THE Australian government has committed to the introduction of an emissions trading scheme – officially named the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme. I have previously suggested that this scheme may reduce the amount of energy available to every man; woman and child currently living in Australia by up to 35 percent, absent the discovery and implementation of new sources of carbon free energy.
Last Friday the Australian Academy of Technical Sciences and Engineering (AATSE) confirmed my pessimism.
In a A$6 billion plea for new research development and demonstration on new power generation technologies, the Academy explain in a 42-page report entitled ‘Energy Technology for Climate Change – Accelerating the Technology Response’ that we do not currently have the technology to significantly reduce greenhouse gas emissions [1].
The media release summarized these findings, “Much technology is already being developed, but it awaits large-scale commercial implementation before the costs come down to allow widespread utilisation, even with a price on carbon” [2].
The report focuses on stationary electricity generation because this is the largest manmade source of greenhouse gases in Australia. It explains that that the problem is part technological and part political in so much as nuclear energy is a low emission more-affordable technology but that neither state nor commonwealth governments will permit its use because of community attitudes. Solar is too expensive and wind, wave and geothermal each with their own particular limitations at this point in time.
The report concludes that the Australian government needs to back every potential new technology including carbon capture and storage for exiting coal-fired electricity generation because no single new technology for stationary energy production will be capable of achieving the projected reduction for carbon dioxide.
The bottom-line is that Australia is currently in no position to pursue ambitious “carbon pollution” reduction targets because we have neither the available technology or, in the case of nuclear, the fortitude, to replace our current dependence on coal.
******************************
1. Energy Technology for Climate Change: Accelerating the Technology Response. Background report by the Australian Academy of Technological Sciences and Engineering (ATSE), December 2008. http://www.atse.org.au/index.php?sectionid=128
2. Media release. Energy Research Needs $6billion. http://www.atse.org.au/index.php?sectionid=1259
Jennifer Marohasy BSc PhD is a critical thinker with expertise in the scientific method.
Jennifer,
Thanks for linking to the report I’m going to download it and read it but if I have understood your piece you say the report focuses on stationery energy generation. If thats correct I would agree with you but would ask the question isn’t it time to rethink stationery power generation i.e. the emphasis on baseload. Wouldn’t it be better to stop and think what is it we actually use energy for and then think through whether stationery/baseload methods are the best way for us to do what we want in our economy e.g. would distributed energy generation be a more efficient way of achieving our needs or a non energy/energy carrier system e.g. how we design our homes and workplaces.
Its ironic to see you agreeing with the greens and environmentalists on Australia not being prepared wrt to enrgy generation. However, would this unpreparedness be due to fossil fuel concerns getting their own way since 1996 because don’t forget prior to 1996 Australia was heading down a low carbon path.
Just need to ask something else. When you say above, “The bottom-line”, is that your conclusion or the report?
My conclusion including from the report.
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There are obviously too many Australians. Reduce Australians by 80% or so, and hey, no CO2 problem!
By golly, I bet Hansen and pals already have a plan on how to use those trains after the coal is stopped.
Jennifer,
Here at DESERTEC-Australia, we disagree with the pessimism.
In our report “2050: Australia-Clean Energy Superpower” at http://www.desertec-australia.org/content/twf-1-intro.html we lay out a series of incremental steps Australia can take between now and 2050 that can have a huge cumulative effect on Australia and Asian regional economic growth, reduction in global carbon emissions and introduction/dessimination/expansion and exploitation of low emission energy sources.
Have a look at it. Yes, the vision is big. So is the problem.
I think carbon trading schemes ar a red herring. Governments try to give the impression they are doing something while doing little or nothing. It’s all about image these days. The bottom line, however, is staying in power.
Here in Canada and south of the border, in the good, old US of A, both the Clinton administration and our Liberal government paid lip service to Kyoto and did nothing. I don’t remember hearing anything out of Al Gore for eight years when he was vice president. His motivation seemed to come from being embarrassed by a loss to George Bush. In fact, my strongest memory of Gore, and his wife Tipper (is that her real name??), was their campaign against rock bands, and secret, Satanic lyrics. Tipper formed the PMRC to galvanize parents against those big, bad rock bands. ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PMRC ).
Many people rale about the global warming paradigm being a socialist plot, but just as many right wing politicians seem to be playing the game. In Britain, the Tories have come up with carbon solution to appease the environmentalists and hopefully wrestle power back from Labour. In Canada, the Tories have the opposite agenda because many of them come from Alberta, where oil is king. That’s all it’s about, in my eyes. I know nothing about the Rudd government, but I’d be willing to bet, dollars to doughnuts, they are aware of the ramifications of pushing a carbon agenda that will not only get them run out of power, but exiled to the political wilderness for years to come. Politicians lay awake at night worrying about image and how to suck Joe Voter into supporting them based on that image.
Then again, there’s the lunatic fringe, like our present government in British Columbia and the Schwarzeneggar regime in California. Both are extreme right-wingers and into right-wing ideology for the sake of it. Both have crafted a Green image which is nothing more than that, yet they are making the lives of people miserable with their proposed agendas. It has cost the local government an unprecedented lapse in the polls, however, putting them firmly over a barrel. It also cost the federal Liberals dearly in the last election, trying to implement a Green Shift plan. Canadians are environmentally conscious, we just don’t trust that politicians know best when it comes to extreme change related to environmental issues.
Europe is feeling the pinch with governments in the European union rebelling against the carbon agenda. Admittedly, the left-leaning Labour Party in Britain has been at the forefront of the lunacy to implement a carbon agenda, but former leader, Tony Blair, recognized the perils of Kyoto several years ago and called for changes. If the Rudd government is not smart enough to realize that carbon emission schemes have gone over like a lead balloon, Australians will only have to suffer them till the next election. I don’t think you Aussies are different than the rest of us. You wont be willing to pay for climate change action when there’s no apparent climate change and you wont want to give up basic necessities for the same reason.
As Jen points out, there are no alternatives to fossil fuels at this time and there’s no guarantee there will be in the next century. Whereas you can run nuclear powered generators for household and industrial electricity, you can’t put mini nuclear reactors in cars and other forms of transport. If everyone suddenly parked their cars, their would be chaos. It’s hard enough to catch a bus here in rush hours let alone getting one if everyone suddenly turned to public transit.
Someone else in this thread suggested the obvious, zero or negative population growth. When we arrived at that naturally in Canada, our politicians, driven by business interests, opened the flood gates to Asian immigration to artificially inflate our population. We need to get off this right-wing fetish for growth. I’ve heard the justifications for it but that kind of thinking is based on ideology rather than practicality. It’s time to take the ‘free’ out of free enterprise and introduce some sanity.
Gordon,
“Take the ‘free’ out of ‘free enterprise'”?
Wow. Let’s take the ‘free’ out of ‘free speech’ while we are at it.
And change ‘freedom to ‘serfdom’, even better, heh?
My suggestion was meant with bitter irony and sarcasm, with allusions to prior use of trains to remove people considered to be excess.
I thought that was fairly obvious.
Jennifer, again i find your headline and assessment of the report in contradiction to the actual report.
yes, developments in new technologies are needed till 2020. please find anyone, who din t think that this is true!
ATSE are morally bankrupt. They take AGW science at face value and their chief recommendation is to set up another government body. It would be far cheaper to disprove AGW, which they are capable of doing but studiously avoid.
You are so right David A.
I am appalled that the ATSE of all people, repeats the canard of calling it Carbon Pollution Reduction. Someone should invite them and their political masters to stop breathing.
One would find it hard to have any respect for the systems of Government these days.
It doesnt matter where one looks, you see rank amateurism and quite unprofessional behaviour by both State and Federal Departments.
They still havnt got the MDB sorted out. The signing of Kyoto achieved precisely nothing.
Peer Review as a process is very unreliable, but notably condoned by those that benefit from its glaring flaws and inadequacies. But the pea brains that swear by it, still parrot their mantras, and refuse to accept that anyone outside their little elitist domain could possiby have anything of value.
Rudd is slowly opening the gates to illegal immigrants.
The coverage by the MSM has only recently picked upon the big issues of AGW.
Cynicism as to the quality of the management in the Public Services is at an all time high.
Rann/Rudd and his labour mates see no problem in selling uranium from one of the words biggest mines at Roxby Downs in SA but will not countenance the use of nuclear power when it would be the best solution to his own political beat up about AGW.
The useless UN and the UNHRC is about to vote yet more curbs on our freedoms by making it illegal to criticise religions(Islam specifically) pushed by the Islamic block of the OIC.
Anti semiticism is on the rise again in Europe. The reporting on what lies behind the Gaza troubles has been abyssmal.
etc
But at least the crickets on today- so who gives a shit.
The AGW hypothesis is just that, a hypothesis. As more research is conducted the hypothesis has weakened under scrutiny. This is quite the opposite trend that normally occurs with useful hypotheses, such as evolution or relativity.
Given the inherent weakness of the AGW hypothesis, especially its inability to explain the temperature trends of the last 1,200 years, it seems foolhardy to propose impossibly expensive projects to re-engineer our energy production infrastructure upon might well be a baseless assumption.
There are many rational arguments for techno-social evolution away from fossil fuel based economies towards some heterogeneous mix of alternatives that do not require recourse to logical fallacy, shame or fear. Nor is our timeframe for the transition limited to the zero-sum game of an apocalyptic prophecy.
For example, China’s misuse of coal and diesel has already created atmospheric pollution that stretches more than one third of the way around the globe in a toxic brown plume. Our response? We imagine that if we turn out our lights we can save the planet by altering the Earth’s climate. How daft is that?
It’s akin to a small child’s belief that leaving the hall light on will keep the monster under the bed at bay! Not only is there no evidence that hall lights have an ameliorating effect on monster activities, there is precious little evidence for monsters living under beds. Likewise, there is no evidence that even if Australia shut down all power plants tomorrow it would have an ameliorating effect on AGW, moreover there is precious little evidence that AGW is the real monster we should be worried about to begin with.)
Our fundamental problem is not an external threat from a looming AGW apocalypse, but the failure of Australian society to renew itself by passing along the skills necessary for individual citizens, and therefore our polity, to frame issues rationally and develop responses based on empirical evidence rather than media-driven credulity.
I am puzzled at Jeremy C claiming.
“..don’t forget prior to 1996 Australia was heading down a low carbon path.”
Malcolm –
I’d be very interested in what method you might come up with to check results/quality other than peer review. Like democracy perhaps – not perfect but what else do you have? Of course you can do what the pseudo-sceptics do – either don’t publish and don’t bother with any review comments. Pig in a poke.
Or you could have trial by blog. Perhaps we should let neurosurgery run the same way – anyone can have a go or an opinion ?
Anyway – what’s that comment about getting the government we deserve?
In any case I would have thought it quite simple – either get the Libs to run against climate change taxes or get a new Senate party to run and promise to block on that issue?
So why do we have no contenders? What is the Libs position on climate change anyway?
Luke,
You could start with the simple step of being absolutely open.
None of this secret reviews by people saying secret things.
The principals that are used in courts of law, as suggested awhile back by cohenite, would be good starting point.
We could then go on from there.
I do note that the IPCC is laying down the protocols for the fifth review and note that in Appenndix 2 they provide for other documentation and information sources to be included.
But even then you could not have any confidence that the current Brotherhood of IPCC would look at it with any level of objectivity, and even if it was, the small number of 40-50 scribes who put it together, would ensure that the Geneva view prevailed –as always.
They have even more to protect this time around.
I like the fact that this report gives us some basis for looking at the various energy alternatives. They fudge things in that they assume that “learnings” will reduce the cost of some of these technologies, which they may, or may not, but it really spikes the fantasy that solar or wind can fill the gap because of their low capacity utilisation.
Found the analysis of geothermal interesting as I had thought it was more of a contender than it appears to be.
Table 1 gives some comparisons, although they shouldn’t be taken with absolute seriousness because they look at costs in 10 and 40 years time without applying a discount factor, making the calculations too expensive, but this doesn’t affect comparison between types of energy generation. From an economics point of view they also ignore substitution effects when calculating savings in emissions.
Their scenarios also contemplate decentralised power generation – for example putting 12 kWs of solar panels on 5 million Australian houses. Or that seems to be the implication of some analysis on page 5.
This quote from pages 37 and 38 illustrates the difficulties in meeting the AATSE scenarios. What are the odds of 12 times as many wind farms being in existence in 11 years, or even building 3 large power stations using gas in the same period?
“As can be seen, the required capacity for electricity generation under this scenario would increase at the middle of the probabilistic distribution (p50) to about 66 GW in 2020 from 47 GW in 2007, an increase in supply of around 20 per cent. The aggregated investment costs for the various new technologies to be installed under this scenario would amount to $65 billion (p50, in 2008 $), with a calculated p10 to p90 range between $56 billion and $76 billion. This number is significantly influenced by the solar technologies,with their high costs and low overall capacity factors, and the fact that more than nine GW of solar generation would be required in this assumed scenario, compared with 0.004 GW in 2007 (ESSA data). This would represent a very large increase in the application of solar energy in Australia under the scenario within a short period of time. Wind power generation also increases to around four GW, compared with 0.3 GW in 2007, an increase of over 1200 per cent in 12 years. Even gas-generated power would need to increase by 40 per cent under this scenario at the p50 level, taking into account the smaller overall capacity factor of intermittent new gas turbine facilities. Also, under this hypothetical scenario, 2.5 GW of CCS generating capacity would be required in 12 years’ time, representing commercial operation of (say) three large power stations with CO2 sequestration, each capturing and sequestering around eight million tonnes a year of CO2, depending on their efficiency. Again, this is a major technological advance when compared with where we stand now. If this CCS capacity is not developed by then, the supply capacity would need to be provided.”
Given the issue is highly politicised, the prospects of arriving at an absolute agreed truth are poor.
There will be always be yet another theory and yet another analysis …. someone who claims they were not included/listened to…. would it ever end?
Perhaps we need an IPCC chapter which specifically and explicitly addresses the set of sceptical arguments. At least then those arguments would be acknowledged to exist even if not agreed or rejected.
Those who have thought about this issue in depth seem to have become interested in for their own reasons. I suspect no existing argument will change their viewpoint. To either side. Doesn’t happen on this blog?
All arguments seen a try-on and fundamentally dishonest to the other camp. The hypothesis is that your politics determines your scientific analysis.
So perhaps the battle ground for hearts and minds is for those who have not thought about it much at all.
Aren’t most at the cricket?
“” Given the issue is highly politicised, the prospects of arriving at an absolute agreed truth are poor. ” Says Luke.
Absolute rubbish– because of the way they have gone about it it will always be contested simply because it lacks any integrity.
One would have thought that it is fundamental that the processes that are used must be beyond reproach. One could NOT say this about Peer Review, as it applies to climate science.
It has got nothing to do with ones beliefs, or the actual claims being made of any of the science/papers, but that it is being handled in a manner that is auditble, credible and above reproach.
You CANNOT say that about most of what has transpired to date.
You cant even say it about some of the pet science papers that were published under PR, and became altar pieces of the IPCC, when the authers willfully refused to make their data and processing approaches available to other researchers, as IS required by pretty well all publically funded research, any where in the world.
But they were allowed to get away with it.
Even now key CRU researchers responsible (CRU for eg) for the temperature record have refused to make the data, and the way they have processed it available for external scrutiny.
Only recently has Hansen as the Head of Shonkademia Central at the NASA GISS has made the Fortran code available.
That is simply appalling stuff. Whilst anything goes in America I know, I am doubly disappointed that a UK establishment in playing the same dishonest game
Further one would have thought that under any circumstances the IPCC as a matter of protocol would insist that only science that has complied with the laws/rules of the funding country of origin, and has no outstanding FOI requests, will be eligible for consideration and inclusion in Round 5. Meaning, there already has been full disclosure before hand.
In law it is called discovery, and as a protocol it has been in place for yonks.
Bet you a free lunch that the IPCC doesnt make such a declaration.
Now, enough of this — back to cricket and the latest Economist
Until tea time.
Graham,
Thanks for trying to get the discussion back on topic.
And for the quote – but you reference the wrong pages. Your quote is from pages 26 and 27 of the pdf.
Sorry Jennifer, my fault
Caused right back at square one when the dolts called it Carbon Pollution.
Sorry, I was looking at the number of pages in the PDF rather than the official page numbers in the document.
Graham; I read somewhere that hot rock technology and indeed any geothermal heating method actually is a net emitter of CO2 because the heating process releases CO2 from the vertical rock strata; my friends tell me the Tugan desalinator is corroded already, something which happens with tidal power machinery; at least the AATSE report mentions nuclear but not thorium; what ever happened to thorium; perhaps luke knows.
Graham,
Thanks for that below:
“I like the fact that this report gives us some basis for looking at the various energy alternatives. They fudge things in that they assume that “learnings” will reduce the cost of some of these technologies, which they may, or may not, but it really spikes the fantasy that solar or wind can fill the gap because of their low capacity utilisation.”
Applying ‘Learnings’ to new technology and its implementation as realising a cost reduction over time is something that economists do routinely in the stuff I deal with.
I don’t think your comment about the authors coming from a decentralised viewpoint ton energy generation is correct. They seem to just cite lots of roof top panels as ideas. My beef with the report is that it works from the centralised generation paradigm as from the following in Section 2.2, page 6.
“2If, however, like some renewables, peak power can
be provided for (say) only five hours per day, it will only replace 18,000 J (3600s x 5h), just 21 per cent
of the energy and hence 21 per cent the CO2 from fossil fuels burned for up to 24 hours per day. In this
instance the capacity factor would be 21 per cent”
This is actually a conceptual mistake because while fossil fuels can be burned for 24 hours a day e.g. coal the electricity produced isn’t needed for 24 hours a day. Don’t forget a coal fired power station has to stay on 24 hours a day because its too difficiult to turn it off and on at will unlike gas, renewables and to a lesser extent II gen nuclear. This means for the time you and I are asleep the coal fired power station is just pouring most of its output down the drain (or unless you fudge it with the old ‘ off peak’ hot water heating which is going as electric water heaters are phased out for solar). So its a wrong comparison and rather it should be based on when and where we need energy so changing calculation of capacity factor completely. But you would arrive at the above capacity factor if you are coming from a centralised , so called baseload paradigm.
When you say it spikes the fantasy to do with solar or wind then that I would say that is based on their conceptual mistake and there now reports coming out of the US claiming that PV will reach ‘grid parity’ by 2015. If this is correct then that will push storage technologies and techniques. It reminds me of the conversation I had with an Austalian combined ‘poles and wires’ distributor and retailer a few months back in which they told me they really like solar PV because its output dovetails with the time of day when they have their most demand i.e. when you and i switch on our air conditioners ( and off course if you deploy solar absorption for airconditioning then hardly need any electricity at all). This centralised/baseload paradigm is really holding back change and the advance and deployment of high technology.
I think this is why the report fails for me. It says some good stuff e.g. noting that for every 1 kilo Watt of electricity you get out of a coal fired plant you have to shovel in an average of 4 kilo Watts of coal (and of course that figure will go up if you retrofit CCS to exisiting coal fired stations) plus mentioning IFR/IV gen nuclear and it does say that energy efficiency is a ‘good thing’ without seeming to understand how it is deployed but then to me energy efficiency is Jenifer’s mythical-to-be-invented- non carbon power source i.e. its already here with huge potential across our country.
Because the authors can’t get out of their centralised generation mindset they miss how renewables are deployed under a decentralised system but perhaps I’m being too harsh as they do talk about their conclusions being based on ‘probabilistic’ forecasts and they are perhaps just expressing political reaiity e.g. my view would be if you started questioning the centralised paradigm then the fossil fuel generators will start getting scared that people will really question why they should be receiving 2 to 3 billion $ of yours and my tax dollars. Perhaps that money should be taken back from the generators along with other subsidies to make up the $ six billion the authors of the report are calling for in R&D.
However I think they are being realistic when they talk about the difficulty in getting things to change but that is most probably down to recognising the outmoded thinking we have in Australia.
Anyway there are far better reports out there on energy.
Jeremy C, where would the excess power in your ideal non-centralised/baseload go, and where would the energy come from when the decentralized, wind or solar, would not provide the energy necessary for your idealized unit?
John,
“where would the excess power in your ideal non-centralised/baseload go”
I’m not sure what you re asking here but I would say it could go the same place excess energy goes now i.e nowhere until a load is applied to it or in the case of gas, renewables, modern nuc (including thorium) you just turn it off unil needed (e.g. with wind just feather the blades or if solar, well flat plate just sits there and if concentrator or thermal just direct the heliostats away from the focus).
“where would the energy come from when the decentralized, wind or solar, would not provide the energy necessary for your idealized unit”.
What are your assumptions here? That what you suggested wouldn’t provide energy, why would you want to design a system like that? The second assumption seems to be you have limited it to wind and solar, why ? What about marine, goeothermal, hydro, bits of nuc, 3rd and 4th gen bioenergy, storage technologies and topologies, efficiency and passive. In listing these things I’m making the assumption that they will all overtake CCS, I could be wrong on that. or if you want to go way out what about SPS and who knows fusion might stop being another 30 years away, that would be good.
It always comes back to what are you trying to do and what is the best way to achieve it. I.e. does it need energy via direct carrier or is there a better way of doing it? For example is it better to heat your home using energy via a coal fired station or to insulate your house and just use either body heat or a small wood fired stove as in Scandinavia and now gathering pace across Germany with the Passivhaus rollout or use ground source heat or an air heat pump. Likewise for cooling is it better to use energy via a coal fired station to run the airconditioner or insulate your house or use ground source cool and heat pumps or solar absorption.
My question is why are denialists so much against new technology?
“My question is why are denialists so much against new technology?”
CLIMATE RATIONALISTS ARE NOT AGAINST TECHNOLOGY!!!!!!
Have you got that straight now? Jeremy I’m talking to you. You cannot even name ONE climate rationalist who is against technology. So there is no mystery to this story. Its just you lying.
We will be back in a cheap energy age when nuclear replaces coal in electricity and nuclear provides the electricity, hydrogen, and much of the heat, for liquification of all sorts of carbon resources into high-grade liquid fuels.
Any tangential technology that may add to the above scenario are of course to be welcomed. As long as they don’t require subsidies. Stop lying. Attempt not to be an idiot.
OK Jeremy. Do you understand now that you were lying? And that there is no mystery to the situation.? It was just you lying.
As an example of the stupidity that is becoming mainstream this is hard to beat. Following the link to today’s #1 article (dangerous daisy abroad, do not approach, call in experts) there is an ad from bp for fairtrade coffee beans (100% certified) from Wild Bean Cafe (R) (wild? meaning uncertified, presumably). Wondering if this is the same bp that used to be in petroleum I followed the link and saw this:
“Press ReleasesSpeeches Issues and Publications Media contacts Newsletters
BP Solar to close manufacturing plant in Sydney
Release date: 18 November 2008
BP Solar to close manufacturing plant in Sydney as part of global drive to reduce the cost of renewable power
BP Solar announced today that it will cease the production of solar photovoltaic (PV) power cells and panels from its manufacturing plant in Sydney Olympic Park (Australia) at the end of March 2009. The decision comes because the company is looking to focus its operations at larger scale plants in lowest cost manufacturing countries, in order to drive down the cost of solar power for consumers.
The BP Solar sales and marketing team in Australia will continue their activities, and aim to grow the sales and servicing of solar products. However, BP Solar regrets that approximately 200 jobs will be lost from the manufacturing plant.”
It raises bean counting to a whole new level. Can someone explain to me that this is a joke?
As an example of the stupidity that is becoming mainstream this is hard to beat. Following the link to today’s #1 article (dangerous daisy abroad, do not approach, call in experts) there is an ad from bp for fairtrade coffee beans (100% certified) from Wild Bean Cafe (R) (wild? meaning uncertified, presumably). Wondering if this is the same bp that used to be in petroleum I followed the link and saw this:
“Press ReleasesSpeeches Issues and Publications Media contacts Newsletters
BP Solar to close manufacturing plant in Sydney
Release date: 18 November 2008
BP Solar to close manufacturing plant in Sydney as part of global drive to reduce the cost of renewable power
BP Solar announced today that it will cease the production of solar photovoltaic (PV) power cells and panels from its manufacturing plant in Sydney Olympic Park (Australia) at the end of March 2009. The decision comes because the company is looking to focus its operations at larger scale plants in lowest cost manufacturing countries, in order to drive down the cost of solar power for consumers.
The BP Solar sales and marketing team in Australia will continue their activities, and aim to grow the sales and servicing of solar products. However, BP Solar regrets that approximately 200 jobs will be lost from the manufacturing plant.”
It raises bean counting to a whole new level. Can someone explain to me that this is a joke?
luke,
As someone who clearly believes in AGW could you tell me what is the important evidence that convinces you? I don’t mean “evidence” like “there is consensus” or “we must act now” but an actual observation. I understand this could be a big ask, but if you could just start with one that I could look at (please don’t say “read the IPCC report” because I’ve done that already) I would appreciate it.
Gordon,
Closer reading leads me to ask you:
How can you possibly call the Gov. of California an ‘extreme right winger’, and apply that same term to the present Australian gov. and expect to be take seriously at all?
Climate realists want technology that will actually work.
Windmills are ancient tech wrapped in ridiculous amounts of tax subsidies and over represent their ability to offset coal to the point of deliberate lie.
Clean coal, fission power, possibly some solar in some locales, and searching for new physics tricks are about all we have that does trash the landscape and randomly turn off and on.
From my brief scan of the article I didn’t see any mention of power storage systems. Solar, Wind, tidal etc are all very well but they only operate at certain times. What’s needed is an energy storage system. The vanadium redox battery looked like a goer but it seems to have fallen over and even their big units were really over-sized UPS units for backup due to power failures. Other possibilities are pumping water up to a head as storage, compressed air is another.
Ausra’s solar thermal units in their blurb talk about storing the heat generated so they can operate 24/7 yet their first power station is now up and running and despite all the big talk all we’ve got is a 5 MW power station, two wind turbines worth, and they don’t mention anything about 24/7 operation. These people have been talking big for years now, even talking about powering America and Europe yet all they’ve come up with so far is an efficient steam generator that operates for 6 hours a day!
Spain has solar power stations but again these are only 20MW! The wind generators in Denmark are totally unreliable and any power they produce is sold to other countries on the cheap. At least the Snowy River scheme produces Giga watts. So far it’s the only alternative power system that actually works and is reliable.
These renewable energy guys have got to get their heads out of you know where and start getting real!.
What would be so bad about maintining our lifestyles using less energy anyway?
My house, for example, used about 40-50% less energy than the average house of its size, and yet I live a satisfying gadget-filled western lifestyle, and all my energy investments have payback periods of 3 years max (ok other than my solar panels but we all have our little indulgences don’t we?).
Of course the AATSE’s predictions are a safe bet… it is a massive probability that we will use less energy per capita by say 2050… I’d bet my house on it.
They just weant more money for technology investment… and that is a great idea.
MattB – unfortunately your household energy consuption is irrelevant. Domestic energy is nothing compared to the power consumed by the cities, transport and industry. If we are looking for a renewable energy system it has to be able to supply them as well as your house.
So David C, what you want to know is the important evidence, but you exclude from that any evidence contained in the IPCC reports… so basically you exclude any of the scientific research that has been assessed and collated in those reports… so you are asking Luke “which piece of non-peer-reviewed everyday back of the envelope kind of observation that has not been deemed significant enough to be investigated by the IPCC is it that convinces you?”
Indeed that will be a tough question to answer… my hunch is that Luke’s opinions are formed by published science – which you conveniently exclude…
The reason the mish mash of technologies you espouse won’t work Jeremy C is money. Most are hugely uneconomic due to immense capital costs per delivered KwH. There are also huge economies of scale in large centralised power generation. That is why it is done that way. Figure out what it would cost to electrify your house with a Honda generator in the backyard.
Mark Twain once said an engineer was somebody who could do for 50 cents what any fool could do for a dollar. You aren’t an engineer’s bootlace.
Matt
I’m just asking Luke what convinces him. A particular reference cited by the IPCC would be fine. Just not the entire report.
Jeremy C you think you have the solution but there a few things I have not found in your solution.
1. How much electricity does Australia use?
2. What amount of electricity is each of us responsible for? That is everthing transport, large buildings, manufacturing and so on.
3. What percentage of this is controllable by the an individual?
4. What is the cost of doing what you propose?
5. Given that only a limited time per day is available how should power be stored on the scales required? You will have to store many TWhs.
In the meantime here is a probable solution for Australia for an imagined problem http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/industry_sectors/utilities/article5519752.ece
We could have it in ten years can any “alternative” meet that?
Janama… every individual (person or business)’s energy use is insignificant when viewed in isolation. I can tell you there are significant efficiencies to be made across a huge range of energy sectors across the economy… my home just being an example.
I have never understood why something as dry and economically hard edged as power production isn’t an engineering no-brainer. Technological evolution is not driven by the fashion of the moment. If it were Bondi would be radioactive wastelands because on the way home from the pub dad would have wrecked the nuclear flying Holden back in 1965.
Likewise, solar, wind, geo and tidal power aren’t just going to leap up fully developed because they suit the latest vogue in environmental aesthetics.
First we have to decide why we are trying to force a square peg into a round hole. If it’s because of an unsubstantiated hysteria that “carbon pollution” is going to destroy the planet, then alternative fuels will remain for quite awhile just that, hysterical alternatives. If it’s because the credulous imagine alternatives are “clean” and “green”, and therefore yield no collateral costs, the reality will be sure to disappoint.
The round peg of coal and gas already fits Australia like a beaut and may well continue to do so for the next half century while the basic science is advanced to point where migration to the next paradigm is economically a no-brainer.
Hey, that’s the facts, however unfashionable such sentiment might be over latte in Bondi this summer. I’m just saying…
War and entrepreneur risk taking – not a la mode climate theory or levying of tax – has for the last couple of hundred years been the main driving force behind technological innovation. I wouldn’t doubt this to remain the situation in the near future.
janama “From my brief scan of the article I didn’t see any mention of power storage systems”.
The only type of electricty that can be stored is direct current electricity. Most homes and industry use alternating current. To store alternating current would require converting it to direct current, then converting it back again. The rectification required to convert AC to DC and the inverters to convert it back, are no small task.
If you’re talking about storing power from wind, solar, etc., you still have to convert it back to AC for use, unless you install devices in homes and industry to use DC. That would be a mammoth, expensive undertaking. It would also put us at the mercy of many small corporations who could crank up the cost of power at a whim.
The sad truth is that environmentalists did not put much thought into how they were going to wean us off fossil fuels. I’d be all for it if new forms of power could be supplied to run our present systems and at an equivalent cost. That wont happen anytime soon. Until we put a massive, concerted effort into solving this problem, it could take another 100 years to solve it. Even at that, there’s no guarantees.
I get so sick of all this guff. If the greens want alternative power, let them spend the money on building the power stations, & selling the powqer they produce, on the open market. It would certainly be better than playing dodgems, in big boats.
Until they will invest in their own visions, I don’t want any more of my taxes wasted on their pipe dreams.
Remember the Rocky Point biodegradable power station fiasco. Built to use the sugar cane waste, it cost 10 of millions to build, produced bugger all usefull power, at ridicules cost, &
was shut down, to be sold off for bugger all.
Typical green pie-in-the-sky rubbish, with predictable results, payed for by the tax payer.
Gordon – all the solar panels, wind generators etc produce 12 or 24V DC current. 300W – 3KW invertors (DC to AC) are common and produce pure sine wave AC- I had a 1500W unit when I lived on solar power – it was probably the most reliable piece of electronic equipment I’ve ever used and I’ve used a lot.
A solar system that runs a house as if connected to the mains is perfectly feasible and will cost around $45K – $55K. Solar panels are now capable of producing 200 watts+ and the aussie made SunCube units http://www.greenandgoldenergy.com.au/start.htm put out 350watts and track the sun. Add 12 x 2Volt 2000 amp hour batteries, hook up a 24volt – 240V invertor and you have mains power at home capable of running any domestic appliance.
That’s what I call a Solar System for a house, NOT simply adding a few solar panels and hooking up to the mains and asking your electricity supplier to buy your power at the price he charges you for his – he doesn’t need your power and you’ll still need his at night!
here’s the vanadium battery system http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Huxley_Hill_Wind_Farm,_Tasmania backing up a wind farm.
jeremy
“My question is why are denialists so much against new technology?”
You are not Ender, using an other nick?
While I certainly would not call myself “denialist” I suppose with my views you probably include me as well in that group.
No we are not against new technology at all, what we try to avoid is to spend a fortune on half baked pie in the sky ideas, and so far what you proposed in essence, is just that.
The excess power from power stations “goes nowhere as now” you say, You haven’t got a clue how power generation works!!!
janama “hooking up to the mains and asking your electricity supplier to buy your power at the price he charges you for his – he doesn’t need your power and you’ll still need his at night”!
I should know more about solar energy since I work in the electrical industry. Obviously, solar power is no good at night but how does it work in a largely cloudy climate, or maybe in mountainous terrain where the Sun is cut off a good protion of the day? I became interested in heat exchangers years ago. I wonder why that technology hasn’t been explored further. There’s virtually an unlimited amount of heat that can be extracted from the Earth using principles similar to a refrigerator. Of course, you’d have to supply power, and as they say, you don’t get something for nothing.
Janama “…invertors (DC to AC) are common and produce pure sine wave AC”
something just occured to me. Invertors can produce a decent sine wave but not without drawbacks. The sine wave it produces is not smooth like the sine wave produced by a generator. If you look at it on an oscilliscope, it looks a royal mess. To get AC from DC, you have to chop the DC into varying DC pulses and to convert it to AC, you have to use high power transistors that switch on and off under sometimes tremendous loads. It’s the transients produced by the switching that is the problem.
Transients are spikes of current or voltage that can be several times the magnitude of the voltage with which you are working. With thousands of people connected to a grid, pumping voltage back to the supplier, transients could become a huge problem, especially with inverters that are malfunctioning. That system is good in theory, but I wonder how well it can be implemented in real time on a large scale.
Gordon,
“I wonder why that technology hasn’t been explored further. There’s virtually an unlimited amount of heat that can be extracted from the Earth using principles similar to a refrigerator”
Mostly it’s the scale required to make it useful, experiments have been gone on for far longer than most realise. I would be careful to make sure, that it was a closed system, not just sending down some liquid and hope it’ll come up again as steam. We just don’t know what harm it can do underground, keep in mind, we are talking about very large, MW scale power generations which require tremendous amounts of medium circulating.
“I should know more about solar energy since I work in the electrical industry.”
The literature is endless if you are interested.
It makes me laugh when I hear the outrageous claims made by the greenies, how easy it would be if we just did this or that. Your ref. re. refrigeration, there were systems running on ammonia and other refrigerants in the reverse manner, that is they were heated and as a gas running normal four stroke motors. You name it, it was tried, hardly anything new under the sun.
The only, and the biggest, problem with solar, is the storage problem.
(I discard wind as a waste of time and money)
If we can find a way to store the heat during the day there would be no problem using it as base load power. The problem is, was, and as far as I can see will be, for a very long time is to find a storage medium with at least 30% of energy density that of coal, oil or gas. At the moment the hydrogen solution is the best as far as energy density goes, but still a lot of technical questions waiting for an answer.
Modern day DC-AC sinusoidal converters produce very good sine waves without the spikes, while they are working on the principle you mentioned, thyristors are mainly used in the chopping instead of transistors (clean and very fast switching). We now have converters rated in the 100s of KW range, of course they don’t run off 24Volts.
The Brazil Paraguay hydro system uses a DC-earth return link from the hydro in Paraguay to connect to Brazil.
“running normal four stroke motors”
This of course should read ?normal compressor as a motor”, with the gas recovered and reheated.