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 > Requiem for a failed electricity system > Comments

Requiem for a failed electricity system : Comments

By Alan Moran, published 13/10/2016

Gradually the electricity price will rise to reflect the higher cost wind generation that is being substituted for the non-subsidised supplies.

  1. Pages:
  2. 1
  3. Page 2
  4. 3
  5. 4
  6. 5
  7. All
Ah yes another bludger from the IPA,a highly secretive organization with the transparency of a brick wall,and claiming to be a charity as well,all in support of the great neo con myth which you implicitly believe when you know its BS a bit like the total uncontrolled market myth another load of bollocks.
Who are your doners by the way Alan that keep you and you friends in comfort until you find yourself a seat on a Parliament somewhere under the Liberal party banner,where you can resume your budging,we only have to look at the chinless wonders you already have in the parliamentary Liberal party to see just how thick you all are,though at least they don't have to do the one thing you at the IPA seem to hate that's actually WORKING for a living.
Another tiresome RW ideologue with little idea about the real world supporting an Idea that never existed get a real job then get back to us
Posted by John Ryan, Thursday, 13 October 2016 10:21:50 AM
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
Finally someone who thinks with the head!

I forget how much coal is used making a wind turbine, but it wouldn't surprise if the number was around 25 ton per?

These things are useful if located where the wind nearly always blows and strongly, like the roaring forties? (or Canberra) And there are Islands that are right in the path of trade winds! As is the southwest of the continent? And if so placed could operate without an economy killing subsidy!

Solar panels are not problem free, but come with mountains of toxic waste? That we just never see! So that's okay then?

Solar thermal at least now competes with coal in roll-out costs, and as baseload provision!

What that storm highlights is the vulnerability of the grid and the cost it and it alone (doubled) adds to electricity charges! Moreover, the "Ideologues" will never ever consider nuclear! Regardless of how compelling and logical the case!

For them it's just A-bombs, Hiroshima, Chernobyl, Hiroshima etc!

And ban, na, na, na sung to the tune of the Mexican hat dance with fingers stuffed in ears!

Or just restated carved in stone party policy,or broken record rethoric! And the devil take the hindmost and or the economy!

And exactly what you'd expect when dogma and ideology replace all reason and logic; and the limited hidebound vision rarely if ever extends beyond the desired treasury benches!

Or one-up-mans-ship! Or how to excel in turning overdue pressing social issues into an ever so convenient political football! Kicked to Hades and back as the economy goes to hell in a hand basket!

Highly credentialed speakers on U tube or google scholar, armed with incontrovertible facts! BORING!

WORLD'S CHEAPEST CLEANEST SAFEST ENERGY? EVEN MORE BORING!

HOW WILL WE MANAGE IF THE RIVERS OF GOLD THAT IS THE CURRENT ENERGY MARKET ARE RETURNED AS THEY SHOULD BE, TO GROWING A ROBUST INHERENTLY STRONG ECONOMY? WHEN THE MOST IMPORTANT THING IS GROWING OUR PARLIAMENTS, POLITICAL POWER AND INFLUENCE/POST POLITICS RETIREMENT INCOMES!?

Poor bugger my country!
Alan B.
Posted by Alan B., Thursday, 13 October 2016 10:39:10 AM
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
Alan, you're right, some nuclear technologies hold the promise of trending cheaper over time.
Posted by Craig Minns, Thursday, 13 October 2016 10:51:20 AM
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
Yes Craig, none more so than thorium, which is three times more abundant than uranium and needs no enrichment!

And in inverse proportion to reviled uranium, burns around 95% of the fuel, leaving only around 5% as so called waste, which is far less toxic than that created in uranium burning reactors! And eminently suitable in long life space batteries!

Given recovery and refining costs are both simple and cheap! Around $100.00 for the small amount needed to power average family home and electric vehicle for 100 years!

I dare say, that's progressively lower! NOW TODAY! Waddya reckon?

Used in walk away safe molten salt reactors they can even be tasked with very safely burning and re-burning current waste, starting with the most dangerous and toxic, to "progressively" reduce the half life to 300 years!

We clearly don't want that or the billions we could earn doing it?

Thorium is a fifties technology abandoned because you can't make a bomb or plutonium from it! and less radioactive than a banana!

Yes the prototypes were comparatively small just 40 MW! But, at that size, able to be mass produced and trucked anywhere in a shipping container!

Eliminating any need for vulnerable transmission towers, which effectively doubles the retail cost! And given molten salt, in a water-less desert if that's the preference! And the heat generated can heat air, which is then tasked with turning a turbine!

Coal cost 13000 lives in the US last year and around 100,000 around the world during the same period! coal fired power gives of shiploads of toxic heavy metal contaminants, brain damaging lead, carcinogenic cadmium and toxic uranium just to mention the worst offenders!

If we would actually save the planet? Then ultra-cheap thorium is the only real choice! T.B.C.
Alan B.
Posted by Alan B., Thursday, 13 October 2016 3:14:31 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
Saving the planet is doable, if ultra-cheap and very safe energy is included. and just in the topsoil, we have enough to power the planet for a thousand years, and thousands more in igneous rock! Recent advances in desalination utilizing in flow deionization, allow us to recover 95% potable water for quarter the price of traditional reverse osmosis!

And that's using current energy options!

Conversely, thorium power, allows us to turn previously inhospitable, uninhabitable deserts into veritable gardens, with just current foreign aid budgets.

Then relocate 65 million displaced people in these new Edens! Where they will "progressively" flourish!

As minimum incomes traverse through $7500 a year! Numerous studies show the birth rate plateaus to 2,5 children per fertile couple (replacement only) And as average incomes traverse $5,000.00-$60,000.00 P.A., the birth rate drops to one child per couple!

Some moribund troglodytes might see the energy reliant money tree being replanted in ways that exclude them and their personal profit ambitions?

However, lifting other folk out of endemic generation poverty, serves that ambition far more thoroughly than trying to milk money from stone!

The current practice and mindset of a few small minds bereft of any new ideas or just one or two truly rational ones!?

We need good safe, clean cheap energy examples the emerging nations can grasp which alacrity, with criteria that walk out the door! And given ultra-cheap nuclear power is made available as envisaged?

Enable the production of synthetic hydrocarbons to be extracted out of thin air, or rather from seawater! "DONE" And given water's affinity for Co2, have degassed seawater, suck Co2 directly from the atmosphere!

Yes, that will not bode well for some folk! Fortunately those now holding us hostage, I believe, with the help or permission of the governing class, as a milked for every possible (economy harming) cent, cash cow captive market, via dirty planet destroying fossil fuel!

Intelligent folk still able to do their own thinking, will look at the overwhelming evidence available and arrive at the same conclusions!
Alan B.
Posted by Alan B., Thursday, 13 October 2016 4:10:54 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
Hi Alan,
I must admit I haven't followed the thorium topic very closely, mostly because I'm of the view that mechanisms for exploitation of renewable energy resources are not even close to being fully explored.

On more conventional nuclear power though, you might find this paper interesting. It's a slightly popularised version of a comprehensive paper that was first published in the IEEE journal Explore a few years ago.

http://www.eleceng.adelaide.edu.au/personal/dabbott/publications/AQR_abbott2016.pdf

Essentially, it's a very strong argument against reliance on nuclear power sources, but the form of the argument is also valid for other forms of fossil energy, even if the specifics are obviously going to vary.
Posted by Craig Minns, Thursday, 13 October 2016 4:14:02 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. All

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