Dr Ted,

An excellent summary of why it is possible to built an alternative to fossil/ nuclear base load, but why it would be moronic to do so.

Perhaps if Labor simply taxed everyone 95% then we could emit similar amounts per capita to what they do in Africa. The Carbon tax is a first step along that path.

Having just read ‘FUTURE BABBLE: Why expert predictions are next to worthless and you can do better’, I am in a more than usually unreceptive mood for the kind of global forecasting in Ted Trainer’s piece, especially as Doomsday projections – and there have been thousands – are a particular target of Dan Gardner’s book. Nevertheless, I am happy with Ted’s broad brush analysis of why renewables will not provide a technology fix for replacing the high-energy fossil fuels that created our current levels of prosperity. He fulfils a real need to keep putting hard numbers towards challenging the ‘unexamined faith’ that renewables can fully replace fossil fuels.

However I do not agree with Ted’s jaundiced view of both our current pursuit of prosperity and the ‘market-based’ social structures that enable that pursuit. Surely there is an abundance of evidence that, no matter how noble their aims, societies where people are forced by a central authority to comply with some planned level of prosperity simply don’t work. And that’s putting it mildly. As for the redeeming virtues of poverty that Ted implies, I suggest he goes seek the evidence.

The answer? It seems obvious to me that if ‘the market’ (a phrase that describes a hugely complex set of events) created our present wealth on the back of the bonanza of fossil fuels then that same market will shape the decline due to the depletion (still a long way to go) or our forced desertion (due to emissions) of that bonanza. Any central planning by Ted’s prescribed new society can only make matters worse. And that’s an evidence-based conclusion, not a prediction.

Ted started to go wrong when he decided that the affluent society he saw around him was not to his taste. The limitations to renewable energy happen to suit his political purpose. But his solution would just tip us out of the frying pan into the fire

This article should deflate some urban green fantasies of affluent lifestyles for all with solar panelled houses and electric runabouts. Those who advocate this are living in the echoes of the fossil fuel powered past. Curiously the article omits nuclear power perhaps on the assumption it is politically unpalatable. However similar problems exist with finding the capital though perhaps only a fraction as much.

What I think the public yearns for is renewables tokenism while enjoying the fossil fuelled lifestyle. I think they secretly hope carbon taxes won't be too high while electricity and holiday travel remain affordable. A few silicon panels and wind farms here and there will provide the necessary assurance. If there is a carbon crisis either fuel depletion or climate dramas perhaps it will be much later. That's why excuses will be found to keep burning and exporting coal and gas, carbon taxes or not. In Australia we can postpone the reality check for a decade or two except others will want some of what we have.

Future needs of essential construction materials such as all metals produced from oxide or sulphide ores and such things as cement, chemicals and plastics require fossil fuels either for chemical reduction purposes or feedstock. If we wish the human species to exist for millennia we need to conserve fossil fuel for those essentials for the humans living in those millennia.

Our energy needs can be supplied by thorium nuclear power stations for 20-50,000 years or by uranium reactors for a significant proportion of that time span.

Uranium fuelled nuclear reactors can be frightening but nowhere near as frightening to thinking people as what would be likely if we fail to conserve fossil fuels.

Although I don't agree with the author's initial assertion that alternative energy can produce base load power - we have yet to see an effective base-load alternative-energy plant of any size, despite years of trying - I do agree with the general thrust of the article.

Producing power through alternative energy in sufficient amounts to make a real difference, has been shown to be an urban greenie pipe dream. Its just not going to happen.

Diesendorf, who wrote the original ridiculous article to which the author refers, should be seen off the premises, without a goodbye.

Dr Ted

You are using science to argue against a faith based delusion. Prophets Gore, Flannery and others will continue to rake in the millions as their faithful disciples in Government continue to be deceitful and gullible.

Again Ted Trainer writes without having read or understood the Zero Carbon Australia report. The system is appropriately sized so that it can entirely run on the steam plant. (Steam is created from heat exchange with Molten Salt Storage System which is charged by a Molten Salt Power Tower heliostat Mirror field) Without any wind blowing.

That said, in version 2.0 we will be using proper hub height wind data and we expect the modelling to show that half of the annual average output expected from wind will always be available. This has been tested by NREL in the United States and they get even better results. Comparisons to tiny Ireland or the UK are not appropriate as Australia is 7million square kilometres of land

Totally agree with the article's conclusion "We must move to full dependence on renewable energy sources as soon as possible. We can all live well on them...but not in consumer-capitalist societies"

Energy efficiency and food efficeincy have to be the number one goals
e.g. Driver-only car is about 2% efficient; loaded electric train is at least 10 times as efficeint- more so than walking. Grains can provide protein and energy more than 10 times as efficeintly as beef with less than 5% of the emissions. (www.ghgenergycalc.com.au)

You seemed to cover most renewable sources but perhaps a little too jaundiced. Did you know that Sweden already obtains 32% of its total energy (not just electricity) from biomass? Australia is at least as well placed with waste biomass(plantation residues and sugar cane) and huge areas currently used for grazing which can produce woody biomass at viable yields of at least 3 tonnes dry biomass/ ha. My chapter 20 in 'The Biochar Revolution' recently published explains this.

Also TRI-GENERATION (combined heat and power). Gas (either fossil or biogas or hydrogen) is piped to the cities / industrial areas where electricity is generated and the waste heat used for heating and cooling. Eighty percent efficient; more than twice as effcient as electric power stations. Whole cities do this in Europe; running 'off grid". Sydney CBD is in the process of converting as we speak. Google 'Woking, Alan Jones'.

While this article is very convincing I don't think people will take it on board because, given the fact that we must all 'pay the rent' we can't afford to - our lives revolve around this basic requirement and to meet it we NEED the income. We can't simplify to anything like the extent advocated when to earn such incomes we MUST maintain a certain work lifestyle.

In order to change we would need to be able to achieve housing security without having to rely on the very system which is 'unsustainable'.

That would involve a new approach to land - a recognition by virtue of our right to life, that land, like air water & sunlight is a natural right. Indigeneous cultures have told us we are of the land, not its owners that man can no more own the land we walk upon than the air we breathe.

How could this work without revolution or disruption? see video at http://www.ntw.110mb.com/

*Prophets Gore, Flannery and others will continue to rake in the millions*

Sheesh, talk about the pot calling the kettle black!

Those tv evangelists have been raking in the mega millions for
decades. All tax free too!

MattWright - we don't need another lecture on how those plants work. We need to see one which is working as advertised, and where its performance has been certified by an independent group. Never mind further calculations and assurances that its all happened as planned. Show us a working plant.

The Spanish Feed-in-Tariff only pays for units delivered to the grid. The baseload solar plants, and wind turbines that receive the Spanish Feed in Tarrif have their output published by the Spanish government. They wouldn't be getting banks lining up behind them unless their output would cause them to make a profit by delivering units and achieving the Feed-in-Tariff .. Just follow the logic.

MattWright - you've picked an extremely bad example to make your point. The reason there are so many alternate energy projects in Spain, and they can get funding, is that they are very heavily subsidised.

I saw one estimate that wind farms they are paid about three times the going rate for their power, and PV projects eight times or some such. and none of that takes into account the need to build additional transmission towers and back-up power plants.

Nor are any of the Spanish solar pilot plants, which they trumpet, count as truly base load, although they aspire to be..

The problem with this article is that it assumes people are going to be absorbing their energy through a centralized provider generating it from a single site, instead of purchasing their own units and installing them on their own (of which both PV solar AND wind are available).

With the alternative in mind, people actually buying these devices and living off them as much as they can and excess grid power to a minimum, THEIR affluence would go up considerably- considering how much we are ripped off by electricity companies these days by every monthly bill.

Thanks Ted Trainer,
finally someone out there who speaks my language!
I shall read your link http://ssis.arts.unsw.edu.au/tsw/ with great interest.
The real problem though is halting the current insanity; I'll be interested to see if you have a plan for that. Creating a sustainable economy is eminently doable; stopping this runaway train is the hard part!

*finally someone out there who speaks my language!*

Ah Squeers, finally there are two of you!

Now a little problem. Today another 250'000 mouths were added to
the human population. Tomorrow the same will happen. The day
after that too. etc.

Yabby,

if you look at some of the material in this article's links, those questions are addressed. I've never said it's going to be easy!
It's unambiguously stated here, for instance: http://ssis.arts.unsw.edu.au/tsw/TheTransitionProcess.html
that "There is no possibility of significant structural change in the near future", and that "There will be no significant change while the supermarket shelves remain well stocked".
I think this is absolutely correct. More and more people are discontented with consumerism and are starting to get nervous about the hysterical pitch of bailouts, stimulous spending, the mania for economic growth etc. It's crazy! Yet the ideology overall will hold until the cracks widen. (I'm listening to RN on the IMF hegemon while I write this).
We're going to have to wait for the train to derail or run out of track, but that there's no doubt in my mind it will.

In the meantime, Yabby, you can just label people like me "alarmists".
But I'm not alarmed; I want the whole damn thing to collapse, hopefully in a way that we can salvage sustainable lives.

Spain is a great example. And paying 3x the prevailing rate for wind derived power (in Australia we pay about 2x) is a good deal.

Because they're only doing that for the first 10 or 20Gigawatts and then the price comes down towards parity with conventional coal and gas CCGT

The beauty of it is the fuel cost is fixed for ever. Whereas with coal, gas an uranium the fuel price is going up and up in the short-mid term.

The world needs a fixed cost of energy and renewables are providing that and with each 1000MW of Wind or PV installed globally the price drops for the next 1000MW - that's where the advantage of government investments in the technology comes in.

For those that are into Climate Denial and Baseload Renewable Energy Denial. The plant Gemasolar built by Spanish Engineering giant runs 75% capacity factor. That's compared to the feeble NSW coal plants which are averaging 63% annual capacity factor.

SENER as lead company in the European Space program puts rockets and satellites up in orbit and they built much of the Spanish Nuclear plants. These guys know how to do serious industrial facilities.

In the USA Solar Reserve which uses UTC/Pratt & Whitney Rocketdyne (half of the world's commercial Jets run on Pratt & Whitney engines)technology is building Solar 110MW and Solar 150MW units which are under construction backed by US DoE loan guarantees.

This is baseload Solar power, 24x7 Solar, 365 days a year solar. Solar Power around the clock. Solar Power all through the night.

It's time for the renewable energy deniers to get a science lesson.

MattWright,

>> Because they're only doing that for the first 10 or 20Gigawatts and then the price comes down towards parity with conventional coal and gas CCGT

The beauty of it is the fuel cost is fixed for ever. Whereas with coal, gas an uranium the fuel price is going up and up in the short-mid term <<

Which is precisely why the fossil fuel industries are spending so much on feeding the public misinformation and propaganda. Just like Tobacco did.

Matt the issue isn’t with the science. It’s with the economics.

ABARE data (http://www.abare.gov.au/publications_html/energy/energy_10/energy_proj.pdf) suggests that 2015 costs per MWh for solar thermal with storage will be 2 to 3 times the cost per MWh of a nuclear plant. It’s not clear whether the storage cost is for 24 hours so the solar cost may even be higher. Solar thermal costs rang from $240/MWh to $700/MWh depending on the technology. New CCGT ranges from $60-$120/MWh so we need a carbon price of at least $375 (0.4 tonnes/MWh) to justify building solar thermal plants rather than CCGT with a wholesale electricity cost at least 4 times higher.

Based on ABARE costings, new nuclear costs $150-200/MWh. So we need a carbon price of $150 to justify building nuclear rather than CCGT.

Before you tell me that the cost of solar thermal will drop dramatically by 2020, new nuclear plants are being built for between $60-$100/MWh according to IEA (about the cost of CCGT) so the ABARE numbers look on the high side already.

How are you going to persuade an informed populace that they should pay so much more for their electricity when we have viable much cheaper alternatives already? Oh and BTW, these costs do not include transmission lines to the new solar thermal plants.

The renewables have banks lining up to fund them, as the governments are contracted to pay nearly 10x the cost of fossil fuel generated power.

The new large intrinsically safe reactors are likely to cost only about 2x the cost of fossil fuels.

MattWright,

It's encouraging that there's so much potential for renewable energy, but the burden of the article is that no innovation alters the central fact that Western consumerism is unsustainable, even in its current elitist dispensation, and that the planet cannot possibly support it in the long term, or in the expansion paradigm.
Also, you say that "The beauty of it [renewables] is the fuel cost is fixed for ever".
This clearly fails to take economics into account. In the current system--the best of all possible worlds--fuel costs are and will be decided by the market and demand, and demand is set to grow--ad infinitum so far the cheery liberal-rationalists are concerned. And since unless we find a way to tap the sun's energy direct, or something of the sort, renewable energy will never be able to be taken for granted, and energy costs will continue to rise.
Until we adapt to the biological conditions in a sustainable way--that is as long as we remain bent on endless growth--the cost of energy will go up and the quality and diversity of life on planet Earth will go down.

ABARE costs are completely discredited.

For better cost curves and a chart showing just how bad EPRI (Industry Lobby) derived cost curved used by RET / ABARE and AEMO - try Garnaut Review Commissioned work by the University of Melbourne Energy Research institute here.

http://www.garnautreview.org.au/update-2011/commissioned-work/renewable-energy-technology-cost-review.pdf

Squeers - But the article is completely wrong and Ted Trainer is not an engineer and fails in his ability to do basic maths.

That is the problem with the article, it's an ideological position much removed from reality dressed up as a report on someone doing some analysis and coming up with some conclusions.

As for Nuclear reactors
2x the cost of regular fuel bollicks. The world has never built a GenIII+ reactor. They're under construction but not one light bulb anywhere in the world has ever been powered by one.

The leading project in the world, caused a massive write down of $2 Billion dollars when Siemens pulled out. Areva has done their dough - the Finish project is $4 Billion over budget and 4 years behind schedule with another 2-3 years to go (at least)

As for 2nd generation - the type that are completely unacceptable in the west for new builds. That is what gets built in China, South Korea etc - those countries that place less value on safety.

MattWright,

I respect your expertise in this area, but the article isn't only about energy supply, which is only one facet of the multivalent crisis that confronts a system predicated on endless growth within finite and fragile conditions. If you think you can empirically dismiss the holistic dimensions of sustainable human societies, you're the one who's "completely wrong".
"Ted Trainer is not an engineer and fails in his ability to do basic maths".
I missed the bit where he tried to reduce the precarious complexity of biological balance to an equation and failed?
You seem to be basing your optimism on the abstract. The Earth's biosphere is not a laboratory or a computer!

"That is the problem with the article, it's an ideological position much removed from reality dressed up as a report on someone doing some analysis and coming up with some conclusions".

That is the problem with liberal-rationalism! it thinks it's above ideological "and" biological concerns; therein "it" is the view that's "removed from reality"!

I have the greatest respect for empiricism ceteris paribus, but in the real world it's only a help-mate to human reason, philosophy and ideology, and not a replacement!

Just to clarify, are you arguing that we can just continue, business as usual, and that renewables will solve all our problems?
The author of the article is taking a more rounded view.

I notice in today's Finanancial Review, that Shell are about to
start building the first of a series of LNG platforms, in
South Korea. The first one will be used off our NW coast.

They reckon that this will unlock about 1 Trilion $ worth of gas
in Australian waters alone, gas too far away to pipe to other
areas, which they can access with these rigs.

So Squeers, I don't like your chances. People will simply keep
going, because they can. Sadly, in the process, they will
destroy most other species and their habitats, for of course,
only people matter to most.

You focus on Western consumerism. Fact is, even if Western
consumerism stopped tomorrow, it would not make a hell of a lot
of difference.

In the last 12 years, we've added 1 billion extra people. In just
12 years. One day the whole shebang will crash, but not yet.

So unlike yourself, I'm not about to go on any guilt trips

MattWright,

The CANDU reactors are Gen3 and there are at least 6 running, and nearly 20 under construction.

The 2x cost of fossil fuels is based on Europe, (mostly gas) not on Australia, which would be about 3-4x

Matt, the University of Melbourne Energy Research material you refer to didn't use the EPRI data in their CSP analysis so it's difficult to see how it is "completely discredited".

I note that one of the lead authors of the University's material was also your joint lead author in the Zero Carbon Australia Stationary Energy Plan.

When the IEA, US DOE and ABARE start using the University's analysis rather than their own or EPRI's then I will be more disposed to using it.

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

First of all I think the title of the article is wrong. It should be "Why the world can't remain affluent if we want to rely on renewable energy".

Actually, if the truth be told, there is absolutely no way that we are going to remain affluent at all, in spite of technology. At present we are consuming renewable resources at about one and a half times the capacity of the planet to produce them. It is beyond the power of governments to provide a solution to this problem, and it will ultimately be determined by market forces which will drive up the cost of living to unmanageable heights. The world population has already reached the point of no return, but our insatiable demands for energy and food will see us going the way of the Mayans and the prophesies of Malthus will be fulfilled.

David

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.

"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.

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.

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.