Bazz
In Australia we can replace the existing electrical supply with renewables, using current technology and yes it will be more expensive than the current mix. In Australia the existing forms of renewables are hydro, wind and solar voltaic, to achieve 100% renewables we need to add Solar thermal (non-existent in Aus) with heat storage, tidal power, biomass and utilize the great artesian hot water sources (geothermal but not hot rocks). We need to upgrade and extend the electrical grid. While we have pumped hydro storage, we also need to add more storage capacity, some of the methods available world wide are:- compressed air, heat, chemical (as in synthetic fuel), Mechanical as in flywheels and electrical as in large scale batteries. Generally batteries are only a small part of the solution and at present would be mostly used by the off grid crowd.

The specific problem of heating Australian homes is entirely solvable simply by using a heat engine, which is no more than a fridge working in reverse, yes it requires some electricity, but it is a good deal less than generating heat directly from electricity, and most renewables do work at night the only exception being solar PV. Further to that a well designed house in Australia needs very little heating especially if it uses passive solar such as north facing windows and good insulation.

The problem gets really difficult when we try to deal with the problems I listed in my previous post above.

Well we can see warmair has dodged my challenge.

His religion would never stand a dose of truth & facts, so he must avoid seeing them.

Those 7 weeks of wind generating records totally prove that wind doesn't work, & can't work. The whole alternate power has been a huge con, designed to rip the heart out of the industrial economies & give billions to the hopeless third world

Warmair, whatever the alternative supply is it has to produce at least
three times the power needed during the day.
If however you need to store up a nights power during the day and if
that day happens to be an overcast still day and they do happen quite often.
Today for example !
Every sailor knows that wind drops at sunset.
Gawd imagine what it would be like in Bleak City !
You might have to cope with a week of overcast still days.
That will be the design specification, or large office buildings
will be unusable.
The generation level might have to be five to eight times the day total
demand.
If you live above the third floor and or you have reached an age where
long flights of stairs are impossible then move out.

If that is not acceptable, then find out who manufactures candles and
buy their shares.

Don writes;

“The evidence of warming has been most subdued in the last twenty years, compared to the twenty years before that.”

My goodness, really?

Sounds like this warming business is just grinding to a halt before our very thermometers.

Just one problem;

“The July average temperature across global land and ocean surfaces was 1.46°F (0.81°C) above the 20th century average. As July is climatologically the warmest month for the year, this was also the all-time highest monthly temperature in the 1880–2015 record, at 61.86°F (16.61°C), surpassing the previous record set in 1998 by 0.14°F (0.08°C).”

“Separately, the July globally-averaged land surface temperature was 1.73°F (0.96°C) above the 20thcentury average. This was the sixth highest for July in the 1880–2015 record.”

“The July globally-averaged sea surface temperature was 1.35°F (0.75°C) above the 20th century average. This was the highest temperature for any month in the 1880–2015 record, surpassing the previous record set in July 2014 by 0.13°F (0.07°C). The global value was driven by record warmth across large expanses of the Pacific and Indian Oceans.”
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/sotc/

The boy stood on the burning deck.

warmair,

It has recently been discovered that a substantial saving in the amount of energy it takes to make cement can be made by grinding the clinker while it's still hot.

I suggest you don't say we ever need to get our emissions down to zero, as it is likely to result in people accusing you of wanting to take us back to the stone age. It's better to say that we need to cut our emissions down BELOW zero, as that makes it clear that it's not just a case of reducing our adverse impact; we can also have a positive impact. It gets people thinking about the difference between gross and net emissions (and that it's the latter that's important). And most importantly, after putting all that extra CO2 into the atmosphere before 2070, doing nothing and just leaving it to nature will be insufficient to counteract the warming; we'll need to deal with it more actively.
______________________________________________________________________________________

Bazz,

Substantial progress has been made on how to overcome a still cold night. Are you really unaware of soar thermal with molten salt storage?

And coal is not the only fossil fuel we have. Natural gas can be used far more efficiently than coal, and is generally much more responsive to changes in load.

We don't have to rely on coal at all, and are better off not doing so.

Hasbeen
I don't normally respond to insults only to rational comment which you are quite capable of, and I have no problem visiting sites that disagree with my understanding of the world. As a matter of interest all that JoNova's comments on wind prove is that you can't use a single renewable source for all your electrical power it has to be a mix. The site that she links to is actually quite useful as it clearly shows you get a couple of days warning when wind power will become unavailable and even then it usually only lasts day or two before it comes online again.

http://energy.anero.id.au/wind-energy

Bazz
The wind during the day at ground level is slightly stronger because thermals mix in higher air from above which is moving at a higher speed, but windmills are placed at locations such as on hills which are generally unaffected by this phenomena, Also the towers are up to 300Ft high which again mitigates the problem. The wind most definitely does blow at night, hydro and biomass are totally unaffected by time of day, solar thermal can store energy for up to 15 hours which allows it to generate power at night, it is only domestic solar PV which is problematic if you wish to store large quantities energy. At my location it is now 9:30pm and the wind is blowing at 22 Kph and increasing, anything over 12Kph will generate wind power and max power is typically achieved at 35 Kph or above.

http://www.bom.gov.au/vic/observations/vicall.shtml