4 January 2016, New Matilda, Nuclear And Nonsense: An Insider’s Guide On Making Renewables Work. Renewable energy advocate Terry Leach takes up the fight for an inexhaustible power supply. Geoff Russell’s recent New Matilda article ‘Batteries and Bulldust’ makes the argument that renewable energy can’t displace fossil fuels due to the problems of the intermittency of renewable energy and the difficulty of storing electrical energy. Russell compares the stupidity of Germany’s renewable push to France’s wisdom in generating most of their power from nuclear. Obviously, the superior governance, cheaper electricity and lack of inefficient subsidies results in France consistently outperforming Germany economically. Sadly for the French this isn’t true. Germany is the economic powerhouse of Europe. Maybe, just maybe, the Germans aren’t ‘puddle shallow thinkers’. Problems of intermittency and storage of renewable energy are solvable, and the Germans are doing just that. Despite our current government’s opposition, technological development and entrepreneurship means that Australia is well placed to solve those problems here. Intermittent power Firstly, intermittency. Our electricity network is well equipped to cope with intermittency, as it has been built to cope with intermittency of demand. Demand fluctuates on daily, weekly and seasonal bases. We usually have a large proportion of our production capacity sitting idle, waiting for the high demand and price events that justify their economic existence. Like Europe, we have a continental grid, stretching from North Queensland to the West Coast of South Australia. Excess low cost capacity can be sent interstate, which means that demand, and therefore price, is smoothed. Currently we have cheap coal providing our base load capacity. Coal (like nuclear) can’t be ramped up and down quickly and has always needed to be supplemented by ‘dispatchable’ generation. This has historically been provided by gas and hydro. Read More here
Category Archives: New Energy Sources
3 January 2016, Climate News Network, Thinking beyond the Age of Fire. Human society without fire is unthinkable. But a new book says we need to think of a world where fire gives way to electricity. In December, in an unprecedented demonstration of international unity, 195 countries adopted the first-ever, universal, legally-binding agreement to take action on climate change. It was a decision that, to be truly effective, requires an obligation to think again, at the most fundamental level, about how humans manage energy and maintain the essential comforts of civilisation. Humans cannot go back to the beginning and start again, but if they had to, Walt Patterson’s new book would be as fundamental a guide to the challenges as any. It doesn’t contain many helpful prescriptions about the most efficient exploitation of the emerging technologies that could deliver renewable energy, or deliver more bang for the megabuck of investment. But that’s not the point. Patterson’s point is that a new start means a fresh attitude, and Electricity vs Fire is as nice a statement of the essential simplicity – and the scale – of the challenge as I have yet seen. Patterson first made his name 45 years ago as an informed critic of the nuclear industry, and as one of the early voices of Friends of the Earth. He starts simply by reducing what humans do to six simple and very easily described physical actions. Read More here
17 December 2015, Renew Economy, Tasmania switches gas fired generator back on as hydro runs low. Hydro Tasmania has announced that it will re-assemble and restart its Tamar Valley gas-fired generators for the first time in 18 months in response to the driest spring in the state ever recorded. The state-owned company, which powers the local grid mostly with hydro and wind energy, and exports some of that to the mainland, says hydro levels have sunk to around 25 per cent after the driest September to November period on record, although better inflows have been received in recent weeks. It says that restarting the Tamar Valley gas generators, which operate as a combined cycle gas turbine (broadly equivalent to base load rather than peaking) makes “good commercial sense”. Presumably because it allows the limited hydro to be conserved for higher pricing peaking events. The fall in hydro reservoirs is not just a problem in Tasmania. Earlier this year, Snowy Hydro decided to pay $234 million for the Colongra gas-fired power plant in NSW. Even though the plant had only operated for a total of 300 hours in 5 years, and rising gas prices basically priced it out of the market, Snowy Hydro bought the gas peaking plant as an insurance against the risk of declining water levels. Its gas plants in Victoria performed a similar role in the last drought in that state. Read more here
13 December 2015, The Guardian, Malcolm Turnbull lifts Abbott ban on government finance for wind power. Malcolm Turnbull has lifted the ban imposed by Tony Abbott on wind investment by the Clean Energy Finance Corporation (CEFC) before it was officially enacted, even though it remains Coalition policy to abolish the green bank. A spokeswoman for the prime minister said the new CEFC investment mandate – issued by the environment minister, Greg Hunt, and the finance minister, Mathias Cormann – reflected “the Turnbull government’s strong support for renewables and innovation”. “The mandate puts the CEFC’s focus on new and emerging renewables technologies, rather than supporting well-established technologies that are financially viable without government support,” the spokeswoman said. In the wake of the new mandate and the Paris agreement, various stakeholders in the renewable sector were optimistic that the CEFC decision could reboot the government’s relationship with the clean energy industry. The new mandate says: “As part of its investment activities in clean energy technologies, the corporation must include a focus on supporting emerging and innovative renewable technologies and energy efficiency, such as large scale solar, storage associated with large and small scale solar, offshore wind technologies, and energy efficient technologies for cities and the built environment.” Read More here