Wind turbines are an embarrassing waste of resources that should have gone to energy storage technologies. Batteries, uber-capacitors, pumped or whatever. Green will not work without storage.

There are places where the location of a few wind turbines would be logical, like say on islands affected by the almost constant roaring forties, and where the surplus generation could be used to pump water to large upland reservoirs, that act as energy and or, water storage facilities.

New vastly lower costing desalination, means we could even use desalinated sea water?

King island i.e., has a ridge running along most of its length, and is in the path of the roaring forties, and placing turbines along the length and breath of that ridge makes much more sense than sending much more expensive coal fired power all the way from Melbourne to Tassie via an undersea cable!

There'd still need to be an undersea cable, but a vastly shorter one!

A few northern islands are similarly blessed, with reliable and virtually constant wind.

Populated Magnetic island comes to mind, and has plenty of mountainous terrain, where the towers could be located; and water could be stored and used when the wind doesn't blow?

And there's a larger bigger ridgeback island off the coast of Cardwell.

Of course the recalcitrant greens will roar, but hey, they're national parks!

That said, we should look for much cheaper carbon free alternatives.

Thorium power, successfully used by both India and China? Is one possible option; as is locally produced endlessly sustainable scrubbed biogas powering ceramic fuel cells.

And given the fuel is endlessly sustainable and virtually free, and provided on your very doorstep as it were, producing the cheapest domestic power in the world and equally sustainable, endlessly free hot water!

And then there's things like micro solar thermal applications, that use locally invented solar tracking to generate steam that then turns a turbine.

This intermittent power could be used to create Hydrogen that could be bladder stored to provide 24/7 on demand power.

However, why bother when things like (half price) base load thorium and or (quarter price) biogas/ceramic combinations beckon, and 24/7, even when the sun doesn't shine and or the wind doesn't blow!
Rhrosty.

Excerpt from the Executive Summary of the Submission (No 259 here: http://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Committees/Senate/Wind_Turbines/Wind_Turbines/Submissions ):

"... the RET Review summarised estimates of the abatement cost of the Large Scale Renewable Energy Target (LRET) at $32-$70/t CO2. These estimates, however, are likely underestimated as the analyses do not appear to take effectiveness into account, or at least not fully. If the economic analyses do not take effectiveness into account, and if effectiveness decreases to 53% by 2020, the estimates of abatement cost would nearly double to $60-$136/t CO2 with effectiveness included.

To put these abatement costs in context, the ‘carbon’ tax was $24.15/t CO2 when it was rejected by the voters at the 2013 Federal election. The current price of EU ETS carbon credits and the international carbon credit futures are:
• European Union Allowance (EUA) market price (10/3/2015) = €6.83/tCO2 (A$9.50)
• Certified Emissions Reduction (CER) futures to 2020 (9/3/2015) = €0.40/tCO2 (A$0.56)

Therefore, the LRET in 2020 could be 2 to 5 times the carbon tax, which was rejected by the voters in 2013; 6 to14 times the current price of the EUA; and more than 100 times the price of CER futures out to 2020.

Clearly, the RET is a very high cost way to avoid greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. The rational policy decision is to close the RET to future investments. Or, as an interim measure, wind the target back to a real 20% of electricity generation."

Peter the inverse proportionality you claim as fact is just conjecture — and rather illogical conjecture at that! I checked your submission to see where you got it from, and you claim to have got it from Inhaber — yet when I followed your link I found no mention of it!

Aiden - I will let Peter defend himself on detail but it is certainly the case that accommodating a lot of wind will be far more expensive, in proportion, than a small amount.. 1-2 per cent is within tolerance limits of network operations. You don't have to do anything special to accommodate it - but 30 per cent is an horrific load for a spread out, isolated network like that of the Eastern states grid. A lot of investment would be required. It is also an interesting question just how much carbon would be abated..

The vexing question of optimum wind penetration seems to be a variant of the least cost combination problem. The classic example of the latter was how to feed prisoners on just three types of food at least cost. The simplex algorithm solves the problem exactly but there was no uncertainty involved unlike fickle wind power.

I think the type and flexibility of the backup determines the optimum. For example Denmark has Norwegian hydro for backup so maybe 50% penetration makes sense for them. Now in Australia there are fears of high gas prices so less flexible coal power will be favoured. That puts the optimum penetration nearer the low end, say 20%. Or perhaps sticking with gas backup it may be economic to overbuild wind power and accept some curtailment. If tough carbon constraints ultimately prevail (eg like Obama's 1000 lb CO2 per average Mwh) then the economic wind penetration could be over 30% at a pure guess.

I think the correct approach should be based on primary emission targets not subsidies and quotas like the RET. Let the players work out the optimum mix for themselves.

>" and rather illogical conjecture at that! I checked your submission to see where you got it from, and you claim to have got it from Inhaber "

I said no such thing.

Aidan has a habit of making disingenuous statements. Others should read the submission themselves and make up their own mind. I am happy to answer questions (no more that 4 post per 24 h).

We now have a reasonable estimate of wind turbines’ effectiveness at reducing CO2 emissions in the Australian National Electricity Market (NEM), i.e. 78% effective in 2014. Wind turbines generated 4.5% of the NEM’s electricity and avoided 3.5% of the emissions from electricity.

See Wheatley’s analysis of CO2 savings from wind turbines in the NEM, Submission No. 348 to the ‘Senate Select Committee on wind turbines’: http://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Committees/Senate/Wind_Turbines/Wind_Turbines/Submissions

As wind’s proportion increases to about 15% by 2020 to comply with the RET, effectiveness is likely to decrease to around 60% (all else equal). If that is the case, the CO2 abatement costs estimates in the recent RET Review are probably gross underestimates – e.g. the CO2 abatement cost estimates with wind energy would need to be increased by ~67%.

Peter, I apologise for wrongly conflating your first and second graphs. However, I appear to have found a major error in your submission.

In your Figure 1 (in submission 259 which is at http://www.aph.gov.au/DocumentStore.ashx?id=730f7f0a-ed8b-4f43-bcae-2859190fc405&subId=304951 ) you attribute the curve data to Inhaber, and provide the link to http://docs.wind-watch.org/Inhaber-Why-wind-power-does-not-deliver-the-expected-emissions-reductions.pdf

The curve in your Figure 1 is not only ridiculously low, but it's also a different shape from what Inhaber plotted. His curve is initially convex; yours is initially concave. Indeed yours resembles an inverse relationship, which is why I made the mistake that I did. Inhaber expects the result to be more like a sigmoid curve (which does seem more logical, though he does mention considerable uncertainty about how fast the decrease occurs, and I'd be surprised if it were anywhere near as much as his graph indicates).

Looking at your figures 2 and 3, I see that one of the assumptions you're basing your figures on is that "Mandating renewable energy to substitute for existing dispatchable power plants transfers an array of costs onto those plants. For example, the existing dispatchable plants’ fixed costs must be paid for by selling less electricity, so they must increase their price for the electricity they send out". But this would only be relevant for new dispatchable plants; existing ones would merely become less profitable. All power generators are likely to try to sell the power for as much as they can, but with more power coming from wind, the amount it can be sold for is far more likely to fall than rise.

Windfarms are a boon for rent-seekers, and a shocking theft from taxpayers whose money politicians are throwing at these manufacturers, erectors, and farmers getting rent from the turbines in their paddocks.

SA, the state with the most windfarms, is also the state with the highest electricity prices in Australia and, I believe, in the world.

We have had no relief from from Labor's nonsensical RET either. Our money is still flowing to the opportunists, and the lower power prices are all in Tony Abbott's head.

We are all paying more to wipe out cheap power, one of the few global advantages Australia used to have.

ttbn, when SA's electricity price was said to be the highest in the world, we didn't have so many windfarms. And while the mechanism to encourage windfarm development initially increased electricity prices, more wind (and solar) power in the system has resulted in lower electricity prices.
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McCackie, green will initially work without storage – it's only when there's a large amount of green that storage is needed. But storage won't be worth so much without green!
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Rhrosty, there are many places where wind turbines would be logical. King Island is probably one of them, but (as SA initially found) having all the turbines on one N-S ridge means the same weather tends to hit all of them at around the same time.

Tasmania is developing wind power, but it's already a net exporter of electricity (except when there's a drought).

Of course we should keep looking for alternatives. Thorium may yet become a practical one, but it isn't yet. I hope you now understand why.

The amount of biogas we produce is far less than what we'd need for it to power our electricity supply. It makes more sense to integrate it with the gas supply system.
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Curmudgeon, the real parameters are a lot more complicated than "tolerance limits of network operations". We're pretty good at forecasting wind. And, like with demand fluctuations, decisions can be made as to when to increase, decrease or turn off other power sources.

This is just a blue print idea...We have coal deep under ground right?..So just light them up and feed them o2 and at the same time, run a water line to the hot spots and generate steam. The by-products of the burnings can be fed back down with o2 to where no emissions will reach the surface.

We have coal burning right now by natural causing's and no-one has jumped on it.

Just a thought

Tall

Aidan,

You are completely wrong. I pay for power in SA, and I know what I'm talking about.

The alleged abatement of CO2 by wind turbines is based on false assumption, that if the turbines generate power, coal fired generators burn less coal. That is not true. The amount of coal burned does not fluctuate with short term fluctuations of consumption.(day or night, wind or no wind, peak or off peak). Therefore wind power does not replace coal power, but is in addition of it. That means that wind turbines don't abate any CO2 at all.
Hermit

hermit, the only circumstances under which what you say is true are if the wind power is replacing something other than coal (such as natural gas) in which case there is still CO2 abated; just not from coal.

When output from a coal fired power station decreases, so does the amount of coal going into it, because less energy is going out through the turbines, so less needs to be put in to compensate. Peter's main point AIUI is that the power station efficiency also falls (so the reduction in coal burned is less than what you would expect if coal input were directly proportional to electricity output). But it is still substantial, and we're more likely to be able to switch it off completely.

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ttbn, the extra wind power reduced wholesale prices, but that doesn't mean the retailers all passed the saving on to consumers. And AIUI retailers now charge even more interstate.

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Tally, you're not the first to come up with that idea. However running a water line to the hot spots is much more difficult than it sounds. But the related technology of underground coal gasification has been tried in Queensland quite recently.

If the government were really serious about regaining Australia’s natural energy cost advantage, then it should proceed by scrapping the RET and all subsidisation of renewable energy generation, especially inefficient, unreliable wind turbine and solar power.

Aidan,"When output from a coal fired power station decreases, so does the amount of coal going into it," This is not true. That is the false assumption based on theoretical assumption that coal input matches the power output. That is not how it works in reality.Cooling down and subsequent heating up takes couple of days. It cannot mach short term variation. The coal input is steady. The variations are handled at the turbines end, not at the furnaces.

It is feasible to reduce coal consumption when demand is low, all that is necessary is to slow the feed rate of the coal.
The boilers will remain at steam producing temperature with reduced fires and when demand increases steaming can be increased well before there is any starving at the turbines.

I have never been a boiler attendant at a power station but I've had a lot of experience with oil fired and moving grate boilers in factories and the management keep a keen eye on fuel consumption and an ear on the safety valves and excessive blowing off will be noted.

hermit, you're wrong about the basis of my assumption. It's based on the law of conservation of energy: if you're taking more energy out of the system (via the turbines) then to maintain a constant temperature you have to put more in (by adding more coal). Conversely if the turbines are running on a lower power setting, they're not removing energy as quickly, therefore to keep the temperature constant doesn't require coal to be added at the same rate.

I don't know where you got the crazy idea that you can't vary the fuelling rate. Did you read that some nuclear plants have this problem, and then assume the same was true of coal? Or were you basing it on the report in The Australian that Victoria's wind turbines hadn't resulted in any decrease at all in the amount of coal that state burns for power? If the latter, there's something important you should know: the reason is that the extra power was exported to NSW!

Switching it off completely is a different matter. Yes it takes a long time to power up again, but we do have pretty good weather forecasting ability; we know when the wind's coming, and conversely when the lack of wind's coming.

And if you do shut it down, is there actually any need to let it cool before powering it up again?

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Raycom, a more effective way of regaining Australia’s natural energy cost advantage would be to exploit the lower running cost of renewable energy generation by funding it with concessional loans.

Peter,
Your comments on effectiveness are hard to interpret.
Consider a single turbine - it generates electricity when sufficient wind is blowing. Its effectiveness in generating power is totally dependent on the wind regime.
Now place a second identical turbine nearby. Its effectiveness will be identical, provided they both have unhindered wind flow.
Each M Watt generated abates the same amount of CO2 - provided wind generated electricity is dispatched ahead of coal generated electricity.
Put a hundred in very similar wind regimes, and effectiveness per turbine does not alter (roughly).
Now, add battery storage to each turbine, using Tesla batteries or similar, and effectiveness increases as electricity is only drawn when required, and electicity is stored when not needed.
What have I missed?

Aidan, I have never suggested that you can't vary the fuelling rate. I suggested that that is not what is happening in reality. I understand that for less required output you need less heat. But that doesn't mean that's how it works at the practical end. You are right about the physics. But I question practicality of changing fuelling rate every 15 mins. Even every 30 mins. Even every hour. We are talking about large amounts of water. And to rise the temperature of large amount of water, even marginally, takes time and lots of energy. It takes less energy to keep water at the same temperature and just release any unneeded steam. I got this idea from some coal power generation engineer. And it makes sense to me. The consumption of coal is meaningful only nationally. As you point out, exporting power to other states can give distorted picture.
Hermit