The National Forum   Donate   Your Account   On Line Opinion   Forum   Blogs   Polling   About   
The Forum - On Line Opinion's article discussion area



Syndicate
RSS/XML


RSS 2.0

Main Articles General

Sign In      Register

The Forum > Article Comments > The base-load myth > Comments

The base-load myth : Comments

By Mark Diesendorf, published 2/5/2011

Australia could close its last coal-fired generator within the next 19 years.

  1. Pages:
  2. 1
  3. Page 2
  4. 3
  5. 4
  6. 5
  7. 6
  8. 7
  9. All
Roses1.
Please advise if you are wearing rose coloured spectacles. Are you living on planet earth?
Renewable energy is subsidised by both users and taxpayers. All Government incentives are supported through the taxes that we all pay.
Brown coal power energy is only subsidised for pensioner use and not very much at that.
Paying a tax for carbon dioxide is going to ruin a tolerable way of life. All products and services that are made or used with electric power will increase in cost.
Perhaps another $1,500 p.a. will mean little to you but many of us will suffer. When the remaining factories close. Well, we'll all remember you.
Posted by phoenix94, Monday, 2 May 2011 2:46:15 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
[Deleted for abuse.]
Posted by Hasbeen, Monday, 2 May 2011 4:16:10 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
The greenhouse mafia supporters club arrived at the run.
Now just to show how it can be done , below is an article about the real world.
A Spanish Island's Quest to Be the Greenest Place on Earth
By Lisa Abend / El Hierro Apr. 26, 2011
The project that will transform the future of El Hierro doesn't look like much more than a hole in the ground. One on top of a mountain, another smaller one down below, and in between, a long stretch of pipeline. But when this innovative wind-power system goes online at the end of 2011, it will turn El Hierro, the easternmost of Spain's Canary Islands, into the first inhabited landmass in the world to become completely energy self-sufficient. And that's just the first step in a plan that may make the island the most sustainable place on Earth.
Sound ambitious? El Hierro is located over 750 miles (1,200 km) from the Spanish mainland, and its stark, volcanic landscape harbors no coal or fossil fuels. Fresh water is scarce, and for electricity, its population of 10,000 has long depended on the diesel brought in weekly by tanker. Which is why, some 25 years ago, the islanders began thinking about ways to convert to renewable energy, using the two resources that they actually have a lot of: wind and water. Now, with oil supplies dwindling worldwide and the Fukushima disaster offering a reminder of the perils of nuclear energy, El Hierro's hydro-eolic plant looks positively prescient.
"At first, it was simply an issue of becoming more self-sufficient," says Tomas Padrón, president of the Island Council, "We were completely dependent on outside deliveries and could be cut off at a moment's notice.
The future power station is a marvel of engineering. Five windmills on the northeastern end of the island will power a pumping station that, when the wind is blowing, will drive water 2,300 feet uphill, from a small, 5 million-cubic-foot (150,000-cu-m) reservoir down by the shore to a larger, 19 million-cubic-foot (550,000-cu-m) reservoir snuggled into one of the island's volcanic craters.
Posted by sarnian, Monday, 2 May 2011 4:30:13 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
When the wind abates, water from the top depository will be released, along 1.8 miles (3 km) of pipes, into the bottom one, and the pressure of that falling water will drive six hydraulic turbines. In other words, El Hierro will combine the two resources in which it abounds to deliver a continuous supply of electricity, no matter the weather. "If we don't want to depend on fossil fuel, we have to have steady input and output," says Gonzalo Piernavieja. "And the only way to do that is through massive storage.
The plant is expected to produce 48 GW/h (gigawatt hours), enabling El Hierro to conserve some 6,000 tons of diesel per year, and to meet 100% of its energy needs by 2015.
El Hierro remains largely agricultural (pineapples and mangos are its primary exports). Its farmers too are looking ahead: all of the island's agricultural cooperatives have signed on to a plan that will convert their fields to organic production in the next eight years. And those farms, in turn, will be connected to a "biodigester" that converts sewage into both methane (which can then be used as fuel) and fertilizer.
How did a place so small that it lacks a movie theater and so culturally conservative that it still frowns upon unaccompanied women in bars come up with such a revolutionary plan for the future? Thank geography, says Island Council president Padrón. "We've always been doubly isolated, first from mainland Spain, and then from the rest of the Canaries," he says. "And we've always had problems with drought and with supplying ourselves. It makes us look harder for solutions."
This technology can be applied elsewhere," says Morales about the power station, "Hawaii, for example. We're already advising them." That's something that another volcanic archipelago, notably larger but perhaps newly aware of the limits of conventional energy, might want to look into
Posted by sarnian, Monday, 2 May 2011 4:30:43 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
This article is based on basic facts and should be followed up, not ridiculed by the deniers.
Let us get a reasonable debate not abuse.
Posted by Harrell, Monday, 2 May 2011 4:53:12 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Sarnian,

An anecdote about a remote Island that supplies its own electricity with hugely expensive imported diesel and looks for alternatives that can be supplied locally is hardly an analogue for Australia where we have cheap coal.

The best that this will get you is an "Awww Shucks"

France did not have coal, oil or gas, so it went nuclear.
Posted by Shadow Minister, Monday, 2 May 2011 4:56:07 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
  1. Pages:
  2. 1
  3. Page 2
  4. 3
  5. 4
  6. 5
  7. 6
  8. 7
  9. All

About Us :: Search :: Discuss :: Feedback :: Legals :: Privacy