I presume the Climate Change Authority has a mission statement about reducing CO2 but I doubt it requires them to pick technology winners such as wind and solar. But that's just what the recent RET review has done. It is noteworthy that places with high wind penetration (Germany, Denmark, South Australia) also have very high electricity prices.

One perspective on wind power is that of a gas saver. That is when the wind blows then quick responding gas fired power stations can be throttled back. This can be compared with the cost of doing the whole job with gas alone. Invariably the cost of the CO2 saved is many multiples of $23 the current CO2 price. That's while we still have affordable gas.

So apart from additional financial cost of a partially duplicated generating system there is the issue of wind power when gas backup is prohibitively expensive. The Danes claim to solve this problem by burning hay instead of gas http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aved%C3%B8re_Power_Station
In reality they get hydro from other countries when the wind doesn't blow. Australia with 70% desert may not have either the hydro backup or hay burning option when gas is expensive.

I think the market should decide how much wind power it wants now and in the future without prescribing targets.

“For those, including this writer, who believe that wind power is a total waste of time that is of no particular concern, expect that substantial fines may result, and consumers (that's us) may foot the bill.”

I agree. And here are two reasons:

The cost of wind power is very high, and
It is virtually useless. It avoids about half as much CO2 as claimed by the proponents, and supplies unreliable power that causes costly measures to compensate so that consumers get the quality power supply they require.

Wind generated electricity costs aver $100/MWh [1] which is about three times the cost of electricity from conventional baseload sources. Consumers pay the difference one way or another. Government is mandating renewable energy which in reality means wind power. The cost of the subsidies we are forced to pay one way or another total to about $30 billion by 2020. Think of the good we could do with $30 billion if not wasted on these ideological beliefs like renewable energy.

Wind generation avoids about half as much CO2 emissions as claimed by wind power proponents [2].

Because wind is high cost and reduces little CO2, the CO2 abatement cost is very high. For the Australian National Electricity Market, if run on mostly renewable energy and gas for back up generation, the CO2 abatement cost would be about $300 per tonne. That’s about thirty times the current EU carbon price and about ten times the Treasurer’s estimated cost of the Australian ETS in 2020.

How ridiculous is that? How incompetent is a government that would impose such a scheme on Australia? Of course, like most of their policies, they have not done the cost/benefit analyses. If they did they’d find the costs are very high and the benefits negligible.

[1] BREE, 2012 AETA, Table 4.2.9 http://bree.gov.au/documents/publications/aeta/Australian_Energy_Technology_Assessment.pdf

[2] Joe Wheatley, 2012, Quantifying CO2 savings from wind power: Ireland http://docs.wind-watch.org/Wheatley-Ireland-CO2.pdf

I agree with Mark on this one. Further, meeting the world's total energy demands in 2030 with renewable energy alone would take an estimated 3.8 million wind turbines (each with twice the capacity of today's largest machines), 720,000 wave devices, 5,350 geothermal plants, 900 hydroelectric plants, 490,000 tidal turbines, 1.7 billion rooftop photovoltaic systems, 40,000 solar photovoltaic plants, and 49,000 concentrated solar power systems. Never mind the planets lack of neodymium.

Renewables have a low energy returned on energy invested (EROEI), or energy profit ratio, than we are usually accustomed to.

Achievable and maintainable levels of socio-economic complexity are closely tied to available energy supply, moving from high EROEI energy source to much lower ones will have significant implications for the level of complexity we can sustain in our societies moving forward.

Exploiting low EROEI energy sources is going to be a highly complex, energy-intensive activity and one that I doubt we can build at the scale required to sustain our ever growing, energy intensive way of life.

A more sensible and balanced approach, without the growth mantra at the forefront of every policy, economic, social and environmental endeavour, would be, in my view, a much more sensible approach than that which currently endures today.

We need to change how we live, do business, travel, grow food, transport goods and the myriad of other activities we take for granted in our current fossil fuelled lives.

The earth, our home is truly finite, and unfortunately it is highly unlikely technology can solve all of these predicaments.
Problems can be solved, predicaments can’t.

"The earth, our home is truly finite"

Wrong. Please see previous explanation re:sun

Mark Lawson here..

For once, at least to date, I won't take issue with any of the posts on an article of mine, even that of Geoff of Perth.. however, Geoff does say the only solution is to change how we do things.. That just isn't going to happen.

In any case, thanks to the revolution in the oil and gas industry, fossil fuels are going to be around for a long time yet..

Stezza, I am sure the earth (in terms of human capacity to survive) is 100% finite, when the Sun does go Super Nova or whatever it does in the future, human life if not already extinct, will become so less than 8 minutes later!

Energy costs are in line with efficiency factors or the energy coefficient.
Costing around 3 cents per kilowatt hour to make, coal fired power, i.e., has a coefficient of just 20%!
Meaning, only 20% of the calories consumed arrive as usable energy at the consumers residence/shop/factory.
Furthermore, 50% of the carbon created by coal-fired power is created as transmission losses, in the wires!
Piped gas powering an in-house stationary engine, has an energy coefficient, of around 40%.
Moreover, given the lower carbon levels in the molecular or covalent bond, NG/biogas/methane produces 40% less carbon than most other hydrocarbon fuels.
Replace the stationary engine with a ceramic cell and the energy coefficient nudges 60%, the best and lowest costing energy provision in the world?
Replace NG with locally produced and endlessly sustainable biogas, created onsite, by utilising instead of wasting waste, to provide virtually costless power on demand; and endlessly available free hot water.
I believe, we would spend far less, even where current costs of ceramic cells for average households are around forty thousand, the odourless two tank digester system, thirty thousand, and the storage bladder another two thousand dollars?
Look, people buy and pay off a couple of cars for more than that, in the same time frame!
[My son's current hand-me-down car is over twenty years old, been three times round the clock; and given regular maintenance, is still running reliably!
If we were wisely led, we would start right now, building gas/ceramic cell powered electric cars; given the much lower service requirements and vastly extended longevity!
Gas/electric vehicles would therefore, cost less in the long run!
We have copious gas, the Middle East is becoming more volatile by the day, yet here we are still importing OIL!]
A gas/ceramic cell per household, would likely still cost less over a forward projected ten years? Than say, thirty thousand households sharing the cost of a wind turbine supplemented with gas fired turbine power, and the wholesale and retail providers profit margins, cost recovery, debt servicing, maintenance charges, shareholders dividends, and tax liabilities etc/etc.
Rhrosty.

Rhrosty I have had quite a bit to do with islands. Some where people just lived, some where they grew things like copra & cocoa, & some where people just went for holidays.

All these islands had a greater or lessor problem with electrical power.

Even with a large investment in generating capacity, & a perhaps greater investment in people who were really good at driving that capacity, the greatest problem in their lives was that power.

The problem was so great that I have seen investments into the millions abandoned, & more millions spent on bringing "town power" to these islands, where at all possible. The only thing that ever even slightly approached the problem of electricity supply was that of water.

Are you really suggesting that in this day & age, when 99.9% of people could not even start their car, if twisting the key did not work, we should ask the average suburbanite to start running their own electrical power systems?

If nothing else, such a system should solve the over population problem. I'm sure the death rate of these folk "just checking why the lights went out" would make the road toll look like a success story

I'd add to Hasbeen's comment: if the power goes out the vast majority of city dwellers would die within a week.

No power means:
- no water supply
- no petrol or diesel (the bowsers' don't work) so you can't get out of the city to get to water
- no banks or ATM's - so no money
- no food

In what might actually be a real -- as opposed to imaginary -- turning point for the climate change industry, the British Energy Minister has declared that 'enough is enough' when it comes to windmills:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/energy/9644558/Death-knell-for-wind-farms-Enough-is-Enough-says-minister.html

Hopefully Australia won't have to waste quite so much money for quite so long before our ministers wake up to the facts.

Mark Lawson here

I would second the comments made by Peter Lang and Hasbeen on Rhosty's post.. if individual consumers need to generate their own power for some reason then they won't get batteries, a windmill and solar panels, or those advanced things that Rhosty mentions.. they will get a diesel generator.. its cheaper and more reliable, but even a generator has its problems and so its better to outsource the problem of power to professionals - namely the state wide grids - if at all possible.

The problem with wind is that no only is it hitting major barriers in getting more farms built, it is unsuited to the generation of power on the scale that activists want.. As I shall point out in other articles there are real problems with the European systems taking on large amounts of wind..

Well according to the author, it appears that moving to renewal energy sources is just too difficult and simply not worth the trouble.

Let somebody else find a solution after the last drop of oil has been used up. We'll all be long gone by then and they will probably be smarter than us too, so let's party now, while we can.

Is that the correct attitude?

Do stop worrying wobbles, if we run out of oil & gas, we'll just go back to all that coal you greenies made us leave in the ground.

If that runs out, there is all that excess timber growing all over once productive grazing land to burn.

After that we will of course have to burn the greenies, not at the stake as they would like to burn the rest of us, but in our power houses. Bet there is a sudden reduction in greenies, before we get anything useful out of them.

Having eliminated greenie opposition, we can then harvest the methane from the tundra.

After that, if the sun has not gone nova by then, it will be the methane clathrate, harvested from the deep ocean.

By then, about 4012, the people of the day can do their own thing, I won't really care.

All this is of course ignoring much new evidence that hydrocarbons are welling up through the mantle, & not actually dead dinosaurs, so will not run out. The depth that oil is being found, under quite deep oceans does tend to disprove the dead dinosaurs theory, but does it really matter?

The answer is obvious, Nuclear energy is far cheaper and safer than most renewable options, it is also far more reliable.

All these so called, green powers, have one thing in common. They are un reliable.

so, what do we do to fill the void.

We have vast reserves of natural gas, but we need to sell that for peanuts, us we have too many expenses and not enough revenue.

Do we have coal fired power stations sitting there 'on hold'.

Of cause, like any business, if they are under producing, they are also non viable. So who subsidizes these?

The other problem we face, is that in order to prosper, we need growth, and growth needs fuel.

I still think our focus should be on carbon capture, rather than setting unrealistic reduction targets.

One way is to change building standards and increase the amount of timber used, as timber stores carbon for as long as the house stands.

The trees can be plantation grown, which in turn captures carbon.

Mark Lawson here

wobbles

I never said it would be too difficult so don't do it.. th article says that the shift to renewables has proved far more difficult than first imagined, and for various reasons the sector is not growing at anything like the rate required to meet govenment targets.

I didn't address the point about whether alt energy actually saves carbon in the article (apart from a brief remark).. I will get into that at another time, but if you want my considered opinion now they are largely a waste of time and money, even from the point of view of saving carbon..

Wind and solar are going gang busters in Victoria. The sea used to be good for carbon storage, but with the ocean warming is is giving up the carbon stores.

Curmudgeon,

Point taken, but from what I can see of the avalanche of articles still being published they typically range from outright denial to token criticism of every solution put forward.

After examination, most sources appear to be only a couple of degrees of separation away from vested corporate interests so I doubt that anything significant is likely to be done for many years to come.

None of the opinions bother to offer any real alternatives so it's easy to question motives beyond then being part of the Manufactured Doubt Industry.

I think the only likely practical alternative will be to introduce rationing.

Hasbeen,
Not everybody who doesn't blindly accept unsupported conservatively sponsored views can be automatically labelled a greenie, a leftist or a socialist.

wobbles

just saw your comment.. I don't know where you got the idea that denial of alt energy had something to do with corporate interests.. its doesn't. Corporate interests couldn't care less. The energy market has not been affected at all by alt energy because it simply isn't displacing fossil fuel - certainly not to any, significant degree..

The reason that a lot of people are dismissive of alt energy is that it is dismissable.. At the moment there just isn't any viable soloution beyond switching to gas... Rationing will never occur.

The wind is always blowing somewhere, the sun is shining somewhere.
Nuclear power will never happen.
Power usage is down. Six coal fired generators have shut down.
The more solar power generated, the less dirty power is needed. Makes cense don't it.

Does it make sense 579.

I think you would ne hard pressed to find any of the many workers, who's Jobs have gone from the six power stations, that would agree with you.

The cleanest country will mean little if we don't have to.jobs.

Natural progression it is. The writing has been on the wall for quite some time. Why not work in solar, it's a growing business.
I have been solar for four years in December this year.
Between solar and batteries my power bill hardly exists, one thing you can't do away with is the service fee.

I do find it interesting that the left/green mob have been captured by the most shonky capitalists on the planet, those in the alternate power business.

Solar is only a growing business because of the money being thrown at it in the way of subsidies.

Once the honeymoon is over, people will have to work with the unreliability of alternative power and, real power from coal will be hugely expensive, esspecially if it becomes the back up source, something I doubt will actually happen.

The ones in the alt power here are the coal generators.
I say coal will go by the wayside.
Some states are going gross power for solar, which gives more of the benefit to the owners of solar.
Power costing will shift to quantity costing. You will bye your power in kwh lots. Your choice who you get your power from.
Victoria is miles in front with this.
With hydro generation that is in place now, and the rate solar and wind is being taken up, coal will not be needed.

579,

Renewable power supplies about 10% of electricity, most coming from long existing Hydro plants which has grown from the unusually high rains. The huge expansion of wind farms still only produce 2.2%, and solar roof top power is about 0.2%.

The RET has cost energy users about as much as the new carbon tax, and on the present trajectory is highly unlikely to meet the 20% target by 2020. With average hydro generation, the renewables are unlikely to exceed 10% in 2020.

Even Juliar's carbon tax estimates see emissions increase by 7%, and the coal generators are set to continue full production for decades.

Soaring power prices will see consumers changing their minds with regards nuclear, as it did in France.

The RET, federal renewable energy subsidies and carbon tax/ETS will cost electricity consumers and taxpayers a total of about $30 billion by 2020.

What will we get for that and what could we get for that amount of money?

What will we get?

- reduced Australian competitiveness - means real wages will grow more slowly than they otherwise would and standard of living will fall behind other countries. That means less development of Health, Education, infrastructure etc. than would otherwise be the case.

- No reduction in global emissions, perhaps and increase as our energy intensive industries move to other countries where energy is cheaper

- No change in climate, sea levels, rainfall in the Murray Darling Basin, no change in the ecology of Great Barrier Reef of Kakadu.

What could we have for $30 billion?

About half that amount, if provided as appropriate incentives would be sufficient, to allow nuclear to replace coal power stations with cost competitive electricity. The $15 billion would be applied as loan guarantees and to set up the regulatory regime; this would be a sufficient signal to tell investors that the government is serious about going nuclear. The incentive would be to get costs for Australia down from 'First of a Kind' (FOAK) to 'nth of a kind' (NOAK).

We'd also need to spend money to educate the public so most of them can get over their nuclear phobia. This phobia is deeply ingrained in the public because of 50 years of anti nuclear scaremongering. Of course there will be some deniers who will never be open to challenging their beliefs.

Other benefits of stopping wasting money on renewable energy would be better and more:
- Health system (hospitals, doctors, nurses, paramedics, ambulances, nursing homes, etc

- Education system - universities, faculties, trade colleges, schools teachers, etc

- infrastructure - better cities, water, sewage, electricity, roads, etc

- more funds for improving environmental practices

Here’s an example of how loony are some of the warmists ideas

Sequestering dry ice (CO2 ice) in Antarctica has recently been proposed in a scientific paper; it is in press. And the authors are proposing the US government fund building of a prototype in Antarctica. You can read the paper here:
“CO2 Snow Deposition in Antarctica to Curtail Anthropogenic Global Warming”
http://curryja.files.wordpress.com/2012/08/co2_snow_deposition.pdf

I've done a critique and a rough costing, see here:
http://judithcurry.com/2012/08/24/a-modest-proposal-for-sequestration-of-co2-in-the-antarctic/#comment-233330

In my summary I compared the CO2 abatement cost using this scheme with other ways to abate CO2.
http://judithcurry.com/2012/08/24/a-modest-proposal-for-sequestration-of-co2-in-the-antarctic/#comment-234611

Here are the author's replies to my criticisms:
http://judithcurry.com/2012/08/24/a-modest-proposal-for-sequestration-of-co2-in-the-antarctic/#comment-241228

My reply to him:
http://judithcurry.com/2012/08/24/a-modest-proposal-for-sequestration-of-co2-in-the-antarctic/#comment-24142

Why link every thing to AGW. The vulnerable price of oil is enough to set up alt energy.
There is no conspiracy just long term economics.
You want the status quo, but will the world let you have that.
The loony warmists as u say may just have something.
It's to easy to deny everything.

How on earth anyone can even think to believe we can reduce emissions by 20% is simply kidding the selves, unless of cause we are prepared to stop our growth, along with the global growth, for which our resources will be required.

It's utterly pointless reducing emissions here, then allowing them to be created elsewhere, with our coal.

Carbon capture must be at the forefront of research, as capturing/storing carbon would be a far better option, unless of cause we intend to go backwards, depriving future generations of the lifestyle we enjoy ourselves.

Of cause we can't do the research here, as our costs are too high, but surely we can help fund it elsewhere.

I still maintain that it's the answer.

As for nuclear, it will come, must come, as one thing we have that most other countries don't have, is plenty of open space where plants could be established hundreds of kilometers from civilizations.

We are also going to have no shortage of water at our disposal from the LNG expansion.

I'm sure the loony warmists have something 579. It is probably a new virus.

What ever it is, you can be sure one of the symptoms will be hand in pocket syndrome.

Yep I can feel their hands in my pocket right now.

Butch Carbon storage, the ocean is saturated, and giving up its stores due to rising temperature. So are we going to grow trees on farm land.
You know what sort of bramble grows in outback regions, so let us in on the storage systems you are proposing.
Your nuclear generator in the outback, is wishful thinking, to far to push power down the line for a start. Power is like a water pipe it gets slower the further you go. We rely on 50 hz not 10.5 hz.
Instead of coming up with wild ideas, tell us some situations of how your ideas might work.

579

" Power is like a water pipe it gets slower the further you go. We rely on 50 hz not 10.5 hz."

What a pile of clap trap. There would be a voltage drop not frequency drop. That would be physically impossible. That's why they have high Voltage transmission, and why much of NSW is supplied from the La trobe valley.

The only obstacle to clean nuclear power is the idiotic policies and outright BS peddled by the greens.

I knew it was one way or the other. We get snowey power in the north and central vic.
Nuclear power will not happen this century, if ever. Hardly necessary.

Australian society as a whole is pathetically and illogically frightened of all things nuclear. Many countries have more sense. UK is going ahead with new plants (a move supported by both the Conservative government and the Labour opposition.) China has 16 reactors at present and is building 26 more. It is beginning to push forward with the development of liquid salt thorium reactors, a development that promises power for a gigantic period of time. An Indian spokesman has recently stated that nuclear energy is essential for India to become energy independent.The country is talking 20000MW by 2020.
And Australia? We wet ourselves with fear of an almost medieval sort - belief not fact. We put nice little things on the roof and feel righteous;and where do the things on the roof come from? China!
Seems to me there are really few choices: (1)use carbon/hydrocarbon based fuel for as long as possible (using modern high efficiency gas equipment), (2)Nuclear, U based at first and Thorium as things develop,(3)magic which is unreliable as well as costly. It is easy talk (sustainable, alternative) in an area that gets few if any power outages. One develops a very different attitude when the power is cut for weeks on end after a cyclone. Believe me, no light, no fans and the temperature 32C with high humidity concentrates the mind.
What is needed is a campaign of education about radiation. Perhaps then, in 20 years or so Oz might realise that they can been fed on BS for a generation. If radiation levels allowed were raised to more sensible levels the price of nuclear sourced energy would fall dramatically. It will not happen. Pitiful.