Energy Prices Skyrocket in South Australia (yahoo.com) 269
Slashdot reader sycodon quotes an article from AFR:
Turmoil in South Australia's heavily wind-reliant electricity market has forced the state government to plead with the owner of a mothballed gas-fired power station to turn it back on. The emergency measures are needed to ease punishing costs for South Australian industry as National Electricity Market prices in the state have frequently surged above $1000 a megawatt hour this month and at one point on Tuesday hit the $14,000/MWh maximum price...
"A planned outage of the Heywood Interconnector to Victoria, coupled with higher than expected gas prices and severe weather conditions have contributed to large-scale price volatility in the energy spot market in recent days," said South Australia's energy minister, Tom Koutsantonis. The Australian Associated Press adds that "The state Labor government has invested heavily in wind and solar energy at the expense of baseload power, a move critics say has left the state exposed during poor weather. Mr. Koutsantonis has described the energy volatility as a failure of the national energy market because a lack of interconnection means South Australia often produces more renewable power than it can sell into the grid. But opposition spokesman Dan van Holst Pellekaan said the government had been too hasty to invest in renewables."
"A planned outage of the Heywood Interconnector to Victoria, coupled with higher than expected gas prices and severe weather conditions have contributed to large-scale price volatility in the energy spot market in recent days," said South Australia's energy minister, Tom Koutsantonis. The Australian Associated Press adds that "The state Labor government has invested heavily in wind and solar energy at the expense of baseload power, a move critics say has left the state exposed during poor weather. Mr. Koutsantonis has described the energy volatility as a failure of the national energy market because a lack of interconnection means South Australia often produces more renewable power than it can sell into the grid. But opposition spokesman Dan van Holst Pellekaan said the government had been too hasty to invest in renewables."
engineering reality (Score:2)
hmmm, maybe they could become the leaders in renewable energy storage? the world needs such tech badly, just sayin'
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You could be the best one on the planet, and it will do pretty much nothing on the scale needed here.
It's not about being leaders. It's about technology not existing, and not being easy to invent.
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Perhaps it's time to give up instead of going on about "technology not existing" when off the top of your head you should have thought of one that could have done the job decades ago.
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Lol back to you. There are ~800m mountains near Port Augusta (conveniently shaped into long thin Vs), right near a limitless supply of water (Spencer Gulf and Lake Torrens
And hydro isn't the only way to store power.
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Apparently someone isn't aware that saltwater is also water.
Not a surprise... (Score:5, Informative)
The unfolding energy crisis in South Australia was foreseeable and foreseen [decarbonisesa.com]
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Ahh, the sweet, sweet profits of privatised energy. Fuck society, fuck the community, more, More, MORE, profits now. Yeah, everyone knew but corrupt government and voilÃ, bullshit exposed as bullshit. Privatisation is not about saving anything, it is about squeezing more profits out of society, up to it's death or the peasants revolt (they don't care, as long as they are rich and powerful right now, aftermath somebody else's problem). They desperately trying to come up with excuses, you know like, too
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Nobody controls the wind or the sun. You can be independent of evil energy companies.
Have at it!
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Nobody controls the wind or the sun. You can be independent of evil energy companies.
Have at it!
Except when it's calm and cloudy.
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Nobody controls the wind or the sun.
Tell that to Cobra Commander.
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Putting it under the umbrella of government regulation doesn't change the underlying cause a
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Spot market pricing is difficult when dealing with a instantaneous demand/supply/response market. The highs and lows are naturally extreme, and volatility is to be expe
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That only works on a long-term sense, not on an hour-by-hour or day-by-day scale. Electricity price changes or gasoline price changes on the spot market don't do anything for "encouraging buildout of more supply".
There is also the pesky asymmetry in most (all?) industries where e
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If you fix the prices and there's a shortfall of supply, instead of prices going up you get shortages.
No you don't.
As the law demands that you supply the power.
Pretty easy. Done all over the world, just not in fucked up countries like yours.
Re:Not a surprise... (Score:5, Insightful)
Renewables are not a reliable source of energy: their production levels vary as whatever natural phenomenon they depend on varies. This was known well in advance, as was the necessity to maintain classic plants for base load. A political choice was made not to maintain sufficient plants for base load, and since production through renewable sources does not have sufficient capacity at all times, an allocation scheme for times of tightness was needed - a market, so customers with very high requirements for reliable energy could simply pay more for that privilege while customers with lower requirements could choose to lower their consumption at times when production was insufficient.
So far, it looks to me like everything is working exactly as designed. So what exactly are you complaining about? Blackouts? Those were a known and expected feature of having a high level of renewables without enough classic plants. Varying prices with high peaks? Those were _also_ a known and expected feature of the technology! Or is it simply that you wanted to 'save the planet', as long as it didn't inconvenience you personally with high prices and blackouts?
Don't pretend it is all an evil plot to extort money. You made this bed, now lie in it. I'm just sad to see the people who wanted other options (nuclear, for example) having to suffer with you.
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If this was the only symptom you'd have a point, but unfortunately you do not and it really is a ridiculously stupid system of a pointless middleman driving up prices Enron style right across Australia and not just in South Australia. Similar problems have cropped up in Queensland and New South Wales where renewables are close to non-existent and coal plus some gas provides just about everything.
Nuclear is not worth considering in this situation - it is n
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I find it hilarious when the people who shoved alternative energy down our throats all of a sudden discover "short term problems". We were supposed to think long-term, remember? It's all about the planet, not about you? Please remember that when you sit in the dark, with no airco, next time.
As for your assertion that -somehow- the market is responsible for pricing peaks - what alternative do you propose then? There is scarcity, so an allocation must be made in some fashion. Would you prefer it to be done th
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I am one of them despite not having worked as an engineer in the electricity industry since 1998. The problem here is not related to the source of energy. It's a stupid spot pricing network that should not exist.
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r natural phenomenon they depend on varies. This was known well in advance, as was the necessity to maintain classic plants for base load. A political choice was made not to maintain sufficient plants for base load
Please stop using the term "base load" until you have read up and understand what it means. Base load plants are rapidly replaced by renewables.
You mix up load following and peak load plants with base load. Hint: the name indicates exactly what base load is: it is nothing special.
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Idiot. Let me say that again, you're a complete idiot. Cheap energy is one of the best ways to get people out of poverty and one of the best ways to increase the general health of a group of people.
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Cheap energy encourages wasteful usage. Americans don't care what it costs to power their 50 inch TVs, they'll pollute the environment if that's what it takes. Energy should be expensive, that's what it takes to make people use less. Cheap energy is a problem, not a solution.
Cheap energy also fuels the economy, and economic success is the key to addressing environmental issues. Countries that find themselves struggling economically cannot invest in clean power. Also, raising prices hurts the poor and doesn't impact the rich.
BTW, my TV is 55 inches. Fortunately I'm educated enough to know that the TV is not a big contributor to my usage.
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Cheap energy encourages wasteful usage....
Cheap energy also fuels the economy,
Cheap anything fuels the economy. There is an economic effect called "resource substitution"-- an economy will tend to find ways to use the resources that are cheap in order to use less of resources that are more expensive. You are both right: cheap energy encourages wasteful usage, and also when energy is cheap, people use energy (or things made with high energy content) to substitute for more expensive resources.
The reverse is also true: if energy is more expensive, an economy will tend to find substit
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Yes it does but the benefits far outweighs the problem. Cheap energy means we close down coal power plants it means the third world stops burning wood. Leaving some TV's on or running the AC more is not a big deal. Hells get energy cheap enough and people will got back to resistive heating as it's dirt cheap to install. If the input is cleaner than their oil furnace thats a good thing. Cheap means people naturally move to it and it's not cheap because of subsidies it's sustainable. Cheap displaces the
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That's the most moronic thing I've seen written here in weeks. Congrats!
Re: Not a surprise... (Score:2)
So many? I haven't lost electricity for more than a few seconds in over 5 years. Blackouts and brownouts aren't common at all.
Re:No, caused by bad govt policy! (Score:5, Informative)
It has nothing to do with "psychopathic private corporations"...
I live in Alberta too. You seem to have forgotten about this [theglobeandmail.com]. An excerpt:
In 2014, the province’s Market Surveillance Administrator alleged that TransAlta engaged in “anti-competitive conduct” in 2010 and 2011 by taking three coal-fired power plants off line on four cold days, during high-demand hours and in periods when other players in Alberta’s competitive power market were the least likely to be able to pick up the slack. This, the administrator said, drove up electricity prices and allowed TransAlta to reap millions in additional profits.
Re:Not a surprise... (Score:4, Insightful)
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But there will be a learning curve.
There is not a single real technical issue at play here. It is not about energy supply, it's about manipulating the market, pure corruption.
Re:Not a surprise... (Score:4, Informative)
California still has an energy crisis, at least in SoCal...just no one talks about it because there is no evil corporate villain to blame... electric costs are still 12-24 cents/kwh depending on time of day and which utilization level one is placed. Water rates are also getting quite high...Unfortunately, the solutions (controlling imigration/total population, overall development density, and using nuclear or low-cost fossil fuels energy go against the orthodoxies of the prevailing ruling class)...so we will be stuck with 3-6% energy inflation for as long as the eye can see.....naturally, everyone is getting taxpayer funded solar panels to minimize extortionate rates.
Re:Not a surprise... (Score:4, Informative)
Water rates have nothing to do with immigration. Most of CA's water is used by farming. As for nuclear, it's the NIMBYs who don't want it. And finally, those subsidies for residential solar: they will be much lower next year. The big corporations (in this case PG&E and the other energy companies) hate residential solar.
I recently put in solar panels. I estimate payback in 5 years, perhaps even less, if energy prices increase by 5% per year.
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Hope is a lie.
This was foreseen but not avoided because it didn't follow the marketing lies of the politicians and self deceiving voters.
It's also foreseen that an integrated system of many energies will still fail because it doesn't even out. You're exasperating peak load with least production.
We have a perfectly good solution for carbon free economical electricity: nuclear. Even better, it only emits 1% the radiation that coal fire plants do.
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Other countries are doing just fine with their transitions, particularly Germany and Denmark. Energy there isn't insanely expensive, in fact it's actually a lot cheaper [europa.eu] than other dirtier EU countries. Sure, they throw some tax on top to speed the process along, but in the longer term things are really looking good for them.
What you have in South Australia is commercial companies manipulating the market to make massive profits and try to resist the transition. What they need to do is fix the market and reig
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We have a perfectly good solution for carbon free economical electricity: nuclear. Even better, it only emits 1% the radiation that coal fire plants do.
Good thing carbon is the only thing we have to worry about, huh? [theguardian.com]
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It's not really trial and error if you get the expected result, now is it? The learning curve always was "learn to enjoy sitting in the dark waiting for the lights to go back on", but since nobody seemed to care about that at the time ("I'm sure it will happen to other people"), here we are now.
And it's just hilarious to see how the whole mess now gets blaimed on "corruption". The sad truth is that if prices were artificially lowered, demand would quickly outstrip production, and the whole system would come
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It was predicted [imdb.com] even longer ago than that.
It's all about the guzzoline, mate. Better learn to drive fast and hard if you want to survive.
Corruption in Aussie power industry (Score:2, Interesting)
http://www.smh.com.au/business... [smh.com.au]
Despite this Australians keep re-electing the corrupt Labor and Liberal parties anyway, so serves them right. You get what you vote for.
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Compulsory voting + laissez-faire attitude to politics + ignorance = same government doing same shit over and over.
Our voting system is an absolute joke. No one has any idea who or why they are voting, unless you're a xenophobe then there's the Hanson clan, but they are all just suit wearing knobs and the one who has the most charismatic appearance during the campaign wins.
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They do say that power corrupts, especially if also exposed to moisture.
Renewables vs baseload (Score:2)
This kind of thing is going to happen until someone invents a viable storage system to allow renewables to cover base load.
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This kind of thing is going to happen until someone invents a viable storage system to allow renewables to cover base load.
what, you mean like a battery system that can scale up to the size of warehouses? [wikipedia.org]
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what, you mean like a battery system that can scale up to the size of warehouses? [wikipedia.org]
While it's cool that it's scaleable and and made from widely-available non-toxic materials, salt-ion batteries have a pathetic energy density (even compared to other batteries, which are already pathetic), about 1.4 MJ/kg. Even lithium-ion, among the "best" rechargeable batteries, top out at around 2.6 MJ/kg. As a comparison, gasoline has an energy density of around 34 MJ/kg.
According to your link, a shipping container sized battery from Aquion can store 2.88 MWh. Based on this [wikipedia.org], average worldwide power cons
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No surprise (Score:2)
This is actually perfectly normal behavior from real-time priced power markets. There's a certain point where the consumers are going to become non-responsive (you'll pay $1000/MWh if it's 90 degF in your house as the sun is setting) and that non-responsive load exceed the available generation. There needs to be enough dispatch-able generation (like the gas generator in the article) to cover all of the non-responsive load, or you get "market failures" like this, where the effective spot price climbs to in
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As the people of California already know, one picture [wikimedia.org] explains it all. These are the kinds of things that justify calling for early elections to make at least a feeble effort at correcting the problem. And I hope this time the lessons of privatization fall on fertile ground.
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This is actually perfectly normal behavior from real-time priced power markets. There's a certain point where the consumers are going to become non-responsive
However, the end consumer doesn't get the price in real time, do they? I think the bill comes once per month. Consumers need a way to know the price in real time in order for this model to work properly.
Over simplification. Multiple factors. (Score:5, Informative)
The conservative government of the time provided the transmission lessee a 99 year lease with a guaranteed return. Failures in the agreement have permitted the lessee to "gold plate the network" to their advantage/profit as the cost is recovered from consumers.
Electricity have since steadily increased to a level 2-3 times, where it's often cited as the most expensive in the world. Going off grid might work short term, but as that gains popularity, the burden of the transmission lease on the remaining few, will force the government to charge every property a supply charge.
The subsequent price increases, combined with the (national) RET scheme, have driven a massive adoption of solar in SA. The RET also fueled a massive increase in wind farm investment, but it's important to understand that scheme is a national scheme.
The third factor is the main interconnector to Victoria is being upgraded and presumably offline or running at reduced capacity.
The four factor is the recent shut down of the pt Augusta Coal plant that one served the majority of state. It was switched off last month.
Fifth factor is recent cold weather has increased demand.
It's important to appreciate the it's a combination of all these factors that have put the state in this predicament. Not just an abundance of renewable electricity.
Why it's only now made the news is because industry and retailers that normally get it wholesale for $50/MWh and lockin consumers at 30-40c at KWh [600-800% markup] are now losing money as these spikes get bigger and more common.
As the current treasurer pointed out, the markets are failing as there is no incentive to put on more transmission capacity and that has largely protected the remaining duopoly baseload generators who are cashing in.
SA just needs transmission capacity. Either interstate or to the northern geothermal sites.
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Nothing to see here (Score:3)
All it has taken is a cable outage to sent prices through the roof.
Prices going through the roof due to such an insane pricing construct reacting to an outage is given some one issue idiots an excuse to once again complain about windmills.
So all up it's about an extreme reaction to something trivial.
Geothermal/Solar Thermal. (Score:3)
Re:Enron down under (Score:5, Insightful)
Doesn't need to be. I strongly support renewables, but one has to be realistic about the limitations of the technology that they're using. Any plan based around "Let's make a large portion of our power generation from intermittent sources over a very limited geographic area (little variation in production levels) with most of our peaking having very limited connections to us which can and will need to be taken down at points in the future" is just asking for problems. In fact, it's practically guaranteeing them.
Renewables and stability can come hand in hand (dramatic demand variability has been part of the market from day 1, so why not supply). But the higher the percentage of your power you want to come from intermittent sources, the more you need to do it right. And that means, 1) different types of intermittent sources (say, solar paired with wind), 2) geographic distribution of generation (so that drops aren't as extreme or as sudden), 3) sufficient storage OR peaking to fill the gaps, and 4) all elements of the above being linked in a manner that can effectively statistically guarantee constant supply uptime.
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Or, if you only want to use renewables and only have a small geographic area, you could way overbuild the power plants so that at the worst times you have enough power, while normally selling the excess power very cheaply to aluminium smelters or bitcoin miners on the condition that it will be intermittent to them.
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while normally selling the excess power very cheaply
I think you misunderstand how monopolies work.
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while normally selling the excess power very cheaply
I think you misunderstand how monopolies work.
He also misunderstand how smelting works. You cannot just stop smelting an start up again without spoiling all the product.
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I don't think you understand how power markets work.
What monopoly? ETSA (Electric Trust of South Australia) is a load serving monopoly in S. Australia operating in a power pool. It is not a monopoly over all Australia.
It's also the place I saw the single most mismanaged, slowest network in my entire consulting carrier. Granting 20 years ago now. Nice folks, but what a fucked mess. Made doing anything very difficult.
Re:Enron down under (Score:4, Informative)
They get built in places where they can be sold continuous cheap power.
Re:Enron down under (Score:4, Informative)
Aluminum smelters cannot (except at great expense) shut down altogether. But they can modulate their power consumtion a fair amount. They have to keep enough power flowing through the aluminum to keep it molten, but they don't have to run it at peak production rates through each cell.
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Sorry, I'm with the GP. This is clearly a scam. It's not about energy, it's a disagreement over the price. And it's another reason not to privatize critical resources. I am astounded that the people are letting them get away with it. Unfortunately little will be learned from this, as the water issue also illustrates so well.
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Exactly - there's plenty of supply, it's just charged at an insane rate since "They have no choice - want power? Pay what we ask or start doing rolling blackouts"
It's a commercial/political/greed issue.
Re:Enron down under (Score:5, Insightful)
Exactly - there's plenty of supply, it's just charged at an insane rate since "They have no choice - want power? Pay what we ask or start doing rolling blackouts"
It's a commercial/political/greed issue.
Do you have facts to back up your contention that there was plenty of supply, because the article talks about the engorgement wanting to start up a retired plant to ease the problem? BTW, they are talking about market spot prices spiking to that level, not consumer prices. Its not evident from your post that you distinguished between the two.
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I'm certainly talking about market spot prices.
So far there has been sufficient supply (note, they DID/DO purchase the power at the stated prices) It's just not generated locally by our own market, so when we fall short on local supply we need to purchase from our non local suppliers who can and do set their spot price.
So the facts to back up my contention is that at no point was there not enough supply to meed demand. It's only the cost of the supply that's the point of contention.
IF they are forced (due t
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At times major transmission lines can load to 100%, which means even if there is supply at the other end you can't get any more directly, so you might need t
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I did some consulting for ETSA when they were first setting up their power pool.
S. Australia is very much link constrained. This problem occurred when the S. Australia Victoria link was down.
At that price, the links were saturated, guaranteed. Unless the neighboring regions were also in spinning reserve violation and not allowed to export.
Re: Enron down under (Score:2)
Venezuela thinks it's a bad idea to have privatized critical resources too. You guys are really on to somethin.
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It's all about statistics. The more diverse your intermittent sources, and the broader the geographical range they're spread (and thus the less their power generation rates correlate), the higher the percentage of your grid it can make up with a correspondingly smaller amount of peaking as backup.
That said, I do have concerns about the uniformitarian principle as applied to generation, that things will just continue in the future as they have in the past, or at least change slowly enough for us to respond
SA Geothermal research (Score:2)
South Australia is very progressive on a lot of issues [aec.gov.au]. In terms of a addressing baseload power issues SA has very high reserves of geo-thermal power in the form of Hot Dry Rock [wikipedia.org] however the issue of funding the cable infrastructure to make that energy available as electricity has been something they have been trying to solve for a long time. From my understanding they want to establish alluminium smelters powered by geothermal energy to make it feasible.
You're probably right about them asking for problems
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I'm curious, do you have a followup on this topic, a link on the subject?
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This is especially true when there are large industrial users in the area, or even residential users living in high-rises with only enough roof insolation to power one communal toaster.
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Geographic distribution = Transmission losses = higher prices
E=IR : not just a good idea, it's the law.
http://dailycaller.com/2016/04... [dailycaller.com]
And even in the less than sane Deutsch Republik they are waking up that fact.
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Have you looked at the actual losses of modern HVDC transmission?
Rgds
Damon
Re:Enron down under (Score:5, Insightful)
It's economic enough for us in the UK to put lines to Norway and Europe, studies have even shown lines to Iceland from Scotland would be viable.
I don't think the loses are as big as you think they are. Quote "âoefor every 1,000km a DC line will lose less than 3%."
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Exactly so; cf 5% in distribution and 2% in transmission for the UK typically, so far from a deal breaker.
Indeed it might be worth a transmission link across the Atlantic IMHO:
http://www.earth.org.uk/note-o... [earth.org.uk]
But obviously it's better to shout things down while admitting never even trying to find the facts...
Rgds
Damon
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But obviously it's better to shout things down while admitting never even trying to find the facts...
You still haven't tried to find the facts.
The UK is a bit smaller than Australia, and it isn't shipping power from the Orkneys to London.
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Yeah, but people here are only lukewarm on the idea of the power line, as it means making a bunch more power generation here, and in most cases they're going to want to do that with dams. And people are already mad enough about the progressive damming up of our highlands. Yes, we technically have vast amounts more hydroelectric power that remains untapped. But most people would much prefer to leave it that way.
Geothermal, while a lot of people don't want more of that either, at least gets more support th
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Norway is exporting Hydroelectric power. Aka the cheapest power in the world.
I'll guess you were unaware of this and not just trying to create an obvious strawman.
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Where ramp up bills and we plunder
...
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Bingo.
Visible light in. IR blocked on the way out.
Are you of the belief that CO2 doesn't do this, despite the fact that it very easily demonstrably does?
The term greenhouse effect [Re:Wait...] (Score:2)
Bingo. Visible light in. IR blocked on the way out.
Some slight misunderstandings here.
A physical greenhouse-- the kind made with glass-- works by the principle of the glass admitting light, but suppressing loss of heat via convection. The "greenhouse effect"-- in the atmosphere-- works by the principle of the atmosphere transparent in the visible admits light, but the loss of heat is suppressed by outgoing IR being absorbed by trace gasses. The two work by different mechanisms.
So the first statement ("green houses are warmer due to thermal radiance fr
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Yeah that's the Trillion Dollar question a lot of very smart people are working on. Once city or time-zone scale batteries (or equivilent) are invented, you just need to scale wind/solar at the continental level to about 250%.
Obviously, someone will invent that solution. If it's simply moving billions of tons of rock up a mountain, and then rolling it back down the mountain, then so be it. Emergencies like this will highlight the problem, and someone will solve it. Coal and oil burning plants are no
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Flywheel storage. Pretty much the equivalent of the pumped-water storage used in conjunction with hydroelectric plants. Use excess power to spin up the flywheels, use the flywheels to drive generators when you've a power deficit to make up. The companies who make diesel locomotives have lots of experience with the basic motor-generator tech needed.
All missing the point (Score:2)
There are no "brownouts".
There is no problem providing enough supply.
There is a problem with price gouging.
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The problem is that conventional electricity generation plant is capital intensive and it has significant fixed (staffing and maintenance) and variable running
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The Hilmer "reform". A way for a few private individuals to make money out of public assets and a way for state governments to get extra money through the back door.
Government is failing the people that it is deliberately fleecing but the governments see it as a success because it provides extra revenue.
It has nothing to do with renewable energy. Even in South Australia most of the money is going to ope
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It is around $0.40 for gasoline powered home generators, but only $0.22 for natural gas powered home generators. $0.22 is often cheaper than retail electricity prices.
Re: Uhhh... (Score:5, Interesting)
My off grid Australian house needs the diesel generator for about an hour a day for five months of the year, and is on solar and lead acids the rest of the time. I bought $40 of fuel in May and haven't used it all yet.
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Ask any child of five. And they could have told you this was going to be a problem. <-- WRONG
i asked my niece (age six) and she gave me a blank stare before asking what a "solmer pantle" was.
But hey, let's just shut down all non-renewables! Because we can get by without them! <-- CORRECT
we can get by without them but only if we replace them with something else.
This is why we need something like modern nuclear for base load power. Build enough to cover base load with future demand in mind. <-- WRONG
while nuclear is a good option, it's quite expensive and requires a decade to get up and running. a much better option would be to expand to having solar panel fields and actually store the energy in large battery warehouses.
And if there's any power in excess of demand, use it to convert carbon dioxide into methanol. Which can then be stored or burned for fuel. <-- BAD IDEA
one step forward and two step back?
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Why is that? Chemical storage is very high density and it's still carbon neutral. There will be efficiency losses, but I don't see it as a bad idea or a step backwards. Why do you say it is?
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Because nuclear = bombs...
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Ask any child of five. And they could have told you this was going to be a problem.
That was a rhetorical comparison meant to show the simplicity of reaching the conclusion. Most people understand this.
we can get by without them but only if we replace them with something else.
A reasonable person would spell out what the something else was and what the benefits and drawbacks to doing so are.
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Ask any child of five.
I would recommend to look at facts and hard data instead.
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Ask any child of five.
I would recommend to look at facts and hard data instead.
Well, I was trying to soften the blow a bit...
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https://www.sa.gov.au/topics/water-energy-and-environment/energy/energy-supply-and-sources/sa-electricity-supply-industry
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The same people who told us climate change wasn't real are now telling us we can't go 100% renewable.
Look at most of the solar and wind facilities being put in.
They're not "100% renewable".
They're hybrid solar/NG and wind/NG facilities. So that when solar or wind production tapers off, they "augment" by burning natural gas.
The Ivanpah solar plant in California generated 46,000 tons of CO2 emissions in its first year.
http://gizmodo.com/if-a-solar-... [gizmodo.com]
A single clean coal plant generates about 1 million tons of CO2 a year (compared to a standard coal plant which pukes out about 10x as much) and recaptures abo
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LOL no. Not with Mcwynnty in charge(Thanks Toronto!), they have given the IESO every increase they wanted and we're now running at 17c/kWh at peak, and the government here keeps scratching it's head going why are all the businesses leaving?! When you can buy it in Michigan for $0.05-0.07 at peak. And we're selling excess power to the US for 0.01-0.025kWh and buying back at 0.10.
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Yes.
When the national electricity marketing system (mostly fake competition between entities owned by the same government) was designed in the 1990s the California electricity systems was held up as a model. I kid you not. A clown called Hillmer from the third ranking university in a small city made his career out of it. Some people really were that stupid, naive or greedy.
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Newsflash, people still have aol addresses as well. You've probably upgraded to that one from the company that promised to "do no evil".