Thread: The great energy debate

Originally Posted by DonIncognito

No one serious has ever said "one energy source only", it's always been a mix of different sources.

Baseload is a furphy propagated by the fossil fuel industry, because that's what their generators are good at.

http://theconversation.com/baseload-...ill-work-13210

http://reneweconomy.com.au/2015/how-...ad-power-65138

I was hoping not to have to go into too much detail about some aspects, primarily because it has been covered on the Forum in previous threads, but having said that the whole concept is dynamic and it is true to say that the marketplace has changed dramatically.

The fundamental reason for being a base load power station is price. I recall when the competitive market was first mooted nobody knew exactly how the competitive aspect would pan out except there would now only be three concerns:

Price: Price and Price.

It is still the same only more so. Ironically the people who shout loudest about rising electricity prices are the consumers and the politicians, but not in that order: One winds up the other.

The other point is that one size does not fit all. The needs in one area are not neccessarily the same as the needs in another. Neither are the facilities the same. South Australia may well be able to supply suffient wind power, but that might not help somebody in Cairns. All sides of this business are adept at picking the eyes out of their good points and making out it is universal.

Right now and without government intervention the renewables cannot compete with the traditional fossil powered stations: Not on cost and not on reliability (continuity of power if you prefer). For the moment they can only subsidise. This was the fundamental reason our governments have either introduced, tried to intoduce or repealed carbon taxes/emission trading schemes. The very advantage that Australia has had for years, cheap electricty (not that any of us believes this when we see out electricty bill), is the reason we are falling behind in the alternative electricity sources department compared to the rest of the world. In Europe fossil fuelled stations are much more expensive to run (coal is more expensive there) so the disparity in pricing with the likes of solar and wind to quote two is not so big. Consequently, the incentive is there to go down the alternative path.

Don't misunderstand me. I think alternative energy is the way to go and as I said before, solar is my preference, particularly in Australia.

That could be a combination of PV on houses and solar thermal for large scale instalations. The issue with solar is storage of electricity (something that can't be done with AC power) for night time use or periods of low sun. Batteries are still expensive and require conversion to DC and back again. Salt beds are a possiblity to store heat capable of generating low pressure steam at night, but as yet are uneconomic. I think there is a trial plant in Spain and possibly elsewhere but these are really small and not yet economic.

Anyhow that's probably enough for now. I have to get a replacement hobby horse .

Regards
Paul

Its also worth keeping in mind the moment residential housing becomes non reliant on the grid the cost to govt in lost infrastructure is immense. I often wonder if that is in the back of the minds of the politicians.

When I look at our power usage we have solar for the house power, solar for hot water and LPG for cooking. We don't use a lot of gas and our two big bottles have lasted over two years.

When, not if, the tesla style power banks become the norm we can effectively come off the connected grid. Thats not to say fossil fuel will no longer be in the mix, particularly petrol/diesel/lpg, but the non portable stuff like coal will reduce markedly.

Its now 2015. At the same time we were watching The Don Lane Show, Cop Shop and Steve Austin was about to finish his time as the Bionic Man this was a thought on PC's;

"There is no reason anyone would want a computer in their home." -- Ken Olson, president, chairman and founder of Digital Equipment Corp., 1977. Imagine 30 yrs from now.

My 20yo cannot remember life without mobile phones now it runs his life. The point being, alternate energy is at toddler age atm, the not too distant future will be nothing you or I can perceive I reckon.

Agreed dazzler, particularly about what the pollies are thinking. I reckon Mike Baird might just have picked the "sweet spot" for selling off the wires & poles. We'll still need the big energy stuff for a good while I suppose (base load etc), but in time to come the poles & wires won't be worth much, as residential demand drops to virtually zero.

Ten years?

Originally Posted by Big Shed

The problem with all these technologies is that they are not capable of generating constant baseload energy. They are fine as a partial replacement for major power generating plants such as coal, gas or nuclear but they cannot provide all our power 24/7.

The wind doesn't blow constantly, the sun doesn't shine constantly.

The trouble with coal fired power plants, apart from their obvious pollution, is that they cannot be switched on or of at a moments' notice.

I experience the shortcoming of solar frequently in our 5th wheeler, get a few days of no sun and the batteries don't get charged, so either plug in to mains power or run a generator.

I truly believe that solar and wind will always be a peripheral power source. The other problem with solar is the energy consumed in their manufacture - China produces a very large proportion of solar panels, using very dirty power stations to generate the electricity needed to produce them. I would like to see an honest cost-benefit analysis done on solar panels in terms of energy used in production and pollution/green house gas emitted vs energy produced during their life span.

We need to look at things like (the already mentioned) geothermal, wave energy and (dare I say it) nuclear (as France has done).

Those are fair points Fred, but what about tide power. As long as we have a moon, the tides must rate as a constant source of energy. This is something Australia has in abundance. Especially as all our capital cites are on the coast. Except Adelaide and maybe Melbourne. Is Port Phillip bay tidal?.

TT

Originally Posted by Bushmiller

Right now and without government intervention the renewables cannot compete with the traditional fossil powered stations: Not on cost and not on reliability (continuity of power if you prefer). For the moment they can only subsidise. This was the fundamental reason our governments have either introduced, tried to intoduce or repealed carbon taxes/emission trading schemes.

Anyhow that's probably enough for now. I have to get a replacement hobby horse .

Regards
Paul

Don't disagree with most of your post, but coal is dependent on subsidies as well.

I would also argue that the primary reason the ETS was introduced was to reduce the carbon pollution Australian business pumped into the air for no cost.

Originally Posted by Twisted Tenon

Those are fair points Fred, but what about tide power. As long as we have a moon, the tides must rate as a constant source of energy. This is something Australia has in abundance. Especially as all our capital cites are on the coast. Except Adelaide and maybe Melbourne. Is Port Phillip bay tidal?.

TT

Carnegie have just connected their first wave generator to the grid. I think it's helping to power the sub base off Perth.

There are two problems with wave energy.

1) waves don't come at set intervals, making it difficult to generate consistent power

2) salt water is an amazingly destructive force. Add in biofouling and you have a maintenance nightmare.

These can, and will, be overcome.

Originally Posted by DonIncognito

Carnegie have just connected their first wave generator to the grid. I think it's helping to power the sub base off Perth.

There are two problems with wave energy.

1) waves don't come at set intervals, making it difficult to generate consistent power

2) salt water is an amazingly destructive force. Add in biofouling and you have a maintenance nightmare.

These can, and will, be overcome.

Agreed about the waves DonIncgnito but tides are a different thing. They always move.

TT

Originally Posted by Twisted Tenon

Agreed about the waves DonIncgnito but tides are a different thing. They always move.

TT

The two are similar but different and both have drawbacks, this is is fairly good summary

http://www.ianswer4u.com/2012/02/tid...#axzz3jM3g8jcp

Originally Posted by Big Shed

The two are similar but different and both have drawbacks, this is is fairly good summary

http://www.ianswer4u.com/2012/02/tid...#axzz3jM3g8jcp

Yes it all seems so plausible without those pesky facts getting in the way.......

TT

Originally Posted by Big Shed

The two are similar but different and both have drawbacks, this is is fairly good summary

http://www.ianswer4u.com/2012/02/tid...#axzz3jM3g8jcp

This link Fred has posted in fact gives underneath an advantages and disadvantages list of many of the alternative power sources.

One advantage of thermal power is that it is available on demand 24/7. The current major flaw with solar and to some extent with wind, but the issue is not so clear cut is generation when the sun doesn't shine or the wind doesn't blow.

We all know and have a clear understanding of that and appreciate that some method of storing the electricity is required. What we may not appreciate is the ramifications of that.

Let us take a small solar installation that generates 100MW. Let us also assume that the average sunshine over the course of a year is eight hours a day. That is only one third. For two thirds of the day, stored energy would be required. This means that at the very least two thirds of that 100MW would be used to store the electricity (either in batteries or some form of heat). Effectively we really only have a 33MW station.

To achieve 100MW we really need 300MW. In practice the ratio would probably be closer to 400MW as there would be losses involved in the storage. I had not really appreciated this myself except today I was discussing the issue with our station manager.

Clearly it will be a long time before thermal stations are extinct and for the foreseeable future we should be aiming at significant reductions in carbon emissions as opposed to elimination.

Regards
Paul

Spain has been running molten salt solar power generators for a couple of years that produce power on demand 24/7.(Google 'solar towers Seville')
The stuff about renewables not being able to supply 'baseload' is just not true. (reminds me of my farmer brother telling me that solar can't make industrial strength electricity. lol)
The cost of a kilowatt hour from renewables dropped below the cost of fossil power in 2014 and is continuing to drop. Our federal government is trying to cover the fact that they are using our taxes to subsidise the coal industry and prevent an orderly transition to renewables.

Thanks Len for that information.

I did allude to the salt beds in one of my earlier posts,

"Salt beds are a possiblity to store heat capable of generating low pressure steam at night, but as yet are uneconomic. I think there is a trial plant in Spain and possibly elsewhere but these are really small and not yet economic."

However I am still not so sure of their viability. I also mentioned that just because a power generation source is viable in one part of the world it doesn't mean that it is viable in another as the relative costs are all important.

I am never quite certain of the level of subsidies that the coal industry receives ( and I certainly agree they shouldn't be receiving any), but I think it is important to distinguish between high quality coal that is exported and the absolute rubbish coal that power stations burn. I can't really speak for other power stations, but the one at which I work is sited on our own mine, it is a privately owned enterprise and we receive no subsidy whatsoever.

Despite this we are the second most efficient thermal fired coal station in Australia.

I think one of the dangers with this debate, and I am probably just as guilty of it as the rest, is that we hone in on an aspect and apply it to everything else in general.

Unfortunately it is nowhere near as simple as we would like to think.

Regards
Paul

According to the IMF, coal, gas and petroleum industries will get $41 billion of tax payer money in 2015, in Australia.

Bushmiller the solar power stations in Spain are not geological warm beds they are towers surrounded with mirrors. The sunlight is focused on the top of the tower and generates enough heat to melt salt. The molten salt is then pumped through a heat exchange which makes industrial steam to power a conventional steam turbine. The great thing is that they can store energy in tonnes of molten salt which they feed through the heat exchange as needed and generate power 24 hours a day. So if it is cloudy the system is still making baseload power.
The costs of construction are substantially lower than coal or gas fired power or especially nuclear and once they are up and running there are NO INPUT COSTS just maintenance and management.
Just as an aside I put one of those evacuated tube solar hot water systems on the roof a couple of years ago and it works like a charm. $2500 all installed does a family of five and uses the booster perhaps twice a year. No input costs, no maintenance, roof tank, mains pressure. Probably costing us %25 what the previous off-peak was costing.