Rhosty, despite the fact that I've pointed out your mistake before, you're still conflating two different molten salt technologies. Thorium fluoride can be the basis for molten salt nuclear reactors, but it's NO USE WHATSOEVER for molten salt storage, for three reasons:

Its melting point is far too high.
It's radioactive, so costly precautions would be needed.
Its heat capacity isn't particularly high.

Brownies flight with the wind turbine on top displayed quite clearly the economics of wind farms.

runner - your post was so clever I didn't understand it.

Although I would mostly agree with Rhosty, leaving aside the salt issue, the holy grail of renewables has been a renewable base load plant but that ideal is a long way from being achieved.

Activists will often mis-represent the small Gemasolar plant in Spain as base load - it isn't, although it is able to generate power 24 hours a day at times during the year. I have also seen claims that this or that solar plant has a 75 per cent capacity factor (base load is typically 85-90 per cent), but there is still a difference in that base load you can (mostly) plan your outages and output. With those solar plants you can't - you get what you're given, when you're given it and in isolated spots.

Graeme Weber –
When you say wind turbines do not work, what you actually mean is wind turbines do not do what you want them to. But nor were they designed to do what you want them to, so to claim they do not work is at best a bit misleading. It makes sense to build on the strengths of renewable energy and go for the low hanging fruit (reducing coal use) first, and concentrate on overcoming the weaknesses later.

When you claim...
"Almost no output as a high pressure system dominated over Eastern Australia. This occurred for a period of over 24 hours. No backup battery system could be recharged during this period. So the logical conclusion is renewable generation needs to have a constant backup of (load following) base load electricity. In Australia this is electrical power from coal generators emitting CO2."
...you're missing three key points:
• While it is logical to conclude that a backup is needed, it doesn't need to be constant. Australia has significant weather forecasting ability; we have a pretty good idea of when the winds will blow and how fast. The Murdoch Press's fiction that wind turbines require fossil fuel generators on hot standby has for a few years been constantly disproven by events.
ª If it's load following than it's generally not base load.
• Load following is usually done with gas rather than coal, because of gas's faster response times.

(tbc)

(continued)
And what is the source of your claim that...
"Also early this year in January the German wholesale prices had dropped to 3c/Kwhr. Because of 80 GWe of heavily subsidised solar and wind generators were producing considerable electricity. At this price nuclear and gas generators are not price competitive so are being replaced by brown coal generators. Germany the great clean society has rising CO2 emissions!"?

Wind power certainly does depress the wholesale electricity price when it's windy – indeed that's one of its great strengths. But at that price I'd expect brown coal to be hardest hit: using more expensive fuel than nuclear, and not able to respond to price fluctuations as quickly as gas. If I'm wrong on this, why?

Germany's phaseout of nuclear is politically imposed, not a reaction to the rising share of renewables. But last time I checked, the rise in renewables was resulting in a decline in emissions and in coal use. Do you have evidence that's ceased?

Aidan

sorry but a few problems with your post. Last time I looked, although weather forecasting had been improved, it in no way offset the problem that wind simply does not blow (or blows too hard) for long periods. So back-up capacity is certainly needed, but do those forecasting systems reduce the need for spinning capacity - plants that are working but off the grid and available for instant backup? At the present low levels of wind on the system (the figure they quote always includes hydro) its not so important. Just adjust the output of generators already on the grid. some angst and losses but all is fine. Yes I know about the much higher levels in SA, but just think of all as one system of which SA is a small part.

Once wind power gets to something like 10 per cent of total supply, however, there will be serious problems. Remember that the Aus grid is not part of the dense European networks, or Denmark which can export wind energy across the Baltic to be stored in dams in Sweden and Norway. Ours is an isolated, spread-out grid. Spinning capacity will be essential.. The renewables policy is lunacy..