It’s Monday 1pm in Sydney. My flat is dark as the rain comes down from a heavily clouded sky. I look out my window. It’s still. There is no movement of leaves on the trees. I’ll guess. Any wind and solar power in the vicinity is generating a fat zero. I am in the dark doldrums; namely, in a dunkelflaute.
Coal is passé they tell us so thank God for batteries. They must be keeping the light on I need to see my keyboard.
Suppose the dunkelflaute were to extend over greater Sydney for three hours. I mean it’s still afoot now and it was going well before 1pm and it’s now 2.45pm.
My calculations based on Australia using about 238 billion kwh of power per year is that Sydney uses about 55 billion which comes down to something over 6000 MWh per hour or in three hours about 18,000MWh. Thus 18,000MWh of firming will be required to cover the dunkelflaute. The cost per MWh of battery storage is estimated here at $700,000 per MWh. Thus the cost comes to about $12 trillion or so (!?!) Total federal budget expenditure for 2023-24 is an estimated $682 billion.
Can’t be right. I know that I must have the numbers wrong. I’m not as arithmetically adept as I used to be. Please check.
To reach Year Zero, one must be prepared to sacrifice everything & everyone beyond oneself.
Caught a ferry to Circular Quay to hear Dave Sharma speak at the Sydney Institute. He was very very impressive. Waiting for return ferry to Cremorne Point & watched the gigantism Virgin Cruise Liner leave the Quay. Great precision. Rain has stopped & the Quay is very pleasant.
What’s the problem
We have plenty of cheap coal!
S.F.L.!
They are no better than labour!
Sorry it’s $12 billion, not trillion. Knew that must be wrong yet I persisted. Still, $12 billion is impossible if not quite so incredible.
LOL.
Peter Smith:
Still 12 Billion dollars for no return is no laughing matter. Imagine if that $12Billion was actually given back to the people who it was stolen from.
That’s what really makes me sick about the government and taxes – I can spend (Or even save) my money far more efficiently than the government can, but they believe they are the financial wizards.
I’ve come to the conclusion that the nation is falling in a screaming flat heap and no one has the brains or the capability to prevent it. So I’m assuming we have had the biblical 7 fat years and we are now getting in 2024, the start of the 7 lean years as government smashes industry and mining.
Imagine closing aluminium smelters and nickel mines because they are no longer financially viable. Housing Construction going broke in the middle of an immigration boom.
Our Uniparty governments are incompetent and at war with us all and its’s not just bad luck – it’s deliberate.