The climate change debate continues.

[Siso]

Like I said, inverter based systems have a lot more to go wrong. Ask Spain. There won't be much on the news about it as it is not what the world wants to hear. No one really heard what happened in SA wasn't publicised either. I had to look at the AEMO report to find out the details. We heard little about it and I was working on a windfarm (not one of the ones that tripped off) when there was a lot of the old steam engines on the grid there was enough inertia to react to load changes. Worked for many years. I am not a fan of coal. 

 

As far as underutilised plant, yep the lines may be underutilised in the early morning periods. With intermittent generation they may be underutilised for weeks at a time. The underutisation of coal has been bought in because of the weather dependent intermittent parasitic generation we have put on the grid. We still need it and they still need to make money. Intermittent generation makes power more expensive. Cheap when its running, really expensive when its not.

 

No one said it was just a flick of the pen to extend the life of a NPP but it has been done and obviously economic to do so. Newer plants should be easier, especially if they have 80 years in mind. Is 600 million really expensive for a large plant with potentially a large capacity factor. The windfarm I was on and cost $400 million for 111MW with a capcity factor of somewhere between 29 and 33% 15 years ago. All the large tech companys are looking at using np power. Even looking at restart the remaining TMI reactor. A close on 50 year plant.

 

No one is saying intermittent generation shouldn't be tried but making stupid targets and throwing a heap of tax payers money towards it is not the way to do it. Are you willing to back Australia s future on this. We can see what is happening in the UK and Germany. UK is importing 1000's of tonnes of woodchips from America so they can say they don't use coal anymore. How stupid and ungreen is that . They are also paying windfarms for not being able to get the power on the grid. Is this how the CIS is going to work in Australia. At least they have some NP and building more.  The funny thing is Australia has no hope of getting to its targets. We are at currently 40 % after 15 years and want to get to 80% in 2035. The second 40% is going to be a lot harder because of the extra storage and grid infrastructure that is needed. 

 

France exporting approx 12 GW at the moment @ 52g CO2/kg

Germany 448gCO2/kg

UK 218gCO2/kW

 

 

[facthunter]

A lot of counties don't have the sun and wind we have there's also tidal which works every day with the tide going IN OR OUT. When you put  steam into the equation it's less efficient and when failure happens it's a sudden Loss of a Large amount and May take ages to fix . It is only efficient at near full output and can't be varied quickly. Brand NEW coal Plant is costly. Carbon Capture and storage is a Myth.  Our demand pattern has changed. Most people run airconditioning and have a fair bit of  refrigeration. Heating water directly by electricity (Elements) is an expensive way of doing it.  

 Solar by concentration can Produce very HIGH temperatures. That's helpful for specialised processes, yet to be realised.  No one can deprive you of solar. Yet.   Nev

[red750]

53 minutes ago, facthunter said:

Heating water directly by electricity (Elements) is an expensive way of doing it.  

But that's what the Vic Gov't want. We have a gas hot water system, had it for 45 years. Within a couple of years we'll be required to replace it with electric.

[octave]

29 minutes ago, red750 said:

But that's what the Vic Gov't want. We have a gas hot water system, had it for 45 years. Within a couple of years we'll be required to replace it with electric.

The electric hot water that is installed now is generally not the old-fashioned resistive hot water system, but heat pump hot water systems. These systems are very energy efficient compared to resistive electric or gas. 

 

I believe there are substantial rebates for upgrading to a heat pump, so probably worth looking into.

 

 

[facthunter]

They will Install Heat pumps FREE and they really cut the Power usage.   I had to PAY for mine and it's still the best thing I've done regarding Power.  Nev. 

[Jerry_Atrick]

This seems to be reasonable article re renewables.. prices dropping, but the risks if renewables investment does not continue and mismanaged roll out.

 

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-12-04/aemc-flags-fall-in-power-prices-as-renewable-energy-surges/106098392?utm_source=abc_news_app&utm_medium=content_shared&utm_campaign=abc_news_app&utm_content=other

[nomadpete]

I like the concept of having independant power sources.

Once I get an EV I won't care who owns all the oil wells. My driving cost is not going to rely on some foreign cartel setting the price of fuel.  I won't care about the anti renewable lobby. nor will I care about grid stability.

 

Furthermore, I suspect that quite a lot of others are following this same path.

[Jerry_Atrick]

That is also my plan

 

[Siso]

Notice with price dropping they only talk about the wholesale price of electricty, not the actual price to consumers which includes all the extra infrastructure, transmission, syncons  etc

[octave]

15 minutes ago, Siso said:

Notice with price dropping they only talk about the wholesale price of electricty, not the actual price to consumers which includes all the extra infrastructure, transmission, syncons  etc

Whatever way we go, there are costs.    Do you really think that building nuclear power plants will not impact your bill?

[kgwilson]

I had a heat pump in my last house and it was tied in to the solar system so I never paid anything for hot water. My current property has solar hot water with a manual electric switch for the internal  resistive element. Since the 4th of august i have switched it on once for about 3 hours when we had a week of cloudy and rainy weather. In Victoria I imagine the elctrice system would need to be on more often.

[Siso]

No, I think it will be less though in the long run. Maybe not for me but definitely my kids. It will also be better for industry. Paying large industry to cut back production as a part of energy security seems a bit backwards. I feel we don't look into the future enough.

That is one thing China has going for it. They have a multi decade plan and pretty well stick to it. Our governments are only looking at now. Easy just to blame previous governments. Just I trade off. Still rather what we have, otherwise we wouldn't be able to have these discussions as easily if at all.

 

I do definitely think there is a place for intermittent generation, just not at the expense of the generators that can run every day, 24 hour a day. If you have a look at open NEM there is always a black and brown line at the bottom with the intermittent swinging wildly above. It would be good if we could wipe that out with some synchronous generation. I have provided a link to a page that shows the " spillage" that SA already has and will get worse as the penetration of renewables increase. He calls it dumping. Someone will be paying for this spillage. While the graph looks pretty good in the article as far as renewable coverage, We are going to have to remember we are going to have times like the screenshot from June this year.(SA grid)

 

https://substack.com/inbox/post/178755915

 

Open nem.pdf

[facthunter]

Considering the Cost of ignoring climate change has to be part of the PLAN. Nev

Edited 46 minutes ago by facthunter
typo

[onetrack]

If there's power spillage, it shows electricity is being generated and could be used, but it's simply going to waste. So the simple solution is to store or use that currently wasted energy. That's where big batteries or other forms of power storage come in. Hydroelectric dam water could be pumped to substantial height with surplus electricity, if the system was properly organised.

 

The current system is simply disorganised, and money needs to be thrown into it to ensure it become organised. In future, I see AI playing a big part in organising surplus power to be distributed to prevent generated power loss.

 

China currently has huge amounts of solar power being generated, but lost due to disorganisation. They are  throwing money at it to try and solve the problem. There's a "fossil fuel" mindset amongst many that cannot get their heads around fossil fuels always being required to "back up the grid". It's not. It just requires a grid organised to deal with the more unpredictable power generation style of wind and solar.

 

W.A. is pouring billions into huge batteries, this is needed to stabilise the system and to provide the backup needed for windless and heavy cloud days. There's probably a lot more can be done, and I believe generating power where it's needed, rather than generating it 500 or 1000 or 5000 kms away, and then distributing it via very expensive and hated power transmission lines, is wasteful and costly.