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The Forum > Article Comments > Why the world can't rely on renewable energy if we want to remain affluent > Comments

Why the world can't rely on renewable energy if we want to remain affluent : Comments

By Ted Trainer, published 20/5/2011

Do you think the world can all live affluently on renewables? Can sun and wind provide base-load power?

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MattWright - The figures you quote for wind costs are patently ridiculous, even absurd. Since when does the subsidy for wind reduce as you claim? It doesn't. The feed-in tariffs for wind in Spain will remains three times that of conventional. There's neve been any suggestion that the subsidy will reduce, certainly not for existing plants. In any case, as noted, its only a portion of the cost of using wind. I've never seen any independent estimate for wind costs in Aus, but its likely to be the same as Spain and Germany (where its also three times wholesale). And then there's the issue of whether wind saves a molecule of carbon.

As for being in baseload power denial, for heaven sake go and look at the material for the Gemasolar plant you cite. It produces 19MW. The base load fossil fuel plants you deride are 500 MW each, and never mind that the solar plant claims to be dispatchable (that is, not intermittent, like wind), those claims have to be checked throughly by an truly independent body. As it is, at the moment its just a pilot plant. We are many years away from a base-load power plant of any size, as your own post shows.
Posted by Curmudgeon, Sunday, 22 May 2011 5:43:32 PM
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"e.g., 96,000 MWh to get a solar power station through a four day cloudy period. Exetec is aiming for batteries costing $500/kWh, but that means storing for night time supply from a 1000 MWPV power station would cost you $8b, about four times as much as a coal-fired power station," seems to me to disprove his point. Only four times as much as a coal powered plant? I didn't know it was that efficient. Let's throw the trillions of dollars we are subsidizing fossil carbon and nukes. Nukes do have a 6% catastrophic [core meltdown] failure rate, that cost billions upon billions to clean up. Besides direct conversion there's algae hydrocarbon waste reuse farms. Sterling engines could use sun generated temperature differentials to operate 24/7. Let's throw the billions Australia wasted murdering Iraqis and Afghans as a US puppet at the problem.
Posted by 124c4u, Monday, 23 May 2011 10:41:04 AM
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124c4u

" Only four times as much as a coal powered plant?"

Yes, and they don't generate even 1 kW of power, in fact there is wastage of about 20% of the power they store. Then to top it, one needs the generation to produce the power to store. Its lose lose all the way around.
Posted by Shadow Minister, Monday, 23 May 2011 11:02:24 AM
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The article looked to me like a whole pile of back of the envelope calculations. That would be fine if those calculations showed we were factors of 100's or something away from pulling it off - but as they just re-enforced my opinion the future is dammed hard to predict.

Which is a shame, because as Yabby and Squeers alluded to, some parts of the future seem to be really easy to predict. Or to put it another way, someone who claims to be green while at the same time putting policies into effect which will double our population in a few decades is clearly a bald faced liar. Reducing your impact on the planet, whether via CO2 emissions or blowing up mountains while growing the population is so obviously impossible only a moron could not see it. Maybe that was Ted's real point, but if so he didn't make it very well.

That ABARE report looked downright odd. Oil is going to make up a large part of our energy mix for decades to come? Ye gods! That would be true only if we are prepared to pay more for energy from oil than what Ted tells us we will be paying for renewable sources.

And I see we had the usual thoughts from the nuclear mob. Look you lot - I'm sort of with Curmudgeon here, which is odd. He said "what we need to see are plants working as advertised", to which I would only add that means nuclear plants that don't require governments/society to take on the risks and costs they can't afford - like when they destruct wiping square kilometres of land around them, disposing of their long term waste, and curing the nuclear proliferation problems. It's not a big ask. Such designs already exist. Toshiba's 4S plant http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toshiba_4S , The ENHS http://www.nuc.berkeley.edu/node/610 - two out of a long list. No one has ever built one of course, and god knows how expensive the electricity will be once you don't externalise the costs. Maybe it will be the same as the renewables.
Posted by rstuart, Sunday, 29 May 2011 5:06:00 PM
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