgot the diesels! (gas fired but still diesels because that is what they start up on).
Seriously, I see Electranet (the SA Distributor) is ‘spending’ $169 million to install ‘spinning reserve’.
A sort of Clayton’s coal-fired power station without the coal fire.
They are going to RECOUP THE COST FROM CONSUMERS (where have I heard that before?) but say it will save SA users about $5 a year.
90
….BUT, the coal CF is dictated by supply restrictions resulting from the “priority” of supply allocated to solar and wind generators.
100
Chad stated:
….
This is no longer the case. Intermittent grid scale generators cannot afford to take long periods at negative prices so they have more progressive pricing bands now than before negative prices were a common event. They have active bidding strategies and often rebid as the forecasts firm.
Coal generators are bidding significant chunks of energy close to the floor price of minus $1000. That takes grid scale intermittents out of dispatch; essentially voluntarily curtailing output. Queensland had negative price of minus $10/MWh today (Tuesday) and lunchtime price is scheduled to go to minus $100 on Wednesday. The coal plants can tolerate periods of negative prices as they know they can bid in a price to make money in the peaks. Intermittents curtail output to avoid sending out money with the energy. They have limited opportunity to make recover from negative prices. Grid scale solar peaks at the same time rooftops are killing wholesale demand. Most wind plants sing in tune as weather patterns are commonly the same across the bulk go of the wind farms. They inevitably share the same period to make money and that is the period when the market is oversupplied and prices rock bottom.
Only rooftop now have priority scheduling. The only mechanism of curtailing it is when local voltage rises causing grid tied inverters to reduce output to the allowable maximum voltage. We could see the situation in South Australia in October this year where all grid intermittents are curtailed with rooftops taking wholesale demand down to 250MW, which is supplied by gas plants to maintain system stability.
30
Rick,
Im sure pricing has an impact on generator output decisions, however if you look at the actual output for QLD today (nem log) it is clear that utility solar was supplying over 1 GW for several hours, and Roof top solar another 1.5 GW. Whilst Gas, hydro , etc did little more than peak support.
It is also clear that during the “solar production period” , coal was wound down significantly from its max capacity periods.
It seems logical to assume , that if the solar had not been available. ( or never installed ?) then coal would have filled the extra daytime demand
40
Coal is wound up and down within their tolerable range but they are prepared to accept negative pricing for a portion of their output to ensure the generators are dispatched at their minimum capacity. The block of energy offered at large negative prices would probably match the cost of going off line and coming back on.
If you look carefully at the NEMLOG for QLD on the 20th you will see a small dip in the grid scale solar output around midday when the wholesale price went negative. Also note that the rooftop solar did not show any dip so the dip in grid scale was due to negative pricing not insolation.
http://nemlog.com.au/gen/co2e/
Wind in South Australia is often constrained for stability reasons but is increasingly constrained by negative pricing events.
20
Rick,
As i said, i do not deny that those pricing decisions do happen…
But my point is that Solar definitely reduces the opportunity for coal generators to operate at a higher CF
10
Chad
When discussing wind and solar and printing CF in capitals think the one usually printed in lower case and you’d be closer to the mark
30
I wonder what the capacity factor for hydro is?
110
Very low…dictated by water availability (weather) , and demand requirements ..(peak loads mostly)
60
Just ask the Tasmanians about this. Their experience in 2016 (when the Basslink interconnector failed) is telling.
90
You just love comparing apples to oranges don’t you?
Hydro is used as it is required. It is not there to be used 100% of the time.
It will work in a similar vein to 100% in tiny jurisdictions like Tasmania (5% of Australia’s total power consumption) and even then, it’s still used on an as required basis.
You’re really not very good at this, are you?
(And anyway, Peter Fitzroy, why wonder about it. It’s an easy enough thing to work out, if you just go and look it up for yourself, instead of asking others to do it for you)
Tony.
140
Oh, I see Hydro is different, and should not be included in the renewables group. Better tell AEMO Tony
112
Hydro really shouldn’t since it is usually dispatchable and is highly predictable.
But even the greenwash cannot agree on this and include hydro with other renewables when convenient (usually when quoting “total amount/percentage” power generated by renewables) and ruling it out when not (usually when defining subsidies and grants for renewable generation deployment).
130
Sorry your mind doesn’t have the capability to comprehend the difference.
It has been explained to you often enough, but you either refuse to even try to comprehend, or are just plain dumb !!
60
Do we know what the coal generators actually claim their capacity to be? Nameplate of total units vs capacity of units assured of being online given outages/maintenance etc
30
Yes.
Individual generator capacities are registered with the AEMO.
They are available at several sites online
30
19 Aug: HawkesburyGazette: Macquarie Electorate Student Climate Activists (MESCA) organises Hawkesbury Climate Forum with Hawkesbury City Council
IF you want to learn more about Climate Change and its predicted impact on the Hawkesbury, then go along to the Hawkesbury Climate Forum, organised by the Macquarie Electorate Student Climate Activists (MESCA).
It will be held on Thursday, August 29 from 6.30pm to 8.30pm at Hawkesbury Central Library, Tebbutt Room, 300 George Street, Windsor
Supported by Hawkesbury City Council, the Hawkesbury Climate Forum aims to raise broad discussions about climate change with the local community, the Mayor of Hawkesbury, Councillor Barry Calvert said…
Speakers and topics will include:
•Macquarie Electorate Student Climate Activists, William Potter and Helen McCarthy: Why are school students going on strike?…
•School of Business Western Sydney University, Dr Neil Perry: The cost of climate action vs the cost of doing nothing…
•Forum Moderator, Damien Feneley, Greater Western Sydney Regional Centre of Expertise on Education for Sustainable Development, a United Nations endorsed program…ETC
Register your attendance at LINK
https://www.hawkesburygazette.com.au/story/6330589/climate-change-forum-to-discuss-actions-for-hawkesbury/
22
Thank you pat, but I will have a subsequent engagement.
80
2 hours to discuss “climate” at a Council Forum …wouldn’t be enough time for the speakers to “rattle off their credentials” 🙂
40
I agree with 90% of the observations above.
My observation is…. are there any renewable energy captains looking at ocean currents as a form of very reliable, instant and considerable energy supply?
From my ignorant standpoint it would seem to me that if an ocean current has been travelling at the same speed – in the same direction – with the same enormous energy – for many millennia… then it has to be an unbackable favourite to be doing the same thing, very reliably, for at least the next hundred years.
Are there any opportunities worth pursuing UNDER the waves??
14
For reliable electricity generation – NO.
For lots of subsidies – YES.
Try the Pentland Firth undersea turbines. Pentland Firth is the gap between Scotland and Orkney and has violent tides as water transfers between the Atlantic and North Sea (and back). So much so that ships under 20,000 tons aren’t allowed to cross under their own power at certain times.
It would seem the best location available, not least in the UK. Reality seems to have other ideas.
80
Graeme No 3…
Yes, I know about that one, and several others like it.
The thing of it is… they are tidal, not ocean currents.
Currents are my primary interest. Tides are speed based, currents are energy based.
Energy from currents that are many thousands of miles long and are much more predictable for timing and speed, usually around half to 1knt, must surely be better value??
10
Hi Sandy,
Please allow me to jump in here, as you seem to be having a bit of an issue. Your proposal has been addressed in several posts. If I may be allowed to summarize, and perhaps add a bit as well:
Operating in the oceanic environment (littoral, or ‘nearshore’, or virtually anywhere) is a tremendous challenge. The ocean is an unforgiving environment. Any equipment you place there must be maintainable, often on a daily or weekly basis (check out the requirements for offshore rigs in the Gulf of Mexico; divers check various aspects of the rig substructure several times per week, and that substructure is massive, and, as it turns out, much simpler than some type of underwater electrical generating turbine would be). When or if a rig is to be moved, it is ‘refurbished’ enroute to its new location, rather than being towed into a port, getting checked and reinforced, and then being sent out again.
Someone posted the results of a few decades of experiments with harnessing ocean current/tidal power; none have been successful. It is not for a lack of trying, or a lack of technology, or anything else, other than the fact that attempting to do so is a recipe for failure, and potentially, disaster.
We have tried, and we have not been successful. There may come a time and place in the future where/when this will be a viable alternative. But for 21st Century Planet Earth, we would be better off investing in coal, oil, natural gas, nuclear, hydro-electric (conventional — — along existing streams that can be dammed and create fresh water storage and recreational opportunities). I was a young lad the first time I heard about the ‘promise’ of fusion power, and in seven decades, it’s always been … … ‘ … just around the corner … ‘ from today … … …
… … so I’ve put on my “sceptical” hat everytime I’ve heard about these ‘pie in the sky’ possibilities, that, well, they just never quite seem to get here.
Dunno why, but that’s the way it is.
My very best to you and yours, with prosperity and good health,
Vlad
10
Depleting the energy in ocean currents is a fast track to climate change of who knows what magnitude and direction.
01
I agree with 90% of the observations above.
My question is…. are there any renewable energy captains looking at ocean currents as a form of very reliable, instant and considerable energy supply?
From my ignorant standpoint it would seem to me that if an ocean current has been travelling at the same speed – in the same direction – with the same enormous energy – for many millennia… then it has to be an unbackable favourite to be doing the same thing, very reliably, for at least the next hundred years.
Are there any opportunities worth pursuing UNDER the waves??
12
No. Graeme’s point about tidal power production is the BEST CASE for using current flow since it is predictable and the current is relatively easy to harness. Out in the open ocean, the costs would be colossal both for deployment AND maintenance plus the efficiency would be extremely low and output would be quite difficult to predict until implemented. And then there is the environmental damage for having vast turbines to capture the current.
100
Sandy,
If you search for “ocean power generation” and similar,…you will find numerous links to trials and companies that are trying to harness ocean currents.
You will discover most of them leave a reail of failure behind them.
Most recently, a government grant funded organisation in WA went into recievership after years of failed development.
The oceans are a very unforgiving environment.!
80
Operating reliably in the marine environment has proven to be a challenge. The carcasses of failed wave/tidal energy projects litter the planet. People continue to try.
40
ABC Nightlife’s Issue of the Day last nite. Grattan Institute report recommending everything Labor campaigned on in the May election. ABC’s Phil Clark reads out most of The Conversation piece excerpted below, without the slightest hint he recognised the similarity.
first caller, Pete, said he didn’t want to be partisan & that, while he didn’t know much about Grattan, he believed they were independent & good people…BUT he said surely these recommendations were what Labor campaigned on in the May election, and they didn’t resonate with the population, so what could you do about this? there are such strong vested interests, you can’t get it done? were Labor not able to get their message through clearly? jobs a problem for the young. for fruit-picking, you have to be fit, you have got to be an athlete to do that.
at no point did ABC’s Clark acknowldge the caller was right about the similarity to Labor’s campaign policies.
segment begins at 3hr9min, ends 3hr16min10sec:
AUDIO: 19 Aug: ABC Nightlife with Philip Clark
https://www.abc.net.au/radio/programs/nightlife/nightlife/11410080
18 Aug: Grattan Institute: The Conversation: For the first time in a long time, we’re setting up a generation to be worse off than the one before it
by Danielle Wood and Kate Griffiths
Australia’s population is ageing, and ***climate change looms. The burden of these changes mainly falls on the young…
A series of tax policy decisions over the past three decades – in particular, tax-free superannuation income in retirement, refundable franking credits, and special tax offsets for seniors – mean we now ask older Australians to pay a lot less income tax than we once did…
Boosting economic growth and improving the structural budget position would help all Australians, especially younger Australians. It would also put Australia in a better position to tackle other challenges that are top of mind for young people, such as ***climate change.
Changes to planning rules ***to encourage higher-density living in established city suburbs would help by making housing more affordable…
https://grattan.edu.au/news/for-the-first-time-in-a-long-time-were-setting-up-a-generation-to-be-worse-off-than-the-one-before-it/
20
19 Aug: ABC TripleJ Hack:
Now a Grattan Institute report has defined the situation in unprecedented detail, and provided lots of handy stats for when you next get in an argument…
Young people are told they waste their money instead of saving, but their spending on ‘luxuries’ like booze, holidays, cigarettes and clothes has gone down since 2010.
By contrast, spending by households headed by someone aged 55 or older has gone up 50 to 80 per cent in the past six years…
Measure after measure, young people are losing out to older generations, representing a massive intergenerational transfer of wealth, from young to old…
It recommends winding back age-based tax breaks and negative gearing, boosting welfare payments, reducing the capital gains tax discount, and considering taxing inheritances (something like the ‘death tax’ scare campaign during the recent federal election)…
Meanwhile, younger Australians are paying more to support older Australians in retirement and the figure is going to skyrocket as the Boomers retire…
The mining investment boom cushioned some of the impact of the GFC on wages, but since the collapse of the boom, wage growth has stagnated…
FIRST COMMENT (btw there are more comments than the 11 stated)
Margaret Gunn: Now we also hate old people
https://www.abc.net.au/triplej/programs/hack/why-young-peoples-wealth-is-stagnating-while-others-get-richer/11422732
19 Aug: AFR: Baby Boomers squeeze younger Australians
by John Kehoe, senior writer
Potential changes include taxing superannuation earnings in retirement at 15 per cent, including the family home in the age pension assets test, increasing the pension age above 66 and the superannuation preservation age above 60, and Labor’s election proposals to reduce the capital gains tax discount and winding back negative gearing…
Labor leader Bill Shorten pledged a tax crackdown on negative gearing, capital gains, superannuation, dividend franking credits and family trusts to end the “intergenerational bias in our tax system” and stopping the “war on young people”.
Prime Minister Scott Morrison pledged no superannuation tax rises and to protect franking credit refunds for retirees, while also promising $300 billion in income tax cuts for all income and age groups…
https://www.afr.com/policy/economy/baby-boomers-squeeze-younger-australians-20190816-p52hvj
21
more PR for Grattan’s Labor policies from theirABC. they carried The Conversation piece with a different headline:
19 Aug: ABC: Australia is facing a real generation gap of the kind we can’t possibly want
The Conversation By Kate Griffiths and Danielle Wood
Economic growth has been slow for a decade, Australia’s population is ageing, and climate change looms.
The burden of these changes mainly falls on the young…
AUDIO: 5min45sec: 19 Aug: ABC Breakfast: Are young Australians suffering through living standards worse than their parents?
On Breakfast with Jacinta Parsons and Sami Shah
Grattan Institute Budget Policy & Institutional Reform Program Director Danielle Wood joins ABC Radio Melbourne Breakfast…
https://www.abc.net.au/radio/melbourne/programs/breakfast/a-fair-go-not-happening-says-grattan-institute/11427664
VIDEO: 5min02sec: 18 Aug: ABC News: The ‘new normal’ that has set up a generation for hardship
posted by ABC News (Australia)
Danielle Wood from the Grattan Institute explains
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uyDuDpKHNro
AUDIO: 3min5sec: 19 Aug: ABC AM: Younger generation at risk of not being as well off as their parents, report finds
By Caroline Winter on AM
Featured:
Imogen Leech, young student and worker
Danielle Wood, Grattan Institute Budget Policy Program Director
https://www.abc.net.au/radio/programs/am/the-young-at-risk-of-not-being-as-well-off-as-their-parents/11426442
02
GetUp! leader Amanda Tatersall to educate Labor at conference
Courier Mail Brisbane – 13h ago
Amanda Tattersall, who co-founded GetUp!, is scheduled to address one of Queensland Labor’s State Conference fringe events in Brisbane…
—
nothing new about that:
8 Feb: NTEU (National Tertiary Education Union): Delegates Conference speakers and program
Organise ⇒ Power ⇒ Change, NTEU’s 2019 Delegates Conference is fast approaching!
Workplace Delegates, Branch Committee Members and Health and Safety Reps from across the higher education sector in NSW are invited to the biggest event in the NTEU’s calendar for the year.
The agenda is now available. Download it below.
Hahrie Han – Anton Vonk Professor of Political Science and Environmental Politics at the University of California, Santa Barbara
Hahrie Han specializes in the study of civic and political participation, collective action, organizing, and social change, particularly as it pertains to social policy, environmental issues, and democratic revitalisation. She has published three books: How Organizations Develop Activists: Civic Associations and Leadership in the 21st Century, Groundbreakers: How Obama’s 2.2 Million Volunteers Transformed Campaigning in America, and Moved to Action: Motivation, Participation, and Inequality in American Politics. Her award-winning work has been published in the American Political Science Review, American Sociological Review, American Journal of Sociology, and numerous other outlets. She received her Ph.D. in American Politics from Stanford University in 2005 and her B.A. in American History and Literature from Harvard University in 1997…
***Amanda Tattersall
Amanda Tattersall is a well recognised social change organiser in Australia. She co-founded GetUp.org.au, Australia’s most successful digital advocacy organisation with over 1 million members. She also founded and ran the Sydney Alliance for 9 years. She wrote the globally focused “go to” book on coalition strategy (Power in Coalition, Cornell University Press), and has been involved in many social movements – student, union , peace and refugee movements movement. She currently advises the Australian climate movement on their grassroots strategy and has a Post-Doctoral Fellowship at the University of Sydney in city-based citizen activism, where, of course, she is a proud NTEU member.
https://www.nteu.org.au/qld/article/Delegates-Conference-speakers-and-program-21186
20 Aug: The Conversation: Yes, GetUp fights for progressive causes, but it is not a political party – and is not beholden to one
by Krystian Seibert, Industry Fellow, Centre for Social Impact, Swinburne University of Technology
GetUp has been in the government’s firing line for several years now. This isn’t surprising. The campaigning group is typically described as a “left wing” and “progressive” organisation, and the stances it takes on various issues tend to be at odds with those of the Liberal and National parties…
https://theconversation.com/yes-getup-fights-for-progressive-causes-but-it-is-not-a-political-party-and-is-not-beholden-to-one-122033
02
Cant you just imagine the “education” to be provided by a Getup leader and social change organiser?
40
Thanks to Tony from Oz who tipped us off on the low wind factor years ago, I have been building on that to find sharper and clearer ways to get the message across that we are on the edge of a cliff and we can’t afford to wait for more coal-fired stations to go. At the morning peak the sun is just getting up but by morning tea solar is eating the lunch of the coal stations as they ramp down until they come again for dinnertime. Wind is on its own at the evening peak in winter because the sun is down.
The key point here, derived from Tony is the choke point when wind is at the lowest point and the sun is down. Its a bit like drowning, we breathe air with 20.95% oxygen all our lives until we are under water. How many times a year do we want the grid to be “under water”?
http://catallaxyfiles.com/2019/08/16/how-sustainable-is-renewable-energy-in-australia/
100
Rafe,
I saw that post when it was linked to here the other day, and it piqued my interest.
In those daily Posts for the data collection, I sometimes mention how wind is so low at times, and just what do we do when there are times like this.
However, there was no real collection point for all those mentions in those Posts for when it is so low.
So, I started off yesterday afternoon going through the Posts and looking for when wind power was so low.
It’s not as easy as I thought it would be, as I now have 46 weeks of data, so more than 320 days of individual records.
I started with the main body of Posts after we moved house, and I had a number of weeks of data already done before I had to stop when we moved home.
Starting at September, I spent time looking at each Post, and I stopped after a couple of hours, having only reached part way through January, so around 140 days of that collected data so far. I just used the criteria of the low point for wind power on each of those days, and just noted down the days when at the low point, wind power total generation was less than 1.7% of the total power generation.
I actually didn’t think there would be that many times when wind power was so low, but just for those 140 days, I have so far found 15 of those days when wind power was less than 1.7% of total generated power, with a low of 0.4%. So, it’s actually around 10% of the time there will be days when wind power is lower than 1.7% of all generated power.
I plan to continue the task, as it now intrigues me, as I did not think there would be that many times.
I can send you the dates and percentages if you wish, but it would be easier to do it via email.
So, I’ll leave a small comment at your Post at your site, and in the moderation process you’ll see my email address which each commenter must provide with each comment. (at any site) Just send a reply to that email address, and I’ll forward the list of dates when I finish it.
Tony.
60
“The key point here, derived from Tony is the choke point when wind is at the lowest point and the sun is down”
you mean like any summer evening?
30
Just read the article about the ceremony to mark the first glacier lost to climate change. The way I read it the “scientists” blame higher temperatures that melt the glaciers. But the article says there is still ice but it doesn’t fit the definition of a glacier. To me that suggests that, if it’s cold enough to keep the ice from melting, it’s also cold enough for glaciers not to melt. So it’s something else that’s causing the glaciers not to form, like drought.
https://au.yahoo.com/news/why-these-pictures-have-climate-scientists-freaking-out-094513746.html
50
“The glacier was officially declared dead in 2014 when it was no longer thick enough to move.
“What once was glacier has been reduced to a small patch of ice atop a volcano”. Satellite pic via NASA:
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/world/396965/iceland-s-okjokull-glacier-dies-aged-about-700
• “ice atop a volcano” may be the crucial point, you think?
None of those present at the ‘wake’ seemed to be able to think.
30
all bits of ice are supposed to last forever apparently
its a wonder we ever recovered from the last ice age, the warmanistas would have been complaining about it
20
Jo stated:
Subsidies tied to the RET have all but disappeared. The value of LGCs have declined rapidly over the last year:
https://www.energycouncil.com.au/media/16368/ben-skinner-ei-fig-1.png
And are now forecast to continue that decline, as evidenced by the forward prices, because there is little prospect of the target being increased to Shorten’s promised 50%.
Pre-dispatch pricing has become challenging for intermittent generators in the face of frequent negative price excursion. Coal generators have realised they can price a block of energy at a large negative price, to cover the cost of stopping and restarting generators, that is significant enough to hurt the intermittent generators. That is forcing the intermittent generators to limit the amount of energy they offer at the NEM floor price of minus $1000. The coal generators usually have ample opportunity to sell power at higher prices when the intermittents are at low output.
The other dynamic is the increase in wind generation in Victoria. This is limiting SA’s ability to send wind generation into Victoria.
The intermittent generating capacity in SA is approaching twice the SA average demand. Curtailment is becoming the norm rather than a rare event. So with subsidies low and declining and market share of individual generators in decline due to curtailment, grid scale intermittents in SA will find it harder to make money.
Prices went negative again in SA on Monday causing five wind farms to briefly curtail output around 1400. On Sunday, some wind farms had long periods where they voluntarily curtailed output. The gap between potential output and actual output is widening meaning a gradual reduction in capacity factors.
The one factor that should improve the situation for the intermittent generators is today’s AER approval for Electranet to spend $166m for the synchronous condensers. That means gas will not need to be ordered to stay connected for stability reasons.
50
A system that cant produce what is promises at a macro level and then has to curtail when it can produce at least for a short period, is farcical at best
30
Basically what I’ve been saying all along but I would even remove the fudge factor that McCrann is allowing. Just make the renewables bid day ahead and be penalised for shortfalls (and not allow excess generation to the bid) THE SAME AS THERMAL GENERATORS
The “semi-scheduled” designation is the hidden crutch behind renewables, propping them up in conjunction with the LRET. Removing either destroys them financially but the market priority access due to the “semi-scheduled” designation can be easily removed with minimal political battling (since we hear all the time about how predictable the forecast output is).
50
There must always be force majeure provisions. Sheet happens in the best of families.
40
They can deal with these by hedging (with other generators) THE SAME AS THERMAL GENERATORS DO.
The thing is that the thermal plants only require this once in a blue moon when something wholly unforeseen happens while for renewables, the continual need for hedging would be prohibitively expensive.
One rule to cost them all and in the process fine them.
60
Intermittents no longer have scheduling priority. There are now enough of them that they can often oversupply the market resulting in negative prices if they remain dispatched. LGCs are a fraction of what they were two years ago so they no longer have the capacity to withstand large negative prices for long periods.
Many coal generators are bidding some energy close to the floor price of minus $1000/MWh. This means they are prepared to accept negative price for a block of energy to remain in dispatch. If the price goes negative, they wear it in the knowledge they can recover the loss when the intermittents are idle or low.
Generator energy bidding has become much more complex. It is dynamic and unrelated to the marginal cost of generation. All generators bid to maximise profit in the prevailing circumstances. There is considerably more capital intensive plant connected to the grid now than 10 years ago and all owners are aiming to maximise their return.
This bidding tactic of the coal plants is forcing the intermittent generators to bid prices for their energy that limits their exposure to negative price. Hence intermittents no longer get scheduling priority. They are prepared to curtail output rather than pay to send out energy.
40
Sure, that works in one direction – preventing oversupply and negative pricing.
But it does not solve the issue of generation shortfalls where the intermittent renewables do not have to front up and supply when conditions are not favorable for them – the “semi-scheduled” designation gives them a free pass on this. Then we get massive price spikes because baseload generator units get taken offline (to prevent negative pricing from being totally prevalent across normal operation) the so the open cycle gas turbines and diesels need to cover at exorbitant cost.
BTW, if the LGCs are pretty much worthless, then the RET has no teeth, either.
30
As they should do. We are all ******.
At least the coal generators are still in there bidding and supplying. Other wise No electric power!
40
The real issue still remains the demonisation of CO2 and indirectly coal and fossil fuels. The logic as pointed out by Mccrann that a system that supplies the whole grid can never be as expensive as one that has a renewable supply imposed on it . Because 24/7 back up is needed then our energy supply has to be more expensive. A + B can never be less than A alone.
The only reason a renewables industry exists is because of the demonisation of CO2 and its impact on government policies to save the world. The charlatans who perpetuate this [snip – “scam”] need to be exposed as the [snip “cheats” or gullible dummies they really are. Until people wake up to what is happening the unfortunate negative consequences of renewables will be hard to eradicate.
90
The politicians are too scared of losing votes by rejecting consensus and the prevailing climate paradigm promulgated by green lobbies and assorted powerful and well funded vested interests: turbine manufacturers like Vestas, Siemens, GE, the Chinese; natural gas titans from Qatar to Shell to Exxon to Russia; and the entrenched science bureaucracies in various organisations whose funding and careers are tied to endless research and conferences on ” climate change “. They refuse to get off the gravy train.
The public supposedly is demanding ” real action ” on climate change. And the only reason they are demanding this is because of incessant green propaganda.
90
We Have ended up in this situation as a result of propaganda and missinformation spread by manipulated MSM.
It will be necessary to reverse that process and spread the truth via the same MSM in order to win over the popular vote and the critical minds of leaders and politicians.
80
Inexpensive, Reliable, Energy. That’s why US is gaining and AU is losing jobs, industry, investment, and the future.
Sorry to place this in stark terms, but AU has already said it for me.
Bluescope is moving steel production from AU to Ohio, USA.
https://www.afr.com/companies/manufacturing/cheap-us-energy-leads-bluescope-to-1b-ohio-mill-expansion-20190816-p52hxu
This is the “flip side” of green politics and unreliable, expensive, energy.
120
Dangerous business shifting production chasing low energy costs , it only takes one more Obama.
30
A very important point Lance.
Politicians have not bothered with the basics of even maintaining industry let alone bringing in new industry to keep up to date.
Much easier to provide the SS “blanket” to catch those leaving school, university or “redundant” industry.
Trouble is that the message is hidden from those who vote and our politicians like MalEx444 and the new Scomo are able to get away without doing much at all while our Public Service enjoys the high life and does little or nothing of benefit.
The only thing that will stir the public is to come to an understanding of how much Money is being ripped out of their homes by the greedy Elites.
We have a long way to go and any advance will only occur when the ABCCC radio and TV are neutralised.
KK
40
Hills Hoists, the proud South Australian manufacturer has just announced that their last factory in the State will shut soon, with the loss of 200? jobs. So much for dreams of a green future.
50
Cartoon at
https://chiefio.wordpress.com/2019/08/16/w-o-o-d-16-august-2019/#comment-115954
30
Scientists said Tuesday they have developed a way of extracting hydrogen from oil without releasing greenhouse gases–a breakthrough they hailed as a “silver bullet” for cleaner energy and the climate….
Now a group of Canadian engineers say they have come up with a method of getting hydrogen directly from oil sands and oil fields, while leaving carbon dioxide and methane in the ground….
“Low-cost hydrogen from oil fields with no emissions can power the whole world using mostly existing infrastructure,” Grant Strem, CEO of Proton Technologies AG, the Swiss firm that is commercializing the extraction method, told AFP.
https://www.asiatimes.com/2019/08/article/proton-technologies-claims-pollution-free-hydrogen-breakthrough/
31
Apologies, but “Nonsense”.
https://afdc.energy.gov/files/pdfs/hyd_economy_bossel_eliasson.pdf
H2 has a truly poor record of performance and utility. It is fit for purpose as feedstock for synfuels or fertilizer.
60
An interesting expose on how they are diverting our attention.
Hydrogen actually has a smaller presence in the atmosphere than CO2.
The fact that it primarily exists in the atmosphere bonded in water should tell us that it likes to attack other elements.
The potential “containers” might be of concern.
KK
30
The border between non-renewables (normal) world and renewables world is at the point where the free electricity starts.
30
today at ABC:
AUDIO: 3min: 20 Aug: ABC The World Today: Major swell off NSW coast a sign of things to come
By Isobel Roe on The World Today
Australia’s eastern coastline is set to get a battering over the next few days, as stormy conditions create powerful ocean swells.
Climate scientists say we need to brace for more frequent events like this, as the global temperature rises.
Research published in Nature Climate Change predicts that half of the world’s coastlines will see increased wave damage if global temperatures rise by more than 1.5 degrees.
Featured:
Joao Morim, PhD applicant, Griffith University
Professor Matthew England, oceanographer at the University of New South Wales
https://www.abc.net.au/radio/programs/worldtoday/major-swell-off-nsw-coast-a-sign-of-things-to-come/11431326
AUDIO: 9min57sec: 20 Aug: ABC Breakfast: World’s nations gather to tackle wildlife extinction crisis
Now, thousands of conservationists and policy makers from 180 countries are meeting in Geneva this week to tackle that growing threat.
The triennial UN Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species is hoping to tighten rules and better protect endangered animals like elephants, sharks and giraffes.
Guest: Inger Anderson, executive director, UN Environment Programme
https://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/breakfast/worlds-nations-gather-to-tackle-wildlife-extinction-crisis/11430436
02
Arch leftie film producer Micheal Moore funded a friend’s look into renewables. They started thinking they would prove how good they were but to their credit they discovered they were not as good as “advertised” and the filmed reported their findings as the found them.
https://www.breitbart.com/entertainment/2019/08/08/michael-moore-backed-doc-planet-of-the-humans-tackles-false-promises-of-green-energy/
40
found the following in the comments at the WUWT link posted by Another Ian – comment #2. very interesting:
25 May: Youtube: 18min: Real Engineering: California’s Renewable Energy Problem
Credits:
Writer/Narrator: Brian McManus ETC
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h5cm7HOAqZY
40
aha batteries to the rescue:
19 Aug: CurrentNewsUK: Batteries and black outs: How storage helped bring the UK system back online, and how they could do more
by Liam Stoker
09/08/2019 16:52:34.600. Those digits won’t mean a lot outside of energy circles, but they’re likely to be etched into the UK industry’s folklore. Just after 16:52 on Friday 9 August 2019, the UK’s power system – one of the most secure in the world – tripped, causing power outages felt by more than 1 million customers…
That sizeable collapse prompted National Grid to call on its frequency response assets, as shown in the graph below, provided by Limejump. GRAPH
The combined effort of losing both ~700MW from Little Barford and around 800MW from Hornsea was, however, simply too much for the system operator to withstand. At present, National Grid holds reserves enough to offset a failure at its largest single generator – the 1.2GW Sizewell B reactor – but at 1.5GW, the combined outage sent system frequency down to 48.8Hz.
It’s this second, subsequent drop in frequency which triggered distribution network operators into action, who turned to their Low Frequency Demand Disconnection (LFDD) protocols to shed demand loads in order to stabilise the grid and prevent a more catastrophic error. The lights went out in some places, but the entire system itself was saved…
Batteries to the rescue
It took just two minutes and 22 seconds for that combination of load shedding and frequency response – a not inconsiderable amount provided by batteries – to restore the frequency to safe levels, four-time faster than the last time such an incident occurred in 2008. Within four minutes – 3:47 to be precise – grid frequency had been restored to its usual operating limits, significantly quicker than the 11 minutes it took a decade ago…
Social Energy, an aggregator of domestic batteries, said that its fleet all detected the incident within 200 milliseconds of it occurring; between 16:52:34.600 (shown in red) and 16:52:34.800 (shown in green)…IMAGE
https://www.current-news.co.uk/blogs/batteries-and-black-outs-how-storage-helped-bring-the-uk-system-back-online-and-how-they-could-do-more
an interesting blog:
10 Aug: ConsciousnessOfSheepUK: The shape of things to come
Despite claims to the contrary, the first task of the agencies involved in the UK power outage yesterday will have been to cover their backs and, if necessary, lay blame somewhere else. So it is that a story emerged that it was a freak accident coincidentally affecting two separate generators. As the BBC reported…
(excerpt) “Industry experts said that a gas-fired power station at Little Barford, Bedfordshire, failed at 16.58, followed two minutes later by the Hornsea offshore wind farm disconnecting from the grid.”…
The problem with the official story, though, is that the timings simply do not match what actually happened. Evidence for this was originally included in the BBC reporting (which is where I obtained it) but has since been dropped. It tells a somewhat different story…
In the absence of widespread storage options – which themselves come at a huge cost in both money and resources – so-called “Demand Side Reduction” (DSR) is the only option available to the Grid operators. The problem, however, for a non-manufacturing economy like the UK, is that there are only a handful of major industrial consumers who can be taken out in a managed shutdown before chaos begins to spread.
One question the media has so far failed to ask of National Grid is whether Network Rail (the UK’s rail infrastructure operator) is one of the large industrial users in the DSR scheme. If so, that would explain why a large part of Britain’s railway system was still without power several hours after National Grid claimed to have resolved the problem…READ ON
http://consciousnessofsheep.co.uk/2019/08/10/the-shape-of-things-to-come-3/
20
A cheap attempt attempt by a RE proponent to misrepresent known facts to Promote RE as the saviour of the day, rather than the root cause of the entire incident.
The concern is that they actually believe what they print !
20
19 Aug: EnergyReporters: Norway addresses electric plane crash setback
By Energy Reporters
PIC: Norway’s first battery-powered aircraft crash-landed last week on a Norwegian lake in a setback for the aviation innovation, although the pilot and passenger were both unhurt.
Avinor, which operates 43 of Norway’s airports, has said it hoped to launch commercial passenger flights in electric planes by 2025. Electric aircraft will be exempt from landing charges and are due to be allowed to charge for free at Avinor’s airports until 2025.
Avinor CEO Dag Falk-Petersen, who was the ill-fated pilot, has invited several high-profile passengers to experience the silent flight.
The Alpha Electro G2 plane, which is made by the Slovenian firm Pipistrel, ended up nose-down, floating in a lake near Arendal in southern Norway.
“I made a mayday call and looked for a place to land,” Falk-Petersen told public broadcaster NRK. “This is not good for the work we do.”
***The passenger, Aase Marthe Horrigmo, a junior minister, followed Environment Minister Ola Elvestuen, who had successfully flown earlier in the day.
The two-seat electric plane was designed for flight schools with an all-composite body with an electric motor and 20 kWh battery packs weighing 350kg in total. It could carry up to another 200kg. It could supposedly fly for an hour with an extra 30 minutes in reserve.
It was the second electric plane crash in just over a year.
Last summer, Siemens’ electric prototype caught fire before crashing and killing both occupants…
Oslo has asked Avinor to electrify all domestic aviation by 2040.
Airbus is building an electric plane prototype with Rolls-Royce and Siemens and a new firm, Wright Electric, is working with easyJet on an all-electric aircraft.
https://www.energy-reporters.com/storage/norway-addresses-electric-plane-crash-setback/
11
“Oslo has asked Avinor to electrify all domestic aviation by 2040.” Kurt Vonnegut Junior couldn’t have thought up a fantasy weirder than this. For those who aren’t familiar with him try Harrison Bergeron for size.
40
Here’s a tip. You want to enjoy silent flight (well quiet flight at least) for an hour? go gliding. Cut to the chase , if you go in a Eplane you will probably end up gliding anyway and real gliders dont burn.
20
some good laughs:
19 Aug: Forbes: Silly Season Energy News
by Michael Lynch (bio at bottom)
[My comments are in italics]
Berkeley moves to ban natural gas hookups in new housing. “Mayor Jesse Arreguín called the ordinance innovative and groundbreaking.” (italics) More appropriate to say its anti-groundbreaking, since it will raise housing costs…
Keep fossil fuels in the ground: “…we must refrain from burning much of the fossil fuel reserves currently listed as assets on the balance sheets of energy companies.” (italics) Says Lee Wasserman, in a New York Times op-ed delivered to my house by automobile…ETC ETC ETC
https://www.forbes.com/sites/michaellynch/2019/08/19/silly-season-energy-news/#e4ccb51c7e11
10
2 rules for life…
DO COAL
STOP GLOBALISM
70
behind paywall:
19 Aug: UK Times: Blackout fears over National Grid cables from the Continent
Company limiting use to guard against failure
by Emily Gosden
National Grid is routinely restricting the use of its own power cables from the Continent because of the risk of blackouts if they failed.
Britain’s electricity system is sufficiently fragile at certain times of day that if one of the subsea “interconnectors” tripped while importing at full capacity, it could trigger power cuts like those of August 9.
A senior National Grid source told The Times that for several years it had been managing this risk by limiting the use of the cables at these times, especially overnight, so as to reduce the size of the potential supply shock.
They said that the costs of doing so, which are understood to run to many millions of pounds, were cheaper than paying for enough back-up to…
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/blackout-fears-over-national-grid-cables-from-the-continent-w5m2m0l6h
20 Aug: Daily Mail: Truly shocking: National Grid gave boss John Pettigrew a £1million raise for ‘strong performance’ before UK suffered its biggest blackout in a decade
•John Pettigrew, 50, was paid £4.6million in the year to April, including £3.2million in bonuses
•11 days ago around a million people (CUSTOMERS/HOUSEHOLDS, DM) were plunged into darkness by power cuts
•An interim report on the fiasco on August 9 is due to be released tomorrow
By Tom Witherow
The blackout, which began just before 5pm on August 9, has raised concerns about the reliability of Hornsea wind farm, off the Yorkshire coast.
It is still under construction, and was generating up to 800MW. It shut down instantly, suggesting safety systems may have taken the plant offline accidentally, an initial investigation reportedly found…READ ON
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7373207/National-Grid-gave-boss-John-Pettigrew-1million-raise-UK-biggest-blackout-decade.html
10
They must be so looking foward to winter when their real max load appears
20
2 rules for California
All electricity to be generated by renewables
No electricity generated from fossil fuels to be allowed across the California border
Maybe the same for SA
60
I think my idea is better, seeing how Canberra is full of Greenies take it off the main grid and let the use renewables only.
50
Canberra has 100% renewable electricity. I am not sure how it works but it is generated in South Australia wind farms and I assume rushed to Canberra by the Road Runner or possibly the Fairy Godmother in her horse drawn carriage, so it arrives without interruptions.
The citizens of Canberra thus have a guilt free existence using fully ‘green’ electricity with the added bonus of being cheaper than elsewhere (they don’t have to buy any RET Certificates).
Claims that they get coal-fired electricity from NSW when the wind doesn’t blow MUST be false, and put out by Extreme Right Wing Climate Deniers who sarc/.
30
I thought Canberra’s 100% renewable energy was sourced only, from the Snowy Scheme..??
10
shannon:
Only from Snowy2 which isn’t running for a couple or 5 years to go.
It’s a con. They get coal fired electricity most ((97%?) of the time but the cost of the RET certificates gets lumbered onto the general public. The aristocracy in Versailes on the Molongo don’t wish to be poluted by the common herd (just send money).
20
I once read a comment at Renew (when I used to try and comment there) that “you would have to be really stupid to pound out sceptical comments in Canberra while powered with 100% renewable power”
They really believe that sitting in the middle of the dominantly coal powered NSW grid , that they are 100% renewable. What can you say? its breathtakingly delusional.
30
***an ABC fave, Imogen Zethoven, gets the last word:
AUDIO: 2min45sec: 9 Aug: ABC AM: Warming waters killing Great Barrier Reef faster than expected
By Eleanor Whitehead on AM
Scientists have warned for years that warming waters are slowly destroying corals through a process of bleaching, but new research shows even more severe effects are underway.
Heatwaves are killing reefs almost instantly, leaving them with no chance of recovery.
Guests”
Tracy Ainsworth, Associate Professor, University of New South Wales
***Imogen Zethoven, Strategic Director, Australian Marine Conservation Society
https://www.abc.net.au/radio/programs/am/warming-waters-killing-great-barrier-reef-faster-than-expected/11398506
Imogen Zethoven AO
Before joining AMCS, Imogen led a global shark conservation campaign for The Pew Charitable Trusts based in Washington DC. Imogen had previously led Pew’s Coral Sea initiative.
Before joining Pew in 2007, Imogen was in Berlin leading WWF’s global climate campaign, PowerSwitch! and prior to that, she was leading WWF’s Great Barrier Reef campaign…
AUDIO: 2min45sec: 9 Aug: ABC AM: Warming waters killing Great Barrier Reef faster than expected
By Eleanor Whitehead on AM
Scientists have warned for years that warming waters are slowly destroying corals through a process of bleaching, but new research shows even more severe effects are underway.
Heatwaves are killing reefs almost instantly, leaving them with no chance of recovery.
Guests”
Tracy Ainsworth, Associate Professor, University of New South Wales
***Imogen Zethoven, Strategic Director, Australian Marine Conservation Society
https://www.abc.net.au/radio/programs/am/warming-waters-killing-great-barrier-reef-faster-than-expected/11398506
time to be obnoxious, interrupt, & pretend it’s just proof what a tough journo you are!
Youtube: 6min49sec: 20 Aug: ABC AM: Environment Minister visits reef, finds “message of hope and resilience”
On AM with Sabra Lane
Just last week, the Federal Environment Minister Sussan Ley put on a wetsuit, fins and mask and snorkelled on the Great Barrier Reef to see the coral and fish for herself.
She says it’s important that government “bring farmers with us” when implementing changes to do with the reef, as they are often on the “front line”.
She says state and federal governments understand the fragility of the reef, but also believe it to be resilient in the face of the threat of global warming.
TRANSCRIPT:
SABRA LANE: Do you believe Australia’s leading scientists who say that the reef will eventually disappear if the world doesn’t change course on reducing carbon emissions?
SUSSAN LEY: Well, not every scientist says that. You commented that I went to the reef with my snorkel and got in the water – yes I did – but most importantly, I went with marine biologists, with scientists from the Australian Institute of Marine Science, with people from the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority, and met and spoke to so many people who live, work and love the reef – and what I heard was a message of strong action.
That’s the message that I want to give as Environment Minister – that people are taking action. That they’re not sitting on their hands and saying that there is nothing that they can do, that they are actually really, really busy…
SABRA LANE: Sure, but on the substantive point of the question though, if the world doesn’t change course on reducing carbon emissions, do you believe them when they say the reef will disappear?
SUSSAN LEY: I haven’t heard – I didn’t hear anyone on my visit say the reef will disappear, and I genuinely mean that…
So it very much was, I have to say, a message of hope. A message of hope, a message of resilience but also, a message of the humans, the people that are there, that are working each and every day and they have something to showcase.
So if you’re thinking of visiting the reef, please do.
SABRA LANE: Sorry Minister, we need to move on.
The Prime Minister has said that Australia must do more on recycling and stop exporting it. How soon can it be stopped?…
SUSSAN LEY: We’d like to see this happen as soon as possible, but I’m not going to articulate a timeframe without the proper consultation…
SABRA LANE: Experts say though, Minister, sorry, it is not happening fast enough. Is regulation an option to force companies into including recycled content in their product to speed up the transition?…
https://www.abc.net.au/radio/adelaide/programs/am/environment-minister-visits-great-barrier-reef/11430532
10
unattributed, but no doubt Imogen Zethoven provided some laughs for the ABC with her quotes here:
25 Nov 2016: ABC: Pauline Hanson visits healthy reef to dispute effects of climate change
Senator Hanson disputed claims from the world’s leading scientists that the reef experienced its worst ever bleaching event in 2016…
The WWF’s Richard Leck said Senator Hanson and One Nation appeared to be on a voyage of climate change denial…
The Australian Marine Conservation Society’s ***Imogen Zethoven said One Nation is in denial about the health of the Great Barrier Reef.
“I’d really ask her to get off the SS Ignorance and come back to shore,” she said.
“Head up to Port Douglas or Lizard Island see what it really looks like right now and accept that climate change is real, it’s having an effect on the reef.”…
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-11-25/pauline-hanson-visits-the-great-barrier-reef-climate-change/8059142
10
Makes you wonder how coral survives at the equator or in the temp range between the top and bottom of the reeef.
30
How much are Tracy and Imogen being paid for their “work” on behalf of the Australian taxpayers?
KK
20
BBC finally comments on the interim report. doesn’t mention WIND once, tho it is identified on the outdated map included in the piece, which has the outdated times for the failures:
20 Aug: BBC: Lightning strike ‘partly to blame’ for power cut
posed 34min ago
A lightning strike and the sudden loss of two large electricity generators caused nearly a million people (HOUSEHOLDS, BBC) to lose power in England and Wales earlier this month, an interim report has found…
National Grid ESO, National Grid Electricity Transmission, 12 distribution network operators in England and Wales, as well as generators RWE Generation (Little Barford Power station) and Orsted (Hornsea) are all being investigated by Ofgem.
The distribution companies are part of six network groups: Electricity North West Limited, Northern Powergrid, Scottish and Southern Energy, ScottishPower Energy Networks, UK Power Networks and Western Power Distribution.
Ofgem will establish whether they breached their licence conditions.
Any punishment could involve a fine of 10% of the firms’ turnover, an order to pay money to charities to help less well-off consumers, or to put cash into a fund to compensate those who lost out because of the power cuts…
Thousands(???) of homes lost power, people were stranded on trains and traffic lights stopped working…
Two almost simultaneous unexpected power losses at Hornsea and Little Barford occurred independently of one another – but each associated with the lightning strike…
https://www.bbc.com/news/business-49402296
00
just saw SkyUK report. main thrust – Lightning strike led to blackout. WIND only mentioned in final line below. had to endure solar panel ads on autoplay twice, when I opened this link:
VIDEO: 2min33sec: 20 Aug: SkyNewsUK: National Grid blames lightning strike as it faces Ofgem power cut probe
The regulator is looking into whether electricity firms breached licence conditions, after the black-out hit 1.1 million homes…
It announced the investigation at the same time as it published National Grid’s interim report into the power failure on 9 August, which left more than a million homes without power and caused major rail disruption.
The report blamed an “extremely rare and unexpected” outage at two power stations caused by one lightning strike…
That left ***1.1 million customers without power for between 15 and 50 minutes as well as affecting trains in the South East…
Other “critical facilities” hit by the power cut included Ipswich hospital and Newcastle airport…
(FINAL LINE) It knocked out Hornsea off-shore windfarm, off the Yorkshire coast, as well as Little Barford gas power station in Bedfordshire.
https://news.sky.com/story/ofgem-investigates-electricity-companies-over-power-cut-11789553
00
bit like how it was “extreme weather” in SA , and yet the parties are in court discussing wind performance now.
20
‘China Energy News, a publication run by the Communist Party-owned paper the People’s Daily, reported this year that more than 80% of a central government renewable energy fund was used to fund fossil fuels like coalbed methane and shale gas in 2018.
‘China also approved 141 million tonnes of new annual coal mining capacity in the first half of this year, compared to 25 million tonnes for the whole of 2018.’
Reuter
20
Russia, Racism, Recession – is there a pattern here?
can’t resist posting Van Dam’s “HEAT DEATH OF THE UNIVERSE” piece which has nothing much else to say, and no facts or figures worth noting:
17 Aug: NZ Herald: WaPo: A recession will come, but how bad will it be
By Andrew Van Dam, Washington Post
But despite this week’s warning signs, we have little idea when. It could be imminent, or the economy could chug along until the ***HEAT DEATH OF THE UNIVERSE or, as we might call it, the Greatest Depression.
How bad will the next recession be? Prognostications vary, and we don’t have great data on future events…
It’s hard to know what will finally end this expansion…
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=12259363
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Marise Payne and Angus Taylor secretly negotiating with UK high commissioner for more “ambitious” climate change action.
It’s bad enough we have to cop it from Jacinta the Tooth Fairy and the Pacific micro-state leeches, now the UK is at it seeking to impose its festering climate policy onto us.
https://www.michaelsmithnews.com/2019/08/marise-payne-secretly-negotiating-with-uk-high-commissioner-for-more-ambitious-climate-change-action-1.html
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Marise Payne I can believe.
I hope that Angus Taylor is not of the same mind.
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Them blind, conniving platonists behind that green-door (or curtain) creating their ‘noble’lie to betray citizens’ open-society*-parliamentary-democracy-test-yr-assumptions, (like Socrates)… and open-society*- western-science-test-yer-hypotheses, (like Galileo*.) ‘Open Society’ as Karl Popper’s ‘Open Society’ free speech and individual liberties, not George Soros’ globalist ‘Open’ Society, ruled by unelected elites from afar.
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Off topic but amazing, former Foreign Secretary and leader of the House of Commons William Hague in the Telegraph on the G7 meeting in Biarritz and Boris Johnson
“He could show that leaders can rise above parochial and short-term problems and identify the issues they really need to tackle before it is too late.
The most pressing of those is climate change and the steady destruction of the natural world, on which he has a heartfelt passion. ”
How depressing. Politicians are all about Climate Change. What Climate Change? Where? When?
It is like Chicken Little’s sky falling and the G7 discussing it. There is so much to discuss and the most important issue is Climate Change? The mind boggles. I suppose they will then discuss the 7 genders now available for people.
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Like the yachties say – the wind is free, but the sails cost a S/load.
Cheers,
Mike
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Hi Jo
Its Dean Toovey here. I’ve read your article and about half the comments on the blog. I’m going to stick my head in the lions mouth and play devils advocate to some of the major arguments being put forth.
Its a great concept to essentially put a reliability levy on renewables to level the price playing field. But in essence coal-fired power gets a free pass based on its pollution emissions. I’m not talking carbon, but genuine toxins like Mercury, lead and sulphur. We never had acid rain in Australia but they did in Europe with burning brown thermal coal in vast quantities. People committed suicide due to chronic asthma when coal was burned in both industry and residential in Sheffield. We don’t burn coal in homes and cities anymore because it killed people. So we burn it in the countryside. Do any of the contributors to this blog vehemently arguing for coal live in Latrobe Valley? Or a coal mining town? If you did, you know about the cough everyone has from breathing coal dust. This is not saying wind and solar is the complete answer, but that burning stuff to make power has had its day. Its archaic.
As for China bankrolling new coal-fired plants throughout Asia, that’s not China eschewing renewable energy but buying their neighbours loyalty through infrastructure projects and “soft power” diplomacy. I can post links to this analysis if everyone wants.
And as for the Uber reliability of coal and its “base load” capability, that’s a * supply * characteristic, not a demand-driven requirement as is often painted. Here’s what that means. Coal plants take time to warm up to an optimum temperature and have to be kept at that temperature where they generate a constant output. But demand isn’t constant, its a roller coaster. So there will be times where excess power from coal has to be soaked up eg off peak water heaters working at night. And times where shortfalls have to be filled in quickly eg gas and hydro. Solar energy supply peaks in the afternoon in summer when demand for air conditioning also peaks. Its actually a much better supply-demand fit with solar than coal. So coal baseload supply works against a fluctuating demand, and like renewables, needs supplementation with other sources.
Finally on South Australia. Power prices have always been higher on SA because its a much smaller population paying entirely for its own generation. SA decided early in the1900s to “go it alone” with their own power generation after being shafted repeatedly by eastern states, just like 100 years later. Some interesting facts: SA no longer burns any coal to generate 100% of the state’s power. South Australia is a net exporter of power where NSW is an importer. Wholesale power prices for electricity dropped in 2019 for the first time ever (or at least for a long time). SA Tesla battery was used a number of times to stabilise the grid during massive coal plant failures in Vic and NSW. Yes SA is an experiment, but it’s a promising one.
I hope you’ll all excuse my dissenting intrusion but I’ve tried to keep my assertions as factual as possible. I look forward to further discussions.
And links to all my facts can be provided as required.
Best
Dean
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Start here…
https://papundits.wordpress.com/author/tonyoz/
Tony is a regular at JoNova. Very big on facts, as you can see.
It’s hard to know what’s in your mind when you talk of China investing in coal as diplomacy. This ignores their massive internal investment in coal (check out those imports from Oz!) and it would also imply that China’s neighbours are naively depriving themselves of better projects when, as we know, China will manufacture and showcase any amount of intermittents for anybody.
As for toxicity, I don’t have the neo-liberal mindset so I don’t believe in putting a “price” on real pollution. We need better coal handling and consumption from mine to power point, which means investing heavily in coal as our premium resource rather than frittering money on feeble archaisms like wind, solar and Big Battery.
Something new will come along, My fear is that the ludicrous extension of limited antique tech like intermittents will kill off the enthusiasm and cred for genuinely new and potent energy sources.
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Dean, what a delight to hear from you! Check your email :- )
Note to commenters, please be kind, Dean is a good man, old friend, sincere — he’s come seeking info. Please help explain the things that he won’t see on the ABC and with refs. There’s nothing to be gained from snark or point scoring. Thank you!
Dean,
Re – Real pollution — Absolutely we don’t want nitrogen oxides, sulfur dioxide, particulate matter (PM), mercury. That’s partly why we want more coal power not less. We have environmental standards – laws, and our power stations are the cleanest. When we don’t burn coal here, it gets burnt in China. There are no solar powered smelters, so they close and follow our coal to Wanji Xiangjiang. If our stations produce more actual pollutants than we’d like, the answer is better laws, not “pollution taxes”. We want to stop the pollution, yeah? — not just collect funny money which comes from consumers anyhow.
Re Sheffield? Yes, we don’t want people burning coal at home again, that’s why we need cheap centralized coal burners where it’s much easier to stop that pollution (which we mostly do). Ask yourself why the renewables industry is reminding us of irrelevant coal hazards from 100 years ago? People are razing forests in Europe and the US right now to feed power stations (eg Drax) that could be using coal. We want to save forests, greens want to cut them down?
Unlike what you’ve been told, Demand isn’t a rollercoaster — that’s a renewables marketing message. In Australia we have a baseload demand of around 18,000MW day in day out every day, even on Christmas night at 3am. Though the forced subsidies for solar panels is dropping that and artificially creating a rollercoaster moment at lunchtime and also creating problems at 5pm as the ramp up rates spike and costs increase to recover from the provision of expensive energy at a time we didn’t need it. It’s also causing 253V voltage surges that push up the price of electricity during those hours. The only exception when solar might be useful is in summer when for a few hours a day some days each year, the extra solar energy arrives when it is useful due to mass air conditioners at 3pm. So being generous, solar is good for 450 hours out of 8760 a year. About 95% of the time it comes when we don’t need it or it doesn’t come at all.
Overall, solar doesn’t save us any money. It costs far more than baseload coal (and every other form of generation). Everyone without solar is paying for that. Hurts the poor the most, hurts rich ex-Goldman Sachs bankers that live in Mansions in Wentworth the least. Everyone with solar paid half the cost of installing = $1000s, their poor neighbors paid the rest = $1000s. All those millions from Australians — we will never get that money back. There are no productivity gains. No “climate” gains. Nothing.
Wholesale coal costs 3c/KWh from brown coal from the La Trobe Valley. Cost estimates of solar at 0/Kwh ignore the inefficiency and other costs solar lumps on the system. There is no country on Earth with lots of intermittent renewables and cheap electricity.
And yes, coal turbines take longer to start up — but in a free market they rarely slow down. They just run 24/7 non stop cheap, cheap, cheap for 70 years +.
SA Electricity was always more expensive, but check the AER graph. It was still a lot cheaper before SA got renewables. And every state costs more now — thanks to the RET which they all pay and thanks to the lack of Hazelwood which was driven out by the free money for random power generators.
There’s a lot more I could say as you’ve asked a lot of good questions, but I’ll leave it to the other knowledgeable commenters for the moment…
Hope that helps, there’s thirty years of propaganda to undo, can’t be done in a day!
I’ve only mentioned solar, but wind is similar, just not as flagrantly wasteful with money.
Cheers, and so glad you asked! There’s so much more I can say, but it’s all a bit much in one hit.
You’ve been sold many fake memes, irrelevant factoids, and cherry picked half-truths. Sorry.
Jo
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““base load” capability, that’s a * supply * characteristic, not a demand-driven requirement as is often painted.”
Sorry, but that is just wrong
There is an absolute demand that MUST be delivered at all times.
The demand curves show that to be a fact.
Tony in OZ would know the actual number.
If there is not dispatchable power to meet that demand, then you get demand shortfalls.. ie blackouts.
Sorry, but there is absolutely no way around that fact.
Wind power can only “dispatch” when there is wind.
Solar power can only “dispatch” when there is sun.
So, if no wind and no sun, and not enough reliable electricity still available from coal/gas you get blackouts.
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Thing that Tony also points out is that renewables (unreliables) have not affected the supply curve of coal-fired electricity one little bit.
It still follows the same steady ups and downs during the day as it has always done.
It is gas and hydro that take up the slack when wind and solar fail to supply, as they must.
And of course there is absolutely no need for any of these unreliable supplies, because atmospheric CO2 is actually rather on the LOW side of what is needed for optimum plant growth,
Also there is actually zero empirical evidence that atmospheric CO2 has any affect on the climate whatsoever.
There is no CO2 warming signature in the atmosphere, just warming from ocean effect such as El Ninos and the AMO. These cannot be caused by changes in atmospheric CO2.
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Dean, coal combustion can be as clean as governments choose.
Problems arise when governments for whatever reason, “?$$”, decide to go easy on monitoring and enforcing “pollution control”.
Renewables in production are heavy duty “polluters”, but that’s All hidden in primitive countries.
The facts are important.
KK
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Greetings Mr. Toovey:
I can add little to Ms. Nova’s post, about how government-madated controls on coal-fired powerplant emissions have cleaned up what comes out of the stack. Personally, I’m all in favor of the fly-ash particulates, the sulphates, the mercury compounds, etc etc etc … all being absent from the effluent stream.
I’m also in favor of more carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, since it is a beneficial trace gas (it greens our planet, being a plant fertilizer) and has very little, if any at all, effect on average global temperature. Geological history proves that carbon dioxide plays no role what so ever on Earth temperature (reference available upon request).
I live in Casper, Wyoming. Right now, it’s summer here (winding down into our Fall season). Winters are typically brutal, with daytime highs often just – 20 Celsius (yes, a daytime high might be MINUS twenty Celsius). Just down the road from us is the Dave Johnston Power Plant, near the hamlet of Glenrock. The powerplant is located on the North Platte River, and draws its cooling water from the river.
When the powerplant discharges the coolant water back into the river, it creates a micro-environment that wildlife just love! Even in the coldest winter, the river is open, so waterfowl (and, coincidentally, the hunting thereof) are abundant, as are the fish. Four or five kilometres of river are always open, downstream of Dave Johnston, and it is a net benefit to all concerned.
Sadly, Black Hills Power has raised the possibility of closing Dave Johnston, mostly at the behest of misguided misanthropes who misunderstand what makes their lives so carefree — — — reliable, abundant, and inexpensive electrical power.
I understand your concern about toxic pollutants. I would raise the question of what it takes to manufacture those solar panels (and the rare-earth elements and their toxic waste), those Neodymium magnets in the wind turbines (and their toxic mining wastes), and the lithium for the batteries, that are to be charged by the solar panels and wind turbines (and the toxic wastes from mining the lithium, or cobalt, or cadmium, or what have you).
Just curious: have you ever seen a reclaimed petroleum wellsite? I’ve seen several hundred (Wyoming has some 50,000 producing wells of various hydrocarbons). By law, the site is recontoured to its original state, and seeded with native vegetation. The only sign that there was ever a well at the site is the required 12.5 cm diameter steel pipe, about 1.7 metres tall, over the well bore, stating the offical location, the ‘owner’ of the well bore, the total depth, and the date of abandonment. Before the advent of GPS and associated technology, there were many instances that a marker assisted me with navigating the US ‘outback’ (the Colorado Plateau), whereupon, if I was uncertain as to my location, a marker would confirm (or, as is the case with many geologists, deny) my estimated location.
Somehow, I’m only seeing benefit to modern life from “fossil” fuels. I, for one, hope that we continue to expand our use of all fossil fuels, since there is so much benefit to be derived from them. Abundant, inexpensive energy is the underpinning of our entire way of life. We should be building, and burning, and burning, and burning.
As that one (fossil) Democrat candidate for President says, I want to feel “the BURN”. (Sadly, he spells it wrong, with an ‘e’ in place of the ‘u’)
Best Regards,
Vlad
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You need only mandate all energy be used to power storage farms and the output of those storage farms will be connected to the grid. Batteries and pumped storage are the only options currently available. This keeps the erratic turbines and solar off the grid.
At this point the utilities start paying the same rate for coal/gas/biofuel/wind/solar/nuclear/hydro, and pay only for incoming energy to the storage farm(s). Rate payers pay only for stored energy regardless of source. Pretty much the way we buy milk. Nobody cares whose cow it came from, they’re just interested in the milk.
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I sugest you run a few numbers on that “storage farm” idea……you may surprise yourself on the costs and the practicality of such a plan.
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Ahh ! Ok , i see what you mean now Dkp.
…insist the RE generators can ensure a consistent supply level ?
IE have them invest in the storage , rather than the grid operator.
Yes, that would make their business plan look a little different.
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How come wind and solar are successful in other countries but don’t work in Australia, must be the wiring.
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Name one country that has lots of unreliable generators and cheap electricity…
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What ever is understood about gravity is quite reverse than it works or remains in nature. Gravity is not a rule which is working independently in universe. Science has to see about a chain and purpose of each of activity and its relation with other natural rule. Gravity is just a tiny part of natural mechanism within whole Universe. Rule of gravity was established at zero time of creation of present Universe means it was created exactly with big bang and nature had a single and very much specified program of its own activities. When nature made, it was not specified only for objects, elements, molecules, atoms or photons it was a rule for every natural mechanism. We have not recognized many rules of nature till today. Gravity starts from the center of Universe and completing its whole cycle all the way through the end of Universe it returns at center once again. Gravity is not related only with planets, Black Holes or just solar systems. Rule of gravitation has nothing to do with only attraction. It is a rule of repulsion even. Concept of attraction is working within Black Hole areas. Attraction at planets in the name of gravity and attraction at Black Holes area are quite different. Thinking with different angles only can put us to right path. Still science is unable to know about primary particle which was available before big bang and which is available today and will be available in future even if Universe ends. If, once nature of primary particle is known then we will be able to understand lot many things working within nature. Nature was and it is perfect and very much to the point within its specified duty. Due to limited thinking level and prior background scientists are unable to think nature’s rules as it works. It is not a matter of too vigorous inventing affords but it is just a matter of thinking within sure way. There are some common concepts which are needed to be understood first. Most of evaporating gases and energy goes to poles of planet and some of them are absorbed over there. With a natural procedure and according to sure natural rule some of energy is leaving from planet to some particular destination. So one thing is sure that nature has kept some mechanism to regulate energy evaporation and it has sure procedure to filter the same. If, there is natural mechanism then surely there is a natural machine. How much do we know about that? Same thing is related with each and every planet and natural mechanism. Evaporating energy is going in open space this is what our science believes till now. Next, we have seen that nature’s each movement is cyclic. Each planet passes through a cycle. We are unable to recognize actual inner activities of the earth. Same way scientists say about recharging of Sun’s energy but they do not know what actually is happening. We have still not understood what reason of Sun’s eleven years cycle is? Sun has poles with less energy evaporation why? They are less luminous because, those are receiving point of energy; Sun is receiving energy from a particular source as a result of natural cycle. Actually Sun can not be specified as a planet because its’ duty is to propel energy and many of natural circuits at particular places within solar system. We experience absorbing power of Black Holes and we are specifying its activities in separate events but in or around Black Holes there are no separate event horizons and no separate attracting activities. Nature has single system at every place in Universe but we need to think the same in proper way. Next, motion of all natural mechanism is not without any foundation. A sure mechanism is applied to them. Science has to recognize those driving machines. We know that some forces are driving planets and all other mechanism but we don’t know about their structures and efficiencies of them. We even don’t know about their working conditions.
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