The reluctance to sacrifice one's standard of living is understandable especially since virtually no one else in the world is doing it, and no one has gone any where near as far.

The net result of Australia going it alone is Zero.

I'm sorry -- WHICH approach is supposed to be like paralysis? Going on with a growing global economy, feeding billions of people, bringing them rapidly out of poverty, improving their health and reducing infant mortality, all through the use of fossil fuels: or going back to the Middle Ages, and staying there?

The reason people oppose AGW 'mitigation' is because it's a bad solution to a non-problem, not because of any kind of hypothetical grief.

And while we're on the subject of 'paralysis', you might want to explain why global temperatures have been paralysed at the same levels for fifteen years.

How about some honesty Jon J? Last year was the hottest ever in the continental US. We broke all kinds of records in Australia during the heatwave which the Climate Commission said was 'exacerbated' by climate change. So stop fighting it and accept it.
A great article thanks Peter. Perhaps the Church can take a lead in helping people come to grips with this impending catastrophe that will be a tragedy for most.

Dear Life/God/Mother Earth.
It's not fair.
I don't like it.
Why does the world have to operate this way?

Because with business as usual into the future we will not survive.
The same old raft of deniers has popped up and are giving us their thoughts on why climate change is not really happening and even if it was, it is not caused by humans.
All good stuff to divert attention away from what is really going to happen.
OK here is the future of Homo Saps.
Peak oil will gradually tighten the screws on the economy.
We are getting a lot of propaganda from big oil about how shale oil and gas is going to save the world and especially America.
This is nonsense of course and already the output is falling because of the high depletion rate and the cost of constantly drilling new wells.
This will inevitably bring on the really big financial crisis and with it start serious rioting from the poorer countries as food shortages get worse.
This will spread to the first world countries as they too feel the pinch.
The rate that global warming is increasing will accelerate.
This will cause even more severe food shortages and of course for countries that depend on oil and gas for heating during their very cold winters will bring more hardship.
By then the health systems will not be able to cope with the increase in health problems due to these events and the death rate will increase.
Eventually the population will start to reduce as it has before under similar circumstances.
Ask the Mayans who did not get their calander right but still disappeared.

Continued
The climate will make a large part of the area on either side of the equator uninhabitable. The population from there will try to migrate to the north and south and will be fiercely resisted by the people there.
If there are still areas where survival is possible, a small population of humans and other life will survive but this is not a given.
I can hear the howls of denialists now, shrieking ” doomsayer”, as they trot out all the usual tortured theories about how it is not happening.
So be it.
Carry on with BAU, continue blocking efforts to really make a difference. You might make a few extra dollars for your electronic bank account, you might be able to build an even bigger Macmansion, you might be able to increase your fleet of fabulous expensive cars, you will even be able to continue to take very expensive holidays in exotic parts for a while longer.
I will not be around to see this but your grandchildren and great grandchildren will curse you for what you have done to them.
I have no grandchildren to be concerned about.
How lucky am I?

Robert,

thanks for reminding us to the real problem which is peak oil and peak coal. We can use those only for a very short period in history after which we will go back to how we lived before. Neither renewables nor nuclear will work without fossil fuels.

That short fossil fuel period in history seems to be half over now and we are going downhill.

What to do? The best bet is probably nothing because nothing can be done. Ingenuity cannot replace fossil fuels. Also it is impossible to save energy.

Cheers
Günter

popnperish
But the fact that temperatures have stalled for the last decade is now widely admitted. James Hansen himself has produced a paper acknowledging this.. see this paper from the Goddard Institute http://www.nasa.gov/pdf/719139main_2012_GISTEMP_summary.pdf He discusses reasons why he thinks temperatures have been flat. Although the mean is steady there are variations around the mean, hence the higher temperatures this year and much cooler temperatures last summer.

Günter
Peak coal? Oh come now.. peak oil was fashionable a few years back but its time has passed. However, peak coal always was really fringe stuff. You have to ignore a lot of reality to believe in it.. you won't find anyone in the coal industry who pays the least mind to it. Some academics and activists will, but what can you expect?

Robert LePage
At least when you rant about peak oil you could acknowledge that your views are now held by a handful of activists on the fringe of even the green movement, which is really fringe. Peak oil beliefs had a broader audience a few years back but not now

@Gunter:

"Neither renewables nor nuclear will work without fossil fuels."

Poppycock!

If/when renewables and nuclear power sources become dominant, it will only be a matter of time before technologies which convert, for example, C02 from air or oceans into liquid and gaseous fuels, which are able to be stored and are suitable for transport use in ships, planes and trucks.

Of course, this cannot happen overnight, but it is certain that it is feasible in the long run and could lead to complete independance from fossil fuels and to truly zero carbon, high energy density fuel sources.

The big question is When, not If. I'm no optimist on this score. It is clearer every month that a huge environmental crash will be essential in order to prompt this transformation. That which should take place over the next hundred years is likely, for many reasons, to have to wait for a century or more, by which time it will be just so much more difficult.

And why is this?

Because intelligent people have chosen to ignore the truth that is climate change and because such as Gunter choose to prattle on about how impossible the necessary changes are, instead of starting with the possible, today.

Gunter. Remember those Japanese soldiers still fighting the war 30 years after the war had ended? Ya gotta feel sorry for them really.

Lamenting? Grieving? The only lamentation I feel is for all those poor people in developing countries who could benefit so much from the misdirection of massive amounts of money being squandered on this hubristic idiocy.

Lamentation that the genuine environmentalists have been sidelined by the amoral IPCC crowd. Disastrous global warming? Refer Curmudgeon link above.

I'm just wondering to what extent all these greenhouse gas spewing bushfires totally cancel out Julia's greenhouse de-spewing projects?

Sure we can throw $Billions at Big Industry to win votes and create a class of Swinging Voter Carbon Brokers but is the real answer to throw those $Billions at bushfire minimisation?

While thinking bushfire - does burning off in fact cancel out all greenhouse gas reduction measures?

John Ridd here. An interesting article but, I think, over pessimistic. The assumption seems to be that AGW is and will take place and that there is no reasonable/viable way to provide ourselves with the reliable energy that we have come to expect.
It may well be true that the human race is incapable of making correct decisions, certainly that seems to be true for Australia, but that does not mean that there is 'no way out' of the problem.
I am convinced that the way forward, a safe way forward, is nuclear power. That is why I last week had an OLO article on the issue. Last July I had another on the crucial question of nuclear/radiation safety.
The author of this present article has influence and perhaps power within the Anglican Church. Bearing in mind that the Christianity is about hope I would ask him seriously to examine the possibilities and promise of nuclear energy, perhaps starting at a low level with my two relevant articles. It would be splendid the think that the Anglican Church would start to hold out hope to their flock and to the wider public. The pessimism of this article is rather unbecoming I think. It is certainly unwarranted.

Watch out folks.

Tinkerbell & her mob have escaped from the foot of the garden, & they've let the flying pigs out too.

Hi Plantagenet,

FYI

“Large wildfires in the western United States can pump as much carbon dioxide into the atmosphere in just a few weeks as cars do in those areas in an entire year, a new study suggests”
http://www.livescience.com/1981-wildfires-release-cars.html

Now factor in the huge fires that often burn across parts of Asia & Africa & South America:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_wildfires

And the billions of little backyard fires –which up till now no one wanted to consider:
“Every winter, a thick cloud of brown smog settles over South Asia, stretching from southern China, across India and Pakistan, to the northern reaches of the Indian Ocean…Now researchers have analyzed the cloud’s composition, and found that two-thirds of the haze is produced by burning biomass, primarily the wood and dung burned to heat houses and cook food throughout the region”
http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/80beats/2009/01/23/asias-great-brown-cloud-is-spewed-by-millions-of-wood-burning-hearths/#.UP3t1Teguac

It makes the Kyoto protocol look like a sick joke –on us!

re nuclear - renewables, a few comments..

You can't mix nuclear and renewables, at least not without gas .. this is because nuclear plants are like brown coal plants in that they are best running at constant output .. powering a nuclear plant up or down is something you want to do slowly. They are base load plants in other words.

But renewables, by their nature, vary a great deal and are intermittent, so to bridge the gap between a nuclear plant and renewables you will need gas turbines and/or hydro if you can get it. In fact, you need nuclear and then gas/hydro sufficient to cover the bulk of all expected output. The planers may then allow some discount for the capacity they keep on hand if there are renewables on the system, but the discount is usually small.

so sorry, you gotta have fossil fuel plants, at least for the foreseeable future.

Curmudgeon
I know I know nothing, that’s why I can only ask questions.
If there is no peak oil why is it then that we try to squeeze oil out of the ground at places like 5 kilometres down in the sea and another two kilometres drilling through the seafloor?
And why do we (they in the US) cancel environment protection laws like Bush did 2005 so we can now get shale oil and gas while doing a lot of damage to the environment? The technology was there for decades, only no one dared to use it because of the damage.
Why did Ted Patzek, chairman of the Department of Petroleum and Geosystems Engineering at the University of Texas at Austin, and published in the August issue of Energy, predict that by mid-century, the world's coal mining will supply only half as much energy as today, see http://news.nationalgeographic.com.au/news/2010/09/100908-energy-peak-coal/
Why did the German coal reserve numbers have to be cut by over 95% when it became obvious that not much more is going to be produced? And why did the Government do everything to keep that report under cover?
JohnBennetts
Everybody can start with the possible today, and so do I. But if you look at the numbers it becomes obvious that running our lifestyle as a whole on renewables is just not possible. I have just returned from a stay in Germany, a country where a large number of roofs are covered with photovaltaics, and there is windpower everywhere. Still they generate over 50% of their electricity with coal. Australia is probably one of the few countries that could be run mainly on renewables but not much is happening

All this has Climate Change guff has only arisen again recently because of a local WEATHER event caused by the delay of the arrival monsoon trough which temporarily gave higher inland temperatures. All the doomsayers are out on the street again with their sandwich boards predicting the end is nigh. If people don't care anymore then the Climate Change lobby have got themselves to blame for their badly scripted blame oriented sales pitch, corruption and incessant and inaccurate predictions which have led to widespread skepticism.

Deniers simply keep restating nonsensical arguments that the scientific community has known to be wrong for a long time.
We can expect widespread denial when the enormity and nature of the problem are so unprecedented that people have no cultural mechanisms for accepting them
Denialism is the employment of rhetorical tactics to give the appearance of argument or legitimate debate, when in actuality there is none. These false arguments are used when one has few or no facts to support one's viewpoint against a scientific consensus or against overwhelming evidence to the contrary. They are effective in distracting from actual useful debate using emotionally appealing, but ultimately empty and illogical assertions.
5 general tactics are used by denialists to sow confusion. They are conspiracy, selectivity (cherry-picking), fake experts, impossible expectations (also known as moving goalposts), and general fallacies of logic.

Part of understanding denialism is knowing that it's futile to argue with them. They also have the advantage of just being able to make things up and it takes forever to knock down each argument as they're only limited by their imagination while we're limited by things like logic and data.

Denialism is about tactics that are used to frustrate legitimate discussion.

Dear oh dear what must many of the Anglican believers think when they read this nonsense. No wonder people have left the 'church ' to join those who think rationally and actually believe the Scriptures. When you divrt from the gospel you end up with this new age mumbo jumbo. Fancy a Dean of the 'church ' praying to 'Dear Life/God/Mother Earth. ' Very sickening indeed. No wonder so many of the young are becoming me centred earth worshippers.

Thanks SPQR

For those references.

Another is The Age, Nov 2, 2009, which reported:

"AUSTRALIA has been accused of pushing for a ''get-out clause'' [for the Copenhagen climate change deal] that would grant it unlimited carbon credits from new forestry plantations while pretending that enormous greenhouse gas emissions from bushfire did not exist.

" [More to the point]...In a year such as 2003, when Victorian fires burned more than a million hectares, this could mean not accounting for up to 200 million tones of carbon dioxide - about a third of Australia's annual emissions."

see http://www.theage.com.au/environment/australias-getout-clause-on-bushfire-slammed-20091101-hrn5.html

Well said Robert LePage, especially this sentence: "Denialism is about tactics that are used to frustrate legitimate discussion." One day these people will be held accountable for holding up necessary action on mitigating climate change. But I have to ask: Are denialists just ignorant or are they being paid by the fossil fuel lobby? Certainly their comments are not characterised by any intelligence, wit or humanity.

'One day these people will be held accountable for holding up necessary action on mitigating climate change. '

It certainly would be very unfair for 'denialist'to be held to account. The warmist had predicted no snow in England from about 2010 and no rain on the East Coast of Australia. Surely it would only be right to hold the prophets who have made millions to account first especially as they have egg all over their faces.

Great Caesar's Ghost!

It's hard to believe I've actually read this article here today in the twenty-first century.

Mr Catt writes a sort of mixed up prayer of confession, penance and hopelessness all at the same time to some hybrid Christian/Green/CAGW Life/God/Mother Earth deity. Is that weird or what?

Aside: This has got to be a wind-up, yes? Surely no one could really think, write or believe any of this.

What about this bit - "I like tagines"? Where did that come from? My spell checker didn't recognise the word and I had to go Google tagines to find out what it was. Even then I couldn't work out how to place it into context.

And then he goes on -

"And yet we are told all this good stuff is ruining the planet.
I don't want to destroy the earth
but I also don't what to lose the life I now enjoy.
It seems so unfair that the two just won't go together."

What two, tagines and the Earth?

Why are tagines destroying the Earth? He doesn't explain that bit. But then maybe he's on to something. Some new CAGW conjecture. Someone with a Christian/Green/CAGW religion could be capable of no end of devilish pessimism to link tagines with global destruction. After all, they did it to CO2.

Wow. What can you say?

My advice to Mr Catt - go back to basics, read the Holy Bible, refresh your understanding about the miseries of man eating fruit from the tree of knowledge, banish yourself from technology, using cars, world travel and tagines, especially tagines, find some modern Eve-like woman to blame and curse her to eternity with periods. Then, embrace a tree, hang on to it tightly and await the forthcoming apocalypse whilst chanting prayers to diverse deities of your choice.

Good luck Mr Catt.

The frightening part about this folks, is that I don't think it's a wind-up.

@ Curmudgeon:

"You can't mix nuclear and renewables... without gas. This is because nuclear plants are... best running at constant output (etc)."

The French and others have been ramping nuclear plants up and down for over 4 decades. All power stations are more efficient at constant load, however that does not mean that constant load is the only option available.

Think back a couple of decades and the whole Australian grid was run without gas turbines. Baseload plant (coal fired, but so what?) plus 10% hydro did the job.

As for Gunter's observation that German roofs are plastered with solar PV panels: in winter, these become unproductive ornaments with capacity factors of less than 1%. I have nothing against renewables per se, but the German public have been conned into throwing money at PV regardless of value obtained and now are spending more money again, constructing new coal fired power stations, with all that that implies. Talk about idiotic! This is the way to satisfy nobody, while concurrently chasing industry away. The amount of money involved dwarfs anything spent on Australia's Pink Batts game which has had precisely zero impact on the sales of domestic air conditioning. They are Australia's building ornaments, the difference being that they are under the roof.

Eventually, when it is far too late, Germany and the rest of the world will revert to construction of power stations of various technologies as determined by rational decision making. I expect that there will always be a place for PV, but primarily much closer to the equator, where the insolation levels are much higher and more constant throughout the year.

@popnperish: "Last year was the hottest ever in the continental US. We broke all kinds of records in Australia during the heatwave which the Climate Commission said was 'exacerbated' by climate change. So stop fighting it and accept it. "

I'm going to put two words up on the board, and I want to tell me if you can distinguish between them:

USA

World

I know a lot of people have trouble with this; it's a common condition, but it can be cured by reading and paying attention. If it's still causing you trouble you might want to ask the people in China (about the size of Australia) and Russia (much bigger than the US), who have just had record cold winters, how they feel about 'global warming' at the moment.

I miss the good old days, when people used to keep telling us: 'Weather is not climate!" Whatever happened to them?

Weather can be variable no matter what climate you live in.
It's the extremes of the variations that are a worry. Extreme summers and extreme winters. That is global warming or global change. Depends if you are in summer or winter.
The oceans are warming, that is the stumbling block for you to cure.
That is where the extremes are coming from.
The northern hemi; is subject to big ice melts, that is changing the jet streams and causing extremes of climate.
Of course this is all a natural cycle, so when is this natural cycle going to run out. Someone should know seeing it has all happened before.

@ Jon J:

There are various organisations and people out there saying all kinds of things about global and US climate trends, as well we all know.

In order to explain that global climate is still trending warmer, regardless of individual observations one way or the other, I suggest that you review what the National Geographic had to say, in simple english, only a week back.

The link is: http://newswatch.nationalgeographic.com/2013/01/17/global-temperature-rises-in-2012-climate-conditions-questioned/

Opening paragraph:
"Just days after the announcement that last year was the warmest in history for the continental United States, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) found global temperatures are rising too."

BTW, China is several times as large as Australia.

The scientists told us as early as the 1960s that increasing emissions of greenhouse gases would gradually increase global temperatures. It was around 1840 that CO2 was identified as a heat trapping gas and probably explained why the the earth's temperature was some 33 Deg C warmer than simple theory would predict. The globe has warmed considerably since the late 1960s as predicted.

S o what happens in the 2000s a whole of people with no training in climate science suddenly decide that the scientists don't know what they are talking about. This has to be wishful thinking on there part or perhaps they are just suffering from an epidemic of cranial silicon dioxide immersion.

The current situation is that in order to avoid a global temperature increase in excess of 2 Deg C we can only burn 1/5 of all the know fossil fuel reserves. This means that peak oil, coal or gas will not prevent us from exceeding the 2 deg C mark by a large margin. It also means that there will be huge pressure from those people who have access to the other 4/5 of the know fossil reserves to be allowed to exploit those reserves. Just think for a moment what would happen to the share price of a major oil company if they were told the would only be allowed to extract 1/5 of their know oil reserves.

We could on a world wide bases easily replace all fossil fuel with renewables. We have the knowledge on how to do it right now. Yes it would be expensive to change over but not trying to avoid the risk of excessive climate change is a no brainer. We see on a regular basis attempts by various groups claiming that renewables can not possible supply our needs. This could not possibly have anything to do with the fossil fuel industry trying to protect there interests ? or am I being too cynical.

Günter
go back and look at your post and the National Geographic article that you cite. As it says the academic study it cites contradicts all other studies in the area.. now it could be that all the other studies are wrong but the coal industry itself does not seem to think so and they have a vested interest in the matter. As the article makes clear its a fringe position.

Okay, under sea drilling. The oil industry is the most studied but predictions in it are arguably the least effective. Sufficed to say, for the moment, that the US is on track to become self sufficient in oil fairly soon which is a complete flip on all peak oil forecasts made a few years back. Sorry but resources aren't running out any time soon.. or even later..

In the next 15-20 years as Liberal National governments dominate the Australian political scene most of these carbon crappers will lose their government funded jobs and this type of tripe will be not be written and global warming without the these excitable fearmongers will forgotten about.

Yawn.

This is a really silly article. It is an example of the nonsense put out by doomsayers at their worst.

We have a virtually infinite supply of energy on Earth (uranium and thorium). Human ingenuity and energy will provide everything current and future generations will want and need.

With cheap energy, we can provide as much fresh water as we need. With greater wealth we can feed however many people there are on the planet. Food supply is a constraint only where there is poor governance and poor infrastructure. Both will be overcome by increasing prosperity. Increasing prosperity will also reduce the rate of population growth and reduce the peak population.

People who don't understand this are either ignorant or ideologically blind. Read this to understand what fossil fuels have done for us: http://www.cato.org/publications/policy-analysis/humanity-unbound-how-fossil-fuels-saved-humanity-nature-nature-humanity .
Use your powers of logic to think what nuclear (20,000 to 2 million times more energy-dense than fossil fuels) will do for future generations.

The best the self claimed 'Progressives' could to save the planet would be to stop blocking progress and stop screeching their messages of doom and gloom. Instead they should start advocating wealth creation, freer trade, enthusiastically encouraging profit motive, deregulation, globalisation and large corporations. They and small, versatile, adaptable, innovative business are what are making us better off and improving human well-being world wide.

This article confirms to me that AGW believers are cultists.

JohnBennetts
Look, I'm sure the output of nucelar reactors does get ramped up and down but I strongly suspect you've misunderstood what I was saying.. I was talking about load following.. you don't load follow with a nuclear reactor.. any grid typically has a mixture of plants on it and you need gas turbines to adjust to major changes in the loads. They ramp up and down very quickly.

Curmudgeon accuses me of not knowing what he is saying.

Well, neither does he.

I have worked as an engineer in the power generation industry for over 3 decades. To affirm that baseload power plant, whether nuclear or coal fired, cannot load follow is not only incorrect, it indicates that the writer does not start to understand that this is what happens all day, every day. That is the purpose of rolling reserve, by which I mean the couple of thousand megawatts of unused capacity that is present all the time in the NEM in the form of baseload units running at less than peak capacity, ready to accept additional load or to step in should some generation plant fail, eg because the wind dropped unexpectedly, or a cold front has clouded over the solar PV in a region.

The limitation is that these large units can only ramp up or down within predetermined limits. Some jurisdictions and operators choose to run some plant flat out all the time, but that is essentially a political decision and runs contra to rational market reality.

The fluctuations of load beyond the ramp rates of the base load units are generally accounted for in one of three ways: (1)By ramping up or down gas turbines, which is an option which is relatively new to Australia, because until relatively recently we had few GT's supplying the grid, (2) By ramping up or down hydro plant, eg the Snowy generators, or (3) By bringing on-line additional wind which was available but idle (Not yet common, but certain to become common). Option 3 includes ramping down by shurtting down renewables plant in order to follow declining load.

(Continued)

Curmudgeon

I tend to prefer studies from outside the respective industries. I think if Patzek was right and the coal industry knew that, they would still deny those facts because as soon as they accept a decline in coal in the near future they could throw their business model into the rubbish bin.

Which CEO would dare to do that? Our system is based on never ending growth, and a CEO questioning that and even taking action accordingly could rather give himself the bullet straightaway to avoid being sent to the mental asylum.

As for the US oil and gas boom in my opinion it really proves peak oil since conventional production is on a plateau since 2005 and that unconventional oil is desperately needed. More on that in a very interesting update from Chris Martenson:

http://www.peakprosperity.com/blog/80506/really-really-big-picture

Dear Peter,

As a religious person you would know much of faith, sadly you appear to know so little about humans, politics and the planet upon which we live.

Your lament is truly offensive. “Can't you find a way to make the CO2 just go away?”

This is an utterly odious comment. The air we breathe is CO2 and it feeds the 4.2 million biological variations on the planet that god gave us and you suggest it should just go away? Let me see, isn’t this the anti human mantra of the Club of Rome and Agenda 21?

You say that “The failure of the Doha round of climate talks points to a world gripped by paralysis; the form of paralysis that can grip us when we are in the midst of a mourning process”.

No, it is the failure of the people like you whose faith based politicized science is no longer capable of convincing those who once believed. The Doha and the 17 other rounds failed because the science was no longer convincing enough to support another Kyoto. Nor is it capable of convincing the CO2 trading markets to raise the finance or the renewable energy industry to deliver it. They are all gone Peter which just leaves the proselytizing Jesuits.

You then say “Our denial is a sign of the pain we are feeling and anticipating”

No, it’s your denial of reality; it is the pain of the faithful that is manifest here, because everything CAGW in which you believed has failed you. Belief and faith are only a problem for you and not those skeptical of your faith. We may be saddened that you feel the pain but the problem remains yours.

“So I want to invite us to get on with expressing our grief so that we can then get on with dealing with the reality that now confronts us”

Feel free to express your grief and get on with dealing with reality, hope you find it.

Meanwhile you should consider staying out of politics, pseudo-science and cults and start saving some souls

Continued, after a mandated 2 hour delay...

Option(3) is anathema to renewables afficionados because they demand preferential loading and base their economic models accordingly. They do not want to see their plant idled. Well, neither do any other generators, but that is a matter for the marketplace and the realities of occasional negative market prices for wholesale generation, as all suppliers attempt to stay on line and stable.

There is another option, called demand management. I prefer to call it unmet load. It is either business as usual or an extreme measure, according to your view of the ideal operating environment of the grid. If you are in the camp of ZCA2020 or Mark Diesendorf, then 50% unmet load during peaks is OK - "Let them suffer". And suffer, they will, because heat stress is a far greater killer in Australia than the total of floods, fires, shark, biting things and stinging things. If many frail citizens die because their air conditioning or medical equipment such as home dialysis machines are unavailable due to failure of supply, then the front pages of the daily papers will be full of headlines.

So, back to the topic.

Baseload power plants, of all description, are capable of load following, within predetermined and well known engineering limits. Affirmations to the contrary, especially those which rely on a fable such as "but only gas turbines can do the job" are incorrect.

Gunter. "I tend to prefer studies from outside the respective industries."

Whereby eliminating the input of the very best specialist scientists and technicians, those who are expert, not only in the theoretical and technical aspects of a given problem, but also have expertise in that technologies practical application in the real world.

Well that really is a stunningly myopic view.

How about designing and running a submarine by a committee of fishermen? Marine biologists?

How about weather and climate forecasting from beaurocrats........

JohnBennets; a generally good post but this is just wrong:

"Baseload power plants, of all description, are capable of load following"

Wind and solar CANNOT baseload; read this:

http://joannenova.com.au/2012/05/a-nation-still-drawing-18000mw-in-its-sleep-cant-go-solar/

The takehome point is this; from the production viewpoint using fossils there is no difference between base and peak because as TonyOz explains the fossils are kept on spinning reserve 24/7; at minimum base, some of that spinning reserve is not used; at peak or what it should really be called, maximum base, the reserve is used as needed.

No extra cost is involved because the machinery is already running; just a switch to draw down the running reserve.

What Gillard and the RET and the greens and assorted nitwits want to do is reduce the running reserve; the result will be drastically altering lifestyle: no aircon when hot and cold; removal of the accoutrements.

The lie is the government thinks or wants the suckers to think that demand management, smart meters etc, will enable this to happen.

This is BS, as TonyOz explains, because the social infrastructure, everything from hospitals, large buildings, to transport, cannot reduce further without shutting down, not being available.

There is no need for this to happen if you think AGW is a lie.

Australia is an energy rich nation but we are pauperising ourselves on the alter of green ideology.

@ Cohenite:

I don't agree with you re global climate change.

I never said that renewables are baseload technologies... read my stuff again.

It is imaginable but not yet available for renewables which include storage to conceivably be able to perform baseload duties some time in the future. We all live in the present.

I have never stated that demand management is not possible and in fact there are many opportunities to achieve this. However it requires realistic, detailed implementation, not wishful thinking.

Just like there are people who just cannot believe in global warming,
for non logical reasons, there are people who cannot believe in peak
oil, just because they cannot believe that the airlines will go out of business.
It just can't happen !

Well there are no rules that support that attitude.
AGW and Peak Oil are both possibilities.
However we will know for certain much sooner with peak oil & coal.
The coal industry, particularly in the US, had not done studies of
their reserves for many years and when someone did it, they were
shocked at their newly established reserves.
There is an additional problem in that the coal quality is falling so
that the heat value is less than it used to be.
Recent studies have been done;
Werner Zittel & Borg Schindler, Kavalov & Peteves,
Upsalla Global Energy and many others. They are all coming to similar conclusions.
Somewhere about 2025 is expected to be world peak coal.
Australia probably has a later time depending on our rate of export.
There is an enormous amount of info on coal if you wish to search.

We have no alternative but to get base load power going, be it
hot rocks geothermal or nuclear. It is looking like there is no way
we can support ourselves at our present standard without them and the
choice is all going back to the farm and work the land while six
billion people starve.

There was an article on the Energy Bulletin by a psychiatrist where
he explained the reason why many people are deniers without reason.
It will be in the archives on that site as it was a couple of years ago.

Thems the choices, geothermal, nuclear or sustenance farming.

JohnBennetts

replying a week later, but only just saw your point. I didn't accuse you of not understanding what you were talking about, but of not understanding what I was saying .. which was talking about load following with a nuclear reactor. I think they are outside your experience because what I said was correct. Read some of the comments on the net about mixing nuclear power and renewables in, say, Canada..
I think you're translating your understanding of the use of other forms of base generator to nuclear.. you may vary then but not by much at all

Now I see you know something about the reserving requirements for a grid which is good.. but as you note the use of base units in this respect is limited. Sorry but you need gas turbines if you're going to have large amounts of renewables on the grid. Actually a lot of them but the variation in base load plants if you hope to get to a penetration of 20 per cent.. which means at times you will have 60 per cent of renewables on the grid (averages, remember and wind farms have an average output of about one third installed..).. the management problems will be appaling.

I will write about renewables at some point for this site and I would welcome your comments then..

Dear Curmudgeon,

Simple fact: French nuclear power stations load follow effectively. As do others, but from a standing start, France reached 2/3rds nuclear penetration in under two decades. This requires them to rely on the very significant load following capacity of their atomic power plant.

Other nuclear pland can and do load follow, but I will rest my case here.

Regarding your inflexible approach to the supremacy of GT's: when you write that article, please ensure that you understand quite comprehensively the differences between OCGT and CCGT. The latter is nowhere near as flexible as the former and has almost similar carbon intensity to baseload coal units. We all get to pay for unreliables (aka "renewables") three times - once by way of capital cost of generating plant, again (as per current German experience) by way of expansion of the grid which is needed to distribute all power everywhere because the sun is shining somewhere and the wind is blowing somewhere else. The third time we pay is for the backup gas turbines - and pay, we will, for fuel, for capital, and for CO2 emitted.

Read a little about small package nuclear designs before rushing into print. They're starting to look very interesting.

Re small package nuclear designs

http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Hyman_G._Rickover#Paper_Reactors.2C_Real_Reactors_.281953.29

Admiral Hyman Rickover said in 1953
"An academic reactor or reactor plant almost always has the following basic characteristics: (1) It is simple. (2) It is small. (3) It is cheap. (4) It is light. (5) It can be built very quickly. (6) It is very flexible in purpose. (7) Very little development will be required. It will use off-the-shelf components. (8) The reactor is in the study phase. It is not being built now."

"On the other hand a practical reactor can be distinguished by the following characteristics: (1) It is being built now. (2) It is behind schedule. (3) It requires an immense amount of development on apparently trivial items. (4) It is very expensive. (5) It takes a long time to build because of its engineering development problems. (6) It is large. (7) It is heavy. (8) It is complicated."

Touche, Warmair.

I think we are approaching a point where a decision will be imperative.
If our peak demand is around 30 Gwatt we will need to build x number
of nuclear power stations by the time coal production has declined to
the point it is no longer economic to run coal fired power stations.
With peak coal around 2025, we would need the first nuclear to be on
line about that time, then as coal production decreased, we would
need to install a replacement of one coal fired station at a time.

How long will it take to build and commission one nuclear station ?
I have seen figures like five to twenty years.
I presume that the first ones will take longer.
Would it be possible to convert coal fired to nuclear, that would save
some money.

Can you see the problem I am pointing out ?
We need to start now on building the first replacement power station.
That will enable us to train the engineers and operation people to
run these plants. A new industry like this takes years to crank up.

As I pointed out, if we do not take steps to keep our electrical
energy production up we have no choice but to start diverting people
leaving school into agricultural courses.

Whether the plants are hot rocks geothermal or nuclear does not affect
the argument but we do have to start NOW !

There are some experienced power station people on here, I would like
to hear their comment on this proposal.

Bazz, the French converted to 50% nuclear power in a couple of decades, eventually topping 70% nationally.

We could do the same.

By the way, direct conversion from coal to nuclear isn't a proposition - the turbines (for example) operate at much different pressures. Everything in the steam side of things would have to be new. Besides which, who in his right mind would put new steam sources into a 40-year old power station that was initially designed to last 25 years?

However, "brownfield" sites, ie those where coal plant have been or will be demolished are a different proposition - land, water supplies (roughly the same amount of cooling is needed per GWh of each), skilled and unskilled labour, contractors, switchyards, transmission lines are all in place. That amounts to well over half of the total system cost, as against greenfield sites.

I'd prefer, from a safety and environment point of view, for the two coal fired power stations near where I live to be replaced on the same sites by nuclear powered ones.

That's the first 5GW for you. 25GW to go.

I don't know why anyone one would even contemplate building a nuclear power station in Australia.

1 There is a huge disconnect between the actual costs and figures quoted by the nuclear industry. Nuclear power is in reality about the most expensive way anyone has yet come up with to generate electric power. To put this in perspective of all the nuclear power stations actually started only half have actually made it all the way to producing power. Of those a number have subsequently been shut down as thy were determined not to be safe and others have been shut down due to political pressure.
http://www.i-sis.org.uk/The_Real_Cost_of_Nuclear_Power.php

2 In terms of reducing Co2 emissions they are better than fossil fuel stations but are a long way form being emission free.

3 Very few people want either the power station or the waste in their back yard, look at the battle that we are having just to find somewhere to put our low level radioactive medical wastes.

4 No commercial organisation will fully insure them so it is left up governments to take the major risk look at Japan for example. The Cost of the Fukushima clean up is expected to up to 420 billion yen ?

6 They take a long time to plan and build when everything goes perfectly maybe 7 years but there are examples where it has taken over 30 years to complete. In Australia it is doubtful that we have the necessary skills to build one.

7 Nuclear decommissioning of old plants takes decades and is pretty much a gamble as to how much it is going to cost. It is not fair to expect future generations to pay the costs of cleaning up the old plants.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_decommissioning

Warmair chooses to live in a world where he gets to choose his own facts.

Sorry, Warmair - there's no point in further discourse unless he first decides to come back to Earth.

I'm out of here.

Warmair, it is quite simple.
If you want to maintain our current standard of living and/or improve
the standard for those billions that are not as well off as us then
there is no alternative but to build up to five times the current
generation capacity using nuclear or geothermal or both.

If you don't like that option, then start farming or be an undertaker
in the third world.

Bazz,

"...or improve the standard for those billions that are not as well off as us then..."

Yeah.....save the crocodile tears. It's the West looking out for the West.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/news/goldman-bankers-get-rich-betting-on-food-prices-as-millions-starve-8459207.html

Not sure of your point Poirot.
The point I was making has nothing to do with what is charged for food.
We will have a problem generating enough electricity to produce the
same amount of food that we now produce.
We may be too late now, but if not we should already have let contracts for non coal power stations.
It really is that simple.

The alternative is to grow our own food.

The area of nuclear power I have the biggest problem with is the economic cost.
When you look into the question you will find plenty of estimates for how much nuclear power might cost in future but very little about historical costs. The few historical figures that I have been able to find indicate costs in some cases as much as 5 times conventional coal plants. I use coal plants as an example simply because that is how most electricity is produced. At present nuclear plants are probably becoming more expensive due to increased concerns about safety whereas renewables are becoming steadily cheaper.

The high initial cost also encourages running the plant as long as possible with suggestions that new plants should be designed to run for up to 60 years. This is crazy think about the sort of cars we were using 60 years ago and compare them to a modern car. I don't how we will be producing power in 60 years time but I very much doubt it will be by using equipment designed and built 60 years previously. The only thing that idea does is to mess with the real costs.

The concern I have is that we will go off on a tangent chasing very high tech expensive solutions which will not leaves us with enough money to replace our worst polluting power plants. What do we reckon the cost is of 1000 mega watt plant $5 billion ? or suppose Australia were to have a nuclear accident on the scale of Fukushima, think for a moment how much renewable power could be installed for the cost of just the clean up (A$40 billion).

http://www.ucsusa.org/nuclear_power/nuclear_power_and_global_warming/nuclear-power-cost.html

http://www.theage.com.au/opinion/society-and-culture/nuclear-its-just-too-expensive-for-us-and-the-rest-of-the-world-20100225-p4y3.html

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/3/33/Nuke%2C_coal%2C_gas_generating_costs.png/800px-Nuke%2C_coal%2C_gas_generating_costs.png

Note the small note on the bottom of the graph (*) Does not include waste disposal

Quite possibly you are right Warmair, but if we cannot afford to build
them or geothermal, it is too bad, billions will die and we will be
back to farming and trying to keep a few wind turbines and solar
installations running.
Note I m talking of the time up to 2050, so it will not worry me, but
certainly my sons and grandchildren will be concerned.

There is no way solar and wind will be able to generate five times our
present generating capacity, so definitely something else is needed.

There is plenty of room for to reduce our electricity consumption and still achieve the same level of comfort just as a simple example moving to led lights has the potential to make big savings. Even without doing a great deal electricity consumption has only risen slightly since the mid 2000s in Australia.

If we only use fossil fuels for essentials like operating farm equipment we could radically reduce our emissions without messing up the planet,and still enjoy a very satisfactory standard of living. There are even examples of farms which produce enough methane to power their equipment. It is perfectly acceptable to use biofuel provided it does not reduce the land available for food production.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-10-25/methane-conversion-makes-piggery-carbon-neutral/4332602

The main problem with renewables is lack of storage which is solvable by a verity of means such as pumped hydro, rechargeable batteries and thermal storage.

http://www.skepticalscience.com/renewable-energy-baseload-power.htm

The potential energy available from renewables is way beyond anything we are likely to need. In Australia we have access to a wide range of viable renewables. North of the great divide the number of days when there is neither solar or wind are few and far between. Solar thermal can be made to work day and night plus we also have hydro power available as a back up.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_thermal_energy#High-temperature_collector

Warmair, I think you underestimte the problem.
I had thought that with oil not being available we would need to do
everything electrically.
The reason; that by 2050, everything will have to be done electrically
is that world peak coal is expected about 2025 plus the quality of
coal, ie the heat value per ton, is decreasing together with oil
being too expensive to burn.
You made a suggestion about on farm energy generation, which is very
valid, but it is just touching the edges of the problem.

However Peter Lang pointed me to an article where a study had been
done on the amount needed to replace oil, gas & coal.
It comes to five times our present generation. Bit of a shocker that !
If we were to attempt to do it with solar & wind we would have to have
20 times present generation at minimum plus an equal amount of storage.
I suspect that it is already too late, there will not be enough money
available in the world to do the job for the worlds generation.

I just cannot imagine it, can you ?

Bazz

The answer is I see no practical problem going to 100% renewable.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Renewable_energy
http://www.pwc.co.uk/assets/pdf/100-percent-renewable-electricity.pdf
http://www.ies.unsw.edu.au/docs/100pc_Renewables_SolarProgress.pdf

The problem is simply one of cost.

The first problem is that people who have invested large sums in current fossil fuel technology will not want to see their money going down the drain. Nor will the miners be to happy about their loss of fossil fuel assets.

The second problem is raising the cash to make the change over.

Thanks for those links.
The very large one, I have not attempted to read.
The last won refers to the zero groups proposals.
Now these are all well thought out systems, although many "in the know"
doubt whether they really are practical.
One of their objections is that there is no solution to storage.
The proposals seem optimistic as to the prospect of achieving
sufficient storage.

However since reading the paper pointed to by Peter Lang I just cannot
see it being anywhere near practical.
Think about it, providing, installing & maintaining solar & wind
equipment to provide TWENTY times the present generating capacity
PLUS 5 times the capacity of storage !

No, there is not enough money to build 150 gigawatt of nuclear power
stations over the years.
Pity, it is just not practical.
No, buy a farm instead.

Bazz

http://srren.ipcc-wg3.de/

There are plenty of reputable scientists who believe we can get to 80% renewables by 2050.

The cost is around 1% of GDP for the whole world and I would have thought once the change over is made it would it actually increase GDP.

In my local area I know of a number of places that are off the grid, operate all the mod cons, and not only do they have adequate power at all times, on sunny days their batteries are fully charged before midday. One chap I met claims his batteries never fall below 75% charge. In most cases the reason they chose the renewable path was simply because once the distance to the grid connection is more than about 1 kilometer (cost $50,000) it is much cheaper to install your own system. The cost of a complete stand alone system for a typical 3 bedroom house starts around $25,000 which considering the price most people pay for a new house these days looks to me like a bargain.

Warmair,
The people you quote are all missing the point.
They are not quoting for the real problem, just replacing present generation.
Currently, pun intended, we have 6 Gwatt of generating capacity in
Australia I believe.
Their proposals are to replace our present generating capacity.
That is not the requirement.
The requirement is for 150 Gwatt of solar & wind !
The requirement is also for 30x12 Gwatt hours of storage.
The figures get to this level because if everything, including
transport has to be run electrically we need five times out present
generation, so 6 x 5 = 30 G watt from base load nuclear.

Solar & wind are at best 25% nameplate capacity. So 4 x 30 = 120 Gwatt
but you would need a bit more for safety, say 130 Gwatt.
Then storage to run all night, say 12 hours, 30 x 12 Gwatt/hrs.

We could not afford that now, let alone while the economy is contracting.

Now I agree these figures are rubbery but they do illustrate the problem.

Bazz

It is clear from the link below that they do not intend to simply use electricity as the sole source of power nor is it very a sensible idea. For example generating solar power to run an electric hot water service is not a smart thing to do. nor is it correct to compare a fossil fuel engine with an efficiency of around 20% to an electric motor which can achieve nearly 90% efficiency.

The link does not miss the point it clearly says that the idea is to replace 80% of all fossil fuel use with renewables by 2050. It also makes it clear that we have the technical skill and resources to achieve this. This is on a world wide basis not just Australia.

There is a lot of interesting stuff in summary so at this stage I have not had time to read it in full.

http://srren.ipcc-wg3.de/report/IPCC_SRREN_TS.pdf

See page 42