Thread: Future of the Australian Electricity Market

The context of my Hydrogen comments were for automotive use and nothing more. The reality of renewable base load supply in less than a decade seems somewhat like wishful thinking at this point in time. I like the optimism shown by some but plans are not the same as building being commenced and time is marching on. It is one thing to plan but to build and connect to the grid is another issue altogether and it is the connection issue which sinks many of the plans.

If renewables are coming on so much faster than expected meaning coal is being phased out much faster than expected, then that means we're going to need some kind of base load power production to be implemented.

So I wonder how much difference there would be between the construction of a hydrogen based power plant and natural gas, and how viable it might be to a convert natural gas pp to hydrogen a little later when we've worked out how to scale up green H2 production. I don't know the difference in dirtiness between coal and natural gas burning, but if a conversion of a natural gas plant to H2 can be done, then gas fired might be a short term solution during the interim.

Sounds like we'll have to do something for base load power. What are the options?

Originally Posted by FenceFurniture

If renewables are coming on so much faster than expected meaning coal is being phased out much faster than expected, then that means we're going to need some kind of base load power production to be implemented.

I was a strong supporter of the need for "baseload power" but now I'm not convinced its anything else other than a red herring pumped by big corporate power generation.

What needs to be done is not put all our eggs in one renewable basket. A mix of renewables, storage and some interim gas will probably get us thru the mire until storage gets cheap and substantial enough.

Maybe take a read of this
Debunking Three Myths About “Baseload” | NRDC

So I wonder how much difference there would be between the construction of a hydrogen based power plant and natural gas, and how viable it might be to a convert natural gas pp to hydrogen a little later when we've worked out how to scale up green H2 production. I don't know the difference in dirtiness between coal and natural gas burning, but if a conversion of a natural gas plant to H2 can be done, then gas fired might be a short term solution during the interim.

Maybe have a read of this.
‘Blue hydrogen’ more carbon-intensive than gas and coal | E&ampT Magazine

Let us PRETEND that these things are caused by CO2 and us burning fossil fuels for power:

-- Floods From Gympie to Grafton, see the floods devastation from the air - ABC News
-- Vicious storms
-- Bushfires from HELL
-- Ocean acidification
-- Unrelenting heat
-- Increasing violent weather such as hurricanes
-- Reduced or intermittent rainfall
-- Apocalyptic snowfalls
-- Oceans rising
-- All ice on earth melting
-- Vast destruction of wildlife, with mass extinctions
-- Disease outbreaks

Just pretend.

There are those who will say "its just the weather". OK. Lets assume we've just experienced several 1-in-500 year events year after year is a pure chance.

Now, lets PRETEND your very existence relies on you not being wrong. That of your friends. Family. Countrymen.


Now, some smartarse you fundamentally disagree with comes along and says "Well, we can begin to change all of this by putting up wind turbines, a lot of batteries and using less petrol in favour of (lets pretend) Methanol.... We know how. There are existing systems, being used, now. Its not hard".


NOPE. You still disagree with it.

Because you are right.




Because none of it is real.

Originally Posted by BobL

Maybe take a read of this
Debunking Three Myths About “Baseload” | NRDC

Maybe I am not that smart but all I see there is a lot of words that say nothing.

Originally Posted by woodPixel

Let us PRETEND that these things are caused by CO2 and us burning fossil fuels for power:

-- Floods From Gympie to Grafton, see the floods devastation from the air - ABC News
-- Vicious storms
-- Bushfires from HELL
-- Ocean acidification
-- Unrelenting heat
-- Increasing violent weather such as hurricanes
-- Reduced or intermittent rainfall
-- Apocalyptic snowfalls
-- Oceans rising
-- All ice on earth melting
-- Vast destruction of wildlife, with mass extinctions
-- Disease outbreaks

Just pretend.

There are those who will say "its just the weather". OK. Lets assume we've just experienced several 1-in-500 year events year after year is a pure chance.

Now, lets PRETEND your very existence relies on you not being wrong. That of your friends. Family. Countrymen.


Now, some smartarse you fundamentally disagree with comes along and says "Well, we can begin to change all of this by putting up wind turbines, a lot of batteries and using less petrol in favour of (lets pretend) Methanol.... We know how. There are existing systems, being used, now. Its not hard".


NOPE. You still disagree with it.

Because you are right.




Because none of it is real.

Evan, can we have this in plain english with no embellishment please because I have no idea what you are on about.

“Create” magazine (published by Engineers Australia) has an interesting article on alternative method of electricity storage combined with repurposing coal fired power stations. See HERE for further info, but in a nutshell an Engineer in Newcastle University has developed a way of combining simple metallic compounds in a graphite matrix that are essentially stackable blocks that can used as a thermal mass energy storage unit. Rather than decommissioning and dismantling coal fired stations you replace the boiler with this thermal mass and add electrical heating for “charging” the mass with heat using solar and/or wind derived power. When the power switches off the mass can then be used to boil water for steam to drive the existing generators.

The science-y bit is how the masses actually work. Don’t think of them as glorified bricks; that sort of mass only uses “sensible heat” ie as you heat up the mass it gets hotter, the more heat you add the hotter it gets. These blocks contains approximately 50% metallic compounds with specific melting points that even though they can melt they can’t run, ooze or otherwise leave the matrix. This is important because it allows the mass to utilise the properties of “latent heat”, where once the melting point of the metallic compounds has been reached the block stops getting hotter until all the heat energy being absorbed has completely melted the compounds. After that point sensible heat kicks in again and you get further temperature rises. It’s the phase change between solid and liquid that uses huge amounts of energy; the same principle explains why an ice cube in your glass will chill your rum down much lower and for much longer than those granite cold rock things. Melting the ice requires massive amounts of heat energy to be sucked out of the rum, but raising the temperature of a little block of stone takes comparatively sod-all. They are calling this technology “Miscible Gap Alloys”.

Thermal storage isn’t a new concept; currently most systems use salt as the medium but they use lower temperatures and can’t be easily retrofitted into existing power generation plants. Plus you have to be able to contain bloody large amounts of molten salt… These MGA blocks are 100% totally inert and safe and can be made from recycled materials; even their manufacture is doesn’t leave a large carbon footprint and are cheaper than the equivalent batteries. The team are currently setting up to be able to produce one to two Megawatt Hours of storage material per day and will be trialling the technology in Europe first. One MW/hr takes approximately 4 cubic meters of blocks; the article in Create gives an example of a 200MW power station having it’s boiler replaced with MGA. In order to give 10 hours of storage capacity 8000 cubic meters would be required; most of that would still fit on the footprint of the boilers and after discharge the blocks would only be around 50 degrees below the phase change temperature ready to be recharged with heat.

Originally Posted by Beardy

Maybe I am not that smart but all I see there is a lot of words that say nothing.

The article appears to be about the use and meaning of the word "baseload power" which some interpret as comprising coal fired and nuclear sources only. It sounds like an American thing. The NRDC is a non-profit organisation promoting sustainable energy.

In his Quarterly Essay Getting to Zero, Australia's former Chief Scientist wrote about the obvious need to maintain electricity supply at a dependable level and suggested that gas powered generators could fill the gaps economically until sufficient storage became available. I understand they can be fired up quickly to meet peak demand whereas coal fired sources basically run 24/7 whether the grids need it or not. In the case of the latter, they lose money; and with the advent of solar, that's becoming increasingly frequent so the privateers want to bail out asap. I've just bought Saul Griffith's new book The Big Switch which has enjoyed great reviews.

FWIW BWX Technologies in the U.S. have just received a USD28 million grant from their Dep't of Defense to develop a transportable nuclear generator. Road, rail, air or sea.

mick

Originally Posted by Chris Parks

Evan, can we have this in plain english with no embellishment please because I have no idea what you are on about.

A sad realisation that no matter how much proof, how much logic, or how much need there is to change - that people can't change.

Can't do it. They are so hopelessly inured to their delusions that they cannot be unplugged.

The ridiculous situation is I ask people "What PROOF, that would be acceptable to you, would change your mind"..... on climate change.

They simply don't want that proof. They don't want to know.

Originally Posted by Glider

FWIW BWX Technologies in the U.S. have just received a USD28 million grant from their Dep't of Defense to develop a transportable nuclear generator. Road, rail, air or sea.

That would be a nuclear submarine without the submarine...

Originally Posted by NeilS

That would be a nuclear submarine without the submarine...

Well I was going to make the point in my last post (possibly tongue in cheek) that we could get some nuculur reactors going for the lights until we sort out green hydrogen (or whatever) and then re-purpose the reactors into the subs later on. But then I realised that the reactors would be rusted out by the time the subs were ready for them...

Originally Posted by Beardy

Maybe I am not that smart but all I see there is a lot of words that say nothing.

Yeah, it's a bit like stereo equipment reviewers (which I'm seeing a bit of atm) – they sure can go on with a lot of tosh that doesn't actually mean very much, and can certainly be said far more simply (but they may not sound so smart to themselves). My takeaway from that article is that "base-load power is the minimum power required consistently every day". Crikey, that's 10 words...better add some more for my ego...

So that clears up that baseload power doesn't seem to be an issue, providing we have a reasonably good mix of renewables and storage (later on). For whatever reason I had always thought that base-load power was much more complex, and to do with heavy-industry requirements.

Ignoring hydrogen for the moment (because it may not be ready for large scale use for some years) what about the power requirements for the likes of smelters, steel mills and other power gluttonous industries? Do they simply run on enormous amounts of 3 phase power? How does 3 phase fit in with renewable energy? Or is there not much of an issue use renewable energy, apart from the scale and quantity?

Originally Posted by NeilS

That would be a nuclear submarine without the submarine...

Much smaller than the donk in a nuclear sub, Neil. My American mate's son is the deputy head of technology at BWX and has a bit of form in the micro-reactor area. In 1999, as undergrad students at U Chicago, he and his mate Fred Neill built a tiny nuclear breeder reactor in their dormitory room. They managed to produce a very small quantity of U235 and write themselves into annual scavenger hunt history. You can read the full story here The homemade breeder reactor | The University of Chicago Magazine (uchicago.edu)

How Scav Hunt helped prepare alum to work at NASA | University of Chicago News (uchicago.edu)

mick

China aims to build 450 GW of solar, wind power on Gobi desert | Reuters

....pledged to bring China's total wind and solar capacity to at least 1,200 GW and to cap its carbon emission to a peak by 2030.