Victorian (Australia) Electricity supply meltdown.

[beanflying]

Shortly after Japan had their nuclear disaster that caused an energy shortage, the Japanese were quite good about saving energy to mitigate the problem. Why are the Australians having difficulty doing that?

On a list of countries electricity usage per head we use 3/4 of the USA so you point is what exactly? Mitigation isn't needed infrastructure is!

[beanflying]

Sure, I understand that, but surely 'national infrastructure' sized solar farms would ease (completely satisfy?) your daytime peak grid load. Our solar only works during (sunny) days too, but it feeds into the National grid with all the other generating sources.

See the link from post #9  we have some solar coming online but look at the scale compared to what we get from Coal, Gas and even Wind generation. Our large industrial users don't conveniently run only when the Sun is out.

edit : Link added here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_power_stations_in_Victoria_(Australia)

[apis]

Sure, I understand that, but surely 'national infrastructure' sized solar farms would ease (completely satisfy?) your daytime peak grid load. Our solar only works during (sunny) days too, but it feeds into the National grid with all the other generating sources.

Yes, with a fairly small amount of solar farms in the desert Australia could basically turn off the coal power plants during the day. That would mean a significant reduction in pollution and would mean cheaper electricity in the long run.

Of course those who sell coal and own the coal power plants wouldn't want that since then they would make less money.

[beanflying]

Yes, with a fairly small amount of solar farms in the desert Australia could basically turn of the coal power plants during the day. That would mean a significant reduction in pollution and would mean cheaper electricity in the long run.

Of course those who sell coal and own the coal power plants wouldn't want that since then they would make less money.

Please do some research on Coal fired boilers and steam turbines before making up things in your mind that cant be done. Coal is base load for a reason.

[apis]

Why do you think it can't be done? It's quite possible to rev down a classical coal power plant, it's just less economical so it's not desirable by the operators.

[beanflying]

What part of the conversation are you missing? We have a shortfall in base load power in this state under peak conditions. There is nothing 'currently' to reduce.

Ramping down a coal fired plant and keeping a boiler at idle (inefficient and adds cost to USERS not the supplier) then takes circa 8 hours to bring back online and synced to the grid. From cold the old figures used to be circa 24 hours. Ramping Coal stations to meet load variations is not practical which is why these Gas Turbines were introduced back in the late 70's https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeeralang_Power_Station they can be online in about 30 minutes. 5km from where I went to Uni btw.

[Gyro]

It does require sufficiently accurate management and forecasting to run a properly balanced multi-source power generation infrastructure, I would have thought that would be easier with the Australian climate than the variations of the UK one.

It looks as if we're having a no-coal day (though it has been on and off regularly during the week) 

http://www.gridwatch.templar.co.uk/

[apis]

Normal coal power plants can adjust their output within tens of minutes (at least the ones here in Europe can), not quickly enough to compensate for rapid changes in wind and solar but it would be quite possible to ramp down and up with the very predictable diurnal cycle from large dessert PV installations. It would be less efficient, sure, but it would also reduce the total amount of GHG emissions and other pollutants. The inefficiency would add cost for coal based energy, but solar is cheap, so it would probably balance things out.

Germany has lot of solar and it's far from ideal to use solar around here. You can hardly find a better location for a solar installation than Australian deserts.

[NiHaoMike]

On a list of countries electricity usage per head we use 3/4 of the USA so you point is what exactly? Mitigation isn't needed infrastructure is!

The US really needs to conserve as well. It's not that Australia is good about energy usage, it's that they're not as bad as the US.

Providing incentive to cut down on peak usage would help address the issue directly. (I suppose the system to make that possible would be considered infrastructure.) Something like thermal storage would be very economical for HVAC loads, but few invest in it as there's next to no incentive to do so.

[cdev]

Around 1500 watts per square meter is a lot of power to get for free.

[apis]

Around 1500 watts per square meter is a lot of power to get for free.

It's at most 1000 watts per square meter, and in Australia you can get a yearly average of about 300 W per square meter in the desserts, and with PV efficiency of 20% you get 60 W/m² and then some additional losses in the inverters. Still a lot of power to get for free once you have paid for the installation.

[beanflying]

You need to understand we are burning BROWN coal which is a very different animal to make use of.

When I went to uni virtually on top of the coal and power generation area for the state. That Gas Turbine plant I linked to was the first major non coal fired boiler in the state. Clearly we have diversified that mix since then and as a percentage coal usage is down but we are still a long way from being able to remove it from the mix for our base load needs.

Contrary to what you think not all of Australia is desert and piping power several thousand km to where it is needed doesn't work that well either.

[Marco]

Contrary to what you think not all of Australia is desert and piping power several thousand km to where it is needed doesn't work that well either.

It works fine, it just costs money.

[apis]

Germany is one of the worlds top producers of brown coal, they use a lot of it as well. Sweden transports a lot of power from hydro in the far north about 1500 km and those who work in the industry say the transmission losses aren't a bottleneck. If it works in Europe it probably works in Australia as well. But those who own the coal mines and the coal power stations wouldn't want things to change naturally.

Contrary to what you think not all of Australia is desert

Actually you have enough desserts that covering only a fraction in PV panels would in theory be enough to cover the entire worlds energy needs (not only electricity). The problem is only storage and distribution.

It probably makes more sense to put things in other places than deserts, the main point is that Australia is much less densely populated (3.3/km2) than for example Germany (232/km2) and the cost of land will be much lower at the same time as the insolation is much higher. I.e. solar is much more cost effective in Australia than most other places on earth.

[Circlotron]

I wonder how well it would work to make it a legal requirement that everyone that has an air conditioner must have sufficient rooftop solar power to cover the a/c power requirement. Not a total solution e.g. when the sun goes down and it is still hot, but it might help.

[beanflying]

Contrary to what you think not all of Australia is desert and piping power several thousand km to where it is needed doesn't work that well either.

It works fine, it just costs money.

It also crosses state boundaries and we are a Commonwealth of States for our sins making it piled in multilevel government red tape As I mentioned earlier power generation and distribution is fairly much a state by state thing.

Please stop with the PV as a solution it is NOT it is 'part of the solution' and in particular until we get affordable grid level storage it will remain only a part.

[apis]

Please stop with the PV as a solution it is NOT it is 'part of the solution' and in particular until we get affordable grid level storage it will remain only a part.

That is what we were saying, it's part of the solution. Australia has like 4% solar (that was more than I though tbh, things are changing rapidly). It's hard to imagine a more ideal country for solar power than Australia so that is kind of strange. In comparison Germany has 7%.

[beanflying]

Depending on the where the figures for Solar come from it will vary a lot as not all home solar is grid connected and I wouldn't trust the figures to be accurate for home grid connected regardless they are most likely above what is reported.

Much as it is a polluter we will be using our wet grotty brown coal for another 30-50 years yet until we get a practical storage solution. Our Coal is among the most plentiful and also the wettest out there but not the most grotty. http://earthresources.vic.gov.au/earth-resources/victorias-earth-resources/coal

[apis]

In 2015 Germany mined 178.1 million metric tons brown coal while Australia mined 63.0 million ton.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lignite#Resources

Germany agrees to end reliance on coal stations by 2038

[beanflying]

While we have Natural Gas (mainly offshore) the reserves have a finite limit and we keep selling it to other countries for a quick $ instead of considering the longer term local need. We currently export LNG all over Asia from other parts of the country too which could potentially be used for domestic electricity production but that is unlikely in the short term either.

We are still back to where the most cost effective base load solution in the interim period is coal for all of its downsides.

Edit : In theory we have a 2050 phase out date.

[apis]

We are still back to where the most cost effective base load solution in the interim period is coal for all of its downsides.

Cheapest, that I can believe, but only because coal doesn't have to pay for its externalities. If you factor in the cost of air pollution, acidification, mercury pollution, waste disposal, climate change, etc, there is no chance coal is cheapest, but it's the Australian public that will pay for that, not the owners of the coal mines and coal power stations.

[TerraHertz]

I find it rather strange that a country which...

- has such a low population density relative to its land mass,
- has so much uninhabited wilderness / desert,
- has such a high sunshine record,

... isn't totally self-sufficient in solar power. 

Proponents of mass installation of solar electric panels always neglect some 'minor' issues with solar panels: Dust, hail and lightning.
  'Dust' (and the cleaning cost) doesn't need an illustration, but for the other two:
  http://joannenova.com.au/2018/12/sydney-hail-storm-just-how-hailproof-are-those-solar-panels/
  http://everist.org/NobLog/20160504_solar_panels_vs_emp.htm   Note that wasn't a direct lightning strike, it was damage from the EMP of a nearby strike. A few houses away I think. Also note that any solution to that 'burned diodes' problem, tends to get quite complicated - and therefore expensive and unreliable.

Another real issue is panel lifetime energy return on energy invested, and how long it takes solar panels to generate the amount of electricity it took to manufacture them.  Like all renewables, the EROEI is hard to estimate because product operating life estimates always neglect real world maintenance and failure factors. So tend to be unrealistically optimistic.

While the energy cost of manufacture (and the real economic cost) is obscured due to the panels being made in China (therefore effectively subsidized by political factors such as Chinese Gov control over the exchange rate, and ignoring environmental issues like industrial pollution), and also our local government subsidies for installation and operation.


Btw, for anyone thinking the recent 'heat wave' was anything special: http://joannenova.com.au/2019/01/forgotten-history-50-degrees-everywhere-right-across-australia-in-the-1800s/

Typical:
http://joannenova.com.au/2018/12/new-report-renewables-indirectly-make-electricity-more-expensive-so-abc-tells-australia-the-opposite/

Oh, and I see the 'nuclear power is the answer' idea is popping up again. There are two replies to that.
One is, do some research on EROEI estimates for nuclear power plants, over full lifetime of the systems. That includes dismantling the reactors at end-of-life, and storing the waste safely for a few hundred thousand years. Guess what? It's probably negative.

Second answer, and the one that terminates the nuclear fission plants issue absolutely and permanently as far as I'm concerned, is 'natural disasters'. That includes
 * Tectonic tsunamis (see Fukushima. Do you have any idea how bad that is? Complete cluster-f*ck, THREE total meltdowns, cores in the ground, right next to the Pacific Ocean, no possibility of stopping groundwater flow to the ocean.

 * Subsidence tsunamis See Hawaii Hilina Slump
   

 * Meteorite impacts. Few people are aware how frequent these are historically. Everyone's heard of the 63 million years ago Dinosaur Age terminator impact, but who has heard of these:
  Hiawatha crater in Greenland  (about 12,000 years ago, wrecked the entire planet, likely the cause of a known human species genetic bottleneck sometime-ish around then. Meaning, we almost got wiped out.
 
    The 12,000 Year old Comet that Landed on TEDTalks…and Erased Ancient Civilization - Greenland Crater
  Maybe the same one:
  http://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/08/29/younger-dryas-climate-event-solved-via-nanodiamonds-it-was-a-planetary-impact-event/
  Younger Dryas climate event solved via nanodiamonds – it was a planetary impact event. 12,800 years ago.

  Umm al Binni lake/crater. Around 2200 BCE  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Umm_al_Binni_lake
  Tunguska, Siberia 1908   Just an airburst meteor. Lucky there wasn't a nuclear plant anywhere in the flattened area.
  Kebira crater  https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/images/6351/kebira-crater  100M.y ?
  http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-03-23/worlds-largest-asteroid-impact-zone-found-in-central-australia/6341408
     World's largest asteroid impact zone believed uncovered by ANU researchers in central Australia
  New Zealand, 40,000 years ago. On the nth end of the South Island. Something caused a huge tsunami that flattened the Kaori forest right across the island, burying it under many meters of ocean sediment.

  Then there's supervolcanoes. Yellowstone isn't the only one, there are several such sites on Earth.

The point being that such mega-natural disasters put a kink in life on Earth each time, but they don't ELIMINATE it. However, add dozens or hundreds of nuclear power plants, weapons and high level nuclear waste dumps smeared across the landscape at the same time, totally beyond human resources to do anything about it, and that very well could end all higher life forms on Earth. Highly raised background radiation level would suck. Even if it didn't kill everything directly, it would shift the genetic defects vs evolutionary error weeding-out balance into the negative, resulting in rapid devolution. And a whole lot of sorrow and tragedy for the human race as they went extinct via birth defects and general ecological collapse.

This is why we MUST NOT USE nuclear fission power. Not on Earth, ever.
Nuclear fusion, if we ever get it working and it can be done without significant long-life waste products, is another matter.

[ziggyfish]

It's amazing how much ideology dictates a lot of our policy and when reality shows through the lies, our leaders blame everything except themselves.

Reminds me of the feudalism.

[beanflying]

The alarm bells should be sounding when "Andrew Bolt described her writing as “outstanding”. That is as bad (or worse) as Trump calling someone a special friend to those who don't know Mr Bolt

She has no background in climate science (she is a micro biologist with a genetics background) more than another human with a reasonable education. Not that some of her points aren't valid but her religion of non climate science is rubbish according to most qualified scientists on the planet. So information should be read with that absolute bias in mind and weighed accordingly.

Mass PV isn't the only solar solution either much as it has become much more cost competitive over the last few years. We were supposed to be getting a pilot plant for one of these near Mildura that never got off the ground https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_updraft_tower and there is the fairly long running molten salt project in the USA.

Also dropped in the water last year about 20km from me in the last few years was this wave energy pilot (250kW) http://bps.energy/projects

[ziggyfish]

The alarm bells should be sounding when "Andrew Bolt described her writing as “outstanding”. That is as bad (or worse) as Trump calling someone a special friend to those who don't know Mr Bolt

She has no background in climate science (she is a micro biologist with a genetics background) more than another human with a reasonable education. Not that some of her points aren't valid but her religion of non climate science is rubbish according to most qualified scientists on the planet. So information should be read with that absolute bias in mind and weighed accordingly.

Mass PV isn't the only solar solution either much as it has become much more cost competitive over the last few years. We were supposed to be getting a pilot plant for one of these near Mildura that never got off the ground https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_updraft_tower and there is the fairly long running molten salt project in the USA.

Also dropped in the water last year about 20km from me in the last few years was this wave energy pilot (250kW) http://bps.energy/projects

English Translation?