Australian renewables;
Proponents of the renewables boast about how places like South Australia (SA) achieved near 100% renewable energy generation, often around the middle of the day, implying they could do it all the time. What they don’t say, because it spoils the narrative, is a lot more instructive. Look at the generation profile below of one such day. They had to keep the gas turbines on to provide inertia. These had to generate most of the load before dawn and at dusk because the wind wasn’t there. Battery provided very little. The balancing interconnectors to Victoria that allowed near 20% export or coal fired power to come in were important if not essential. Without the gas power and the Heywood line, SA would have been in real trouble.
Even on a “normal” day, the merit order in SA is akin to a switch. When the sun is out and the wind is blowing, the merit order is in negative pricing. When it’s not, prices go up, often around $400/MWh. That raises costs for the distribution companies which pass it on their customers.
It’s a long and detailed post, so do read it all.
Energy storage (battery) is the weak link.
Steve, agreed.
But that doesn’t prevent the Ontario government from pouring money into battery storage. They just announced a major project to be built on a reservation with native Indian partners.
What are the odds that this is fully justifiable in economic terms and has nothing to do with politics and virtue signalling?
Steve – Reliable vs. Intermittent Generation: A Primer (Part I)
“Why should a thermal plant spend money in a government-rigged market that threatens a reasonable profit? Why should the plant even remain in the market under these conditions?”
“For IVREs it’s a no-risk deal, with markets guaranteed and taxpayers country-wide adding profits. But what about the need for reliable power?”
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2023/03/02/reliable-vs-intermittent-generation-a-primer-part-i/
Read it before Justin shuts all controversial facts down.
Thanks Paul. I wish battery storage was as reliable as you are for great information. If I was a battery manufacturer I would be long natural gas.
Steve – Thanks, although Anthony Watts is the true source of great data. And Kate led me to Watts. Check out Grayforce in Germany. They turn natural gas into hydrogen and carbon black at 1/5 the cost of turning water into hydrogen. No CO2 emissions if you use green electricity. The greens will want to cancel it anyways, which confirms their real agenda.
CO2 is not now nor ever has been a problem. It is not a climate driver.
The next wrong on all counts, what the hell happened debacle is green energy.. Just like Covid 19 the politics around it has made a great deal of money for a select few.. A us and them political war of blindness..
The expectation of dependable affordable energy makes you a antivaxxer.. So line up for your shot of “its not going to work” and go sit in your basement :).. After all its all about me and never you..
Your first clue.. Swapping the downside of your policy with the people questioning your policy is a clear sign you are on the wrong track.. Eventually, 23 year old sports stars will start falling over dead..
The study misses the point. Whatever the efficiency of industrial windfarms & costs to consumers, what matters is that the windfarms reduce CO2 emissions that contribute to climate change. The reductions in C02 emissions ,i.e. “offsets” are a key part of the CO2 trading mechanisms and provide for a significant source of income to the operators.
Right. The only problem is if they are low efficiency they can never pay back the CO2 that was needed to construct and erect them in the first place, let alone lead to “reductions” by “offsets”.
There’s numbers re. lifecycle CO2 footprint available for different generation sources. Wind looks good except wind must be backed up for the most part by other source(s). The combined mix should be looked at. None would come out better than nuclear. But, why is CO2 a consideration anyway?
JS,
You claim that CO2 emissions are dangerous to the planet. What is the relationship between CO2 and global temperatures?
You cannot answer the simple question: “How much will global temperature rise, measured in degrees C, per tonne of CO2 emissions?” There is actually a theoretical number but you don’t know where to look. Right?
Yet you have no problem in saying that it’s a high priority to invest in next to useless technologies just to let governments virtue signal and convince innumerate gullible voters that they are saving the world.
“What is the relationship between CO2 and global temperatures?”
Bingo! The posted study doesn’t challenge the false premise of the scam.
I look out my front window, I see a windfarm. I look out my back window, I see another windfarm.
I attended the council meeting on Decision day. All the arguments had been submitted prior. People made last minute presentations. The final scheduled speaker was a young mother. She implored council to think of the children and the planet.
You know the rest of the story. It’s 15 years later. The CO2 narrative has been discredited and should not be a deciding factor.
JS….now THAT’S FUNNY! Windfarms do nothing…there is a reason why ranchers and farmers abandoned them decades ago.
“JS….now THAT’S FUNNY! Windfarms do nothing…there is a reason why ranchers and farmers abandoned them decades ago.”
Nothing but killing birds, bats and whales…not to mention the high environmental costs of first building then maintaining them throughout their relatively short (20 years or so) lifespan. Then you have to dispose of them, which adds even more cost.
If you consider the value that the WEF have created in green useful idiots, convincing them to go to war with the rest of humanity to “save the planet”, the the wind farms and solar panels are then extremely valuable. They are siphoning tax dollars into useless investments, bankrupting and breaking down societies in multiple ways to soften us all up for their planned 2030 globalist takeover. Once we are all impoverished and defeated enough, we’ll be easy pickings for them to enslave. Those of us who won’t go quietly into the new servitude will be dealt with accordingly! Me, I’ll try to stay under the radar (fat chance, something about dying on my feet, not living on my knees) For now, I’ll quietly throw sand and rocks into the gears as best I can.
I encourage folks to read Judith Curry’s blog – “Climate Etc.” She is a calm sane voice. Here’s a bit from her recent presentation:
“Even people that don’t know much about climate science have heard that 97% of climate scientists agree. Not nearly as much as is portrayed in the media. Everyone agrees that:
Surface temperatures have increased since 1880
Humans are adding carbon dioxide to the atmosphere, and
Carbon Dioxide and other greenhouse gases have a warming effect on the planet
However, there is disagreement on the most consequential issues:
How much of the recent warming has been caused by humans?
How much the planet will warm in the 21st century?
Whether warming is ‘dangerous’?
And how we should respond to the warming, to improve human well being?
The first two points are in the realm of science, requiring logical arguments, model simulations and expert judgment to assess “whether” and “how much.” The issue of “dangerous” is an issue of societal values, about which science has little to say. Whether reducing CO2 emissions will improve human wellbeing is an issue of economics and technology. This is also contingent on the relative importance of natural climate variability versus human-caused global warming for the 21st century.
Nevertheless, we are endlessly fed the trope that 97% of climate scientists agree that warming is dangerous and that science demands urgent reductions in CO2 emissions.”
Bjorn Lomborg is a good read also.
AND South Australians pay the highest per kWh charge than other Aust states.
The Germans screwed this up. Does every jurisdiction have to make the same mistakes?
My favourite example of this is math instruction. It’s the same stuff all over the world. There’s plenty of evidence about successful outcomes.
But every Micky Mouse schoolboard has local “experts” who conduct failing experiments on our children – at our expense.
Well it sure seems every politician has to do the same thing. Then stammer on about how the results will be different for their pet project.
“Benga you are correct. It used to be atrocious. Now it’s just bad. Soon it will be ok and then it might actually be pretty good. We just have to put up with a lot of pain i the meantime.”
For how many years, and at what cost to the environment?
That technology is nowhere near being ‘pretty good’.
Its the low points that kill the system. SA is leading the way in demonstrating the failure of their absurd dreams.
https://www.flickerpower.com/index.php/search/categories/general/list-of-briefing-notes
https://www.spectator.com.au/2023/02/the-iron-triangle-of-energy-realism/
Forward!
Faster !
Harder!
Certain Doom hangs over a technical civilization,when the non-technicians seize power.
For decades ,about 10 in most parts,the Power Engineers held sway ,creating an astonishingly reliable and robust system.
With a basic rule of thumb,that we must have 125% of expected normal load available at all times,we weaned industry off of steam power and domestic servants were freed from bondage by amazing appliances..
Because Electric power,our new slave,was there,at the flick of a switch.
Efficiencies and convenience undreamed of..
Well the power engineers did too good a job.
They made electric supply look so easy,so easy that politicians thought they would “help”.
Creating Government Utilities as great ways to Help all electrify,then as Great Ways to steal..
For stealing a few pennies at a time,from 100 000 persons was so much easier..
But there is no limit to the greed of parasites.
Then the greatest grift ever was born.
The Cult of Calamitous Climate,building on the systemic theft of Government Regulated Utilities,as the ultimate method of robbing the poor to enrich the well connected ..since the Catholic Church that is.
For they are “Saving The Planet” and once you accept that absurdity,there is no limit to the “donations you can make”,accepting utility bills so obscene, they defy reality..
Stealing many dollars/per monthly bill from the ever growing ranks of the poor,to distribute to the very needy well connected..is one hell of a great racket,if you rank in the Kleptocracy.
One of the reasons diesel fuel is being attacked and restricted,artificially driving its price up,is that you can generate your own electrical power cheaper,with an efficient diesel genset,than you can buy it from your local utility..
After all the “riders,fees and temporary levies” are included the $/kW/h rate is a whole lot higher than you thought.
And when you do it yourself?
You have reliable on demand power..just like in the “good old days” of power generation..
Just another example of the “Magic Hand of Government”,whatever they control turns to crap.
So if we want less power,just like South Australia,we just need more government investment,in power generation.
And with or without the Magic Gas,or even the hysteria of Catastrophic Anthropogenic Global Warming,we would have reached this point soon enough anyway..
Fools and Bandits cannot restrain themselves,they must steal,plunder and destroy.
Currently the suppliers of affordable electricity are being punished for being reliable.
And the unreliables are being rewarded with stolen monies.
What would we expect to happen?
Perverse incentives from our perverts.
SA is our future.
“They are installing a lot more energy storage to fix this.”
To fix what? The entire premise upon which this is based is FUBAR! It’s a solution looking for a non-existant problem that is costing taxpayers billions, if not trillions, of $$$ that could be used to otherwise address real issues.
Current atmospheric CO2 concentration is what, ~410ppm? And all these idiots are panicking because it’s up from pre-industrial levels of what, ~280ppm? OMG, whatever are we going to do??!! We’re all going to die in some Faustian nightmare!!!
Four hundred million years ago atmospheric CO2 concentrations were 7000ppm, 17 times “worse” than today, yet here we are to talk about it. How is that even remotely possible if CO2 is the Faustian climate driver all these ex-spurts claim?
And, AND, in the middle of that period of time, in the midst of 7000ppm atmospheric CO2 concentration, there was a worldwide glaciation. How is that even possible?
Instead of listening to all these idiots, one would do well to sit down & read a GD geology book every so often. Then, next time you talk to yer local politishian, ask these very questions. See what they’ve got to say. My MP didn’t have an f’ing clew. For that matter, she still doesn’t & she’s s’pose to be on the good side.
Jeezuz, people are stupid.