I prefer the interests of Christian Zionists who concentrate on keeping Israel intact against a US realignment facilitating Iranian nuclear weapons pointing back at Israel.

Now the most disconnected part of this toxic miss-think, is the half of resident Israelis who are in support of their own destruction.

To my way of thinking, this article well points out dangerous disconnected thinking that gains its legitimacy from a position of fear, and its inability to confront this fear without introducing panic as solution.

And finally, it well highlights who pay the painful cost of the knee-jerk reactionaries policies: always the poor and those least able to resist the dire outcomes on society.

It beggars belief hat these types have captured the power base of Politics, and used that capture to drive their mad antisocial agendas, in this case, in the name of God.

God damn them and quickly!

Dan

What happened to separation of church and state? How would these naìve clerics feel if Albanese wrote them an open letter telling them what they should be doing? Albanese, a 'non-practising Catholic' - so not particularly interested in religion - won't be taking any notice anyway.

Without fossil fuels and the income, jobs and defence that they provide, these pompous idiots might find themselves having to provide the actual Christian charity that their political activism has pushed aside: there won't be any government money to do it.

Poor churchmen. In Australia, few care any more, what they think about women, gay and trans, same sex marriage, abortion, assisted dying.

What to do? Via a selfless process of solitary introspection and painful moral soul searching, why not climb on to the biggest bandwagon of the 21st century? Yep, you guessed it, United Nations "Net Zero".

Well, they are entitled to a view, if we would have Net Zero and without tanking the economy/destroying our manufacturing capacity, the only solution with a snowflakes chance in hell of fulfilling those parameters, is nuclear.

Not just any nuclear and not fueled by uranium but by four times more abundant thorium in MSR technology. Thorium is the most energy dense material on the planet, almost everyone has some.

Just 8 grams of thorium contains enough recoverable energy to power your house and car for a century. The cost of mining/refining those 8 grams of metal, around $100.00. That my friend is just $1.00 a year.

Whereas a conventional solid fueled nuclear reactor needs tons of uranium over a thirty-year operational lifetime, creating tons and tons of nuclear waste.

MSR thorium will only needs a few kilos and create grams of far less toxic waste, Waste that's eminently suitable as long-life space batteries.

Thorium delivers everything fusion promised but never delivered, may never will? Thorium is so abundant that we can never run out of it, will never ever need to transition to anything else. It is carbon-free and cheapest form of energy we can ever transition to. Moreover, it is 24/7 reliable.

When Alvin Wineberg the first nuclear reactor and held the patent. It was the only one in the world! Nobody then asked, if it's so good why doesn't everyone have one.

When the wright brothers flew the first plane, the usual detractors said, if man were meant to fly, they'd be born with wings. None of whom would have would have imagined a giant 747 taking off almost vertically, jets routinely doing Mach three or better.

Vested interests/the naysayers (same animal) will always come out with self-serving detractions and reasons we shouldn't have or do!

MSR thorium carbon-free power is so cheap to produce it can be retailed by private interest, very profitably or as little as 3 cents PKWH.

We should mass produce them here for export/the domestic market. Particularly now that all the remaining bugs, corrosion/tritium have been ironed out/sorted!
Alan B.

Hi Graham,

You obviously feel very strongly on this subject. However,
I beg to differ. You say the church leaders are not experts
on this subject. Most of us aren't on many subjects - but we
all have our views nevertheless. You suggest that they should
stay away and stick with moral issues. Perhaps to the church
leaders - they do see climate change as a moral issue and they
are resolved to consider ways to reduce their own contributions
to climate change?

"We seek the flourishing of this whole of God's creation and
all of its creatures. We act to renew the Earth from the damage
done and stand in solidarity with people most impacted by
human-induced climate change. Governments, churches, businesses
and the wider community work together for a sustainable future."

Sounds like a plan with a moral vision to me!

Unfortunately a bit of LNP 'back in your kennel' stuff from the author.

Church leaders have been rightly speaking out about issues like this for a hell of a long time. An example:

"Christian leaders call for Morrison to reverse planned foreign aid cuts"
http://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/christian-leaders-call-for-morrison-to-reverse-planned-foreign-aid-cuts/c185u0df0

The threat to these poorer nations from climate change is real and of deep concern particularly to many island nations in the Pacific. Recognising and acting on this is a moral duty in most non-partisan people's eyes.

So to be telling Church leaders to butt out because "Without a proper understanding of the practicalities, there is no way to make moral pronouncements." is just inane.

Look, the LNP has form on this threatening the funding of groups who spoke out about them in government. Not having that power now sees articles like this trying to make the case on incredibly spurious moral grounds.

Read it for what it is.

The following is from some people who actually know what they're talking about. I'm also a fan of nuclear power - but may just be coming around to the idea of 100% renewables. Off-river closed-loop pumped hydro creates HUGE opportunities for storage - and Australia's topography has been mapped and we have over 300 TIMES the potential we need. Choose the best third of a percent, build it out, and we can have 100% renewable electricity day and night without fossil fuels or alienating our trading partners.

"The Snowy Mountains have large numbers of excellent sites of all sizes, located not far from the Snowy 2.0 scheme. If we built reservoirs at the three largest, we’d have double the storage capacity we’d need to support a 100% Australian renewable energy system when everything is electrified and there are no fossil fuels. That’s because the amount of storage needed to support a clean grid is actually quite modest."

https://re100.eng.anu.edu.au/2022/11/11/batteries-of-gravity-and-water-we-found-1500-new-pumped-hydro-sites-next-to-existing-reservoirs/

Vast seaweed and shellfish farms can feed the world, provide all the petrochemicals and feedstocks we need for renewable plastics, proteins, concrete and other industries as well, and sequester all the carbon we need to this century.
https://inletkeeper.org/2020/12/08/regenerative-ocean-farming/
https://theconversation.com/how-farming-giant-seaweed-can-feed-fish-and-fix-the-climate-81761

We need energy.

The way we produced it in the past caused excess contamination of air and land and water.
Today we need to minimise this contamination, to keep the planet 'clean' for our continued use.
Making an instant change to a better way of power generation is not practical.
So we proceed slowly, trying to keep a sensible balance between what is ideal and what we can do.

There is a practical limit to how many people the planet can accommodate.
Providing more and more power for more and more people cannot continue indefinitely.
Curbing population growth must be part of a successful change to clean energy?
Limiting population growth seems to be the far more difficult challenge?

Our ultimate goal is to provide most of our power needs from naturally occurring sources?
The power of the sun, and the wind and wave which result from that?
Argument against such a plan is using up valuable time, even though people must be able to express their views.
Is it time to get real, stop the shilly-shally, and get on with the changes?

Even if these are painful in the short term?

Priests, ministers, pastors, rabbis, imams, nuns,are all entitled to personal opinions on anything and everything. Religious institutions are not entitled to get political.

Can religion really be separated from politics?

We live in a society where freedom of thought, conscience
and belief exists.
We have sermons preached from pulpits that influence members.
And the list goes on. Surely the interests of religion and
country are inter-related?

Ipso,
"Curbing population growth must be part of a successful change to clean energy?"

I think that's back to front. Let’s not campaign for population reduction but for clean energy, clean water, good food and education in developing countries. Especially educating and empowering girls. Do that, and the Demographic Transition will take care of population growth. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographic_transition

Then Technology (the T in I=PAT) will fix climate change - IF we start early enough. Renewables and nuclear can give us all the energy we need. And we can feed the world all the seafood we want if we grow giant seaweed and shellfish farms able to provide all the food and protein we could need for many *times* today's population.

Religion has been tainted by politics because some members of the clergy have been trying to regain significance with people who are just not interested. Christianity, at least, has no place in politics.

"Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and unto God the things that are God's". With politics being the dirty business it is, Christianity can provide solace and escape.

Bending Christianity to suit the impersonal skulduggery and corruption of politics in post-Christian Australia to appear 'relevant' - by the church hierarchy, who are now mere bureaucrats - is disastrous and will drive more people than ever away from organised Christianity.

The topography of Australia may support massive, pumped hydro? So what? Has anyone with a brain calculated the cost of pumping water to those desirable sites? Well, we could always privatize the pipelines with foreign funds borrowed in the billions, billions we will service until hell freezes over.

Whereas SMR MSR thorium can be built for around the same money as a large diesel and simply sited where needed. Given routine maintenance good for up to 100 years of reliable carbon free service. But the good news doesn't end there.

Nuclear power (proven science) has been used to convert inexhaustible seawater into all manner of alternative fuel by combining hydrogen and CO2 as this or that hydrocarbon into liquid fuels, fertilizers and plastic. The latter two will remove some (locked away) carbon from the environment.

Every Australian household creates enough organic matter to support the conversion to biogas and all their gas needs. Adding food scraps creates a saleable surplus. But with scrubbing and feeding it into ceramic fuel cells, that surplus becomes more than 50%. Waste products include sanitized reusable water and a carbon rich soil improver.

Population reduction done successfully and just as Max Green described it! And I agree with Foxy that even clerics are entitled to a view. Nobody stopped any of them with their loudly proclaimed assertions on homosexuality! But hopped into them good and proper, when they talked about manmade climate change! More later.
Alan B.

Yeah. The preacher of the "SMR MSR thorium" religion should not be laughed at

And has all his marbles.

If these religionists had been spouting anti abortion or anti homosexual themes, the same people here earnestly defending their right to free speech would instead be demanding that they not be permitted to impose their views on society. If it wasn't for double standards.....

We aren't going to get to net zero - at least not with the current technology. So-called renewables (they are anything but) haven't got a chance of delivering the present, let alone future, power needs of the nation.

Dark matter is something that astro-science uses to 'balance the books'. Their theories don't work because they can't find enough mass in the universe to make them work. So DM is inserted as a balancing item. Pumped hydro is like that as regards net zero. Their fantasies don't work so they introduce never-ending pumped hydro schemes to 'balance the books'. The baseload power you have when you don't have baseload power.

But pumped hydro isn't going to do what's claimed for it. The most advantageous pumped hydro scheme available in Australia is Snowy 2.0. It is currently going to cost at least 6 times more than originally forecast, will be at least five years overdue and won't provide the backup power originally envisaged. And that's the best we've got.

But whenever the net-zero zealots are presented with the reality that 'renewables can't supply baseload, pumped hydro is wheeled out to square the circle.

Like Germany today, we'll probably get to the point where the politicians realise they can't punish the people any further and will give up their fantasies. But its also possible they cave on nuclear or some new technology up-ends everything - who knows alanB's MSR fantasies might yet work out in a decade or three.

In the meantime, as we commit economic suicide, the rest of the world merrily continues to use the most efficient power possible - fossil fuels....."A group of more than 100 scientists has determined that 2022 will be a "record year" for carbon emissions".

MSR thorium is no fantasy as prize winning investigative journalist and science writer, Richard Martin will attest in his book, Thorium, Super Fuel, subtitled green energy. He also encapsulates his book on U tube. So, if reading is a problem, then just listen.

The real fantasy is the moronic belief that we can keep endlessly burning fossil fuels indefinitely. Or exporting the same to the world.

It's only a matter of time before the world places a carbon tariff on all products produced or processed with fossil fuel. And countries like Oz will find their terms of trade dry up and we become another failed banana republic, because we're governed by recalcitrant, tin eared, blinkered numbskulls, who wouldn't know the time of day, but for the clocks.

Renewables are not the magic pudding they're made out to be the green movement! Nor will they support an industrial renaissance! But force what remains offshore where folks still use the brains they were born with!

Just don't do something, stand there.
Alan B.

Alan B, I hear all your questions about the cost of pumped hydro and overbuild - I really do! I was putting those same questions to the Blakers team at ANU - especially Matthew Stocks.

But it's tough to model. It involves a certain level of trusting that they do actually want an accurate model. It involves modelling our worst weather systems during La Nina - those Dunkelflaute (Dark Lull) events during our cloudiest quietest La Nina winter weeks. What assumptions are you making for those? How long are they? Are you trying to store energy for weeks - which is crazy expensive. Or are you assuming they'll just overbuild more solar farms for those days - because even solar panels produce half power on a cloudy day? In that case, it may actually be cheaper to have seasonal solar farms you just curtail during the abundance of summer. (Although during droughts there might be seasonal work for them to desalinate water during those periods.)

I used to scoff at solar overbuilds when Blakers published in 2017. Now? I'm not so sure - as the cost keeps falling! There I was recommending Kirk Sorenson and Ed Pheil lectures to Stocks, but meanwhile the solar price KEPT falling! I kept seeing Australia's weather modelled and various estimates of 1.5 to 2 times our grid capacity being required for a stable grid - but Blakers models 6 times - which includes shifting Australia off oil as well. They modelled WWS (Wind, Water and Solar) back in 2017 being affordable. If that was true then, it is even more so now.
However, has MSR solved embrittlement? Got decades of demonstrated materials durability? I'm now psychologically prepared to ask these questions of my former favourites as I'm open to the idea of renewables.

Mhaze ranting about the cost of Snowy 2.0 is as bad as anti-nukes cherry-picking the cost of nuclear based on a sample size of one Hinkley Point C reactor. That's the kind of 'logic' I expect from the less rational FANATICAL 100% renewables crowd that hate on nuclear!

Off-river pumped hydro can be built in 3 years as you work on all parts of it at once. There’s no pesky river to divert. It doesn't hurt fisheries. Off-river opens up 300 TIMES more potential storage sites than we need.

Then you pump in water slowly from a nearby river, cover it in solar panels or rubber balls to slow evaporation, and top it up now and then. Per capita, this uses a tenth the water of a coal fired thermal plant! We'll SAVE 90% of today's energy-water by switching to renewables.

https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/2516-1083/abeb5b#prgeabeb5bs6

Hi Max,

I am very skeptical of claims of how everything can be done when there is no proof of concept. Years ago Bob Brown was saying that renewable energy technology was capable of replacing existing power infrastructure with a similar proof of concept, and look at the mess today!

Unfortunately the world is full of people spouting bs and the only protection we have against it is to see material evidence. If that makes me a Doubting Thomas then Graham's argument is supported.

Well Fester this is where you are just wrong. What do you mean by 'Proof of concept?' Why so sceptical? Seriously - pumped hydro is one of the oldest, most proven technologies around. It's mature and possible to cost. Watch Real Engineering on it. https://youtu.be/JSgd-QhLHRI

Solar and wind have come down to 10% the cost of 12 years ago.

The real question is what kind of 100% renewable grid are we trying to build - huge or small? Some worry about the costs of storage too much, and propose super-grids that could take Perth sunshine to curve around the planet 4000km to run Sydney evenings till around 7pm or 8pm (depending on the season). They're worried storage is just TOO expensive. It's not. The real problem with super-grids is Nimbyism. People might even be sympathetic and understand the need - but why their backyard? Even Germany is having trouble building super-grids.

But if we don’t go for super-grids - then won’t storage blow out the costs? Not according to the Blakers team from the Australian National University. They have spreadsheets to cost various pumped hydro schemes. https://re100.eng.anu.edu.au/phescostmodel/index/

Potential sites for off-river PHES (Pumped Hydro Electricity Storage) are VAST - 300 times what we require in Australia. Off-river means no river ecosystems are damaged and they are faster to build. Local communities and farmers can earn some extra cash, helping the grid. Small is beautiful. To avoid Nimbyism and get the job done faster, NSW should build out as much solar and wind as we need, and a few great PHES. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0360544217309568

This paper on an Asian grid compared building a Super-Grid to local pumped hydro. It's only plus or minus 5%, depending on your particular topology and resource distributions. Fossil fuel particulates are so dangerous they effectively DOUBLE our electricity price - it’s just we pay in our health budget! Plus or minus 5% compared to that is nothing - and compared to the incomparable dangers of climate change is TRITE!
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0360544221016352

Hi Max,

Why am I so skeptical? You know, before Andrew Forrest became a champion of the planet he had it all figured out on paper how to to produce nickel so cheaply that the spot price would drop below 1 USD per pound. Currently, the spot nickel price is close to 12 USD. That is but one grain in the sandpit of great ideas that did not work out as planned.

When I see real world evidence suggesting that renewables are not living up to the grand claims of the spruikers, I tend to be skeptical of the story. Believing in fairy tales is not a great life plan, no matter how woke they might be or how warm and fuzzy they might make you feel.

Onya Max!

Keep these Renewable Dismissing monkeys honest.

Mavs

And BTW Uncle FESTER*

Frogs in glass saucepans shouldn't smoke coal.

* http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uncle_Fester#Character

"Fester is a completely hairless, hunched, and barrel-shaped man with dark, sunken eyes and often a deranged smile.

He always wears a heavy, full-length fur coat."

Thank you Maverick. Glad you could spare some time away from top gunning. Perhaps you could explain to me how the example of Desertec was such a resounding success? The idea was to produce uber cheap power in North Africa that would be sent to Europe via a network of power cables. The waste heat could be used for desalination. The fundamental problem with the concept is that by the time you cost all of the transmission infrastructure, it is much cheaper to generate on site. Also, you might note that woody biomass is the main renewable energy source in Europe, not wind and solar.

FESTER - not sure what you're on about with Forrest and nickel or how that logically translates to real world evidence. The LCOE of various energy sources are well documented and peer-reviewed. They're the basic information that we can build our grids from, and then feed into various weather and topographical maps to design and tinker with a 100% renewable grid. This stuff is hard - and I'm no expert. But guess what? The Professors at ANU and CSIRO are experts. And they tell us it will be affordable, and cheaper than today's fossil fuel grid - ESPECIALLY if we take into account the health costs associated with particulates. Hey - with that attitude of yours good luck with your super. You probably have it in a traditional portfoilio with coal and gas and oil securities. Can you say "Stranded Asset"?

Meanwhile, Europe has plenty of topology appropriate for today's tried and true off-river pumped hydro to store all the power they need to store to go 100% renewables WITHIN EUROPE. I doubt after Russian gas they'd want to get addicted to overseas power again. There are various plans to do this. Wind is the cheapest, Solar next, and pumped Water next for storage. This reduces the need for Transmission, but some places will need upgraded transmission. But because wind and solar are SO cheap - they more than offset the additional costs. Let alone being energy secure and weaning off oil and preventing future oil wars!
https://www.solarpowereurope.org/insights/market-outlooks/100-renewable-europe-study
https://ec.europa.eu/info/strategy/priorities-2019-2024/european-green-deal/repowereu-affordable-secure-and-sustainable-energy-europe_en

The church has every right to get political. Jesus was political – that’s why he was crucified. The prophets were political. St Paul was political. Martin Luther King was political (so was Martin Luther).

The separation of church and state is an important principle, but it applies to the constitutional and functional separation of the two institutions, not as a means to silence the church from speaking out on moral and social issues that are deemed political.

Climate change and how we deal with it is perhaps the largest moral challenge we face, with huge implications for the environment and human welfare. The church is right to advocate for net zero emissions.

Where I agree with Graham, though, is that the church and its clergy have no expertise in advising on how we get there. Banning approvals of new coal and gas projects could well make the transition more costly and difficult with little or no environmental benefit (and could even arguably add to net emissions). The church has every right to address the “ends” of climate and energy policy; it should leave the “means” to the experts.

Rhian,
but if we're serious about climate change - why do we need to add new coal or gas? With Wind, Water storage, and Solar - we just don't need new fossil fuels for electricity at least. I used to be a nuclear promoter - because I was concerned about the cost of overbuilding renewables to meet winter challenges. But now that solar is 1/4 the cost of nuclear and wind is even cheaper, the fact that you might have to build 2 or 3 times the capacity in winter that you need in summer just is not an issue. The fact that we'll have to build heaps of off-river pumped hydro sites isn't an issue either. The fact that we'll have to spend billions upgrading our HVDC transmission towers isn't an issue either! We were going to have to do that *anyway* with peak oil on the horizon.

Wind, Water and Solar. WWS. It's the CSIRO plan for abundant cheap reliable Australian energy!

“PV and wind allow Australia to reach 100% renewable electricity rapidly at low cost. Wide dispersion of wind and PV over 10–100 million hectares reduces cost. Off-river pumped hydro energy storage is the cheapest form of mass storage. There are effectively unlimited sites available in Australia. **LCOE from a 100% renewable Australian electricity system is US$70/MWh (2017 prices).”**

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0360544217309568

And as we clean up our electricity, we'll save in other areas. That 'cheap' coal electricity science Deniers go on about so fondly isn't that cheap when you count the health bill. We basically pay the electricity cost again - only it's 'externalised' to people dying from various cancers and throat concerns and lung issues. Nice of our coal corporations to warn us about that, wasn't it?

Indubitably Uncle Fester

But first more aboout You:

Fester is recognizable in a number of cartoons, both by his appearance (bald, stooping, sunken eyes) and behavior (e.g. turning the shower into a special "scalding" setting.

Fester feeds his garden plants blood plasma, and likes to release an eagle on his neighbor's gerbils.

Yours in knuckle dragdom.

Mavs

Hi Max,

If you’re right, the government doesn’t need to ban new projects. The market operator will ensure that cheaper options get priority in supply. Along with the fact that many banks and other investors are reluctant to invest in new fossil fuel generation – both because of risk/uncertainty and for their corporate images – I think it unlikely that any major new fossil fuel energy capacity will be added in Australia. It’s interesting, too, that oil and gas exploration in Australia is at near-record lows despite recent high prices.

https://www.abs.gov.au/statistics/industry/mining/mineral-and-petroleum-exploration-australia/latest-release

My concern is the intermittency/unreliability issue with wind and solar, despite their falling costs. It doesn’t matter how much capacity you have if the sun isn’t shining and the wind isn’t blowing. Batteries are still expensive and not very suited to large-scale, longish-term supply (they are great at solving the ancillary services problem such as frequency control that we once thought we’d have with renewables, though). Pumped hydro may be the solution but it has its own challenges in terms of environmental impacts, costs and suitable topography (especially here in WA). I think there will be a place for fossil fuels in the energy mix for some time yet, though increasingly as backup/capacity rather than baseload generation.

Then, as Graham points out, there are uses for oil and gas other than electricity generation that we will probably still need in future.

And there is the matter of export markets. If Australia stops exporting coal and LNG it is highly likely our customers will simply find other suppliers, so the net effect on emissions would be negligible (and possibly even increase them, if our former customers turn to inferior fuel sources); while the economic impact here would be significant.

Our fossil fuel energy industry is in terminal decline. There is not much to gain, and possibly a lot to lose, in accelerating its demise.

Hi Max,

Experts also claimed "too cheap to meter" nuclear power. I hope that pumped hydro works as hoped for energy storage, but it is only one piece of a complicated renewable energy puzzle.

What I am seeing with the development of renewable energy makes me hope that the nuclear reactors being developed prove effective. I suspect that increasing the proportion of renewable energy will become prohibitively expensive.

The market operator will ensure that cheaper options get priority in supply.
Rhian,
i.e. inferior quality yet still no reduced excessive costs !

In the meantime, while Australia anxiously races to commit economic suicide by giving up our comparative advantage in power, the rest of the world continues to burn the dreaded fossil fuels.

Preliminary estimates show that world-wide emissions are at record levels. Few nations are meeting their reduction promises and the largest emitters plan to continue burning coal/oil. There are over 1600 new coal plants on the books world-wide with most being in China and India. That's NEW plants in addition to those already in place. So while Australia strives to get rid of our coal plants, our efforts are negated many times over by nations who have no intention to buy into the great scare.

So Australia's energy needs and solutions are very complex, debatable and change in aspect over time.

All this requires the studies and links that MAX and now RHIAN are bringing to the table.

NUCLEAR

Old-style NUCLEAR reactor electrical production is increasingly expensive due to planning, building and ongoing national security protection.

Extreme cost is also increasingly evident with Nuclear reactors needing to be Decommissioned after 35-40 years. That means 100s-1000s tonnes of irradiated components needing to be Taken Apart, Shipped, Stored and Reprocessed.

+++++++++++

Alan B.'s MSR THORIUM religion suffers from the need for literally $100s Billions for technical and business-proven development
- followed by all the old style nuclear costs.

Hi Rhian,
the government has a democratic duty to ban new fossil fuel projects. It's what Australians voted for! We rejected the Denier dogma of the outdated NeoLibs, and voted for the science.

"It doesn’t matter how much capacity you have if the sun isn’t shining and the wind isn’t blowing."

Actually, that's when it matters the MOST! Because it means you had the overbuild capacity to not only run Australia during your quietest, darkest winter days - but you had enough capacity to ALSO pump all that water up hill again.

"Pumped hydro may be the solution but it has its own challenges in terms of environmental impacts, costs and suitable topography (especially here in WA)."

If we're going off your concern with the exact semantics as presented, I 100% agree with you!

But absolutely EVERYTHING about pumped hydro changes if we ad just two words. The magic words? Off-river.

Off-river closed loop Pumped Hydrogen Electrical Storage opens up TRULY VAST new topologies for consideration, up to dozens of kilometres from any nearby river. Got a great site for a big enough pumped hydro dam? Then build it and pump the water in later. Slowly - without damaging the sending river. Cover it in floating solar panels or rubber balls to reduce evaporation. And you'll SAVE water - because water cooling coal thermal plants uses 10 times more than the estimated evaporation from off-river pumped hydro!

Australia has 300 TIMES the appropriate topology we need. Choose your best third of a percent and we're done!

According to these CSIRO published authors, it can all be done with WWS. Wind, Water Solar.

$100 billion and we're done.

https://reneweconomy.com.au/for-100-billion-australia-could-have-a-low-cost-and-reliable-zero-emissions-grid/

Max Greens suggestion that you could get away with an overbuild
of 2 or 3 times is way off the mark.
It is inversely exponentially related to the physical size of the
area covered by the grid.
If the grid is spread over the whole of Australia you might get away
with six times the duplication.
The only way to be certain BEFORE you build it would be to model it
in real time with existing wind and solar farms plus as many weather
stations as you could find good sites for and feed the lot into a
central computer. Grind up the data and see if it ever fails to
provide 100% supply.
The cost would be peanuts compared to making a major blunder.

Bazz,
how do you know it's way off the mark? It's not my suggestion - it's the Professors at ANU. And they've done everything you suggest and more - with years of weather data, and years of estimating various mixes of wind and solar and pumped hydro. They got the mix and it's about $100 billion to clean up our electricity grid.

Then in addition (although this is vaguer) somewhere over $300 billion - or more accurately around $12 billion per year invested (from regular electricity bills at normal pre-Ukraine war prices) - until 2050 to build EXTRA extra electricity to replace OIL as well!

https://reneweconomy.com.au/for-100-billion-australia-could-have-a-low-cost-and-reliable-zero-emissions-grid/

This will be cheaper again when we consider how well off our health system will be without coal and oil particulates in the air - which basically costs itself again in our health budget.