Epic Failure of Planning for the Green Energy Transition
Briefing Note 22.9 September 2022
Purpose: To signal that the transition from coal cannot go any further without nuclear power.
The critical issue.
The combination of wind droughts and the lack of grid-scale storage dictate that any further loss of coal-fired power capacity will pose serious dangers whenever the wind supply is low.
This means that the green power transition cannot accelerate and it may have to stop until nuclear power is up and running.
An epic failure of planning
Readily available evidence on the frequency and extent of wind droughts across SE Australia (the NEM) was apparently ignored or discounted.
Billions of dollars have been spent on assets which cannot replace conventional power in the grid and would be stranded without subsidies and mandates to use wind and solar power.
Imagine a gigantic irrigation scheme with no reliable water supply!
Many billions more will have to be spent to keep coal and gas facilities on line until nuclear power is available.
Conclusion.
The decision to allow subsidised and mandated intermittent energy to connect to the grid is probably the greatest peacetime public policy blunder in Australian history.
Supporting information.
How it is working out on Europe – update from Jo Nova.
TheAustralian situation in a nutshell.
Mark Mills explains why the green energy transition is not happening.
Mark Mills on the limit of wind and solar power.
A thorough comparison of the cost of different power mixes, taking account of the firming required for wind and solar. Source
The real cost of intermittent energy and how it kills reliable power providers.
The failure of RE is demonstrated in South Australia.
For example, on the morning of Monday 19 September at breakfast time, half of the demand for power in SA was imported and 80% of local generation came from gas.
Deja brew: US could face ANOTHER beer shortage after extinct Mississippi volcano contaminated the country’s largest CO2 reserve – causing shortage in the sector that could see prices quadruple
. The price of carbon dioxide – a vital component for beer production – has risen fourfold, Axios reported on Monday
. CO2 has been in short supply for several years as the pandemic forced people to drink from home: CO2 is needed in beer and sodas
. Now raw gas from a mine has seeped into the Jackson Dome, an extinct volcano in Mississippi that provides much of the country’s supply of CO2
. The contamination at the site, operated since 1977, has reduced the amount of food-grade CO2 available
Only if judged by conventional standards …. it all makes sense once you understand the whole point of the excise is to destroy the west.
This is war, and as any General knows … the first thing you must do when you go to war is define ‘what victory looks like’
A question, not really important, but puzzling.
I logged in to Discordant cats first time for many months and I can only see posts, posted at the last time I was logged in, no new activity.
Strange, why is it so?
Oops wrong thread!
Australia’s Future shown by California
Here’s California Flooring It to the ‘Clean’ Energy Future … With Its Transmission Slipping Badly
By Steve Miller, RealClearInvestigations
August 25, 2022
CALIFORNIA CITY — California’s precariously out-of-date hybrid power grid can’t handle the state’s growing amounts of solar and wind energy coming online, with system managers already forcing repeated cutbacks in renewables and a continued reliance on conventional energy to keep the grid stable, according to state data.
The shortcomings of the transmission grid, which energy consultants in this bellwether state have warned about for years, raise the prospect that marquee products of the growing battery economy such as electric vehicles – “emission free” on the road – will be recharged mainly from traditional electricity-generating power plants: energy from fossil fuels, some of it from out of state.
Writ large, the transmission problem threatens the zero-carbon future envisioned by green advocates nationwide. “We’re headed toward duplicate systems whose only benefit is to permit the occasional use of ‘clean power,’” said Grant Ellis, an independent electrical engineering consultant in Texas.
California, along with the rest of the desert Southwest, is adding solar and wind installations at a rapid pace. The state is projected to add four gigawatts of utility-scale solar energy this year alone, enough to power 2.8 million homes. The question is whether that’s going to be enough.
So-called “curtailments” of renewable power have become much more frequent for the state’s blackout-prone power grid because the state hasn’t constructed enough transmission lines, transformers, poles, and other infrastructure to keep up. The amount of renewable energy curtailed in California tripled between 2018 and 2021, according to operator statistics.
The shortage of CO2 is a real issue, not just for beer brewing, I was told by a man connected with market gardens that they were importing CO2 from New Zealand to inject into the glasshouses to boost yields. Local CO2 suppliers could not meet demand at the time (three years ago.)
He also said they raise the level to two or three times the atmospheric level, at that point the nutrient supply becomes the limiting factor, or they would raise it higher.
The point of becoming alert to wind droughts is to explain that no amount of extra wind and solar capacity help on windless nights, or even just very low wind nights.
All of the talk about installing extra RE capacity so we can get rid of coal is nonsense.
The sustainability of the transition is limited by the lowest point of RE supply and that remains next to nothing when the wind is very low at night.
Think about the sheep in a paddock, they get out through a gap regardless of the height of the fence where it is intact.
Installing more RE is like making the fence higher without fixing the gaps.
The decision to allow subsidised and mandated intermittent energy to connect to the grid is probably the greatest peacetime public policy blunder in Australian history.
It is entirely deliberate.
“It’s not about going green, it’s about going without.”
greenfilth are anti-civilizationist misanthropic morons determined to drag humanity back to a (literal) new dark ages.
Anyone who thinks human emissions of carbon dioxide (not “carbon”, which is an element and not a gaseous chemical compound) are driving catastrophic increases in global temperatures is an anti scientific imbecile, whose opinion on anything instantly counts for naught.
They’ll be hanging from lamp posts before they achieve that goal.
(That’s a metaphor, ASIO guys…OK?)
Even Xi, with a totalitarian state’s brutal authority at his disposal, fears a populace faced with deprivation as a result of a precipitous decline in living standards due to an energy drought.
The turning point will come, but the population is going to have to feel some pain before it wakes from its prosperity induced slumber.
Right on cue, Beery has the perfect solution.
Bottle fermentation.
No artificial CO2 required. Do I have to do all the thinking round here??
Roger:
When one looks at the last 30 years of failed governance in the world, but especially Australia, the end cannot be too far off.
We will learn the hard way or the other hard way – the opportunity to learn the easy ways has been passed quite a few bus stops down the track. I find it really frustrating that it has come to this with so many warnings of the consequences of these failures.
Correct, the titanic has hit the iceberg , it’s time to stop trying to warn people, it’s time to save yourself…
I thought they just burned LPG to increase CO2 levels in greenhouses. Increases humidity at the same time as well as temperature. All good.
Well, China and India are busy building additional coal and nuclear plants.
Maybe they know something we don’t?? …
Two problems Mr. Champion, the first is that you are preaching to the converted for greenies and lefties don’t follow conservative ways of thinking and shun the use of common sense plus they never read conservative publications. The second is subsidisation of these madcap schemes by governments. Remove the subsidies (our taxpayers money) and the schemes will collapse.
It’s NOT a “blunder’.
It is deliberate enemy action.
It is part and parcel of the eugenicists dream. The survivors will be used as slave labour on farms to feed the “rulers”.
VERY much in the spirit of Pol Pot’s Ankah and the Khmer Rouge? You remember, the PUREST “socialism” thus far ever implemented on the planet.
Heck of a game of “one-upmanship”.
Screw net zero as the end days, programmable money is being “trialled” by the RBA, which heralds the end of freedom, and I’m not talking the freedom to travel interstate. I’m talking about private ownership.
If the government can control your money, you have no freedom. None. Zilch. Nada. Fuck all.
You will own nothing and be totally pissed off, because most people are morons who won’t lift a finger to stop it.
What annoys me is the narrative that the NWO is inevitable. Politicians and the MSM are all rolling on their backs with their paws in the air.
The ‘energy transition’ (which reminds me uncomfortably of another kind of ‘transition’ that is currently fashionable) is treated, without question, as inevitable and A Good Thing.
It is spoken of as if it is just like renovating your house. A bit of temporary inconvenience, but much better in the long run.
Nothing could be further from the truth.
Many Australians don’t know what winter in Europe and the UK is like. I predict some dreadful outcomes of this self-imposed, virtue-signalling atrocity.
There is no Transition. To transition means that you go from one position to another. We already have one position which is fossil fuels and Nuclear. The other position is…………………………You are farked.
I wonder how long it will be before Climate Change is blamed for the failure of RE. You know, its Climate Change that has stopped the wind from blowing. Its Climate Change that is causing all these clouds and prevent the sunlight from getting through. Its Climate Change that is causing these long nights. The people that tell you men can have babies and be lesbians could spin anything.
Remove the subsidies (our taxpayers money) and the schemes will collapse.
This is the same as the china pestilence controls that governments have placed on the people. If govt stopped the free virus testing regime there would be no pandemic. It’s only through the testing subsidies – all paid by the taxpayer – that covid continues.
Every bad government policy or plan begins with OPM.