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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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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
Posted by MattWright, Friday, 20 May 2011 12:13:06 PM
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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'.
Posted by Roses1, Friday, 20 May 2011 12:41:59 PM
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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/
Posted by landrights4all, Friday, 20 May 2011 12:56:59 PM
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*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!
Posted by Yabby, Friday, 20 May 2011 1:07:03 PM
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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.
Posted by Curmudgeon, Friday, 20 May 2011 1:46:24 PM
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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.
Posted by MattWright, Friday, 20 May 2011 4:02:26 PM
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