Victorian (Australia) Electricity supply meltdown.

[wasyoungonce]

We receive from the sun ~ 3.14*6371e3*6371e3*1e3*24*365= 1.12e9 TWh/year...

No the figures are wrong

My calc's on 1000w/m^2/s surface energy (ok, this is not correct due to sin/cos incident angles) x (4 x pi x (6.37 x 10^6m/^2)^2 (area of earths sphere, only one side at a time) x 3600 (sec's per hr) x 24 x 365 = 2.5x10^24W/Yr (we should be using Joules not watts)..

.edit...ooops 1/2 world incident at a time (to make it realistic):
= 1000w/m^2/s (2 x pi x (6.37 x 10^6m/^2)^2 x 3600 x 24 x 365 = 1.26x10^24W/Yr (a more realistic figure).
That is indeed a bucket load and way higher than your figure by order numbers.  Yes it has errors but is an approximation.

To check...look up google....states surface has 430^18 (J)/h, .   Which is 430^18 (J)/h x 24 x 365 = 3.766x10^24J/Y or approx watts PY.

Which is to say this figure is close to my figure.  Even de rating this for errors will not reduce the magnitude by much.  Ok, how much energy is usable, the sun puts out a blackbody irradiation curve not all is visible light not all is usable nor convertable, but the above is calculated theoretical incident usable energy.

Lets look at converting this to electricity.   
238w/m^2/s (surface energy conversion by a panel, as you said) x (4 x pi x (6.37 x 10^6m/^2)^2 x 3600 x 24 x 365 = 6x10^23 Watts/PY

Again, this is an order magnitude more that you said. 

Lets now look at energy produced consumed by the world in the form of electricity (I think electricity I don't know) ....

......
World energy consumption is ~ 170e3 TWh/year, more than half of which is thrown as heat into the atmosphere.....

Which is about correct according to google I really have no idea so we will say this figure you use is ok.

So 1.9x10^16W/YR produced Vs solar incident usable energy is 6x10^23 W/PY!

Which one is bigger!  I'll just use the google quote
"In a single hour, the amount of power from the sun that strikes the Earth is more than the entire world consumes in an year."

Lastly lets take this conversation over to the "renewable energy forum" as we don't want to keep going off track in this thread.  Yes this discussion has some bearing on this thread contents but we are getting way off topic and members have asked to stay on thread.

 

[beanflying]

Need a clue about how DUMB Privatization of Power is. This is Australia wide and Victoria is the 'Leader' of the pack 

[TerraHertz]

Yeah, electricity privatization is a disaster. For multiple reasons.
Btw, here's a link to that interesting graph: http://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/qAZpT/14/

Also google australian electricity supply privatization
I'm trying to work out when the significant privatization events occurred.
Privatization itself, and the creation of the economically moronic NEM (national energy market) is definitely sending prices sky high as well as causing a failure of necessary system maintenance. This shows up every time now there is any widespread storm damage, and it turns out there are only a very small number of maintenance trucks/crews for all of Sydney.

However I think the privatization issue is also tending (and being deliberately miss-used) to obscure another factor in system failure - that increasing utilization of 'renewables' is resulting in the disappearance of reliable reserve generating capacity. An ongoing decline, now resulting in not enough capacity available to cover peak load sometimes. Combine that with the NEM 'bidding market' and the result is truly insane, unworkable prices during capacity shortfalls.

Those still pushing the CAGW (Catastrophic Anthropogenic Global Warming) line, will blame ALL ongoing electricity supply problems on privatization. Wait and see, as the grid fails more and more often, it will become their mantra. And I agree, we should re-nationalize the grid, AND rebuild plenty of spare spinning generator capacity. However every Warmist article calling for nationalization will contain lines like in this https://reneweconomy.com.au/the-case-for-renationalising-australias-electricity-grid-33788/

... failures to score points against renewable energy (hated, for obscure historical-cultural reasons, by its right-wing base) and to promote the absurd idea of new coal-fired power stations.

Trying to make sure no one gets any ideas about building new, workable solutions.

As an example of the actual insanity of the CAGW crowd, this:
http://joannenova.com.au/2019/02/evil-whites-caused-the-little-ice-age-by-bringing-small-pox-to-america/
Having failed to expunge the Medieval Warm Period and the two little ice ages from the historical record (not for want of trying by M. Mann et al.) they are now going to try and blame humans for the previous little ice ages. As Jonova comments, these people are truly bonkers.

I'd guess they are trying to lay some groundwork for blaming humans for the coming Ice Age, once it becomes completely undeniable to everyone. And starts to kill a lot of people due mostly to lack of preparation at a national and global level.
Because heaven forbid people came to blame the Warmists for this snowballing cluster-f*ck of delusional misdirection and lies. Lot of people are going to be very very angry (particularly if relatives froze or starved to death), and might start stringing up anyone they can find to blame.

Meanwhile, back in sub-zero reality: https://www.iceagenow.info/this-is-global-warming/

Edit to add:
  Too bad we can't rely on the MSM to report deaths from cold honestly, ie without the Warmist spin:
  https://www.iceagenow.info/record-cold-lets-call-it-a-cold-snap/
  “Cold snap: A FedEx worker found dead at a delivery facility was one of 17 killed,” reads the headline on msn.com.

[Electro Detective]

Bring back the SEC (STATE Electricity Commission), Gas And Fuel, and whatever the Water utility/Park and Gardens company was called     ...hopefully honest Gov operated 

While we're on that swing of things, POFF the Toll enforcing highway r0bbers City Link or whatever slicked up monicker they are called now

The section of jacked road from the Airport to Flemington Road was/is the Tullamarine Freeway paid for by previous gen tax paying battlers

It should be a NO TOLL ZONE , just like the Westgate Bridge and Freeway, again paid for by previous gen tax paying battlers 


What's next on the acquisition agenda from the insane asylum candidates, guised in suits pushing 'progress and growth' BS no one buys anymore ? 

[LapTop006]

Bring back the SEC (STATE Electricity Commission), Gas And Fuel, and whatever the Water utility/Park and Gardens company was called     ...hopefully honest Gov operated 

MMBW (Melbourne Metropolitan Board of Works)

[nick_d]

I certainly agree there's been a significant deterioration in the situation since the Government used to operate the SEC, the MMBW and so forth.

I just looked up Jemena since I had the impression that what used to be the SEC (electricity generation and sales direct to the public) had merely changed name to Jemena, since if you have dealings with say AGL, Origin Energy or Tango Energy or whatnot, all they're doing is reselling Jemena's service. I don't know for sure, but I guess Jemena services all of Melbourne and possibly Victoria.

I had been thinking that Jemena was still operated by the Government and that the only privatization that had gone on was in adding the reseller (AGL, Origin Energy, Tango Energy, etc). However, I discovered that Jemena is 60% owned by State Grid Corporation of China and 40% by Singapore Power. So it seems the real story is that our generation and distribution assets were sold to China/Singapore.

Whilst this is obscene on the face of it, it wouldn't necessarily be a big issue if as I suggested previously, the streets were opened up to allow private companies to duplicate or triplicate the infrastructure. However, I don't think that's very likely to happen. One of the reasons the Government would have got a decent price for the sale of the SEC's assets, would have been the tacit understanding that the thing being sold is a monopoly provider and would remain so for the foreseeable future. It's probably to compensate for this that the "public face" was split up into the various private companies, to create the appearance of competition.

So, as always, it is the restriction of competition that is the real story here, not the privatization as such. I certainly agree that power bills are much too high. This of course creates a prime opportunity for a lower-cost competitor to come in. But how would they get their power to households? They'd have to do some kind of deal like the NBN did with the use of the Telstra ducts, which would ruin the whole thing.

cheers, Nick