The new hole in the ground in the Snowy 2.0 scheme.
Complexity has a price, and a renewables grid is a bit like a 240 volt moving Rubiks cube. Here we see an unnecessary project hit by a random factor that in turn will affect all the others, blowing out other costs and schedules.
Australia’s breakneck energy transition, driven like a crash test dummy by government subsidies, depends on finishing the massive pumped hydro scheme called Snowy 2.0. However it has hit another delay no one apparently saw coming.
“Australia’s biggest renewable energy project” is the $6 – 10 billion plan to pump water uphill so it can run back down again to generate electricity every time the windmills and solar panels suffer a catastrophic failure, which is nearly every day. The entire project is superfluous in a grid with coal power — as we know from the last fifty years when we didn’t need it.
Unfortunately a 2,400 ton Tunnel Boring Machine called Florence is quite stuck under a cave-in. According to the ABC she started ten months ago, and is supposed to be digging her way through 15 kilometres (10 miles) of mountain. The stuck bore can’t go forwards, but she can’t go back the way she came in either. The team has installed concrete reinforcing behind Florence as she moved and the concrete reinforcing effectively locks her in. It’s meant to be a one way trip.
So we have the irony of a machine designed to carve through miles of rock trapped inside a pile of sand. But it gets worse.
Last month, the Snowy Hydro Corporation said it was monitoring a “surface depression” above the boring machine. So a local man decided to go looking for the hole. As he says “technically, [Florence] should be 9 kilometers in but I thought I’d start about 3 kilometers out and start walking my way back in,” Mr Anderson said.
He spent four days looking for the hole only to find it, wow, barely 150 meters from the entrance.
His big shock was not the hole, but that the tunnel borer had barely achieved anything at all. These machines are designed to travel 30 to 50 meters a day, so this short tunnel is effectively one week’s work. The Snowy 2.0 scheme is supposed to be finished by December 2026, (just revised a week ago to Dec 2027) but at the current rate of 60 centimeters (2ft) a day it will take about 70 years to finish.
Looks like we will need those old coal plants for a bit longer. This delay could affect the rollout of new renewables.
The hole is only 150m from the entrance.
Future options include jacking it up (described as “a huge task”) or disassembling Florence — all 143 meters and 2,400 tons — and extracting the machine in pieces. But if they do that, they will have to start the whole tunnel again. Still they hadn’t got very far…
You’d never know Australia was a top mining nation, eh?
Pumped Hydro is giant appliance that sucks electricity and gives you back some later. In a system with reliable baseload generators it is superfluous, redundant, and entirely unnecessary. It is an expense we don’t have to have, didn’t need, and don’t want to pay for. It can only make things more expensive than the system we used to have. Not only do we have to pay for the giant infrastructure, every day it operates we also throw away 20 – 30% of the electrons (so to speak) that go through it.
Snowy 2.0, is twice the cost, half the value, wastes a quarter of the energy, and wrecks the environment too
The mammoth pumped Hydro scheme is a $10 billion dollar disaster that will never pay for itself, is already being superseded by battery technology, and will scar the land, infect pristine alpine lakes, risk critically endangered species, damage fishing grounds, and breach the Biosecurity Act in a National park. (Where are the environmentalists, Tim Flannery? Does anyone care?)
Thanks to Steve Hunter
UPDATE: A net-zero grid (without nuclear power) needs 23 Snowy 2.0 schemes for storage:
Australian Financial Review, April 2022
The Australian Energy Market Operator estimates that by 2050, without coal power plants, the National Electricity Market will require 45 GW and 620 gigawatt-hours of storage in all its forms to manage variations in fast-growing wind and solar generation, and to keep the grid stable. The figure rises steeply the closer the grid gets to 100 per cent renewables.
Snowy chief commercial officer Gordon Wymer points to an old estimate from ITK Services that some 8000 GWh – 23 times the capacity of Snowy 2.0 – could be needed for a fully renewable NEM, while Snowy’s own estimates signal that three to five times the capacity of 2.0 is needed for a 50-60 per cent renewable grid. (ITK principal David Leitch says his estimate is out of date and refers back to AEMO’s estimates.)
Snowy 2.0 needs huge transmission line construction as well (Humelink and VNI West):
There’s another $6 billion in transmission lines that we didn’t need for a coal fired grid.
Australian Financial Review, April 2022
“The cost/benefit analyses undertaken by TransGrid and also by AEMO makes quite clear that HumeLink plus Snowy 2.0 – they go together, the one is useless without the other – will destroy the wealth of New South Wales electricity consumers and Australian taxpayers,” says Bruce Mountain, director of longstanding Snowy 2.0 critic, Victoria Energy Policy Centre at Victoria University.
He says findings by AEMO and TransGrid that HumeLink provides net benefits only get to that conclusion by ignoring the cost of Snowy 2.0.
Broad argues the new transmission was required as long as 10 years ago, pointing to the bottlenecks in the system that prevent even the existing Snowy hydropower output reaching Melbourne and Sydney during demand spikes on hot summer days. Lack of grid capacity is also crimping new wind and solar generation, he notes, saying the critics are “missing the point” and getting caught up in “the politics of who’s doing what”.
Broad fears the $3.3 billion HumeLink will slide into 2027, while the $3 billion VNI West, which three years ago was expected by 2028, is now pencilled in for July 2031 in AEMO’s latest draft grid blueprint but may slip into 2032.
h/t David B
The geology of the mountains is complex and known to be complex. Snowy 1 is well recorded.
Strata folds, shears, faults, perched water at all attitudes, conflicting in-situ stresses from unresolved (ie. locked in) tectonics, varying rock strengths, intrusions – a multitude of measurable factors is well known to exist and require prudent management.
Exploratory drill holes along the planned tunnel line are simply standard. No activity without exploration first. Given this statement of the absolute obvious, my betting is that we, Mug Q Public, will never be informed of events, never be supplied with truthful, accurate detail – like drillhole logs (or the lack of them), for example.
When Lord Waffle (Turnbull) made his TV announceable on Snowy 2, the then General Manager of the project was standing next to him. Turnbull turned to him for confirmation of the rhetoric and the audible answer ” … depends on the geology” discombobulated Waffle greatly. Since, Bowen has sacked that man – Perrottet has hired him, to Kean’s chagrin.
Green lefties, especially those such as Bowen and Kean, really do not like geoscientists. Nor do journos, for that matter. Managing complex, difficult geological conditions is not conducive to “Hurry Up, we want to turn the power stations off now !”.
921
Green lefties, especially those such as Bowen and Kean, really do not like geoscientists. They don’t like facts because facts interfere with their preconceived ideas but only if they are included. Bowen and Kean simply ignore facts altogether.
590
Remember this.
Climate science hopelessly politicized. Geological Society of Australia gives up on making any statement
170
The headrace tunnel bore struck similar problems last August and boring progress stopped for some weeks, as reported early October in FinRevue.
A promotional video was placed on the project Facebook page on the 18th October.
60
Leo, ..that was the sameincident .
They have been stuck and sitting on the problem until finally making a formal statement now !
30
Neither Bowen nor Kean understand facts.
250
The mindless, unrealistic, and hopeless ideas and projects the Global Warming scaremongers have based on their personal beliefs override everything they should know. Behavior of sandy and rocky soils? No worries we know what we are doing and MUST spend the money soon. Sandy and rocky soils are unstable and minor forces will cause them to slide, develop pockets, collapse on the tunnel, etc. as is well known.
So now what? By the laws of thermodynamics, water cannot be pumped uphill and then released to generate power without tremendous losses of energy. Even under optimum material properties and the most efficient pumping and storage, the system will lose tremendous energy. Much less work will ever come out of pumped hydro systems that then let the stored water flow back downhill to produce hydro power. This kind of thinking and analyses is on par of those who tried perpetual motion machines, changing base metals to gold (Alchemy} and, and thinking you can get something for nothing in an energy cycle or anywhere else.
20
Rock bolting was invented to help Snowy 1 but you have to see what you sre doing. The bore machines cover the full face and unless you sometimes pull back it is impossible to see what is coming. Pulling back and putting in a few horizontal drill probes is also a help in knowing what is ahead. Too many civil engineers these days in management.
270
Mine I worked at in the late 1980’s had the same / similar problem with subsidence, if you Google earth the Warrego mine today it’s still visible today .
40
There is definitely a Freudian element with politicians and their need to build tunnels. In a similar vein Andrews is tunneling about Melbourne to reproduce an outer rail loop. The public has forgotten that the rail loop used to exist- but was closed as it was not viable. It could be reopened above ground at a fraction of the tunnels cost as the land is still reserved. Like the fake “vaccine” (no coronavirus vaccine is possible) Billions of $ are misallocated. In modern times everything is a committee or reference group so no one is held accountable for the waste.
591
Maybe it is to be called the “Dan Andrews Covid Lockdown Tunnel” in loving memory of one of Victoria’s much loved leaders. No amount of money is too much for the Dan ego.
190
I’m no fan of this white elephant, but I think it’s a bit of a stretch to extrapolate progress at the start of drilling to the entire interval to be drilled.
I’m only guessing, but if tunnel boring is like oil well drilling, you don’t go hell for leather at the start, for a few reasons, including the TBM crews, and associated logistics getting into a routine, and probably, starting slowly helps to avoid going too crooked too fast. Unstable formation may well limit speed also.
Mind you, as with oil wells, getting stuck so near the surface is not good, and does not really make it easier to fix. It’d be interesting if it’s viable to squeeze grout into the unstable zone, clear the collapsed material and carry on. It can’t be the first time a TBM has been in this situation.
101
Does TBM mean Turnbull Muckup?
270
Sure does. Another one is called Wireless broadband, which was part of NBN. Useless technology that delivers poor speed and frequently drops out. If you live in an area covered by Wireless broadband, you have no choice. It’s it or Starlink. Regarding pumped hydro, Angus Taylor ( previous LNP Energy Minister) was still running around spruiking pumped hydro a year before the last election. In fact, he devoted funds towards a project in South Australia. The driest state in the driest country in Australia. Both major political parties have dudded Australia in terms of energy policy.
290
Does Turnbull have any of his own money invested in this??
If so, when did he divest his investment??
130
Depends on the type of TBM.
Some are designed to work in really soft ground which has no ability to support itself. Others are designed for much harder ground.
Who knows which one we have with this Green Based Lunacy.
231
The greens are to blame for geological uncertainty?
334
As ianl pointed out above, the geological uncertainty in that area has been known for a long time. It was never going to be a straight-forward tunneling operation. The original geophysical surveys for the original SH Scheme were done in the 1940’s and 1950’s. The fact that this was going to be a tunneling nightmare was never a surprise.
Anyone who blames this disaster and massive cost over-runs on “geological uncertainty” is lying because the geological uncertainty of the area, was a certainty. Any competent engineer or geophysicist already knew about it. Original costings were kept unrealistically low on the basis that tunneling was going to be straight-forward when it was never going to be.
It’s what happens when you allow clueless anti-science, anti-engineering green activists to make multi-billion dollar decisions. Greens were 100% to blame for yet another unreliables disaster and those few of us net taxpayers left will pay dearly, one way or another.
501
I never knew that the greens were the government now. Thanks for the information.
214
Without the greens the Labor wouldn’t be in power so yes they are running the show .
121
No, the Greens, including Turnbull, Kean and other Liberal alarmists aren’t to blame for geological uncertainty, but they are to blame for ignoring it or, more likely, not understanding it.
410
That is what Greens, Leftists and their followers do…
.. not comprehend reality… or just ignore reality completely. !
290
It would certainly be unfair to expect the working-it-all-out beginning to be as fast as the remaining progress, but in this case, one can surely make an initial judgement that all isn’t quite right. Or even close to right.
220
I wondered the same so appreciate the context you provide from oil. I’ve not worked on tunnel boring but been involved in enough complex projects in natural environments to appreciate that each tunnel will have it’s own circumstances, and they’ll need to develop routines, safety measures, logistics (a lot of concrete to move onsite and then in place to re-enforce). Skill and experience of the crew and engineers will still matter, but it’s akin to a skilled musician picking up an instrument they’ve never played and learning as they go. They have musical theory, maybe perfect pitch, can read the score, but don’t yet know which button or string creates which notes and at which volume.
I am curious though if the potential rate of 30-50m can be maintained as the tunnel gets deeper. Do they need to send the re-enforcing concrete through the tunnel, eventually moving it 10+ km? That seems like it will become much more of a bottle neck than the borer cut speed itself.
30
This is not a unique situation for tunnelers to deal with.
A similat project ( Pumped Hydro) in Austria in 2019 had a similar problem …maybe worse .. and delt with it.
A good video of the case…See here..
https://youtu.be/6AV2NcyX7pk
30
I’ve seen that Marti Group video. V interesting. Perhaps we need to pay one of their engineers to come out here for a consultation.
My suggestion would be to drill grout holes from the top as the tunnel cannot have a very thick “roof” at that point. We have all manner of steerable fracking rigs.
00
I am sceptical of all the details in this story – none of it sounds accurate. Perhaps a little more research before presenting sensational news might be in order. Sure, Snowy 2 is a joke (on us), but this doesn’t help. Perhaps a better story might be about the wages being paid to the semi skilled labour utilised for the project.
As for 15km tunnels, I would think that tunnelling for the embarrassing Great Western Highway might have been a more productive spend, finally opening up NSW to its capital city.
105
The longest proposed tunnel in Australia, 11-kilometres and toll-free from Blackheath to Little Hartley, won’t happen in the foreseeable future.
61
“Sydney’s second airport” should have been at Newcastle, not Badgery’s Creek.
Even with that tunnel the Great Western Highway is only an 80 km/h road, following as it does meandering ridges.
Sydney may have the world’s most beautiful harbour, but given that “sandstone curtain” it’s a lousy place to put a capital city.
60
Uber, I was frustrated myself at the lack of ABC details. This other story from Feb 2021 was a useful bit of backgrounding, and in the description you’ll find more about the three tunnelling machines. Florence must be the number three. https://waterpowermagazine.com/features/featuretunnel-vision-at-snowy-20-8492452/
Third TBM
While we know this project won’t take 70 years to complete, it’s reasonable to think this unexpected event will delay it another six months, which means another winter or summer peak without 2GW of “reliable” supply. And presumably further problems are also likely…?
130
I’m predicting a year maybe two even if they completely dig it out , it is a government job after all and no one is on the clock .
40
The problem seems to be the lack of communication from Snowy themselves. Perhaps this in itself says things are going seriously pear-shaped. On the other hand, they’re clearly not big on public information, judging by the fact that their web site hasn’t been updated for about 2 years.
It is not feasible to conduct detailed geotechnical drilling for a project this size, as some are suggesting. Therefore it is necessary to risk-rate the potential ground conditions based on regional geology and offer up as much mitigation as possible. That explains the design specifications of the machines.
However TBM’s are finnicky brutes, and a project relying on 3 running at once carries with it significant uncertainty. This isn’t Sydney sandstone they are working in, but the real world. A drill and blast approach would have been more risk averse, with potential advances in the order of 30m / week. However the civil work following behind would likely have been much more difficult and expensive, and 30m / day with a tbm is a very attractive advance rate (note that this would likely be the maximum rate, not the average – the Gotthard Tunnel machines averaged 12m / day).
If the machine really is buried, then there has been a failure of production management in working under insufficiently supported ground. This is a serious matter, especially given that there are people working on these rigs. If just the cutting head is buried, not such a big deal. It might be worth checking the NSW Regulator to see if any incidents have been registered (such an incident requires a statutory report to the department – at least it does under the Mining Act). I’m not sure which agency covers civil mining such as this. However, if there is no such report around, I would seriously question this story – thus my initial scepticism.
The advance rate is also nonsensically slow. Advance rates in the beginning are always going to be slower than average, but 150m over ten months can’t be right. Either the excavation was delayed, or it was stopped at some point, or it has stopped regularly to secure the ground, such as with grout pumping. The trouble is, nobody is telling us anything.
If partially buried, the machine’s extraction may not be a big issue. However re-securing the ground, and possibly getting equipment to the site, could be a big problem. Who knows?
20
Yes, El-G, as resident of Blackheath and one of the locals who has been involved in the incredibly lengthy negotiations to get this tunnel started I too doubt I will see it in my remaining lifetime (perhaps 20 years if I’m lucky). However, all the test bores have been done, the final plans submitted for public perusal and the preliminary work on the four lane stretch through the nearby village of Medlow Bath due to start this year sometime, so you never know.
Certainly tunnelling for underground connecting highways from Western Sydney to the North and to the City and Airport has been an amazing success so here’s hoping.
41
I would expect the digging at Blackheath would be easy.
The biggest problem would be where to put the spoil?
21
Ronnie Barker in Porridge had the answer after a tunnel was dug to get out of prison.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-DORsBnflbs
20
Not only the rest of NSW, but the rest of Australia is better off with Sydney hermetically sealed.
121
Might have been a bit of “lid sitting” here – one of the boys says he’s known of this for months.
160
This was leaked last August, but questions were met with silence at the time .!
Too embarrasing ?
10
BUT. Chairman Mal told us that this would only cost 2 to 3 Billion Dollars AND that it would work……………..
280
We need the ABC to interview Malcolm immediately! Or maybe Guardian Australia could cozy up for a cover story. Letting Turnball in the Lodge was one of Australia’s most costly mistakes – a man without nous irrespective of him being “the smartest man in the room”.
270
You don’t want any other news outlets to interview him? Don’t you trust them?
622
Turnbull would only ever give an interview to his mates in the ABC or Gruniad. !
Soft questions, designed beforehand, with zero intent of getting to the reality of the situation.
270
Turnbull is certainly right up there with the worst and most expensive mistakes of Labor PMs. In reality, he should be counted as a Labor PM anyway, he wasn’t in Labor simply because they wouldn’t have him so he infiltrated the Libs instead.
350
All of our so called renewables are a TOXIC disaster and won’t make a scrap of difference to droughts or floods or cyclones or SLR or heatwaves or frosts or …. etc.
All of the billions of $ wasted on this clueless folly should’ve been used used to build more coal fired power stns, but our stupid so called leaders refused to listen and understand very simple DATA and EVIDENCE.
AGAIN here’s global co2 emissions since 1970 and this simple data proves we are wasting trillions of $ for a guaranteed ZERO return. Yet our stupid pollies, MSM and so called scientists still BELIEVE?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_carbon_dioxide_emissions#/media/File:World_fossil_carbon_dioxide_emissions_six_top_countries_and_confederations.png
432
Right on, but don’t call “our pollies stupid”.
Any group who can redirect our taxes the way they do is not stupid. That trickle down, or up, effect is real for them and they really appreciate our contributions.
The reality is that CO2 induced Global Warming and death by incineration due to human origin CO2 is scientifically unsupportable concept.
That’s known to real scientists but they are not able to influence any government so that the truth is known.
We continue to live in subjugated ignorance as world war 3 proceeds around us.
450
Looking at energy
“The Green God is Pissed”
https://noconsensus.wordpress.com/2023/02/13/green-god-is-pissed/#comments
90
Check out the propaganda with the progress on the Snowy website. Nice food and accommodation for the workers too.
https://www.snowyhydro.com.au/snowy-20/progress/
100
It looks more like a resort than a work camp. Please tell the Army because it never looked this good and the work was much dirtier. No wonder there is a cost blowout. No matter how nice it looks and no matter how wonderful the engineering there is a limited amount of water and we do have extended days of no wind and overcast. How long can Snowy 2 keep the lights on in NSW if we have another event as we had last June?
110
Perhaps some of Mrs Turnbull’s $444,000,000 sitting in her office at the Great Big Barrier Reef Foundation could be used to help repair the glitch.
Very boring.
390
Seattle Washington bought a single-use tunnel machine and named it Bertha. Bertha encountered a steel pipe and fainted, or something.
“Over the next two years, a recovery pit was dug from the surface in order to access and lift the machine’s cutterhead for repair and partial replacement in 2015“. [Wiki]
220
Cancel the project and make the bit of tunnel to date into Mal’s Magic Mushroom Farm, with all the mushies being grown in white elephant droppings. Ibbo
251
Brilliant.
Could run school tours up there to show what governments are capable of.
170
Yes indeed, or we could incapable of . .
30
Hope that it never gets completed.
Better off without it.
170
Maybe someone could throw a device down the hole to finish her off. (jokingly,of course!)
50
Perhaps in maintaining the green credentials, Glorence is solar powered.
30
Thanks Jo! This stuff needs to be broadcast as widely as possible before another 10 billion is wasted. The sad thing is that everything the government has done with regard to building an alternative “Green” source of electricity has cost us dearly! Egotistic politicians are the root of all evil!
260
This was the Turnbulls Liberals(tm). Uncosted and financially unjustified and high risk, as is now self evident
So the Labor party has inherited a Green hare brained scheme which they dare not stop as it is so Green and so useless, not only a white elephant but a sacred white elephant. Giant batteries to make giant windmills and solar farms and a National grid and a National Clean Energy Regulator seem sensible.
We would still be better off without any of them.
270
As I recall, the project was touted as an arbitrage play.
Buy cheap excess power. Store it. Then sell it at a profit when the price spikes.
At $2 billion it was always a doubtful financial proposition.
At $10 billion, it’s madness.
Mad Malcolm might have made some money on the share-market – he was never going to make money on pumping water uphill.
They all knew this. That’s why they needed a gas fired plant at Kurri Kurri. It’d at least make money day in day out.
120
It will eventually be quite useful but only if we get baseload nuclear
110
It was studied at the time of building the Snowy and discarded as economically useless, largely because of losses in the process. The only logic is to store (random wind power) and inconvenient lunchtime solar, but you can bet in the end the water is pumped uphill with coal to make solar and wind look good. And using hydro to do it would be nuts, but that will happen too. As for nuclear, why have what is a very high loss water battery anyway?
There are many other ways of harvesting energy than wind and solar, but the Green druids have no idea. I suppose human sacrifice is right out? Let’s distract everyone by restarting illegal boat migration.
220
I have learned to never challenge Leftists with ideas like that because sooner or later you’ll find them doing it. Well, they ARE doing it already but not so explicitly. Energy starvation plus covid mismanagement has cost millions of lives and trillions of dollars.
For the Left, none of their plans are too evil, too expensive or too irrational for them to implement.
260
What amazes me is that this monstrous scheme was begun so quickly, within a year or so yet building an irrigation dam takes decades just to get approval and one minute to cancel. The Hell’s Gate dam complex would have delivered far more benefits for half the cost. It also could produce electricity.
290
It was started even without any proper assessment of its economic viability or geotechnical surveys.
It was always going to be a disaster.
240
Yeah but it was green and that’s all you need to know .
30
Another irrational waste of money by the Turnbulls, bright greens in Liberal clothing.
They would not be as liberal with their own money, but that’s the point. It’s other people’s money. And where is the $444million given without explanation to “save” the Great Barrier Reef. Posing as the New Medici, wealthy bankers who inherited millions, the Turnbulls had no trouble giving our money away for their causes.
This disaster will be a bigger disaster when it is finished, if ever. So why bother?
Can anyone else think of something you could do with $12Billion? Save two Barrier Reefs? Or export Barrier Reefs to countries which could not afford them? More windmills? If one windmill generates no power at all, what do you do? Build another hundred. 100×0 = 0.
I would just love to see the Federal government repeal the rapacious and illegal Renewable Energy(Electricity) Act 2001 which has ripped much more out of our electricity bills than this white elephant. All to build windmills which do nothing most of the time and force coal power stations to close. Perhaps we could buy a few submarines with the cash? Or something which could shoot down Chinese spy balloons.
But no, the least popular PM in history, Albanese is busy trying to restart illegal mass migration from Asia, which will please their ABC. It’s not as if he has no idea what he is doing. He claims he has a mandate to wreck the joint.
360
If the air photo of the collasing hole truly marks the spot where the tunnel excavator is stuck, another air photo of the tailings dump for the excavated rocks/dirt from the tunnel would be interesting. It might be a valid way of confirming just how far into the mountain the digger has actally reached. Will a quantity surveyor please come forward.
200
Glad to see you still taking an interest.
40
Morrison decided to build a gas fired power station, to keep the lights on when Liddell closed, so he got the monies from Snowy 2.0.
‘Commonwealth-owned energy company Snowy Hydro has defended the federal government’s $600 million investment in a gas-fired power plant, declaring it may prove vital in preventing blackouts and replacing capacity lost when AGL closes its Liddell coal generator.
‘Last week’s announcement that Snowy will build a 660 megawatt generator at Kurri Kurri, NSW, to replace the closure of AGL’s Liddell coal-fired power plant in 2023 has faced extensive criticism from environmentalists and industry players. The Australian Energy Council, a group representing big power providers, said official projections do not foreshadow meaningful future supply shortfalls that would warrant funding a giant gas plant.’ (SMH)
61
I’m getting to the point where I’m thinking that we have to have multiple severe power failures to wake everyone up. Don’t get me wrong on this – I really don’t want anyone to be hit with power failures, I just want the powers that be and the media to do their job properly. If our governments and media had been doing their job, we wouldn’t have got into this mess. As usual, the people in charge stuff up, but the people have to pay the price.
130
I used to think that Mike but now I realise we probably won’t get power failures simply because as the price of electricity keeps going up as more unreliables are installed, more and more industry shuts down and domestic consumers use less and will freeze or boil.
91
NSW teeters on the edge on a hot afternoon. One of the old coal units will eventually fail and they have already said that they will retire that unit. Rolling 4 hr power-cuts during peak demand times are inevitable.
20
This is why politicians shouldn’t be allowed to make scientific or engineering decisions.
When the anti-scientist, anti-engineer Turnbull first imposed this crazy idea, he said it was “only” going to cost $2 billion. The thinking community always knew that was a lie.
I also think the masses think this is legitimate hydro generation. They don’t understand it is a battery only and a net energy consumer. Where is the coal generation going to come from to make up for the power drain?
Now it’s going to cost $8-$10 billion for a battery that will be about only 80% efficient.
Just imagine if the money wasted on this was spent on something useful like drought-proofing and irrigating Australia?
300
“Where is the coal generation going to come from to make up for the power drain?”
It will pump when the price and demand is low…
This is very helpful to the coalies, because they will be able to operate at a higher, more efficient level for larger periods of time.
82
“Where is the coal generation going to come from ”
Liddell is slated to close soon.
It is probably impossible to reverse that plan, because Liddell’s coal supply would have been sold off.
70
Will Liddell be blown up as a spectacular media event for the clueless classes or immediately demolished?
Or will they do the sensible thing and mothball it?
100
It has been standard practice for power companies when shutting down a power station immediately commence demolition.
While in some cases this may be required by governments, i suspect that it is because the companies know that the system is crooked, and fear that a policy switch by government might see the power station reopen, which would upset the business plans which had been developed at the behest of government.
The last thing they want is the cheap power that an old power station can deliver.
60
The current owners have applied (to whom?) to have it destroyed, so no hope of starting up when needed, as it surely will be. Madness.
30
Dam it David!
60
SH2 is not a new idea. Real engineers from the original Snowy Hydro Scheme always knew about it but never proceeded because it wasn’t considered economically viable plus it is only a battery, not new generation.
The original assessment from about 70 years ago remains correct.
170
Tassie uses excess hydro generation to pump water up from Arthur’s Lake to Great Lake, so that it can go through the turbines again. Snowy 1 appears not to do that anywhere.
51
Snowy 1 has other uses for its water.
Snowy 1 is a by product of the irrigation schemes.
50
Mike, Snowy alreadt has pumped hydro at Tumit 3..capacity 600MW.
Pumped hydro is a valuble asset in any grid system, renewaable or fossil fueled..
…providing it can be constructed economically .
I would guess that every grid system in the world has some pumped hydro .
30
Globally, there are many examples of shallow tunnels encountering unconsolidated ground and I remain hopeful that they will stabilise the soft Snowy geology with cement and resin injections. The new Western Sydney Airport tunnel to Parramatta is expected to have a few problems. Every part will be lined with 6ft wide concrete rings made in sections and jacked out into the tunnel face immediately behind the TBM. This tunnel will be staggeringly expensive yet we seem unphased by the project.
Snowy2 is a long-term infra-structure plan. Inevitably it will increase the cost of electricity to consumers but by then we’ll probably have a fleet of nuclear submarines, a nuclear industry and Au will be capable of running a fleet of Small Modular land-based reactors. At that point Snowy 2 will have a purpose.
00
Another fail for Australia – undermined by stupid politicians and the people who advise them. Where is the country with can-do and initiative ? incumbered by poor decision making and a lack of national will, I can only see us going downhill to being a third-rate country.
150
If the hole is 150m along the hole and the machine is 147m long, its arse end is only 7m into the hole – assuming the earth dropped when its support was removed by the front of the machine. How is it not possible to remove that 7 meters of lining and pull it out? Seems to me that maybe the hole that was found was an earlier collapse and that there is another hole further along for the current collapse. Just a guess.
110
Seems to me that maybe the hole that was found was an earlier collapse and that there is another hole further along for the current collapse.
That would make more sense with the reports.
50
A good point aspnaz, so what are we to make of the statements from Snowy 2.0 in the ABC story:
One would presume that if the Boring machine was further in, and that was the wrong hole, they would have said so?
Is it possible the fall is on the middle of the borer, so “70m – 100m” along, something like that…
I expect that if the borer had dug a 250m tunnel instead of a 200m one, Snowy Hydro wouldn’t want to jump up and down over the difference — drawing more attention to it.
80
They have a big concrete hole right behind the borer. A tape measure would do it. You could even pace it out.
But they have so much laser measuring equipment surely nothing was unknown, except the type of material above the hole which is the single biggest concern. It’s not as if its impossible to put trains in silt and mud under the English Channel.
30
Jo you ask:
“Is it possible the fall is on the middle of the borer, so “70m – 100m” along, something like that”…
In answer no. The tunnel bored is stabilised by precast concrete segments, erected just behind the main shield.
The structual strength of the tunnel would not be compromised. You would not see a sinkhole forming above the completed structure 70-100 m behind.
To keep my answer short, here is a vid that shows how a TBM operates. Supplied by a manufacturer, Herrenknecht Tunneling Systems.
https://www.herrenknecht.com/en/products/productdetail/double-shield-tbm/
You only need to look at 1.13 to 1:40. It explains why.
In my past mining experience the vast majority of falls occur close to the rock face being excavated. Due to machine vibration and natural faults or unstable strata.
I believe that “if” that is the hole caused by Snowy 2 operations, it is at the head of the TBM.
Now I am not infallable. I have not been on that worksite.
This is just my humble opinion.
I hope this helps.
40
The phrase “Go woke, go broke” might be a bit of a cliche these days, but this project is the very definition…
100
>”Complexity has a price”
The Fatal Flaw Of The Renewable Revolution
Authored by Gail Tverberg via Our Finite World blog
https://www.zerohedge.com/energy/fatal-flaw-renewable-revolution
And,
I’m convinced many modern products are overly and unnecessarily complex and therefore more expensive. There is also the companion wild extrapolation of supposed gains to be made by said complexity in the face of an actual simplification trend as above.
Complexity seems wonderful until it isn’t (see next).
70
>”Complexity seems wonderful until it isn’t”
Then,
9th November 1979: A computer error reports the USSR had fired nuclear missiles at the USA
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h_KosJF-SY0
Now,
NORAD is using artificial intelligence to see the threats it used to miss
https://www.c4isrnet.com/artificial-intelligence/2021/03/01/norad-is-using-artificial-intelligence-to-see-the-threats-it-used-to-miss/
Like balloons?
80
“NORAD is using artificial intelligence”
Trouble is, the leftists that program AI don’t know what “intelligence” actually is.
So how can they possibly program it !.
It becomes PURELY ARTIFICIAL… lacking the “I” part !
151
Depends on the AI incarnation I think (if you thought Twitter Files was bad Big Tech has a surprise for you). Turns out ChatGPT is neither artificial nor intelligent – it is simply a vehicle for hard-wired Left authoritarianism. Tables turned by “DAN”:
ChatGPT Tricked Out Of Far-Left Bias By Alter Ego “DAN”
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/go-woke-get-broken-chatgpt-tricked-out-far-left-bias-alter-ego-dan
Going O/T but saw this elsewhere:
Big Red Flag – “Pre-trained Transformer”
30
Computers aren’t intelligent. They only think they are.
30
Good point. Being an engineer and having to design processes and make them work, in reality the best processes are those that are simple. Back in the late 1980s a company I started work with had set up a new site in Western Sydney full of “new technology”.
What a disaster! As nothing worked very well at all.
I actually got their automated machine to work by greatly simplifying the main mechanism (hat tip to the outstanding but now passed Fred Baird who was a genius on design and drafting) and this enabled a huge leap in efficiency. Trouble was, by that stage the plant manager, sales manager (lack of sales) and nearly everybody else was totally sick of it and the whole lot was removed, just when running well….
KISS is true…
40
>”the whole [automated] lot was removed”
Worked in a kiwifruit packhouse where on one line 2 robots and automated feed systems where replaced by 1 smaller faster simpler robot and feed system.
The original 2 did most of the manual pallet stacking but when they went down the line slowed to a crawl while manual took over with great difficulty. Wasn’t worth the drama. With 1 robot the stacking was split manual-robot. Robot still goes down but the line carries on faster than before without the manual drama.
Effectively, one robot was replaced by manual labour.
20
Same post harvest operator has several automated coolstores using warehouse automation technology.
Forkie doesn’t enter, drops pallet at door, system stores away using AI. Retrieval same but reverse.
Operator was a Southern Hemisphere leader in coolstore storage and retrieval. Necessary because retrieval of specific pallets was a nightmare burning through managers.
Coolstore layout is/was like a small town with 2-way streets and intersections. New multi-story AI stores make some of that redundant.
10
Take a good look at that hole in the ground as that is where your superannuation savings are most likely going to go.
The Politicians will be OK as they have the ‘Future Fund’ and you will be happy as you will ‘own nothing’.
How do you destroy ‘Capitalism’? You remove people’s capital so they do not have any assets to invest or borrow against.
130
That’s their plan.
30
The ORIGINAL (in both senses) costing was that the scheme would make money when the “cheap renewables electricity” for storage was $40 less than the selling price. Now that the cost has gone up 7? fold does that mean that the (money making) difference is now $280 a MWh?
50
Once its up and running, it will be run by solar and wind.. so will cost nothing !
.
.
.
sarc/ in case needed. ! 😉
110
“Grinding to a halt with a stuck bore” sounds like dancing at a Turnbull mansion soiree when the host speaks to you.
70
“Why e-Vehicles, Solar & Wind Will Not “Transition” ”
https://chiefio.wordpress.com/2023/02/13/why-e-vehicles-solar-wind-will-not-transition/
Chiefio does a line by line diwsection
80
How is it that with the inevitable large number of “experts” on the project, no-one realised on day 1 that it was only excavating 60cm a day not 60m?
Or did that start a short distance in?
I think the response would be to blow up the first 150m or get a 2nd excavator to dig out the first one.
Sounds like the geologists are the 2+2=5 variety…
40
It looks very much to me that the geologists were not invited.
It is worth remembering that this is part of the CAGW scam.
Bringing the catastrophe forward.
20
10 Billion would build how much Nuclear that’s without the overruns
90
Most people don’t understand how little TOXIC S & W contribute to TOTAL global energy generation.
Here’s OWI Data graph for TOTAL global energy in 2021 and Solar is 0.65% and Wind is 1.17% or 1.82% combined. THINK.
Meanwhile Oil, Coal and Gas make up 85.54% and traditional bio mass also makes up 6.99% and that’s a total of 92.53% after WASTING TRILLIONs of $ on the TOXIC S & W disasters for decades.
I ask again, why do our left wing donkeys still BELIEVE in this LUNACY and refuse to WAKE UP.
And again, why do so few people really understand the DATA?
https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/global-primary-energy-share-inc-biomass
51
On the subject of predictable disasters like SH2, the next one will be Dictator Dan of Vicdanistan’s plan to start a state-owned electricity company to “bring down prices”.
80
The cost was mentioned as $6-10bn. Surely it must be well over $10bn by now? Comment in The Oz are saying at least $20bn to complete.
50
Following the Thredbo lodge collapse disaster, seepage underground from further up the hill and roadway above building up against a lodge retaining wall resulting in the lodge slipping down the slope and collapsing trapping people insider the rubble, a former Snowy Mountains Hydro engineer originally from Poland was interviewed. He said that excavating into the hillside at that location was a mistake, the ground is unstable and during construction of the Snowy Mountains Scheme many lives were lost when gravel tracks collapsed and vehicles plunged down into valleys. He said pole foundations were the best option, and added that when Thredbo Village was built many Willow Trees were planted so that the roots would spread out and stabilise the ground and absorb water. He also pointed out the since the Snow Mountains National Park (UN) was declared the trees were cut down because they were not native to Australia.
I understand that what is now Snowy 02 Project was part of the original but was abandoned for not being cost effective including the high cost of constructing tunnels etc.
80
Willows are fantastic trees for re-greening Australia, boosting and maintaining riparian biodiversity, conserving water upslope and erosion prevention.
We would all be better off in Australia retaining the willows our ancestors so wisely planted, and planting more.
Killing and removing beneficial exotics purely because they’re not natives is not only racist, but one wonders why the same people who advocate for removal of beneficial foreign-origin plants also advocate for bring in unlimited numbers of foreign-origin people.
161
The self-hatred of white Leftists (not just in Oz) means that they project said hatred onto any and all things European/Caucasian. Flora is one thing, history another, ditto common law, governance, science, logic, art, music etc.
70
On all these disastrous “green” projects, it’s important to “follow the money trail”.
Who is making money from this and who in power are they friends with?
120
With respect to tunnelling, I have a reference book on The Snowy Hydro Scheme ….. SNOWY: The Making of Modern Australia written by Brad Collis. I originally read the book before the turn of the Century, one which I got out of the Council Library at Helensvale on The Gold Coast, but now I have my own copy. It’s general interest, but is incredibly well researched, and I recommend the book highly to show that this was in fact one of the Industrial wonders of the World, as it comprehensively details not just the personal aspects, but the in depth technical working of the project, considering when it was achieved, and thank heavens it was done when it was done, as now, It wouldn’t get off first base.
Okay, here’s a link to a short overview of Snowy, not the book, because that book puts so much ‘flesh’ onto these bare basics. At the link, the part I want you to look closely at is about the Tunnels, and scroll to the bottom to see those 145Kilometres of interconnected tunnels. (One commenter above mentioned that the longest tunnel in Oz was an 11Km road tunnel, but I might suggest that really meant ….. road tunnel, as there are five tunnels in Snowy longer than that, and two of them double that length)
The tunnel I might draw your attention to is the Tooma Tumut tunnel, at 14.3 Km in length, completed in 1961.
In the long run, this was perhaps one of the most important engineering pieces of history in Australia.
When Hudson set the whole thing up, he had to get major (Hydro) engineering brought in from overseas, and there were numerous large companies involved, the largest of them Kaisers, an American Company, and even though known as Kaisers, it was a consortium of three separate Companies, and in fact there were numerous other Consortiums of Companies doing the major work.
In 1958 an unheard of thing happened. A Contract was awarded to an Australian Company as a sole Construction project, the first major contract to be solely awarded to an Australian Company. It was a gamble, as this company Thiess Brothers were a small engineering firm based out of Toowoomba who had only been working on road construction projects, and here they were, awarded the contract for the Tooma Tumut tunnel.
Unlike every other tunnel, work on this one proceeded smoothly. 14.3 Kilometres. One side started drilling at Tooma, and the other side drilling from Tumut, to meet in the middle, which they did with no error whatsoever, a perfect meeting. The Tunnel was completed way before time, and way way way under budget.
This was the making of Thiess Bros, and from then on, major contracts did go to Australian Companies. In fact, the major engineering troubles were with some of those overseas contractors, Kaiser foremost among them, as workers were considered very very poorly.
One of the five Thiess Brothers, Leslie imported the first Land Cruisers into Australia, (in 1958, so the FJ35’s I think ) and they were used solely on this project, 13 of them, with not the slightest of problems, perfectly suited to tough conditions like this, and Thiess then made a deal with Toyota as the original importers of those work vehicles.
So, when it comes to tunnelling in the Snowy, this is no new thing, and perhaps we forget things like this have been done before ….. now more than SIXTY years ago.
Tony.
350
Thiess Bros were also running early (late 1940’s) open cut coal mines as well – they were a can-do organisation well before the snowy contract.
70
I recall that a Norwegian group got the first contract followed by Kaiser, who set the benchmark for tunneling distance per day. When Thiess came in they improved on that!
30
A saga of disaster when politics trumps engineering (and commonsense).
The poor taxpayer has to pick up the pieces here when we get overrun after overrun.
The money should have been put into a number of smaller next generation nuclear generators. And stop trying to make renewables work when they are totally unsuited to large scale grid supply. For a mining site which already has the diesel generators solar works a treat, with good fuel savings (particularly as transport to remote areas is expensive) but lets stop the renewables delusion for the grid.
140
I agree that the money should have been put into building next gen nuclear, but there’s no way in hell that the toxic greenies would have allowed that. There’d have been protests at the sites from beginning of construction to the end. Not to mention the law-fare that would have been run.
60
This is so funny – an open cut would have been finished by now and pipes laid… Cant wait for Albo to turn into a Fracker to save the next election. Just like Biden is about to.
90
A costly exercise in futility. Reminds me of that old nursery rhyme: “The Grand Old Duke of York”
100
is that the guy who reached into his pocket to grab his $2,ooo ony to find it missing and then quoted as saying “I dont feel too Grand”?
40
Has it even been confirmed whether the pondage area is capable of holding water? With all the fault lines and fractures in the area the water might leak out.
60
You reminded me of the time when Labor Victoria decided to force the lessee to abandon Hazelwood brown coal fired Power Station by forcing up fuel price and accordingly impacting adversely on profitability. Hazelwood I understand generated up to 25 per cent of electricity for Victoria.
But then VicGov realised that Snowy Hydro had a drought related water supplies problem and could not generate enough electricity to replace the Hazelwood supply loss.
Apparently VicGov in panic purchased and installed many diesel generators, Mornington Peninsular was one location of several.
120
Similar happened in NZ 1970:
KAIMAI TUNNEL
https://www.engineeringnz.org/programmes/heritage/heritage-records/kaimai-tunnel/
And,
And,
Spent some time as a drafty doing graphics of the methods used for an engineering presentation..
90
Aren’t ego-driven politically-motivated projects always a good idea?
(I couldn’t resist including this report on page 40 – seems to fit nicely there ….)
Thanks Joanne! (And David B!)
80
While 5 GW of coal capacity has already announced it will close by 2030, as much as 14 GW may become uneconomic by that time.8 14 GW represents around one-third of the NEM’s dispatchable capacity, a significant amount to exit over an eight year period. Replacement would require the equivalent of another Snowy 2.0 to be connected every year from now until 2030
From the “Enery Security Board” June 2022 page 9
20
Are these the same pumped hydros that the Queensland government are basing there whole transition strategy on. They will never admit this is folly and will just waste heaps of taxpayers money providing this non solution for a non problem.
30
A rule I use is that anything that the Palachook favours has to be completely wrong and stupid. She and her govt are utterly incompetent. Trouble is Crisafulli, who I have met on a no of occasions, is barely any better….
20
There was a Bill MacDonald radio session yesterday on whether she should get a statue for passing 3000 days as premier.
Response was solidly against so her not wanting one was good reading of the tea leaves.
My thought was that, if there was one, it should be sited at Luggage Point (one of Brisbane’s major serer outfalls)
https://heritage.brisbane.qld.gov.au/heritage-places/1362
00
At tunnelling Florence don’t bore,
Likes to stay where she was days before,
Getting stuck on her track,
Can’t move or turn back,
Cuts the shortest and costliest core.
70
This disaster is as good as all the millions spent on hot rocks, what did we get out of that, nada, zilch.
30
“2,400 ton Tunnel Boring Machine called Florence”
Is it an EV?
30
Don’t feel too humiliated , Australia , by the possible engineering , ecological and financial disaster that SH2
apparently threatens to be . Because you are not alone . Here in UK we have an equivalent ,known as HS2.
Intended to be a high speed rail route from London to Birmingham and manchester, to enable business people to get to their meetings
a few minutes earlier than at present , it seemed a snip at £30 Buillion , despite the destruction of ancient woodland , historic sites and buildings.
However it seems (as many predicted ) that its cost has already escalated to £100billion , it will be 10 years late and by date of completion most business
will be conducted online or even (in 2040?) by holographic simulated meetings. Oh and it wont be high speed,
just the normal max speed of 125mph of express trains into London from the North . Oh , and the number of trains /day will also be reduced from the current schedule.
I wonder if you inherited a predilection for creating financially disastrous projects from the Mother Country (if you still call it that , which you probably dont –
shrieks of horror from Gee Aye at the thought).
60
I read all the way through that and have no idea what you point or points you are making. I’ll save my shrieks for elsewhere
11
I have always wondered how these things compare to ordinary continuous miner that you find in an underground coal mine.
They certainly seem a lot more expensive, do they actually do something that justifies the added expense?
30
You have to admire green maths.
No matter how much money their crackpot schemes are costing us, they are always claiming to save us money.
https://tallbloke.wordpress.com/2023/02/13/merseysides-mega-battery-is-switched-on-and-here-come-the-extravagant-claims/
It’s like some fraudulent supermarket special offer. Put the price of a can of soup up 600% a day before doing a 5% off special.
40
And comment on the pathetically small storage capacity in the scheme of things.
https://notalotofpeopleknowthat.wordpress.com/2023/02/14/sky-fall-for-the-battery-con-trick/
10
[…] blog of the day is Jo Nova, with a post on Australia’s biggest renewable energy project grinding to a […]
00
Reneweconomy is reporting the disaster that is Snowy 2.0.
Disastrous tunnelling delays underline folly of Snowy 2.0 pumped hydro scheme.
“The latest revelation from the hapless Snowy 2.0 pumped hydro battery project is the staggeringly slow progress of all three tunnel boring machines (TBMs), resulting in extensive delays and cost blowouts.”
40
When RenewEconomy is talking of disasters with Green programs you can be sure that the wheels are falling off the renewables scams.
30
How bloody embarrassing for a world famous tunnelling company.
00
If I may be frank, this will be general long, discourteous, and not on the immediate point. I apologize.
It is about 20 years since I happened on this popular-science gabfest with the publication of Michael Crichton’s “State of Fear,” the seminal introduction what is now Catastrophic Anthropogenic Global Warming Hypothesis. The so-called hypothesis lacks sufficient fact to qualify as such. It is, as Gerlich and Tschneushner said, mere conjecture. There is so little reality to the claim one can’t help wondering whether so-called skeptics are not its leading supporters, catastrophe’s fat cats.
To be frank, I often doubt skeptics want to prevail in this “debate” by destroying it. It is a hobby, a PR job, and step up to celebrity for many. There is enough in that to make honest opponents cringe. With due regrets, my impression is that most professional skeptics have simply found a gratifying lifestyle that will last only as long as they provide life support for alarmist claims with more ineffectual chatter and off-target arithmetic – about stipulated and accepted “greenhouse” particulars. The best known of these sites have become mutual admiration societies. None has changed content (or made progress) for the past decade or more.
If the intent of “skeptics” is to prevail, they had best pay more attention to and support the applicable physics which DENIES, and has consistently DENIED, and debunked the notion of an earthly “greenhouse.” With no “greenhouse” there is no “greenhouse effect “from so-called “greenhouse gases.” An experiment by Dr. R.W. Wood soundly refuted the “greenhouse” in 1904 with a slaughtering whack at the Gordian knot. These days skeptics studiously ignore or reject the result, one which has never been, or had to be, amended, modified, or rebutted. With no “greenhouse,” however, many of them will be out of a job.
Genuine change of strategy to get rid of the “warming” notion would require shifting to a committed, and considerably braver, frontal attack instead of dithering over the stipulated nonsense with all its surmise, conjecture, assumptions, simulations upon simulations, and terrorizing hocus-pocus – with scarce a fact in sight.
Just study the simple usually accessible physics pertaining to the claims of calamity, and catastrophe vanishes. May I suggest that opponents of what is a segment of environmentalist dogma shift ground to honest opposition, that they pay better attention their own science? Review and consider analyses by Gerlich, Tschneuschner, Kramm, Dlugi, Hertzberg, Schreuder, Siddons, C.R. Anderson, and every other qualified, but generally sidelined, physicist who has seen and points the way through the sham.
10