AUSTRALIAN electricity consumers can look forward to soaring charges for electricity and blackouts if state and federal politicians continue to undermine the power grid by mandating and subsidising solar power generation.
Solar power can never produce continuous, predictable, low cost power. It must always be supported by expensive power storage systems or by reliable power sources such as coal, gas, hydro or nuclear.
No matter how many millions of taxpayer money is poured into “research”, it can never solve the two fatal flaws of solar power.
Firstly, sunlight energy arrives in very dilute form, and thus needs vast areas of collectors to harvest significant energy. This results in high capital costs and much environmental disturbance. Solar power can light one 75-watt bulb for every card table of collectors (in the middle of the day only). How many card tables do we need to run the trains, factories, fridges, homes, heaters, hospitals and tools of a big city?
Secondly, the solar energy produced during daylight hours is constantly variable and unpredictable, and zero power is generated at night. As a result, solar power farms seldom produce more than an average of 15% of their rated capacity over a year and as low as 1% for a day or so.
In Australia, the maximum electricity demand occurs at about 6.30 pm in mid-winter in the big southern cities. However, the maximum solar power is generated at noon in mid-summer in clear northern deserts. If the nightly solar curfew is to be supplied by solar power, this necessitates a vast area of collectors to provide daytime grid power as well as charging a storage backup which supplies power at night. The scattered solar collectors also need a huge new transmission network. Such a system is inefficient and very costly.
More likely, however, is that the solar farms will be backed up by gas or coal power stations on standby, wasting fuel and capital until they are needed to supply power on cloudy days or during the nightly solar blackouts.
Solar energy has useful applications, but supplying the power grid is NOT one of them. Solar power can never supply the reliable low cost electricity needed for Australian cities and industries. In that application, it can only exist as a subsidised and troublesome appendage propped up by serious power sources such as coal, gas, nuclear or hydro.
Viv Forbes, Chairman
The Carbon Sense Coalition
************************
Notes and Links
For a detailed look at Solar Power Realities, with actual performance figures see:
http://carbon-sense.com/2009/07/04/solar-realities/
And some home solar economics:
http://carbon-sense.com/2009/06/06/solar-energy-costs-economics/
And to reread this post: Link to this statement: http://carbon-sense.com/2009/07/05/solar-appendage/
Jennifer Marohasy BSc PhD is a critical thinker with expertise in the scientific method.
Solar has novelty. Back up to solar is very expensive. When coal generation runs 24/7, the investement is optimized. if it is run for a backup, it is very expensive also because it is inefficient. I use solar panels to keep batteries at full charge when leaving my yacht. I do not like to leave a trickle charger plugged in at the dock.
http://www.shop.com/+-a-cap+fan+solar+power-p177886226-g1-k24-st.shtml
There are clever solutions off the grid.
biggest strawman ever build?
who exactly wants to run 100% solar?
alternative energy obviously CAN supply 100% of electricity needed.
the cost of alternative energy is shrinking. mass production is driving prices down. some of the high prices are caused by demand for panels and wind turbines being bigger than supply (!!!!!!)
electric cars will fix the electricity storage problem in the near to medium future.
It’s also true for wind power, but with wind the variability can be for extended periods. A complete package of ALL renewable sources for electricity might work for the highest nineties percentile, but they will be producing expensive electricity.
Conversion will come naturally as prices come down and cheaper energy prices go up. Why is forcing this situation good now?
Comment from: sod July 8th, 2009 at 1:08 am
biggest strawman ever build?
who exactly wants to run 100% solar?
alternative energy obviously CAN supply 100% of electricity needed.
\
Sod has no idea why he is so dishones. Let me give evidence.
It takes tremendous amoung of diesel fuel and gasolene to run earthmoving equipment and mining equipment to gather ore to build steel from mills for wind towers.
If you want to be dishonest enough, the biodiesel even has petroleum diesel burned to harvest the beans to make biodiesel.
All and I mean all use petroleum libricants on the caterpillars. So some city slickers picture in their imagination that there is such a thing as only sustainable energy. How do they run cranes to lift the towers? How about the “plastics” in the blades? Straight from petrol. Come on children. Thinking towers are made from air and run on air won’t fly in grade schooll classes.
The high tension wires from copper and the power transmission poles for gathering and distribution of electrical are incredibly energy intense to build and install. “100% alternative energy system” is a 100% false claim. Again ignorant people living in cities imagine is is all wind, no and no less. I will admit when blades were smaller, WEST syatems offered so wood laminated blades. Of course the were laminated with petroleum adhesives.
sod is not honest. I can also put on my psychologist hat and analyse the underlying issues that evoke behaviors of dishonesty and false claims. I won’t other that “lying with bravado and speaking in absolutes” is a detectiojn method for detecting baloney.
Why not. Dishonesty is one of the listed freudian defense mechanisms we all get questions about when we take our clinical exams.
Henry, your reply is pretty confused. for a start, we were talking about electricity.
you will also want to google the terms “biodiesel” and “tractor”, to get updated on its use on heavy machinery….
“alternative energy obviously CAN supply 100% of electricity needed. ”
This is your wild claim. prove it and give us examples where it has bee done. Take your time and show us pictures.
Henry is correct sod and you know it!
fossil fuels are used to create alternative energy systems, wind generators, solar panels and the wires to transport the power, even nuclear power stations. At least the nuclear power stations return reliable 24/7 power – the solar/wind/geothermal don’t. Even the experimental geothermal plant at Inimincka has fallen over recently.
google Samso. the plans for the rest of Denmark are fine as well.
http://uraanitieto.tormunet.fi/encc/Hvelplund_%20finland112007.pdf
yeah yeah – another glossy brochure full of high expectations and dubious predictions.
Name one alternative power installation that reliably produces alternative energy sod!
How about this one – it’s real!
http://www.theage.com.au/environment/clean-coal-plant-set-to-go-ahead-20090707-dbuu.html
Finally. Getting down to business. The problem with dealing with the fraud side of the climate debate, and their hateful appeasers, is that we are on the defensive all the time. We need to get on with clearing the way for energy investment. We need to be talking about what needs to be done to make energy-production an investor-friendly prospect.
In the medium-term we need revamped investment in our coal-electricity production. But in a time period just a little bit longer than that, we ought to have it that nuclear-electricity can crowd out coal electricity, and that the coal instead is turned into synthetic-diesel (liquified-coal) with as much nuclear energy as possible imbedded in the conversion process.
Morphing towards nuclear for electricity and then the coal converted to diesel: The year when this is achieved, after many years of great pain and deprivation, this will be the year we are back in the cheap energy era. We have to be responsible international actors. That means exporting gigalitres of liquified-coal so that poor countries can develop.
We are in a lot of trouble you know? Energy-wise that is. People don’t seem to realise it. Part of the reformation has to be to get rid of any tax on retained earnings. Any company tax in other words. If you have a business you keep your business accounts and personal accounts separate. And you pay no tax until the money is transferred from your business to your personal accounts.
This may seem like a side issue but its not. Because we have to be able to accumulate massive amounts of capital in order to overcome the energy problems slated for us. And taxes on retained profits gets in the way of this adaptation. It goes without saying that any carbon-tax or cap-and-kill is simply unacceptable. This is the new “political correctness.” Even if these carbon taxes were not an economically devastating measure, it would amount to caving in to leftist lies and un-science. No good could ever come of such a cave-in. People diminish themselves when they even suggest such an outrage.
I know you mean well janama. But even prior to clicking your link we see the link prejudiced against coal and that the article will be based on lies. Is it a black thing?
“Carbon sequestration” is probably the stupidest phrase actively used in the English language right now.
Janama I take it all back. Terrific propaganda tag. “Clean Coal”. Ripping the phrase off the evil bastards and making it our own. Converting the phrase from a lie into the truth. Even as we convert coal into a liquid. This is just fantastic news. Liquified-coal coming to the Hunter Valley. Praise Be.
Sir.
I am in your debt.
ha ha – no problem – I understood how the wording of the link may have confused you – actually – another byproduct could also be fertiliser.
“electric cars will fix the electricity storage problem in the near to medium future.” Hmm, I remember having this conversation some time ago on this very site. This is the idea where you leave the car in the sun all day so that it can run your house lights at night. Should work fine as long as you don’t want to drive it as well.
Here in the ACT we now have a nation-leading feed-in tariff for, well basically, micro-generation. In the ACT that amounts to PV as we don’t have much of anything else. In the last week the ICRC has warned the government about the danger of committing the community to 20-year contracts on a technology that is inefficient and likely to be replaced with better solutions in the near future.
I’ve talked to several people who have spent tens of thousands on PV based on hype from suppliers, government and academia (the ANU has a well-funded renewable energy unit). I point out that it’s expensive, inefficient and produces a very small output relative to local demand and they say ‘we know all that, but isn’t it good that we get the FiT? And anyway, we have to do something!”
I think they call it cognitive dissonance.
The days when we have the blackouts every year are the hottest days, when we are most likely to have sunshine, because everyone is running their air conditioners flat out. People complain that the government is incompetent because we don’t have enough capacity, but the extra power stations needed are needed for only a few days a year. Solar is a perfect response to this situation. It is available on the hottest days, it is just as ‘ineffecient’ as having a very costly power station being built for billions, that is only needed a few days a year.
“”the extra power stations needed are needed for only a few days a year. Solar is a perfect response to this situation.””
SJT, I finally agree with you 100%. Solar capacity is perfect for peak load power production.
Do you agree that coal and nuclear capacity are perfect for base load power production?
“ha ha – no problem – I understood how the wording of the link may have confused you – actually – another byproduct could also be fertiliser.”
Oh yeah sure. Syngas is a toxic mix. But its got to be about the most you-beaut versatile producer good if you can transform it on the spot. Fixed nitrogen via ammonia no problem. And then onto explosives if you want. Or plastics. Anything that the petroleum industry can put together, fundamentally you can get it from this syngas witches brew.
You know what would be a feel-good thing. You could turn the syngas into Ethylene tetrafluoroethylene (ETFE) in your plastics factory right. This Ethylene tetrafluoroethylene (ETFE) is pretty much transparent to UV radiation. Then when you are doing your underground coal gasification to syngas to electricity you’d run the CO2 exhaust through these huge paddocks covered by this ETFE. So you could grow these marvelous cash crops at a level of yield like the world has not seen before. And of course your ammonia production would be in the same location. Getting your converted rock phosphate by rail no doubt.
Nirvana.
“SJT, I finally agree with you 100%. Solar capacity is perfect for peak load power production.
Do you agree that coal and nuclear capacity are perfect for base load power production?”
Don’t go wobbly on us wobble. There is no use putting together these foolish compromises with a compulsive liar, idiot and extremist like SJT. We don’t have the investment resources to be mucking about with solar when an energy crisis is descending upon us. Thats a project for rich individuals when we are already out of trouble. For the moment we have to consider solar to be a sort of cargo cult. We only have so much investment resources. And an energy crisis also means a capital accumulation crisis.
“The days when we have the blackouts every year are the hottest days, when we are most likely to have sunshine, because everyone is running their air conditioners flat out. People complain that the government is incompetent because we don’t have enough capacity, but the extra power stations needed are needed for only a few days a year. ”
Your attitude will lead to us having great advantage in wartime……….. (not).
Its excess capacity that we are after. It is excess capacity that holds out the hope of keeping prices low and companies competitive.
“Do you agree that coal and nuclear capacity are perfect for base load power production?”
Coal is hardly perfect. It is highly inefficient, especially in Victoria. We are basically using 17th century technology to create high quality power. Nuclear should be looked at, modern technologies are far more advanced than the early nuclear power stations, and resolved many of the problems they had. However, nuclear by itself is no more an ‘answer’ than solar is. We need to have a broad look at what our problems are and how we can best solve them, because this is a complex problem and there won’t be any magical solutions that easily and simply solve our energy requirements. We need to look at our building codes, transport, use of high quality electricity for low quality energy devices, energy demand patterns and a lot of other constraints. At present, far too little time is spent on patchwork efforts, and entrenched self interests prevent needed reform.
“Nuclear should be looked at….”
No thats rubbish. Thats just some gig where you leftists get in the way by saying that we need a carbon-tax to encourage nuclear, then that implies nuclear is no good, and of course coal is going to send us on this upward spiral to Venus. So this sort of talk is saying no coal and no nuclear.
What is the use of “looking at” nuclear? There is no use at all. The leftists in the enquiry skillfully ease their useful idiots into writing a report that will mean it just doesn’t quite get adopted.
What will another enquiry do? It will do nothing. Like the do-nothing enquiry that Ziggy was in, the do-nothing enquriy prior to that. And the one prior to that as well.
The idea is just to adopt nuclear. Simple as that. Coal is the second-best electricity source after nuclear. So I don’t see what your poopy-pants attitude is about.
actually Graeme – lignin, a byproduct of woodchip paper is being turned into a recyclable plastic by the Germans.
So we could end up getting our plastics from Gunns Mill 🙂
http://www.ecogeek.org/component/content/article/2608
“”The idea is just to adopt nuclear. Simple as that. Coal is the second-best electricity source after nuclear. So I don’t see what your poopy-pants attitude is about.””
I agree with this statement. However, I do respect SJT for admitting that alternatives are only advanced enough to be “looked at.” That’s much better than insisting on immediate, unreasonable investments in wind and solar infrastructure.
However, I also agree with SJT that solar is perfect for peak capacity. As he says, peak demand usually occurs during periods of high solar irradiance. To be clear, I define peak capacity as the amount of power required for a few hours on those outlier days. Several thousand megawatts throughout Australia would probably make a quite a few people happy, and I don’t think it represents excessive compromise.
BTW, I’m also a big fan of electric drive train cars which come equipped with a small combustion engine and solar panel for battery charging. For now, I don’t think we need to get too fancy with the battery.
Well you ought not respect SJT. People like him only get in the way when you start respecting them.
“I point out that it’s expensive, inefficient and produces a very small output relative to local demand”
My guess is that they are being polite. I mean a rational person would take such a partisan assessment under advisement
“Your attitude will lead to us having great advantage in wartime……….. (not).”
Man, that is a pungent brain fart.
What do you mean by that idiot? This fool is implying that our electricity ought to be so inadequate as to be running at full capacity just to enable it to do its normal daily duties.
You think this is good policy?
Clearly you are a moron Patrick. Wake up to your true self fella.
Australians consumes about 290 tera watt hours of electricty per annum. The number of hours a day you can generate solar power is limited by the fact the sun moves. Damned inconvenient that but it means at my latitude there is about 4 hours a day available. So we need a system that can generate that amount of power in the available time and then store the power for later use. So guys lets do the calculation how much do we need a day? What area of cells will that take at 100%, 50%, 20% efficiency? How will these vast arrays of cells be maintained. Does our economy have enough resource to build them? How much do we need to store and how is that to be done? It should be a simple task for the geniuses on this blog. My expectation is for asking these questions I will only receive insults and evidence that the scale of it totally escapes the proponents. Please dissapoint me and give answers.
I believe in solar power completely, as long as it is derived from long term natural storage solutions, like coal ,natural gas or oil. ;^)
Until solar panels can be made to work at night, they are a play thing.
But I do hear that paintable solar-to-electricity is coming in the next few years, It will allegedly be about 10% the cost of legacy technology.
Here is something in that direction:
http://www.scientificblogging.com/jane_poynter/inkjetprintable_solar_panels_really
and
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/07/070719011151.htm
But that pesky diurnal cycle is going to be a bigger challenge.
“Until solar panels can be made to work at night, they are a play thing.”
I don’t believe you read what I wrote. For Australia, they would be very useful.
SJT,
Not at night.
And not on cloudy days.
But I did re-read your post, and you do have some merit in your point. In a desert environ, the brightest days will be the hottest. So if you could use solar on those days to top off your load, that could be interesting. If a significantly cheaper solar conversion tech comes along, it iwll even be likely.
Here in always pleasant Texas. solar powered roof vent fans are becoming popular for cooling attic spaces under roofs. They are effective for may of hte same reasons you are suggesting irt to solar peaking.
http://www.solarroofvent.com/
“What do you mean by that idiot? This fool is implying that our electricity ought to be so inadequate as to be running at full capacity just to enable it to do its normal daily duties.”
That is the most efficient way of doing it. Otherwise we will be paying billions for a power station that is only needed a few weeks a year.
So what? Whats efficiency? Maybe you’ve got some daft idea of efficiency?
Its not the best way of doing it. Its a stupid way of doing it. We want plenty of surplus capacity. And not just for national security reasons. I doubt that you are going to define “efficiency” and it would not matter if you did. Its not the right goal. The right goal is abundance and cost-effectiveness.
Name one alternative power installation that reliably produces alternative energy sod!
baseload water.
do you guys have more such stupid questions?
Baseload water? Come off it. Don’t be ridiculous. Thats just a niche-arrangement. You mean if you’ve got a hill behind you? Bizzare. Sure you’ll pump heaps of water with a solar farm right?
You are an environmentalist criminal. We know what you are after. You will support any energy that is NOT economic. And its not always the case that you are going to have a convenient hill in the right places.
oh you approve of hydro power and class it as an alternative power system – so why aren’t they planning to dam the rivers down the eastern coast and replace all the coal burners with Hydro Power sod?
The real way to do it is to make synthetic diesel the “battery.” You have massively more electrical generation capacity than you need with nuclear power. Then off-peak you ferret some of that away to imbed in the liquification of carbon solids process.
After that you can pump the diesel into 500 metre long tankers and transport it economically across the world.
After that you can pump the diesel into 500 metre long tankers and transport it economically across the world.
nuclear powered naturally.
I have just had time to read Peter Lang on Solar Power Realities. Come on SJT, Sod and Patrick B how about a comment on it? Or aren’t any of you game he has done the math. Greenpeace and WWF are quite wealthy they should build say a 1GW power station and show how easy it is to do.
The reference given earlier about Denmark mainly about wind not solar. In it though they do say “2 % of the electricity demand supplied by building integrated photo voltaic (700 MW)” that’s pitifully small. About half one Coal power station in total.
Some interesting data on this at
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/06/20/mackay_on_carbon_free_uk/
I can’t believe how badly written Viv Forbe’s article is. Just a lot of assertions strung together with no discussion or analysis of the range of solar systems ranging from PV through CPV (with over 40% efficiency), CST (e.g. CSIRO energy technology demo systems in Newcastle producing Syngas) and out to SPS for the future. And you guys are all arguing over it! Pathetic! Where is Viv Forbe’s analysis of using solar thermal to supply hot water both for domestic and process needs (I was in Aberdeen Scotland in May and saw a domestic solar hot water system at work…… in Scotland of all places and in May!) or air conditioning by a solar absorption cycle and what about solar flash desalination (e.g. RMIT’s system).
She was writing in complete and utter ignorance or is she 10 years old and this is her first school essay?
Good grief Jennifer, did you read this thing before posting it up? Or are you having a joke on all who posted here just to expose their ignorance of the topic. Shouldn’t this be posted under your humour section?
From the article, “Firstly, sunlight energy arrives in very dilute form”. Good grief, what numbers does that give? TOA is 1300 or so Watts/m2 and over 1 kW/m2 has been measured at various ground points across Australia. Go look at the Aust Solar Radiation Handbook for ground values measured at various points across Aust for average yearly values.
If life on earth can happily make use of that “dilute form” then how can how can we accept that she is making a reasoned argument.
BTW who was the dork who posted on here that flat PV or solar thermal doesn’t work in cloudy conditions?
Dude if solar can work it can stand on its own two feet. There is no-one trying to obstruct it ergo we don’t need to think about it. Its coal and nuclear that are being hampered here. So much so when people are talking about other energy sources they are really talking about getting in the way of coal and nuclear most of the time. You are not seriously saying that solar is an economic prospect are you? Surely not.
another new inventor was spruiking his new solar system on The New Inventors on the ABC just now. This one floats on water and ducks underwater when a storm or heavy winds arise.
Not one judge mentioned it only runs for 6 hours a day, or that if it ducked underwater it wouldn’t be producing any power – they were all saying how marvelous it was, how original and how wonderful it was because it can compete cost wise with coal. !!@#$&#@!
the world’s gone crazy.
“From the article, “Firstly, sunlight energy arrives in very dilute form”. Good grief, what numbers does that give? TOA is 1300 or so Watts/m2 and over 1 kW/m2 has been measured at various ground points across Australia.”
Close to the market? Or out in the desert? Go invest in it and lose all your money. No problem.
Graeme,Just go and look up the solar insolation values for any Australian city, say, start with Hobart.
As to Nuclear, which nuc do you mean, old style Gen 1 and 2 or do you prefer the new types that greenies such as Barry Brook are pushing such as IFR where over 90% of the fuel is burnt up as opposed to 1 to 5% in the nucs you love.
But I don’t want any subsidy on coal but I would like a bit of development money given to technologies such as IFR. The problem is that once you guys realise that greens are pushing various forms of nuclear you will oppose them just out of peverseness.
I am also convinced that one of the knee jerk mindsets of denialists is to oppose new technologies.
BTW Graeme,
Your an economist (read accountant with more grammar). Go and look online at NEMMCO’s 30 minute pricing for the NEM and tell me what days it balloons over $1,000 per MW for a 30 min period and marry that up to the weather for that day, the number of peaking plants that had to come on line and the solar insolation records for the same period and tell me how your loverly, loverly coal deals with that.
“But I don’t want any subsidy on coal but I would like a bit of development money given to technologies such as IFR. ”
No no development money. Its just got to be an across the board tax exemption on retained earnings for all energy production. No subsidies. If you don’t have subsidies then solar isn’t a public policy issue. If you are right its simply a way to shave a few dollars off costs for people in the appropriate niche areas.
Nuclear and coal are public policy issues since there are many obstructions to them and they have to be neutralised to maintain the actuality or the effect of proper property rights. But even they ought not be subsidised as dire as things now are. Its a matter of 50 years of tax exemptions locked in up front and that will bring the capital investment to bail us out.
“As to Nuclear, which nuc do you mean, old style Gen 1 and 2 or do you prefer the new types that greenies such as Barry Brook are pushing such as IFR where over 90% of the fuel is burnt up as opposed to 1 to 5% in the nucs you love.”
Certainly the latter. Barry’s a Johny-come-lately here. But better late then never. The 0.7 of 1% deal came about by leftist regulation alone. And by the atoms for peace project perhaps.
Jeremy C
Re solar power.
You are confusing two values here!
Graeme,
Stop being funny, you know Barry has been pushing IFR a long time but it represents a threat to the resource extraction industry because of the potential to use spent rods for fuel for years to come……. no expansion of Ranger which means savings of my tax dollars.
BTW would you allow tax exemptions for organisations that save money through energy efficiency?
‘Solar power can never produce continuous predictable low cost power’.
Nor can wind.
It is the greens who have stymied the development of nuke power for the past 30 years.
Unless you want to document back room deals between coal and gree, plesae do not sell that non-starter.
BTW, here is a sample of where the world’s most high profile AGW promoter is going in his latest sales efforts:
http://blogs.nature.com/news/thegreatbeyond/2009/07/big_al_speaks_on_climate_and_n.html
“Climate change, he said, is “ultimately a problem of consciousness”. He went on: “What is being tested is the proposition of whether or not the combination of an opposable thumb and a neocortex is a viable construct on this planet”.”
Hunter,
You forgot to state that Al Gore is fat.
oh you approve of hydro power and class it as an alternative power system – so why aren’t they planning to dam the rivers down the eastern coast and replace all the coal burners with Hydro Power sod?
hydro of course IS alternative energy. i was asked a question, and i answered it.
‘Solar power can never produce continuous predictable low cost power’.
Nor can wind.
nonsense. in a large enough grid, they obviously can. and they can together and in combination with other alternative energy sources.
and they also can, in connection with a storage mechanism (pumping up hydro again, electric cars…)
It is the greens who have stymied the development of nuke power for the past 30 years.
nonsense. the green movement is barely older than 30 years. your claim is, that they managed to obstruct nuclear in their formation phase and against the majority of parties, groups and people. nonsense.
———————-
there is no principal technological problem stopping alternative energy from providing close to 100% of our electricity need. and the costs are going down, while the options are increasing.
do some reading on Denmark.
”
It is the greens who have stymied the development of nuke power for the past 30 years.”
You might want to check out the far more powerful NIMBY’S.
“”You might want to check out the far more powerful NIMBY’S.””
We all agree that there’s no good reason NOT to aggressively pursue the construction of new, cookie-cutter nuclear power facilities.
Let’s not point fingers to assign blame for past obstruction to nuclear power. Let’s point fingers to assign blame for current obstruction.
Well, the situation in Denmark is that they export the unpredictability of their wind power network by buying power from their larger neighbours when wind isn’t producing power. Denmark is hardly the poster child for power sustainability from wind. If it were a power island, it couldn’t possibly run its current density of wind power generators.
Well, the situation in Denmark is that they export the unpredictability of their wind power network by buying power from their larger neighbours when wind isn’t producing power. Denmark is hardly the poster child for power sustainability from wind. If it were a power island, it couldn’t possibly run its current density of wind power generators.
The first serious power plants were hydro. Nigra Falls was a high tech mecca due to its access to high quality hydro.
Tossing in hydro as part of the ‘alternative’ mix is just more AGW dissembling. The enviro impact of large scale hydro power is massive, since there are very few great falls available for power. Drowning valleys to generate electricity is not good enviro policy.
Just like having huge windmills is not good enviro policy, either.
Nor, apparently, are widmills workable even with massive public subsidies:
http://www.tulsaworld.com/business/article.aspx?subjectid=49&articleid=20090707_49_0_Plansf685356
More nukes, more coal, and shut the AGW exrtremists up. Enough of their blithering apocalyptic clap trap. If solar wants to come to the party, let it do so the old fashion way: by actually working.
sod,
Bunk on you for your silly attempt to rewrite the history of the anti-nuke movement.
Since before 3 Mile Island the anti-nuke extremists have been making up scary false stories about nuclear power.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-nuclear_movement
What is it about AGW true believers and fantasy beliefs?
The source of Gore’s buffoonery is what comes out of his mouth, not what goes into it.
Denmark is hardly the poster child for power sustainability from wind.
Denmark is running 20% wind. Denmark is planning to expand its alternative energy. Denmark demonstrates, that a massive expansion of alternative energy is NOT a problem.
Tossing in hydro as part of the ‘alternative’ mix is just more AGW dissembling. The enviro impact of large scale hydro power is massive, since there are very few great falls available for power. Drowning valleys to generate electricity is not good enviro policy.
hydro is alternative energy. sorry.
whether large hydro is a good idea, is a completely different question. some sorts of biofuels also have a dubious effect. that does contradict them being alternative energy.
Nor, apparently, are widmills workable even with massive public subsidies:
http://www.tulsaworld.com/business/article.aspx?subjectid=49&articleid=20090707_49_0_Plansf685356
the article you quote does NOT support the claim you make about it.
sod,
Bunk on you for your silly attempt to rewrite the history of the anti-nuke movement.
Since before 3 Mile Island the anti-nuke extremists have been making up scary false stories about nuclear power.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-nuclear_movement
What is it about AGW true believers and fantasy beliefs?
again: you started talking about “greens”. they are a pretty young movement. the claim that they were obstructing 30 years of nuclear power against the will of a majority is simply false.
it is we, the people, who have doubts about nuclear energy.
Clean coal. Solar. Coal is both solar and stored energy. The whining about solar comes from saving energy so it is available at night. God set up for solar power ages ago. The sun coupled with nitrogen, photosynthesis and water and CO2 caused the growth of plant life which after compression, heat time was formed into coal. coal is an old form of stored solar energy.
sod,
I witnessed Pickens at one of his announcement speeches of the windmills at a geology society dinner in Houston. Study his life a bit. He does not walk away from investments like this unless he sees failure. The news part of the article I linked to is clear: the idea failed. the rest of the article is editorializing and expalining away the failure.
You can assert that hydro is alternative all you want. That does not make hydro less environmentally harmful.
IRT ‘green’ perhaps we are seperated by a common language on that one. I am refering not to your local luddite party of greens, but to the green identity that opposes reasonable and realistic solutions to dealing with enviro concerns all over the world. If you think most people jsut woke up wary of nuke power, you have missed quite a bit of anti-nuke extremist salesmanship over the past 30+ years.
“”it is we, the people, who have doubts about nuclear energy.””
WHAT??? You don’t support nuclear energy yet? Why on earth not? What’s taking you so long?
sod – if the alternative energy options in Denmark are so efficient how come the greenest country in Europe – Germany – intends to build 26 coal power stations over the coming years using coal from Sth Africa and Poland?
Your mate Pickens has called off his wind farm – he says it’s something to do with not being able to get the power to where it’s needed.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090707/ap_on_bi_ge/us_pickens_wind_energy
Pickens wind farm project was actually a decoy from his main project which is to use the wind power to pump the underground water from his leases in the Panhandle to the major city of Dallas which is running out of water.
Pickens wind farm project was actually a decoy from his main project which is to use the wind power to pump the underground water from his leases in the Panhandle to the major city of Dallas which is running out of water.
Pickens is a market player. He ran up Phillips petrol stock in order to get a high selling price. He never wanted to run Phillips. He is just like Enron will play the water market. Pickens likes to have someone in a corner and then negociate. If he could have a good chunk of water supply, he could play like russia and slowly close the faucet and raise prices.
I gather that he wanted a clearway through various landholdings to get to Dallas so he presented his wind farm idea so he could run the power down the access and then of course the water. It appears he’s probably had trouble aquiring the access.
He does not walk away from investments like this unless he sees failure. The news part of the article I linked to is clear: the idea failed. the rest of the article is editorializing and expalining away the failure.
again: the article does not support your claim. that is a fact.
You can assert that hydro is alternative all you want. That does not make hydro less environmentally harmful.
again: the question was NOT, whether Hydro is friendly to the environment. the question was about an alternative energy that can provide baseload. hydro is the answer. fact.
IRT ‘green’ perhaps we are seperated by a common language on that one. I am refering not to your local luddite party of greens, but to the green identity that opposes reasonable and realistic solutions to dealing with enviro concerns all over the world. If you think most people jsut woke up wary of nuke power, you have missed quite a bit of anti-nuke extremist salesmanship over the past 30+ years.
you obviously know even less about power and politics, than you know about the climate. (i am forced to assume that this is possible…)
but i will gladly accept your praise: so the greens managed to obstruct nuclear power over 30 years. the hippies stopped the vietnam war and the peace movement ended the cold war. from your view at our power, it is obvious, that nuclear power will end now, we ll be using 100% alternatives in the near future and we will be able to teach basic science to you denialists. it will be a brilliant world!
the truth is, that you need political power to stop anything. the truth is, that the green movement provided INFORMATION about the other side of nuclear power the part of it, that turned out to be true, when tschernobyl started burning.
or were you just trying to tell me, that the anti-nuclear movement was against nuclear power?
sod – if the alternative energy options in Denmark are so efficient how come the greenest country in Europe – Germany – intends to build 26 coal power stations over the coming years using coal from Sth Africa and Poland?
funny, the source of this is a environmental organisation called “BUND” (Bund für Umwelt und Naturschutz). we have already managed to stop 7 of those planned coal power plants.
http://www.bund.net/bundnet/themen_und_projekte/klima_energie/kohlekraftwerke_stoppen/geplante_standorte/
Germany is in the process of closing all nuclear power plants (a legacy of the social democrats/green government under Schröder). several old coal power plants require replacements.
as Denmark shows, we don t need any additional coal power plants. but building one or two with a new and cleaner technology might even be helpful to spread it over the world.
energy politics is pretty difficult: russian gas has its own problems. Germany is exporting mining and power plant technology. some of the new technologies still have minor problems and they are currently still more expensive than some fossile options.
cap and trade will fix a lot of this. i am optimistic about the future German energy mix, and this is under a conservative government, that will pretty surely win the next election this autumn!
“Stop being funny, you know Barry has been pushing IFR a long time….”
No his interest appears to be very recent. I don’t know what IFR stands for. But I presume you mean what used to be known as breeder-reactors or otherwise the continual reprocessing of the Uranium so that most of it winds up being used leaving an almost inert lead-like substance rather than heaps of so-called “radioactive waste” ( really you-beaut super-cheap fuel that ought to be grabbed quickly before people realise its worth).
The reason why I know his advocacy is recent is because as a result of it I decided to stop giving him such a hard time. Since his crusading for nuclear was so sudden and so spirited I figured at least he must mean well. So I stopped abusing him every other post.
“Stop being funny, you know Barry has been pushing IFR a long time but it represents a threat to the resource extraction industry because of the potential to use spent rods for fuel for years to come……. no expansion of Ranger which means savings of my tax dollars.”
This is all silly-talk. We’ve got to stop thinking like this. BIRDS LAW OF ENERGY-ECONOMICS says that sources of energy are compliments and not competitors. Nuclear will make a lot of other things possible. Even the future success of maybe one day solarising stretches of road that need maintenance would depend FOR their success on hydro-carbons and nuclear and the infrastructure that they would have helped build up.
Energy sources are far more COMPLEMENTS than competitors. Try looking into the history of it you’ll see what I’m saying. The exception might be oil. Because oil just burst out of the ground under pressure. You know you don’t have to work real hard for it. Coal-liquificaion plants might wind up producing 20 000 barrels a day. Cheaply in terms of variable cost. But a lot of capital and a modest daily output. Contrast North Sea Oil? Did it peak at something like 6 million barrels a day? I mean the oil just sort of jumped out at us. So in this one case the oil tended to out-compete all other contenders. But this is not the way of things for energy more generally. And hampering hydrocarbons, in this context, will wind up buggering all other energy ideas as well.
“Germany is in the process of closing all nuclear power plants (a legacy of the social democrats/green government under Schröder). several old coal power plants require replacements.
as Denmark shows, we don t need any additional coal power plants. but building one or two with a new and cleaner technology might even be helpful to spread it over the world.”
This is just all idiocy. Firstly you are lying about CO2 being dirty. CO2 isn’t dirty you are. A dirty liar is what you are. Secondly what is this “need” talk? To bring it down to “need” is profoundly anti-intellectual. The question is will people buy the electricity if it was up for sale. If the answer is yes than we need that electricity. And of course we need more coal-electricity. Because some places are more suited to coal then nuclear. And because people are getting in the way of nuclear even more than coal. So naturally we need to build a whole string of new coal-electricity plants. Since while it takes maybe 4 years to commission a nuclear plant net of greenie obstruction and red tape, none of us as individuals can guarantee that we shall wake up tomorrow with all such obstructions removed and a sudden investor interest in starting the commissioning of a string of nuclear plants Wednesday week.
With environmental and red tape obstruction its unlikely that we’d see a first nuclear plant completed in under a dozen years from today. So obviously we need not just a few coal-electricity plants. But a whole string of them.
“energy politics is pretty difficult: russian gas has its own problems. Germany is exporting mining and power plant technology. some of the new technologies still have minor problems and they are currently still more expensive than some fossile options.
cap and trade will fix a lot of this.”
No no. Cap and kill won’t fix anything. It will destroy lives and opportunities and it won’t fix a damn thing. It will slow the general progress of technological development since technological development is imbedded in capital update. By making energy more expensive cap-and-kill will reduce capital accumulation and update. It will therefore retard technological update as a general background thing. For this reason it will hobble Germany relatively. The West Germans were amongst the most technically adept nations in the world. One reason was high savings rates which enhanced capital update. This cap-and-kill is a force moving in the other direction. Maybe they think they haven’t got enough unemployed people in Germany and they want some more.
A recent Spanish study suggested these cap and kill environmentalist measures destroyed about 22 jobs for each new greenie job they created. That sounds about right. The Germans are choosing to be poor, have no children and become extinct. Well thats what it looks like anyhow.
Birdie, here is the info on Brooks and the Integrated Fast Reactor; hansen supports them too;
http://bravenewclimate.com/2008/12/13/integral-fast-reactor-ifr-nuclear-power-q-and-a/
I must say sod has reached new levels of being disingenuous; Denmark is to wind what Spain or California is to solar; which is to say expensive and non-producing;
http://network.nationalpost.com/np/blogs/fpcomment/archive/2009/04/08/wind-power-is-a-complete-disaster.aspx
Perhaps the best exposition of the follies of the alternatives, other than nuclear, is from Thinking Man and Barry Moore;
http://jennifermarohasy.com/blog/2009/05/defining-the-greens-part-7/?cp=all
“again: you started talking about “greens”. they are a pretty young movement. the claim that they were obstructing 30 years of nuclear power against the will of a majority is simply false.”
No this is just a blatant lie. Lovelock was always solid. The Greens generally were wall-to-wall anti-nuclear. One or two have finally came around and it may even partly to be cover. To try and say they were at least one of the good guys now that the global warming racket is being exposed as the fraud that it is to more and more people all the time.
The Greens were always rabidly anti-nuclear as a group. Thats just a fact. Spare us the Orwellian re-write of history. My congratulations to Greens who have recently come over to partial righteousness and nuclear. But don’t pretend this was always your position. Since thats a lie.
“Birdie, here is the info on Brooks and the Integrated Fast Reactor; hansen supports them too;
http://bravenewclimate.com/2008/12/13/integral-fast-reactor-ifr-nuclear-power-q-and-a/”
But even with Hansen this is a new thing. Not predating the cooling trend.
“BTW would you allow tax exemptions for organisations that save money through energy efficiency?”
No you don’t want that. Thats really just a subsidy. But a stand-alone firm that provides energy-efficiency solutions ought to be able to apply to be exempt from the company tax. So that its on the same footing as what I said for an energy producer.
The key differences between a subsidy and a long-term tax exemption on retained earnings are the following:
1. The company exempt from taxes still must run at an accounting profit. But a company being subsidised for unit output of the politically correct good will therefore look to selling that good at what would otherwise might have been a loss, or at slim margins. The emphasis is getting the units out there. But with retained earnings exemption the emphasis is in spending now to cut costs later. An industry can only develop into a viable cost-effective affair with the latter set of circumstances.
2. An industry with long-term tax exemptions will not behave in such a way as to destroy wealth. But subsidies induce wealth-destroying behavior. For example the corn-ethanol subsidy leads to the wastage of vastly more energy resources than what are produced in return, as well as cranking up food prices. If sales from ethanol-production were tax-exempt nothing like the above could happen. The output would be low but the behavour would be such that wealth was being created and not destroyed.
Tax rebates are really a subsidy or take on those characteristics. The company ought to be spending now to cut recurring costs. Its going to know how to do this better than anyone in Canberra. Actually getting rid of the company tax for all companies would promote the adoption of spending to save on energy costs. Having to pay the company tax, and then match that same amount again for franked dividends pulls all these resources out of the company which it might have used for making investments which reduced recurring costs.
sod wrote: > some of the high prices are caused by demand for panels and wind turbines being bigger than supply (!!!!!!)
sod, I’m afraid all the exclamation points in the world won’t make that elementary economic blunder come true. And remember: the exclamation point is like the horn of your car — use it only when you have to. A chorus of exclamation points says two things about you: first, you’re not confident that what you’re saying is important [or true], so you need bells and whistles to get attention. Second, you don’t know a really startling idea when you see one.
Says Patricia T. O’Conner, grammarian.
sod wrote: > the truth is, that the green movement provided INFORMATION about the other side of nuclear power the part of it, that turned out to be true, when tschernobyl started burning.
It would actually be much more accurate to say MISINFORMATION — or better yet: MISINFORMATION!!!!! In fact, as coincidence would have it, a few of my scribbles on this very subject — as well as the subject of T. Boone, wind, wave, solar, and nuclear — have appeared this very day:
http://mises.org/story/3536
sod wrote: > the green movement is barely older than 30 years.
Are you trying to make my tree of nerves electrocute itself? The green movement is so ancient that it’s cliche: click-click.
cohenite, thank you for remembering the thinking man. That’s bloody gorgeous. I know I speak for him when I say you made him feel vindicated. You made him feel as if a year of his life was not quite wasted.
This is just all idiocy. Firstly you are lying about CO2 being dirty. CO2 isn’t dirty you are. A dirty liar is what you are. Secondly what is this “need” talk? To bring it down to “need” is profoundly anti-intellectual. The question is will people buy the electricity if it was up for sale. If the answer is yes than we need that electricity. And of course we need more coal-electricity.
what are you talking about?
I must say sod has reached new levels of being disingenuous; Denmark is to wind what Spain or California is to solar; which is to say expensive and non-producing;
http://network.nationalpost.com/np/blogs/fpcomment/archive/2009/04/08/wind-power-is-a-complete-disaster.aspx
the article is nothing but misinformation.
http://www.wind-works.org/LargeTurbines/Good%20Wind%20in%20Denmark%20Rebuttal.pdf
i know that this graph will confuse you, but the trend is obvious: less coal and oil. more alternative power.
No this is just a blatant lie. Lovelock was always solid. The Greens generally were wall-to-wall anti-nuclear.
i don t deny this. but the claim is, that they were powerful enough to obstruct nuclear power 30 years ago. that claim is simply false!
first, you’re not confident that what you’re saying is important [or true], so you need bells and whistles to get attention. Second, you don’t know a really startling idea when you see one.
you might want to educate yourself about the demand for wind turbines…
Viv Forbes, nice site … must have cost a lot.
We used to generate energy in inner cities, close to or in factories and air quality quickly became so bad, we moved carbon based energy generation to remote areas and invested in distribution networks. We hid the problem
We no longer need to hide the problem, we can eliminate it.
Qld needs to figure out how it can play a role in the future of low-carbon energy generation. Otherwise the US, Germany, Japan and China will eat your lunch ….there is no debate worth having. These same countries are the powerhouses of IT, on which Australia imports $200B worth of product Vs its exports of $7B. You need to wake up
“i don t deny this. but the claim is, that they were powerful enough to obstruct nuclear power 30 years ago. that claim is simply false!”
Just follow the history of the attempts of Victorian Governments to create one toxic waste dump in Victoria. You can imagine the reaction to a Nuclear Power plant.
You used the phrase “clean coal”. But CO2 is not dirty you are.
“Qld needs to figure out how it can play a role in the future of low-carbon energy generation. ”
No no. Queensland doesn’t need to do any such thing you idiot. Why would it need to do this? For what purpose? With what justification?
You guys are like the eveready bunny are you not? You just keep going with this endless rolling thunder of stupidity.
You just keep going with this endless rolling thunder of stupidity.
and you continue with your enless rude and crude abuse.
do you have another song to sing – I’m sick and tired of this one.
I don’t think this level of dishonesty is acceptable in science or public policy debate. This is the new political correctness. You get used to it. This is not some sort of polite collegial disagreement. These leftist goons are trying to ruin our lives and destroy our sovereignty and liberty. I don’t think you have a clue what you are dealing with here. How many years has there been of politely trying to reason with this movement? What have been the results from this politeness?
The results have been a massive vandalism on our economic health without a scrap of evidence to justify it. This is not funny anymore and the lying ought to stop.
It’s the polution that’s the real problem – I wonder how many people who fall for “clean” solar electric are aware of their contribution to long term toxic waste?
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/03/08/AR2008030802595_pf.html
True this is an example of appauling corporate behavior, but did we need to create the waste in the first place? And then there’s batteries for hybrids and rare metals for wind turbines and on and on. All this to reduce (perhaps) CO2, with H20 the most important compound for life on earth. George Orwell must reu his lack of imagination
SOD you state the article found at http://network.nationalpost.com/np/blogs/fpcomment/archive/2009/04/08/wind-power-is-a-complete-disaster.aspx is propoganda and false is probably based on reading the second and third blog comments…perhaps if you had kept reading you would have seen a number of other comments from engineers in the wind power industry who support the article. Just for you I have pasted them below.
By Kent Hawkins
Apr 09 2009
2:31 PM As an electrical engineer, who has focussed on wind power for seven years, I also can affirm the accuracy of the message that Trebilcock is sending. The facts are good, and it is unbecoming of a professional to resort to pejoratives like “junk” science. It is the refuge of a poor argument.
An economist is as at least as qualified to comment on electricity generation as a zoologist or a scientist whose area of specialization is the atmosphere, and perhaps more so, if one takes the time to fully understand the field of economics. No “shame” should be attributed.
I would correct any potential misunderstanding that Denmark uses very much of the electricity generated by their wind plants. Most of it is dumped to Norway, Sweden and Germany because Denmark’s relatively small electricity system could not handle it.
By JohnDroz
Apr 09 2009
8:27 AM Dr. Trebilcock isn’t presenting an academic paper here — just a quick overview.
As a physicist (with energy expertise) I can affirm that the basic message he is communicating is accurate.
Any new source of electrical energy needs to be subjected to scientific methodology. WIND POWER HAS NOT BEEN.
Such an independent objective assessment would attempt to verify that the source was technologically, economically and environmentally sound. The net evidence to date says that wind power fails on all three counts.
Still for wind?
Roger,
Rue is the word you might be looking for, but humans producing waste? As long as government regulates waste management, economical solutions will evade it.
The market, otherwise known as individual humans acting in their own, and therefore their fellow citizens, interests, will solve it.
“Any new source of electrical energy needs to be subjected to scientific methodology. WIND POWER HAS NOT BEEN.
Such an independent objective assessment would attempt to verify that the source was technologically, economically and environmentally sound. The net evidence to date says that wind power fails on all three counts.”
No one has ever studied windpower? Ok…………