On the edge of the cliff


With the closure of Liddell power station we have crossed the line into uncharted territory.

Now it actually matters whether the wind blows continuously, or at last between sunset and sunrise. 

it does not, although continental wind droughts have only been studied since about 2010 when Paul Miskelly and others started to look at the information from the windmills which are the most useful instruments for detecting them.

The outstanding contributor has been blogging under the name of Tony from Oz since 2018 and his thousands of records on all forms of generation must represent one of the most remarkable single-handed and unfunded research projects of all time. 

The BOM might have issued wind drought alerts but their system which was installed in the 1990s collected wind velocity measurements hourly and reported the data as averages for weeks, months and the year. The longest wind droughts max out around three days they only reduced the score for the week without actually revealing periods when there was effectively no useful wind.

The big question is how the meteorologists managed to avoid seeing and warning about the consequences of  the European Dunkelfauts that last for weeks. They only got an entry in Wikipedia in 2021!  Mariners and millers on land must have experienced them for centuries. Interest has been aroused since Germany and Britain are  now embarked on serious deindustrialization due to the Dunkelfauts plus the closure of coal and nuclear (in Germany.) There were clear signs of impending disaster at least a year before the Ukraine invasion.

So the plans for replacing coal with wind and solar need to be re-jigged to take account of these now well-recognized wind droughts and lulls.


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Damon
Damon
June 3, 2023 10:59 pm

Credit where credit is due. Scientists tell us what should happen. Engineers tell us what will happen.

Muddy
Muddy
June 3, 2023 11:30 pm

There’s a simple solution: Pair each turbine with another, mirrored turbine. The latter is cranked up to blow-start the former when a wind drought takes hold. The electrickery thus created is stored for the use of the blow-start turbine when next required. I call this project the Blowy Scheme 2.0.

Baba
Baba
June 4, 2023 2:47 am

I think the closure of Liddell is great. In fact I would like all coal-fired power stations to be shut down ASAP.

Let fuckhead Australians enjoy the reality of Zimbabwean/South African ‘load shedding’.

Unfortunately, I suspect we are too far gone to learn from the experience. It will be blamed on climate change or Putin.

Mak Siccar
Mak Siccar
June 4, 2023 8:30 am

Why do d1ckhead b@stards like Bowen and Anal, and of course, the communist Greens political pardee, hate Australia so much that they want to destroy it? And where, but for a few brave souls like Antic, Canavan et al, is there any credible political opposition to this madness? Rhetorical questions, of course. I despair.

Tom
Tom
June 4, 2023 9:02 am

The big question is how the meteorologists managed to avoid seeing and warning about the consequences of the European Dunkelfauts that last for weeks.

Easy. Even if it ever was an expert technical organisation that specialises in predicting weather patterns, the Bureau of Meteorology is now just a large unaccountable government bureaucracy where BoM forecasts have become a frequently inaccurate arse-covering exercise, where self-censorship and doctoring meteorological records to make weather observations fit an ideological agenda rule supreme, where outside experts such as Dr Jennifer Marohasy, who have raised widespread evidence of BoM malpractice, are enemies to be fought by circling the bureaucratic wagons and endless stonewalling and obfuscation.

In fact, I would say BoM’s main current mission is to resist outside scrutiny of its systems and to use climate change hysteria in the news media as a weapon to increase BoM’s funding.

Needless to say, BoM fully subscribes to the ludicrous idea that human interference has replaced natural cycles as the main determinant of global weather, even though there is ZERO evidence of it.

As with all major public policy issues, BoM is being protected by the news media, which long ago ceased being a guardian of public interest and now sees its job as a promoter of passing political fads like climate change and trans rights.

Salvatore, Understaffed & Overworked Martyr to Govt Covid Stupidity
Salvatore, Understaffed & Overworked Martyr to Govt Covid Stupidity
June 4, 2023 10:17 am

These two bear repeating:

I would say BoM’s main current mission is to resist outside scrutiny of its systems and to use climate change hysteria in the news media as a weapon to increase BoM’s funding.

As with all major public policy issues, BoM is being protected by the news media, which long ago ceased being a guardian of public interest and now sees its job as a promoter of passing political fads like climate change and trans rights.

mem
mem
June 4, 2023 2:33 pm

Let’s see, 3 days of wind drought followed by 4 days of strong wind, average these out for the week and hey presto, you have average wind for all the week. Or in the case of South Australia you get rid of your coal and put in windmills to appear green. But you never publish the reality that most days you are running on 30-40% gas and importing up to 50% of your energy from Victoria’s brown coal-fired plants or Tasmania’s hydro plant via interconnectors. Most people I speak to have no idea that South Australia being 100% renewable is a total lie. It needs to be debunked because it demonstrates very clearly that Bowen’s renewable energy “plan” is a pipe dream or a deliberate plan to destroy our energy systems so his lefty mates (government) can take-over all power production and distribution.

Roger
Roger
June 4, 2023 6:35 pm

So the plans for replacing coal with wind and solar need to be re-jigged to take account of these now well-recognized wind droughts and lulls.

You’re assuming the people making the decisions, like Bowen and state energy ministers, are rational actors rather than committed ideologues, Rafe. This is your blindspot.

Roger
Roger
June 4, 2023 6:42 pm

For example, in Queensland private capital was going cool on renewables based on the likely uneven returns even with subsidies. As a result, aware that their legislated RE targets would not be met, the government announced they were building a multi-billion dollar renewables “super grid” to replace coal fired generation will be largely publicly funded and owned (yay!).

Diogenes
Diogenes
June 5, 2023 6:13 am

As a result, aware that their legislated RE targets would not be met, the government announced they were building a multi-billion dollar renewables “super grid” to

It was reported yesterday that Pileoshit intends to legislate an 80% by 2035 target by the end of of the year.

Anchor What
Anchor What
June 5, 2023 6:42 am

Is the collapse of America inevitable? Andrea Widburg at American Thinker.
The replacement of competency with diversity won’t work, and is already creating huge problems. The complex and interwoven systems that support our high standard of living were created by the meritocracy, but have been degraded over some decades to the point where collapse and disarray is closer than ever. The current administration is notable for appointing departmental heads who are either incompetent or destructive.
Read it all, based on an article by Harold Robertson.

kingsley
kingsley
June 5, 2023 5:59 pm

Literally the best we can hope for is a Dunkelflaut to happen sooner than later and maybe we can reverse some of the way we have gone down this highway of stupidity .

MatrixTransform
June 6, 2023 7:56 am

the autobahn of stupidity
is a long road
and many sections have no speed limit

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