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 > Abbott's direct action plan on carbon is friendless > Comments

Abbott's direct action plan on carbon is friendless : Comments

By Matt Grudnoff, published 14/7/2011

To have any chance of meeting his emissions targets using his methods Tony Abbott would need to spend $1300 per household per year.

  1. Pages:
  2. 1
  3. Page 2
  4. 3
  5. All
@VK3AUU: I would like someone to check my figures, but according to a rough back of an envelope calculation, that is the equivalent of building ten 500 megawatt atomic power stations.

I tried to check your figures, but may have got lost in a blizzard of noughts. It seems that 5000 Gigga Watts, corrected for nuclear's capacity factor, would only add 2% to our production capacity. That's well under the magic 20%, 20% being what we can add using wind without doing much other work to the grid. Quite apart from anything else it's cheaper than nuclear.
Posted by rstuart, Thursday, 14 July 2011 11:08:35 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
rstuart. The point that I was making is that whatever means you use to produce the equivalent amount of non CO2 emitting power, there isn't a hope in hell of it being put in place by 2020, certainly not if you want to do it with windmills which require backup base load power as well. Nine years isn't a very long time when you are talking about building that sort of generating capacity or its equivalent in more efficient technology which hasn't been invented yet.

David
Posted by VK3AUU, Thursday, 14 July 2011 11:50:51 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
@VK3AUU: there isn't a hope in hell of it being put in place by 2020

Perhaps. I guess you are talking about the equivalent of five new coal fired plants in a decade. It's certainly faster than we have been building them, and is probably going to take more than the carbon tax as it current level to make it happen. But it doesn't sound impossible either.

@VK3AUU: windmills which require backup base load power as well.

That's a myth. They don't. Well not up to the 20% level anyway.

The funny thing about wind turbines is while adding one makes the system more unstable, adding additional turbines after than makes the system more stable up to a point - that point being around the 20% mark. We are nowhere near that 20% and as you say are unlikely to get there by 2020.

I've posted this link in a discussion with Shadow elsewhere, but given you are a ham radio operator I think it will be up your alley as well. It is an article from the IEEE Power & Energy Societies magazine, discussing wind power in some depth in layman's terms. It helps put the claims and counter claims one sees about wind power into perspective. http://www.ieee-pes.org/images/pdf/open-access-milligan.pdf
Posted by rstuart, Thursday, 14 July 2011 12:11:50 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
Unless he puts it in writing I suggest no one believe him.

It will just be one of those "non core promises" the rightards are so fond of.
And they have the hide to go on about "juliar". Talk about pot/kettle.
What I dont understand is why no one else can see the hypocracy?
Posted by mikk, Thursday, 14 July 2011 1:57:41 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
I'm not knocking wind turbines as one method of producing power, I think they have their place. If you put a row of them down the coast of west Tasmania or the coastal strip of Victoria, they would produce a hell of a lot of clean power, but they do have some limitations.

Also, I am not aware of any wind farms which have taken advantage of the anabatic and katabatic winds which almost continually blow up and down the valleys in the mountains, but once again, in the time available, this is probably not possible either.

This whole deal of reducing greenhouse emissions in such a short time, seems to be very long on feel good theory, but somewhat short on practicality, notwithstanding on which side of politics one stands.

David
Posted by VK3AUU, Thursday, 14 July 2011 2:40:09 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
@VK3AUU: Also, I am not aware of any wind farms which have taken advantage of the anabatic and katabatic winds which almost continually blow up and down the valleys in the mountains

If they did indeed provide good prospects area for a large scale wind farm then I would guess someone has looked at it. As you might expect, CSIRO have been tasked with surveying wind resources of the country:

http://www.csiro.au/files/files/pis7.pdf

If you look on the map on page 13, you will see there is a reasonable area near Canberra. I don't know if you have driven past that area, but there are wind turbines there.

@VK3AUU: This whole deal of reducing greenhouse emissions in such a short time, seems to be very long on feel good theory, but somewhat short on practicality, notwithstanding on which side of politics one stands.

I'd say trying to reduce carbon emissions while continuing to grow the population at 1.6% is a fools errand. You proposed adding 2% generation capacity in the period. At 1.6% we will grow the population by 15% in the same 9 year period.

Until the politicians acknowledge the connection between population and CO2 emissions you will get no argument from me the politicians aren't serious about it.
Posted by rstuart, Thursday, 14 July 2011 3:02:37 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. All

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