Roses1,

I am not a member of any party, and have held the nome de plume prior to the 2007 elections. I work as an electrical engineer for heavy industry. I also hold a degree in economics and and MBA. I have designed and built co generation plant and worked with boilers that burnt a variety of fuels.

Generation can only be considered base load if it has guaranteed availability. For example the bagasse generation in the sugar mill is available for 3-5 months during the harvesting of the cane, otherwise it remains dormant.

Reliable sources include waste from pulp making, but are generally limited and consumed by the industry concerned.

10- 15% of Australia's generation would be at least 4000 MW of generation, at 200 small 20MW generating plants each consuming about 40ton per hr of biomass with a total of 8000t/hr.

Secondly, unless one has a clean stream such as bagasse or wood waste, most biomass fuels are contaminated with plastics etc and require expensive scrubbing systems.

From a power engineer the dream of 10% electricity generation via biomass is wildly impractical.

Peak-carbon sources is not about running out - it is trying to avoid the consequences of the coming squabble about who OWNS what. A tax on those who use carbon irresponsibly is a small price to pay if it helps us avoid that outcome.

ah now I understand the "viper" comments and all the insults roses1 always throws about when posting .. it's because he gains his income from being a "carbon consultant" a paid spruiker of carbon taxes and such

No wonder anyone who disagrees is attacked with insults and bile

Are you worried you might have to get a real job? Is that why you attack people the way you do? Vipers, deniers, frauds etc tec .. when the reality is they might affect your income.

Nothing rational or objective required is there rosy, it's all about the money after all!

You call people frauds and in the pay of whomever, when you yourself are in the pay of the opposition to skepticism. Really, pot kettle black .. does anyone ever call you a fraud, I wonder.

What a laugh .. that will keep me amused for days,

Custard, it appears that the Qld government wants us to use more energy. I posted this link on another thread earlier.

http://www.couriermail.com.au/money/money-matters/power-play-hits-struggling-families/story-fn3hskur-1226066795854

Qld electricity prices are due to rise because we didn't use enough power last summer, if we use more next summer they might lower the price.

On the one hand we get a tax to try and force us to lower energy usage and on the other hand increased prices for not using enough. Go figure.

R0bert

Curm :
The two columns in the table refer to biomass combustion entirely for energy and biomass pyrolysis to energy and charcoal.

As to your suggestion that we could only obtain 1% of energy from biomass, Scandinavian countries already do much better -Sweden 32%, Finland 27% and Denmark 27%. http://www.biomassbenefitsns.ca/news.

Shadow minister - yes that's a lot of biomass and a lot of small power stations - entirely different to our current centralized generation. Part of this would be a dispersed grid, into which solar and wind energy would also be fed.

Dedicated biomass would not be intermittent production would be continuous. I also doublt your claim about bagasse only generating for a few months of the year - there is such as thing as fuel storage.

Hi Ben,

You need to stabilise population growth from the 1.2 million extra people, we are growing by every 3 years. ( Simply abolish the baby bonus.......from ABS data, our birthrate is double our deathrate and make our emmigration rate...around 70k per year to equal our immigration rate. )

The billions being spent on growth infrastructure ( ie pollution) can then be re-directed to research and development of emerging technologies, health and education.

No need for a carbon tax and stabilisation will solve all the "intractible" problems facing Australia and the World.

Cheers,

Ralph