Thread: Future of the Australian Electricity Market

Originally Posted by Bushmiller

An interesting comment on the Coalition's nuclear option proposal:

Why nuclear is clever in opposition but a nightmare in government (thenewdaily.com.au)

Regards
Paul

Interesting article, but I think the title could be modified to "Why anything and everything is clever in opposition but a nightmare in government".....


People want everything fixed, whether it be climate change, inflation, housing, immigration, health or anything else, but they don't want to change their own lifestyle, have any less money, work any harder or longer, or have any other perceived "negative" impact, no matter how trivial, from the enactment of the fix. So you can gain support by saying "we'll fix it", and you can make the other side look bad by saying "they're not fixing it", but actually fixing it is another matter!

The coalition proposal to go nuclear is at best glib. I have already mentioned the hurdles to nuclear power but there are some more.

We have a competitive market and that market is primarily in private hands, at least as far as new players are concerned. This means that a private investor has to make money. If there is the slightest possibility of difficulty, particularly with a large investment, such opportunists will go elsewhere with their barrow of money.

This article, which it should be noted must have bias because of its origin (World Nuclear Assoc) is interesting:

Nuclear Power Economics | Nuclear Energy Costs - World Nuclear Association (world-nuclear.org)

It is long and quite detailed: Sometimes confusing, but I did take this extract:

In deregulated wholesale electricity markets the economic justification for any capital investment has been decreasing while the actual need increases due to the ageing of existing plants. The IEA points out that at the turn of
the century one-third of investment in electricity flowed into deregulated markets exposed to wholesale price uncertainty, whilst two-thirds went into regulated markets with some assurance of return on capital. By 2014 only 10% of investment was directed into deregulated markets. This has prompted urgent reviews by governments concerned about medium-term energy security. All operating nuclear power plants were built by governments or regulated utilities where long-term revenue and cost recovery was virtually certain. Some of these plants, especially in the UK and USA, now find themselves in a deregulated market environment.
Regulated and government utilities make investments in generation assets, spend money on power plant fuel and operation, and make decisions about retiring existing assets. These decisions are based on long-term planning processes focused on ensuring reliable operation while minimising total costs over the long-term. In a deregulated market a merchant generator depends on the inherently short-term and often volatile market for its revenue, putting the operator at risk; and the developer of a new plant faces considerable uncertainty due to greater completion risk. Government support is needed to mitigate these risks and make new projects bankable.


I think that is saying that nuclear may be entirely unsuitable in a deregulated market and/or one that is not government run or at the least government guaranteed. It also flies in the face of other statements made in the article that nuclear power is competitive with renewables. Much depends on where you are in the world and what else is available for power generation.

Regards
Paul

Matt Ferrell, yesterday, on wave energy. Very interesting in that WE has ~100x the energy density per m² that solar has.

Originally Posted by 419

It's one of the reasons which has inhibited my occasional inclination to start a YouTube channel publishing videos on handyman topics.

As I understand it, you can turn the ability to post a comment "OFF" with YouTube.

Seeing how there was a minor digression...my view on biases from news outlets:

• It seems to me that "left" or "left leaning" is sometimes substituted for a more balanced description like "a wider, more selfless view" or "a bigger picture view" by those who would much rather have a navel gazing view that is good for them and bugger everyone else (and who is almost guaranteed to be well-off or wealthy, and can easily survive (e.g.) rising interest rates and inflation).
• I agree that a commercial enterprise will want to tilt their coverage to what they think their consumers want to consume. That may often be at the cost of the truth being told (or at least the full truth). It is not too difficult to spot those that spin things, but omission of facts is more insidious as we may not know what we are not being told.
• For Aussie news I rely on reading ABC (a little left leaning), The Guardian (quite left leaning), and occasional things that pop up on YouTube. The Guardian is sometimes a little too blatant in their left leaning, but I find them less egregious in their behaviour than some of the shrill right leaning commercial enterprises. Over the weekend I was exposed to some of the more commonly watched 6pm news, and it was pretty poor shallow coverage that was sensationalised....on and on and on. I watch Insiders – they have journos of all flavours on, but not from as big a pool as they used to.
• For American news (which I follow pretty closely) I read the US Guardian, The New York Times, Washington Post, and I watch YouTube snippets from CNN, MSNBC, MeidasTouch Network, and some of The Young Turks (who claim they are the "fairest network in America" but Ana Kasparian does get a little shrill at times). The NYT is fairly neutral, but they do mostly despise Trump (in the opinion section). Their news section is pretty much "just the facts". On MSNBC the guns for me are Ari Melber, Rachel Maddow and Lawrence O'Donnell, and MSNBC has a pretty good range of guest commentators like Andrew Weissman and Neil Katyal amongst numerous others.
• I largely stay away from Fox News, OAN, Newsmax but that doesn't mean I don't see what they are saying. MSNBC and TYTurks in particular will always show the latest outrageous or super-biased, or fake news clips from the very rightwing channels in any case, which means I get to see and hear for myself what the Republicans and MAGAs are saying. I do have an opinion of Tucker Carlson and Judge Jeanine Pirro et al, but ahh, not one I'll share. (funny, when I put Janine Pirrot into the search it prompted Janine Parrot... )

So all up I hope I'm getting enough of the facts to be able weigh it all up and come to a balanced and informed view, after I discard some of the too obvious left wing bias. There is only so much time one can devote to news gathering.

Just be grateful that the very rightwing views in Australia pale in comparison to what goes on in parts of Europe, and increasingly in America, although they are becoming louder here. America is deeply concerning, and it's come about because of their ducked up political and judicial system. The very idea of knowing where the politics of Sheriffs, Prosecutors and Judges lie is ridiculous and bizarre. Then there is the Electoral College....and the right to "carry".



Back to the sparks discussion...

Originally Posted by Bushmiller

I think that is saying that nuclear may be entirely unsuitable in a deregulated market and/or one that is not government run or at the least government guaranteed. It also flies in the face of other statements made in the article that nuclear power is competitive with renewables. Much depends on where you are in the world and what else is available for power generation.

I suspect the reality is that in a deregulated market, investment in any form requires a risk/benefit analysis and a very large investment in something (anything) with a long payback period just doesn't meet the criteria. Renewables are quick to get into operation, attract government grants (whether directly or via LGC's), are easy-ish to get approved (the only naysayers are those few, and unimportant, rural people who have to look at it!) and therefore are an easy decision. Like everything else, climate change is about money - whether plastic bags or energy generation, the underlying motive is profit even if the rhetoric is "environment" - so it really doesn't matter what is actually better; what makes most money in the shortest time will attract the investment.

The above, by the way, doesn't mean I'm pro-nuclear, simply that I don't think truth has any place in a profit driven system.

On a related note, as part of my ongoing project to reduce my externally generated energy usage, I started looking at heat pump hot water systems. The technology allows water to be heated with far less energy than a normal immersion element, and some systems even have an external trigger to allow them to run a boost cycle based on output from a PV system. All good so far, but then I found a few people saying they didn't really save much energy in the longer term. Apparently, and this is what relates to the "profit" comments above, unlike standard hot water tanks there is no regulation of insulation on heat pump systems (this is blamed on Tony Abbotts red-tape reduction) so some manufacturers fit less insulation, resulting in them cooling far more quickly than normal tanks and therefore having to heat "more" to replace the lost heat. The rhetoric is "save the planet" but the corner cutting screams "profit"......

Originally Posted by Warb

Like everything else, climate change is about money

Absolutely. It is why the deniers want to pretend that it is not happening because they think it will be unnecessarily costly to try to curb it.

Originally Posted by Warb

- whether plastic bags or energy generation, the underlying motive is profit even if the rhetoric is "environment" - so it really doesn't matter what is actually better; what makes most money in the shortest time will attract the investment.

For me, that is back to front. It MUST be done, and the fact that whole new industries can make a buck makes it far easier to tackle the task at hand, and get more people on board. It is the same situation as the ICE vehicle replacing horses and steam, and computers replacing people in the 70s (I witnessed that irrational fear first hand as an IT operator from 1976 onwards). People can't see the new industries and opportunities that progress creates. WOE IS ME!

Imagine what it would be like if there was ONLY cost involved, with very little profit. How far behind would we be then?

Originally Posted by FenceFurniture

For me, that is back to front. It MUST be done, and the fact that whole new industries can make a buck makes it far easier to tackle the task at hand, and get more people on board.

That would be more believable if what was being done was the best approach, or even a good approach, to solving the problem, but very often it's not. A supermarket stopping using "single use" plastic bags and replacing them with (free) paper bags could be said to be done for the right reason. A supermarket stopping using "single use" plastic bags and then charging the customer for the same bag but with "This bag is reusable" printed on it, is not!!

The same applies to using "energy consumption" as a lever to sell a product to replace a perfectly functional one that will now go to landfill - the carbon cost of making and delivering the new product far outweighs any marginal gain in energy consumption, and that's before you factor in the "disposable" nature of the replacement product, which will again need replacing [warranty + 2 months] later.

I mentioned earlier in this thread that an acquaintance of mine when touring a windfarm with a group of his students, had a student ask why a number of turbines had been switched off. The answer was "to reduce supply until the price goes (is driven) back up". How does that fall under the heading of "the best approach"? In fact, it could be seen to be giving ammunition to the argument that we have to keep coal stations running to cover the times when renewables don't generate enough. But it makes more money....

I'm not suggesting that it is being pursued in the best way, or even a very good way, otherwise we'd have had Federal Govt intervention in about 2009 or so instead of kicking the can down the road. I'm just making the point that if there was no money to be made from developing green energy it wouldn't happen, and we'd be years and years behind even our current position (which may even be too late).

Originally Posted by FenceFurniture

Matt Ferrell, yesterday, on wave energy. Very interesting ...

CSIRO has also been doing a lot of research on wave energy, as have some universities.
Wave Energy in Australia - CSIRO

Originally Posted by FenceFurniture

... The very idea of knowing where the politics of Sheriffs, Prosecutors and Judges lie is ridiculous and bizarre. Then there is the Electoral College....

Yes.

With all the recent and neverending brouhaha on stolen elections I decided to have a close look at a recent US election results.


At that recent presidential election Candidate A polled 65,853,514 votes against Candidate B who received 62,984,828 valid votes. Candidate A seemingly won the primary poll by 2,868,686 votes or 4.6% - seemingly a clear majority.


Then the ballot was sent off to an archaic body commonly called the Electoral College who massaged the votes and declared that Candidate B had won by 306 votes to 232, a clear margin of 74 votes or 30.9%. The Electoral College had converted a loss by 4.6% into a 30.9% victory, and a President was duly elected.



I agree with Donald Trump. The election was stolen. Except I do not think he was referencing the 2016 election where Hilary Clinton outpolled him by 2,868,686 votes.


Sure is a weird concept of democracy.

Originally Posted by FenceFurniture

I'm just making the point that if there was no money to be made from developing green energy it wouldn't happen, and we'd be years and years behind even our current position (which may even be too late).

This is the result of the commercial market and the mantra of "competition is good." Competition is good when the only criteria is price. Unfortunately, price is rarely, if ever, the only consideration. I would concede that it discourages price gouging that you might expect to see in a monopoly scenario. In the Australian Electricity market today there are many factors other than price. However, price still dominates and is likely to do so for a long time.

I just cannot see anybody putting up their hand to commit to the large capitol cost of a nuke, coupled with the vagaries of the Australian governments. Those vagaries include a lack of regulation and guarantee, governments that are quite likely to perform a complete backflip. It is likely that they would only be competitive during the dark hours and on top of all that it would be at least ten years before a unit was commissioned even if they started tomorrow. That is always supposing there was permission to site it somewhere.

Too many hurdles; More like full blown steeplechase (Not so many finishers in that game, if you have ever watched the Grand National).

Regards
Paul

Originally Posted by FenceFurniture

I'm not suggesting that it is being pursued in the best way, or even a very good way, otherwise we'd have had Federal Govt intervention in about 2009 or so instead of kicking the can down the road. I'm just making the point that if there was no money to be made from developing green energy it wouldn't happen, and we'd be years and years behind even our current position (which may even be too late).

Unfortunately, experience has taught me that when the only motivator is profit, it is very rare that the proposed "solution" does very much at all, and often in the long-term results in things becoming worse, not better!

Originally Posted by FenceFurniture

So all up I hope I'm getting enough of the facts to be able weigh it all up and come to a balanced and informed view, after I discard some of the too obvious left wing bias. There is only so much time one can devote to news gathering.

Just be grateful that the very rightwing views in Australia pale in comparison to what goes on in parts of Europe, and increasingly in America, although they are becoming louder here. America is deeply concerning, and it's come about because of their ducked up political and judicial system. The very idea of knowing where the politics of Sheriffs, Prosecutors and Judges lie is ridiculous and bizarre. Then there is the Electoral College....and the right to "carry".

It's one of those little quirks of human nature that many people perceive themselves to be somewhere near the centre of the spectrum between two extremes. Therefore, no matter where many observers see thenselves on the spectrum (often somewhere slightly left or right of centre) this becomes the reference point from which they perceive other behaviours as being left or right from.

Where this gets interesting is when someone who is, for example, well to the left of centre might see behaviours that are between their own orientation and the real centre as right wing. The converse is also true, of course.

Of course, not everyone's perceptions are distorted by their own bias, but it amuses me at times to read the thoughts of those whose are.