Roundup of Partners and Fellow-Travellers
Drop in and see what they are up to!
IPA Climate and energy program CIS The Sydney Institute
Menzies Research Centre Mannkal Economics Education Foundation
Advance Australia Taxpayers Alliance Australian Institute for Progress
Save these dates
15 December at 6.0 Sydney time. Menzies Research Institute webinar forum for representatives of rural communities faced with wind and solar factories and transmission lines. Register here.
2 February next year, Climate and Energy Forum, at Dee Why RSL (Sydney, northern beaches). Details to be finalized.
Why we must keep the coal fires burning
The figure below indicates the shortfall in energy from the sun and wind over a typical 24-hour period without the contribution of black and brown coal.
Observe the size of the shortfall between late afternoon and mid-morning. Contemplate the number of extra windmills required to make up the difference with that amount of wind (a bit below average.) When there is a serious wind drought with next to no wind overnight, then no amount of overbuilding will help.
There will always be gaps in the supply of intermittent energy and all of our current conventional power capacity will have to be maintained until nuclear power is available.
The failure of wind power in South Australia
Checking at sunrise, whenever the wind is less than average (CF 29%) SA will most likely be importing power from Victoria and burning a heap of gas as well.
On 1 Dec at 7am Sydney time SA was importing 27% of the demand. Wind CF 36%, well above average.
On 2 Dec at 6.30, importing 10% with wind at 45%!
On 3 Dec at 6am, importing 40% of the demand with wind at 27% .
This morning 4 Dec, only importing 10% with the wind well above average CF at 40%.
It is surprising that SA is rated a great success as the wind-leading state on the basis of the penetration of wind and solar on sunny and breezy Sunday afternoons. The real indicator of the progress that has been made to replace coal is the amount of penetration of wind and solar on windless, or almost windless nights.
Most of the power coming from Victoria is coal power, so what will the South Australians do when Dan Andrews closes down the coal stations?
Dont mistake a lack of comments for a lack of interest in the issue Rafe.
Pretty well everyone here is sure ruinables are the road to nowhere.
One of the most terrifying and little noticed recent news items was in the Melbourne Age on the weekend. Among the nauseating gloating over the election result was an article in which our unflushable turd of a premier attributed his election win to his announcement that he was going to resurrect the State Electricity Commission (SEC) to build a new renewable energy grid and save us all from the ravages of the villainous private energy companies..
Now Andrews is many things, but stupid is not one of them. He is not someone to make the fatal error of believing his own bullshit. It is obvious to most sentient people that the reason the liars won was a combination of demographics and, more significantly, the absence of an opposition. So why say that if he certainly doesn’t believe it?
Well partly to suck up to the greens and teals of course, but more ominously to start the narrative and meme that the SEC pushing renewables is going to be the magic solution to all our energy woes. Anyone who remembers the bad old days of the Victorian SEC should be very apprehensive. Sure, the power was cheap, but that was because there was no political interference, no NEM and no subsidised renewables with economic disincentives for thermal power generation. Unions had a stranglehold on the SEC and there was gross featherbedding and continual threats of industrial action. Service interruptions and blackouts, at least where I live in inner city Melbourne, were much more prolonged and common than today. In the 1970s there were protracted periods of power rationing and industrial shutdowns as a result of strike action in the Latrobe Valley. A lot of that disappeared when the power industry was privatised but we have since seen the detrimental effects of green policies that have distorted the market for generation and led to enormous price increases and incipient energy shortages that will continue into the forseeable future.
Be prepared for a lot of propaganda about the wonderful new permanent SEC that will usher in a great future powered by free energy. All horseshit of course, but by the time the crunch comes the unflushable one will probably have retired in a blaze of glory and the media will never question it.
Vagabond:
The panicked horses who shied at a shadow have gone over the canyon wall and nothing can stop the stagecoach from disaster. All we can hope for is the wagon catching a rock outcrop so the passengers can clamber back to safety.
Hopefully the grid crash only lasts a few days and there is enough generating capacity to bring it back on line.
Hopefully.
Unfortunately, the driver and shotgun on the wagon have packed parachutes and will be just fine.
Thanks molie!
thefrollickingmole
Totally agree.