Wind and commercial solar would have more legitimacy if they got there on the basis of tough emissions targets, not quotas and subsidies. We'd know that electricity providers could slot them into the mix without excessive cost. Now we have solar installers actively lobbying in the forthcoming Canning by-election presumably to keep the government largesse coming.

On another forum it was suggested that you shouldn't feel guilty about car driving and plane trips if you have solar panels. That theory will be put to the test when oil runs out. Things seem OK now precisely because we are using 85% fossil fuels to make heat, electricity and transport. If political luminaries think that is easy or cheap to turn around show us where it has been done.

There is a cost in not reducing carbon emissions (but it is not 'extinction').

Of course there are high costs in establishing new energy technologies but, in the case of renewables, these are largely fixed costs.

The ongoing costs for renewable technologies are relatively small cf. ongoing variable costs of mining coal. Nobody talks about these aspects of "the costs".

Yes, "Australia would be crazy not to reap the benefits of what promises to be one of the world's major growth industries .." ---- but they are not "industries of tomorrow", or benefits "of tomorrow" --

--- they are industries of Today, and removing the carbon price/tax has severely damaged the ability to reap revenue and other benefits presently and into the future.

This Lib-Nat Federal Coalition gummint have cost Australia. Big time.

.

Tas,

Emission reduction targets are every bit as flawed as the other "green" solutions: they are artificial constructs to solve a problem that almost certainly doesn't exist, since there has been no warming for 18 years and the thousands of predicted catastrophes haven't occurred.

McReal,

You say the "ongoing costs of renewable energy are relatively small".
You mean after the first $100 billion?

All in all a very good article from John.

Who will pay the price for this fiscal insanity?

The people, our entire future prospects, the economy, our manufacturing arm or base or both!

Simply put, to create a decarbonized economy only requires carbon free energy, and the only one that competes with coal on roll out costs is very large scale solar thermal energy able to utilise economies of scale!

Those that clearly outperform coal are, cheaper than coal thorium; seventies technology, rejected because there were no weapons spin off!

Conversely, in complete inversion to oxide reactors they produce just around 5% waste, which is vastly less toxic, and then still suitable as long life space batteries!

Then we have cheaper again biogas, created in onsite digestors, and stored in bladers, and after requisite scrubbing, consumed in locally invented ceramic fuel cells; that together as a combination, produce the world's cheapest energy!

Firstly because the energy coefficient is a world beating 80% and secondly; there are no transmission or distribution losses to consider for energy produced where it is used!

And lets not forget the endless free hot water that these combinations produce, along with the pristine water evaporate that is mostly, the exhaust product!

If Labor shared a still functioning brain between them, you could probably put it in a thimble and still hear it rattle?
Rhrosty.

"Building enough solar and wind power to meet Labor's new target would cost the country 80 to 100 billion dollars."

It's much worse than that. It's not feasible.

http://euanmearns.com/the-renewables-future-a-summary-of-findings/

The biggest joke comes in politicians' renewable energy 'targets'. Abbott, who really doesn't believe in the nonsense anyway but plays along to keep his job, goes for twenty something percent; the other buffoon pokes a pin into an absurd figure of 50%.

The stupid public wears this rubbish without even asking if any of these electioneering ploys are achievable, or even if the massive expense will have any effect on the climate. At the moment, even 'the science' (drum roll) says no and no.

John, your still at school so you should not have forgotten the rule..."show your working out".

The selective use of facts shows that you're not actually interested in having a conversation, just repeating a liberal party talking point.

Why not mention the fact the coal is currently 3 or 4 times cheaper then it was just a little while?
Why not mention that Warren is in it for the money so of course he wouldn't investment in something that wasn't going to make his financial goals. Last time I looked most of the bigger power companies in Australia where government owned, so profit doesn't have to be the motivator for this essential service.

Oh btw how many large coal fueled power stations have been built by private companies in Australia in the last say five years without any government assistance?

But your little piece here will go down well in this echo chamber.

Peter using two retired Geo's as your source on renewable just shows your bias nothing more. You can still find people who believe the earth is flat.

Cobber the hound,

You seem conflicted. You said to the author of the post: "John, your still at school so you should not have forgotten the rule..."show your working out".

Then you use an ad hominem fallacy in attempt to discredit the author of the referenced post. He has shown his "workings out". So let's see your "workings out" to discredit it. Join the debate on that thread if you have anything substantial to offer. I am sure you don't.

John seems to have failed to realise that generating electricity from renewables has a very different cost structure from generating electricity from fossil fuels. The capital cost is much higher, but because there's no fuel cost, the running cost is much lower.

Thus he claims that the 50% target will see the crowding out of cheaper sources; in reality it will see the crowding out of more expensive sources.

Whether renewables or fossil fuels work out cheaper overall depends on the cost of finance. But even if they're not cheaper overall, it can still result in cheaper electricity as it reduces the opportunity for profiteering.

This piece and associated set of comments shows yet again the “yes they can/no they can’t” nature of opinions on renewables replacing current energy sources. The debate has been around for a lot more than the 20 years John Slater claims. It ought to be a simple technical question. Why is it not? The answer is complicated but stems fundamentally from a lack of public scepticism about a highly dubious proposition, that feeble intermittent wind and sun could ever possibly serve us as fossil fuels now do. As a result, every favourable report of a new idea or technical breakthrough or cost projection is seized on as proof that renewables will soon deliver the goods without harming prosperity. ‘Grid parity’ is forever just around the corner. Of course the advocates forget about comparing like with like, confusing the marginal cost of domestic rooftop solar with the real cost of utility-scale electricity generation. They forget about the universal principle of economy of scale. They forget that the first 5% of any replacement plan will inevitably be a much smaller challenge than the last 5%. They forget that electricity is only a small part of the whole energy story.

Many readers of this e-journal simply claim there’s no problem on the grounds that carbon emissions don’t affect climate. I hope they are right because the renewables advocates are certainly wrong. Sadly the most likely truth is that they are both wrong. We probably do have a problem and, as Ross Garnaut first said, it’s diabolical. Nuclear energy is the obvious long term answer for electricity, but transportable fuels for industry and commerce are a different matter (I accept that consumers will eventually adapt and small electric vehicles for private cars will become the norm).

Renewables are a distraction from the real challenge of converting the presently known large scale intensive energy source, nuclear fission, into forms for every application we need.

Peter you seem to have a reading problem. I pointed out that any picture can be painted if you only explore that facts that support your contention.
Asking why the author didn't explore these area is reasonable comment.

if you're railing against government subs for wind generators than is it not reasonable to explain what subs are in place for coal power stations?

I also asked a very clear question, What coal fueled power stations have been built without government subs?

Peter take up the challenge, can you answer the question. Why deflect it?

I'm with Rhrosty here I think we should try some nukes. That would take billions of government assistance.

Tombee, though sun and wind power are intermittent, they are very very very far from feeble. Few people with any comprehension of how much solar radiation reaches this planet would think it technically impossible, though many would consider it unfeasibly expensive.

When trying to compare like with like, it's important not to lose sight of the real objective. When we need dispatchable power, we shouldn't pretend that what we need is baseload.

Then there's the issue of who we're applying the argument to, Australia, with its sunny climate and low population density, is technically very conducive to renewables, whereas Europe's conditions are more favourable to nuclear power.

It's not that renewable energy advocates forget that the last 5% is much harder than the first 5%. It's simply that it's of very little relevance to our present situation. Even when we reach 50% it won't be much of a constraint. And by the time we do reach the stage of 95% of our electricity form renewables, technology will have moved on significantly from where we now are. We don't have to limit ourselves to using todays technology for solving problems we don't yet have.

Aidan,

You are incorrect. The "fuel" costs for renewables do not go away, because you still need coal-fired generation as baseload backup.

The entire point about renewables is that they are not economically viable. They don't become viable just because taxpayers are forced to subsidised their construction and operating costs and their profit margins.

If the green left had any strategy other than posturing they'd be prepared to admit nuclear generation is a strong option.

Cobber,I'm with you, except where you say we need billions in government subsidies!

Factually, small (modules) waterless helium cooled pebble reactors (uranium fueled) can be mass produced in factories, then trucked onsite as wide loads!

The grapefruit sized graphite (bulletproof)balls surrounding small marbles or pebbles of fuel, mean there can never be a big enough pool/collection of fissile material to create a dangerous melt down!?

Practical Thorium reactors are limited in size to about 40 MW, and as such, can also be mass produced and trucked where they are needed.

And just ensuring they are buried in bedrock covers virtually all the so called attendant safety issues?

Moreover new isotopes of thorium, means we no longer need an oxide reaction to get them started!

And they can be paralleled as many times as you like for certain industries? 10 parallel reactors gets you a 400MW power plant e.g.?

However, placing them as near as possible to the local consumers all but eliminates transmission line or distribution losses?

And a single truckload of fuel may be all you need for the operational life of the plant, which means you eliminate most transport and mining costs!? The bane of the coal fired power industry!

And mass production as virtually ready to use modules, makes them vastly cheaper than the labour intensive, built on site, coal option!?

All that's required is development approval to get some of these comparatively safe subsidy free options up and running, much to the chagrin of the fossil fuel industry!

As one Saudi oil minister said, the stone age didn't end for lack of stone.
Cheers, Rhrosty.

Cobber the hound,

As usual you make a complete fool of yourself, but thank you for the opportunity to show it again. You asked about the subsidies for renewables versus coal (of course, to be meaningful the comaprison must be on a properly comparable basis; i.e. they must be normalised for the amount of electricity produced. The following is subsidies for electricity production per MWh by fuel//technology for Australia in 2013-2014:

Coal, inc. share of subsidies paid to coal mining $0.86
Gas $0.30
Solar $412.10
Wind $41.60
All other renewables (inc. hydro) $17.52
Total fossil fuel $0.69
Total renewables $75.80
Total all fuels/technologies $11.95
Source: Table 1 http://www.minerals.org.au/file_upload/files/media_releases/Electricity_production_subsidies_in_Australia_FINAL.pdf (Note: two figures corrected by factor of 1000 in figures listed above):

Any other silly questions. I'd suggest you do your own research first.

The subsidies for solar are 480 times higher than for coal and for wind are 42 times higher than for coal. Subsidies for all renewables, including hydro, are 90 times higher than for coal.

This same question has been asked and answered many times before on Online Opinion.

calwest,
You are incorrect. You DON'T need coal fired generation as baseload backup. You don't need baseload backup at all. What you need is increased peakload capacity. Gas is usually the fuel of choice for this.

The entire point of renewables is that they  don't consume fuel, so avoid the emissions that fossil fuel use produces. Though not being economically viable is a common feature, it's not a defining feature and there are things that can be done to make it more economically viable. It's not their construction costs and profit margins we should subsidize, it's the loans to fund them. The government can borrow for 2%. At or below 4% solar thermal is competitive with fossil fuel. Were the Clean Energy Finance Corporation to finance it at 3% or less, everyone would win. Well nearly everyone — obviously the coal industry would lose. So Abbott put a stop to that by demanding the CEFC make a commercial rate of return.

As with most political factions, there are differing views within the green left snd some do support nuclear power. However the economic case for it in Australia is dubious.

.

Dear John (the author),

.

You wrote :

« Labor's recent decision to opt for a 50% renewable energy target by 2030 without undertaking any economic modelling is a case in point. »

You didn’t cite your sources on that, John. Could you please provide the relevant statements from Tony Burke, the shadow minister for finance, or whoever …

I think you will agree that this is important as it is the basis of your whole article.

You then affirm :

« Consumers and industry will not only foot the bill for Australia's renewable energy utopia through their taxes. They will continue to pay every time they receive their power bill. »

If, as you state, the opposition shadow cabinet has not undertaken any economic modelling, how do you know how they intend to finance the 50% renewable energy target effort ?

The comments in an article that appeared in “The Conversation” on 30 July 2015 provide some insight into the question :

http://theconversation.com/factcheck-would-labors-renewable-energy-plan-cost-consumers-60-billion-45288

I look forward to hearing from you, John.

.

All of these renewable energy targets, at whatever level, presupposes the need to reduce CO2 levels in the atmosphere. There is an unproven theory that increased levels of CO2 to say 1000 ppm will be harmful to world climatic temperatures/conditions.
Ask any tomato grower how good CO2 at 1000 ppm is for their productivity.
People, increased plant food in the atmosphere is good. Actual 'data', as opposed to 'models', would indicate we should be striving to increase atmospheric CO2 levels.
I was once admonished that "clean coal" was an oxymoron. Modern latest generation coal plants have reduced sulphur and carbon particulates etc (pollutants) by 98%. That's why I refer to 'clean coal'. CO2 is NOT a pollutant. Very simple really.

Australian coal, oil and gas companies receive $4b in subsidies
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-11-11/coal-oil-and-gas-companies-receive-4-billion-dollar-in-subsidie/5881814
IMF says energy subsidised by US .3 trillion worldwide
http://www.abc.net.au/environment/articles/2015/05/20/4239153.htm

Robert LePage,

There are three problems with the numbers you quoted from the ABC and Conversation:

1. You haven't given the numbers for renewables, so it's meaningless - it's simply cherry picking factoids.

2. To compare subsidies across technologies they have to be normalised so they are comparable. You have to divide by the amount of electricity supplied.

3. The quote "IMF says energy subsidised by US .3 trillion worldwide" is irrelevant. It's for all energy and all technologies. To make a sensible and valid comparison with renewables you have to compare just the subsidies for technologies that generate electricity and you have to normalise it so it is $/MWh.

Labours renewable energy promises are about as likely as the funding of Gonski, NDIS and NBN. We all know its a game where the likes of Mr Shorten will blab anything knowing that dumbed down people who can't think will vote for Labour believing that somehow money does grow on trees. Probably more deceitful than Labour itself is left wing journalist who love to fly around living the high life getting on their moral bandwagon and failing totally to ask any questions to Labour/Greens in regard to funding. Conservatives including Tony Abbott are partly to blame by pretending to go along with the idiotic gw scam which has seen billions wasted in supporting fraudulent Climate authorities here in Australia and overseas. Science has been replaced by pseudo science just like morality has been replaced by pseudo morality. The gw religion often demonstrates violence and bigotry.

Aidan,

What happens when "the wind don't blow and the sun don't shine"?

As usual, you write only in theoretical terms.

And, more significantly, you ignore the monstrous cost of putting in place enough wind and solar power to meet demand - cost to construct and install and maintain, cost in economic terms, cost in alienation of land, cost in impact on people.

And for what? There's been no warming for 18 years and even if we reduced Australia's CO2 emissions to zero the impact on warming would be hilariously negligible. Ideologies of the Left are great for developing theories, but do nothing at all beneficial and a lot that is unaffordable and useless.

Quote Article

" Building enough solar and wind power to meet Labor's new target would cost the country 80 to 100 billion dollars."

To put that into perspective In a few hours last week the Australian share market lost 52 billion dollars.

http://www.gci.uq.edu.au/factcheck-would-labors-renewable-energy-plan-cost-consumers-60-billion

In NSW they pay 1/3 of the coal export price in Victoria they pay nothing for brown coal, It is not clear to me that they pay for the water they use and certainly not what the consumer pays. They don't pay tax on diesel fuel, and in nearly all cases the coal generators were built by state governments with tax money, and then sold off to private companies at a discount. To top it all off the coal generators will probably demand to be paid by the government to close down rather than admit they are a major source of pollution and really should not get 1 cent of subsidies, nor are they likely to want pay for the mess they have left behind, from digging the coal out of the ground. For example the Victorian brown coal mines are a continuous sources of problems whether it is the Latrobe river breaking into the mine, causing the closure of the nearby freeway or the company refusing to pay for the cost of putting out the fires in the mine. The cost to health of digging it out of the ground and burning coal is horrendous. The only sensible choices are renewables if we care about our health, the environment and even the economy.

http://environmentvictoria.org.au/media/coal-costing-victorians-billions-health-and-environmental-damage

In Europe 24.3% of the total electric power is generated by renewables
Europe generates a total of 3101.3 TWh electric power from all sources.
:. Europe produces 753 TWh renewable power
Total generation in Australia was 235 TWh
:. Europe with a smaller land area than Australia produces 3.2 times more renewable power than Australia uses in a whole year from all sources and obviously you can double that figure if you only want to get 50% renewables.

http://www.smh.com.au/environment/getting-to-50-per-cent--building-australias-renewable-future-20150723-gijcmv.html

http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/government-modelling-shows-power-prices-will-fall-if-ret-stays-20140624-zskbd.html

http://www.theage.com.au/comment/invest-now-to-achieve-50pc-renewable-energy-target-20150729-gimx1k.html

Somehow a diesel rebate for miners is an unconscionable subsidy but a diesel rebate for farmers is one of those things. I think we should distinguish between hydro and non-hydro in discussing 'renewables'. Otherwise we'd need a string of snow capped mountains between WA and Qld to compare ourselves with Europe or North America with all-up 'renewables'.

Taswegian

To recap Europe generated 3101 TWh of electrical power in 2013 of which 753 TWh or 24.3% of the total was from renewables.

In Europe the proportions of all electrical energy produced by renewables were:-

2.55% wind, solar 1.34%, biomass 15.6%, hydro 4.03%, Geo 0.75% of total generation leaving 19.49% excluding hydro.

So Europe generates 604 TWh excluding hydro which is still 2.6 times Australia's total consumption.
Source
http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php/File:Primary_production_of_renewable_energy,_2003_and_2013_YB15.png

Australia (2014) generated from Hydro 6.2%, wind 4.2%, solar 2.1%, Biomass 0.28%, plus a very small amount of wave and geothermal for a total of 13.47 %.
Source
http://www.cleanenergycouncil.org.au/cleanenergyaustralia

The obvious points are we should have no problem adding a lot more biomass, and there is plenty of opportunity to increase both solar and wind. Tasmania could produce a lot more wind power, after all it is slap bang in the middle of the roaring 40s, and then thus allow it to export a considerable amount of renewable energy. In fact wind is available from somewhere around Carnarvon in western Australia all along the coast to the tip of Cape York. Nor am I convinced that we have exhausted all the possible hydro sites.

Warmair,

Your comments are loaded with irrelevant, noncomaprable, factoids. Thye are just silly.

You use words like "plenty" and "a lot". What on earth does that mean? If you can't provide properly conparable analyses, you really ought to stop posting.

The facts are that renewables cannot realistically provide more than a small proportion of global elecctricity; this is a good example of why: http://euanmearns.com/the-renewables-future-a-summary-of-findings/. Therefore, they cannot make much contribution to cutting global GHG emissions. Non hydro renewables are not sustainable: http://bravenewclimate.com/2014/08/22/catch-22-of-energy-storage/. Hydro and biomass's shares of global electricity generation will decrease as electricity demand increases because there is insufficient remaining resource. to develop. And renewables are many times more expensive than fossil fuels and nuclear, especially when you include the additional grid costs or energy storage costs. Nuclear is a many times cheaper way to reduce the emissions intensity of electricity, it is effectively unlimited and fission alone can provide all the world's growing energy needs for thousands of years, even without considering fusion. Renewables cannot, for the reason explaind above - i.e. they are not sustainable.

Furthermore, nuclear is safer than all other technologies - i.e. less fatalities per TWh of electricity delivered: http://nextbigfuture.com/2012/06/deaths-by-energy-source-in-forbes.html

The advocates of renewables are cultists. They ignore the relevant facts and keep repeating well worn, discredited, misleading, disingenuous factoids and talking points.

The 10 signs of intellectual dishonestymaybe of interest: http://judithcurry.com/2013/04/20/10-signs-of-intellectual-honesty/

Pompete, you are just so wrong! There is an irrefutable fact laden fossil record that tells us what happened before and what that gave rise to!
Cause and effect evidence!

And that record tells us the current Co2 levels are at an all time high unprecedented record!?

Do you know e.g. that the Sahara desert was once the granary of Rome, and where wheatfields as far as the eye could see, now is a vast waterless desert.

Even so crossed by enough water laden clouds to completely reverse that outcome if we could just replace the forests that once were the factor that kick started the rain.

I mean an acre of trees evaporates 2.5 times the moisture of an acre of open water!

But that aside, the real challenge for us is the way most of our manufacturing industries and skilled jobs are being offshored.

And not because we can't make it better cheaper here!

The Idea that we can replace an essential skills based manufacturing here with services, is nonsense that ignores that fact that services are the first to go under, with any contraction or a new GFC. Look at the record and the evidence it provides! And given the Asians ability to copy and then outperform, why do we think we will be able to continue to remain a place that imports mostly every manufactured item while we for example become the food bowl of Asia, as indeed the Sahara was once the food bowl of Rome!

We only have one way to resuscitate our local manufacture, jobs and assured quality that represents, and that is by providing the very cheapest world beating industrial energy we are capable of!

And coal just ain't it! And we need to couple that long overdue pragmatism with genuine tax reform (see me in earlier posts on the topic) And as a combination really open up Australia for more business and high paying jobs than we can handle! It's too easy!
Rhrosty.

Peter
I liked your last link re honesty. I don't know how to put this kindly but in my view you fall well short on those criteria, I don't claim to be perfect either, but I will investigate any claim that appears to be supported by evidence.

The particular problem I have with your last post is I provided evidence for my claims. I then gave an opinion based on that evidence, I can not estimate how much biomass electrical power could be produced in Australia as it depends on too many variables, not least of which is what is politically acceptable. The Greens for example refuse to accept the use of waste from logging operations. Nevertheless I can see no reason why Australia can not generate at substantial amounts power from biomass and waste. If we were to achieve the same amount of power from Biomass and waste as Europe does that would provide 33% of of Australia’s total needs.

Warmair, every Austrian Family produces enough biological waste to completely power their domiciles 24/7, and then produce enough energy to export around half of what they make on site?

There's an Aussie invented smell free two stage system, that could utilize just about all of it.

[A far better option than sending millions of annual tons of it out to sea; creating a plethora of problems that we don't have to deal with, given we can't see them?]

By replacing the usual methane powered converted diesel with Australian invented Ceramic fuel cells.

With the best energy coefficient in the world at 80% and comparable as a probable cost benefit outcome, with coal fired power, which averages a 20% coefficient.

And cheaper than coal thorium energy costs around half of that of coal fired power, given the small size of the modules, and the need to use them in place of large diesels as industrial, possible to parallel, virtual on site power?

Thus completely eliminating the doubled cost of transmission and distribution losses, which currently average some 64% as total losses.

Which by the way, if eliminated, would more tha half the carbon produced by the coal fired industries; and also the cost!

A million homes have solar panels on the roof, which could reduce the ever rising cost of (coal fired) power if batteries replaced the feed in transmission lines.

And something for the future for customers, as an alternative to allowing the power authorities to milk them like income producing milch cow herds!
Rhrosty.

Warmair,

You are simply guessing and making stuff up. You haven't a clue what you are talking about. Read about biomass here (my post), but there are many authoritative studies. Forget it. Renewables cannot provide much of the world's electricity. I gave you references. Read them and make a genuine attempt to understand. Challenge your beliefs.

calwest,
You are falsely accusing me of ignoring the monstrous cost of putting in place enough wind and solar power to meet demand. I'm not ignoring it at all! I'm saying that when spread over the life of the project it''s far from monstrous.

I can't understand how it isn't obvious what happens when "the wind don't blow and the sun don't shine"? Why do you think I said we'll need more peakload capacity?

There's negligible cost in alienation of land because land in Australia is plentiful - it's lack of water that's the limiting factor on agricultural productivity. And much of the renewable power generation permits other uses of land to continue undisrupted below it. As for the impact on people, that's tiny compared to the impact on people from fossil fuels.

The reason I write in theoretical terms is because I'm writing about what could be done.

There has been substantial warming in the last 18 years, and to reduce our impact we have to start somewhere. At the moment Australia's intransigence is providing other countries an excuse for inaction. But if we lead by example, showing other countries that it can be done at minimal cost, we will encourage those countries to do much more.

Aidan,

How long do you think the lifespan of a wind farm is? The turbines are spinning machinery, which are not likely to exceed 20yrs without replacement, and considering the maintenance costs are far higher than for traditional generation systems, the costs are not likely to ever drop anywhere near fossil fuel generation. This is not even including the vast cost of maintaining a huge peak load system that is idle 90% of the time.

As for the warming over the last 18 years, I believe that there has been some warming, however, the warming has clearly slowed, and the trends are lower than the lowest predictions in the late 90s.

Shadow
A quick check on the internet reveals the following figures for maintenance of the various types of power stations.
Coal 20 days per year
Hydro 7 days per year
Natural gas 5 days per year
Wind turbine 3 days per year

The life expectancy of a wind turbine is 20 years.
Operation and Maintenance costs make up some 20-25 per cent of the total levelised cost per kWh produced over the lifetime of the turbine.
The cost of maintenance based on the European experience is about A$ 1.6 cents per kilowatt hour.

The only electrical generators without spinning parts are PV panels.

The cost of wind power is typically around $82 per MW/hr. Coal power is being sold into the grid at around $40 per MW/hr, but if a new coal plant were built today the levelised cost is estimated to be the same as wind, this is due to the higher environmental standards that would be imposed on new coal plant.

The primary reason for eliminating coal fired generation is to reduce CO2 emissions, but in any event coal fired generation is fraught with pollution and health problems.Once you accept this, then whatever other option you choose is either going to need subsidies, or is going make power more expensive.

Again a long argument about the wrong argument !
The problem is not global warming it is energy reliability.
Oil and coal are coming to their end of economic usage. While we have
plenty of coal if we don't flog it all off, we are in trouble much
sooner with oil.

If we install enough solar and wind to run Australia, what happens
when as we had the week before last We had at least three days with
solid overcast and very little wind.
Think what that means, on the last sunny and windy day we had to
generate for that day and the three subsequent days and still have
enough energy stored, plus storage losses, to startup the next, hopefully sunny, day !

In other words when you talk of costs you are only costing for that
days consumption. To cope with that, presuming you have such a large
storage, you need to build three to four times the generating capacity !

That is just for three overcast days.
Even connecting the grid over large geographical areas does not solve
the problem, it just passes the storage problem to others, but more
importantly it means a very large expenditure in transmission lines
to cart much larger currents around the country.

Is it not time for those proposing alternate energy systems to explain
how they intend to supply 24 hour 7 days a week 52 weeks a year ?
Until they do do not buy property above three floors.

Bazz

There is a wide range of views as to how much carbon we can add to the atmosphere before we run into serious climate problems. They range from, we have already overshot the amount that is safe, to a fairly high estimate of some 475 billion tons of carbon by the IPCC. The economically viable know sources fossil fuels is already equivalent to over 1000 billion tons of carbon so no a relatively safe level of AGW is not limited by fossil fuel reserves. In the past it was possible to make a case that AGW would be limited by fossil fuel supply, if one assumed that amount of warming due greenhouse was at the very low end of expectations. Since then however we have found economical ways of exploiting tar sands and fracking which has added greatly to the viable fossil fuel supplies.

http://e360.yale.edu/feature/the_trillion-ton_cap_allocating_the_worlds_carbon_emissions/2703/

To supply Australia's current electrical needs from renewable sources is not a problem. Wind when available produces adequate amounts of power and that is something like 5 days out of 7. Solar power based north of the divide can probably do better at up to 6 days out of 7. Typically solar power will be available when wind is not and vice versa, but there will be a few occasions when neither are, on those few occasions we have to fall back onto hydro, biomass and storage, and they could potentially cover 2 days out of 5 which would still leave room for them to meet peeking power demands. It really is a no brainer, the problem is it costs more than the current system, and some large coal fired stations stand to lose a lot of money if they are closed down and so will continue to operate as long as possible unless action is taken to put a price on carbon.

http://bze.org.au/zero-carbon-australia-2020

Warmair,

I find many of your quoted figures somewhat disingenuous. For example the "higher environmental standards" to which you refer include Gillard's carbon tax. Also if you compare modern coal fired super critical plants, they generate an additional 15% power per ton of coal, and cost about 1/2 as much in capital as wind per kW of capacity. Add on top of that that coal generation lasts about 50 yrs

Also I am dubious about the 20 days p.a. for maintenance for coal generation, as my experience is typically 5 day annual shuts with 3 yearly 3 week major overhauls or 30 days in 3 years.

http://www.power-technology.com/features/featurepower-plant-om-how-does-the-industry-stack-up-on-cost-4417756/

As for general maintenance costs the cost per kW capacity is the same for wind as for coal, but with a 30-35% capacity factor for wind and a 85-92%% capacity factor for coal, the maint costs for wind per kWhr generated is nearly 3x that of coal.

Warmair, you still did not answer my question as to providing for 3
overcast still days.
It requires a cost 3 to 4 times the cost to supply one day.
All you suggested was have larger capacity in that either wind or solar
could do the job, so that is double the cost.
Have you never heard of a cold dark still night.
That is an enormous quantity of energy to store.
Forget hydro, if you let all that water run we will starve.

>Solar power based north of the divide can

I presume you mean west of the divide ?
Have you ever been in a power station ?
If not, I think you should take the opportunity if there are any tours
run near you.

I know that wind & solar can be made to do it if enough money is spent
even though it fails energy net test, but once you add storage and
the fiddling you suggested with bios etc to cope with multiple days
then it falls in a heap.

Bazz

I acknowledge the problem but it is not nearly as bad you seem to think, first our geography means that our primary wind source runs east west, now as weather patterns travel west to east it means that it is very unusual for all the wind farms in SE Australia to be offline at the same time, and for solar again I emphasize that the center of a high is typical sunny especial north or west of the great divide. I don't how many times I have driven to the coast, left in bright sunshine crossed the divide and found myself in overcast conditions.

The primary method of providing power when wind and sun is not available is in my opinion is biomass, which fall into various categories:-

Solids from the timber and forestry industry such as trimmings, thinnings, branch off cuts, bark, sawdust and scrap from timber milling, tree clearing associated with urban development, and domestic waste. It would also be possible to harvest fair amounts wood in a sustainable way. We also have a range agricultural waste, such as straw and sugar cane bagasse.

Bio Liquids fuels can be obtained from sugar cane, coconut palms and numerous other plants, further possibilities include used vegetable oils from commercial enterprises.

Gases particularly methane can be obtained from biodigesters using both human and animal wastes and municipal rubbish dumps.

The advantage of biofuels is that fossil fuel power stations can readily adapted to use them as the British plan to do with one of their large coal power stations.

In Australia we generate hardly any power from biomass compared to Europe which generates over 60% of their renewable power from biomass.

http://oilprice.com/Energy/Coal/UKs-Largest-Coal-Power-Plant-to-be-Converted-to-a-Biomass-Plant.html

Warmair,

The problem with your proposal can be seen by simply looking at the renewable generation in Germany which swings from peaks of nearly 100% some mid days to as low as 10% in the hours after sunset. The responsibility of the government is to ensure that power is available as close to 100% of the time, and biomass generation has no chance of filling the gap.

Having worked with a Biomass boiler, the biggest problem is ensuring a steady supply. The boiler's fuel is typically light, very bulky and contains about 50% moisture which means that the calorific value is low and that transport costs are very high per unit of power generated.

Biomass can provide base load power, but beyond about 10% of Australia's demand, the costs of transport escalate dramatically until nearly as much energy is consumed burning the waste as is generated.

Zero emissions is not possible without large reliable low emission base load generation, and the only thing that fits the bill so far is nuclear.

Hasbeen, wind turbine lifespan obviously depends on the turbine design and the conditions it's used in, but I'd expect most of them to last over 20 years.
See http://www3.imperial.ac.uk/newsandeventspggrp/imperialcollege/newssummary/news_20-2-2014-9-18-49

Operation and maintenance costs for three countries are shown at... http://offlinehbpl.hbpl.co.uk/NewsAttachments/OPW/data-1.gif
...though they're not insignificant, they're nowhere near the fuel costs of fossil fuel based generation.

And it's likely maintenance costs will decline as wind turbine design improves.

Does the time peakload generators spend idle add much to their maintenance costs?

As for the warming trend, at the moment there's a huge El Niño developing. Once that makes its impact felt, we could find ourselves warming much faster.

Wind power is totally uneconomic. If wind power was economic it would not need subsidies. The subsidies for wind power are about ninety times higher than for coal fired electricity generation. That says it all.

Continually making up nonsensical, irrelevant numbers and using cherry picked out of context numbers is typical of the wind ideolgues. No rational debate can be held with such people.

Shadow
Getting back to your post at the top of page 7.

The levelsed cost of new coal plant is quoted at around A$80 dollars per megawatt, the environmental problems which add to the cost is not the carbon tax, the issues as I expect you are aware are reducing emissions of sulphur dioxide, particulate matter, and heavy metals etc down to acceptable levels. I agree that modern coal plants are more efficient than old plant in a number of ways, but the cost of adding carbon capture on top of that completely blows that figure out of the water.

The figures I quoted for maintenance down time for coal plant came from a spreadsheet provided by either esaa, nem or aemo, and quoted 20 days for every existing coal plant in Australia, It suggests they simply used an average, but I expect more modern plants do better than that. If I can ever find the link again I will post it as it is quite informative.

The figure I gave for wind maintenance costs of A$ 1.6 cents kW/h is the actual cost for the power generated and not based on the capacity figure, multiplying it by 3 is not correct.

http://www.wind-energy-the-facts.org/operation-and-maintenance-costs-of-wind-generated-power.html

Note maintenance costs for wind is 60% of all overheads. I arrived at the figure above by applying the current euro exchange rate.

Peter
You complain about cherry picking data, and then choose the most favorable figure you can find, a more useful approach is the information provided by essaa who are lobbyists for the electrical power industry. If I wanted to spin my arguments, I would use the IMF figure of $41.2 billion to coal, and then claim that wind subsidies were 2X less than coal. The problem with burning coal is that it is a major emitter of CO2 and thus needs to be replaced, it is not in the end about subsidies and that leaves with a very simple choice subsidize power or charge more for it. At present subsidies have worked well for the consumer, as it has created an excess supply, which in turn has pushed down wholesale prices.

http://www.esaa.com.au/members/How_big_are_Australian_fossil_fuel_subsidies

As I have said before, there are some smart energy experts over at The Breakthrough Institute that take climate change very seriously yet also see the pitfalls in renewable energy. They have analysed German renewables, and found it wanting.

German solar is 3 times more expensive than nuclear: and it doesn't run on a cold German winter night.
"An analysis by the Breakthrough Institute finds that the entire German solar sector produces less than half the power that Fukushima Daiichi – a single nuclear complex – generated before it was hit by the tsunami. To build a Fukushima-sized solar industry in Germany would, it estimates, cost $155bn. To build a Fukushima-sized nuclear plant would cost $53.5bn. And the power would be there on winter evenings."
http://thebreakthrough.org/blog/2011/03/doing_the_math_comparing_germa.shtml

Storage in northern nations like Germany could bankrupt any nation that tried it. You can *either* buy Tesla Powerpack batteries to back up *one week* of winter in Germany (at a hypothetical 30% penetration of wind and solar, and these wind and solar farms must still be bought), OR you can just buy safe modern nuclear-waste eating nukes that will do the whole job for 60 years. Again, *backup* a third of a renewable grid for just one week, or nuke the whole grid for 60 years! That’s the economics of renewable storage V nuclear.
Point 2 below
http://thebreakthrough.org/index.php/issues/renewables/the-grid-will-not-be-disrupted

warm air is either obstinately innumerate or a died in the wool, closed mind, zealot. H has been told many many times that the subsidies have to be normalised for the amount of energy supplied. Despite being told repeatedly, he makes the same really basic error again (being generous calling it an error). He says:

>" I would use the IMF figure of $41.2 billion to coal, and then claim that wind subsidies were 2X less than coal."

Coal generated 20 times more electricity than wind in 2014. If coal got twice as much subsidy as wind for 20 times more energy supplied, obviously wind is subsidised 10 times more than coal per unit of electricity supplied. Get it yet?

Is there no getting through to the RE cultists?

Now Denmark is the latest country to recognise the Green dream is just that - an irrational, unsustainable dream.

>"Denmark’s widening budget deficit is forcing its policy makers to take some hard decisions in the very area where they are considered global role models: the fight against climate change. Denmark’s Liberal government is to reverse ambitious CO2 emission targets introduced by the previous administration. It will also drop plans to phase out coal-fired power plants and become fossil-fuel free by 2050, according to leaked documents first reported by newspaper Information. The news about Denmark’s cost-cutting measures, which also include a reduction in green funding initiatives worth 340 million kroner ($51.5 million) through 2019, came on the same day on which U.S. President Barack Obama issued a global appeal for urgent action in the buildup to a United Nations summit in Paris in December."
--Peter Levring, Bloomberg, 1 September 2015

Wind power is economic if it has access to cheap finance. As indeed are solar PV and solar thermal. And being a sunny country with a lot of spare land, the economic case for renewables is far stronger here than in Germany and Denmark.

Warmair,

Here is a comparison of the levelized cost of generation across various methods compared directly.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:LCOE_comparison_fraunhofer_november2013.svg

Coal is still by far the cheapest.

Coal,the cheapest? That's just funny!

Is coal cheap? Not so much if you should double the electricity price to include the health costs! Who pays this cost? You can be sure it’s not the Koch brothers! (American coal barons).

“Although it is difficult to assign a cost to these numbers, estimates have suggested a 10% increase in health care costs in countries where coal makes up a significant fraction of the energy mix, like the U.S. and Europe (NAS 2010; Cohen et al., 2005; Pope et al., 2002). These additional health costs begin to rival the total energy costs on an annual basis for the U.S. given that health care costs top $2.6 trillion, and electricity costs only exceed about $400 billion. Another way to describe this human health energy fee is that it costs about 2,000 lives per year to keep the lights on in Beijing but only about 200 lives to keep them on in New York.

Guess that’s just the cost of doing business…”
http://www.forbes.com/sites/jamesconca/2012/06/10/energys-deathprint-a-price-always-paid/

Harvard University: Coal health impacts cost America at least $300 billion every year (possibly more), the same as another war in Iraq every 6 years! What kind of person claims coal is ‘cheap’!?
http://www.energyandpolicy.org/value-of-solar-versus-fossil-fuels-part-two

Max,

The costs are the costs. Both you and warmair have to add costs to coal to make renewables seem viable. However, to use renewables, you need to have a considerable back up from base load the cost of which needs to be added to the cost of the renewables.

The societal costs are sucked out of someone's thumb, and differ from every source. Next you will be quoting that fruit bat Helen Caldicott.

Shadow
The reason for phasing out coal fired generation is due to the potential risks of climate change. If you don't think thats a problem then it is business as usual, and you better pray that most climate scientists are wrong.

Renewables are not necessarily cheaper or more expensive than coal, for example in most places hydro is cheaper than coal, but solar is definitely more expensive, according to your link given on the top of page 9 onshore wind is competitive with black coal but not lignite in Germany.

It is clear that most attacks on renwables are one dimensional, A renewable is attacked because it will not work at a particular time while happily ignoring that numerous others are still available , It simply proves there is no single ideal source of power, that can cover all our requirements all the time. Natural gas is definitely more expensive than coal, but we still use gas because coal can not be ramped up quickly enough.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:LCOE_comparison_fraunhofer_november2013.svg

The real question is what power sources should replace coal power. The best way of achieving this is to put a price on CO2 emissions, and let the market decide.

In my opinion the answer in Australia is renewables, but I don't not rule nuclear power in other countries, although I suspect nuclear is ultimately a very expensive way of generating power, comes with a load of problems which have not been resolved, and anyway it is not practical for all countries to replace coal power with nuclear power in a useful time frame.

France cleaned up their electricity grid with older generation nukes in under 20 years, and that was with water based nukes requiring high pressure single-cast reactor flange vessels! This is a beast of a pressure cooker that must be cast in one go!

Integral Fast Reactors like GE's PRISM are now up to commercial prototype testing. So while we should accelerate building out AP1000's, the PRISM is a radically different approach to nuclear power that lets them break down the reactor into its modular components and produce them on the assembly line. In other words, without water, even with sodium, reactors can be mass produced. Rather than a single hand crafted Bentley or Rolls Royce, this is more like cheaper Hyundai's. Without the extra health costs of coal (to say nothing of how serious climate change is!), any nuclear grid would be cheaper than coal. But with IFR's coming off the production line, we could see nuclear power really drop in price. AND it works on a cold winter night, AND IFR's burn nuclear waste, AND we have lots of uranium.

Not only this, but Thorcon have a thorium reactor they estimate to be HALF the retail price of coal which would be a QUARTER the FULL cost of coal when one includes coal's health costs. This is probably a while away, but testing should start now. It's not a full BREEDER reactor (that can burn nuclear waste) but only a BURNER. Their emphasis is speed: they want a factory turning these out ASAP. Inherent safety, and plenty of fuel. If I had to guess I would probably say GE's PRISM is far more developed, given they had decades of testing on the EBR2, but this ThorCon presentation looks like a serious attempt to take what they know from the old MSR and turn it into a production-line MSR for today!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VfsOYzOpYRw

From a number of statements by warmair with which I disagree, I choose one with which I can partly agree, being " It simply proves there is no single ideal source of power, that can cover all our requirements all the time."

This is an aspect of the "There is no such thing as base-load" mantra. While the statement is true beyond the grid, it makes no sense anywhere else as nuclear modules from large to small can most cheaply serve a grid, given the chance.

The idea of building and maintain massive renewable infrastructure, only to have to supplement it with fossil fuels, seems plain dumb.

If you want to nobble fossil fuels so renewables get a chance, then simultaneously take unnecessary shackles from nuclear, so it can compete. Nuclear will win out on the grid, and perhaps beyond with small modules.

Renewables (excluding hydro) will never win out where unshackled nuclear is an option. Where it is sensible to use them, they will only ever be an extension of the grid.

Luciferase,
"The idea of building and maintain massive renewable infrastructure, only to have to supplement it with fossil fuels, seems plain dumb"

Does the idea of building and maintain massive nuclear infrastructure, only to have to supplement it with fossil fuels, seem plain dumb? Because most places with nuclear power do have to supplement it with fossil fuels.

If you examined it further, you'd probably find it wasn't dumb at all. For a start we already have a lot of fossil fuel infrastructure. And reliability is important.

But nuclear without what makes it safe? That's incredibly dumb, no matter how cheap it is!

Luciferase,

For once I agree with you wholeheartedly.

The greenies have yet to find a renewable alternative to coal or nuclear as a base load, and so simply try and pretend that there is no need for base load. At 7 o'clock on a windless night, Australians will be using candles if the greens have their way.

The one problem with nuclear is that the cost of fuel is negligible with the result that once nuclear is established renewables can't compete.

Aidan's comments are simply Greens' spin. He's been corrected on his many misleading, dishonest and disingenuous statements over and over again, yet keeps repeating them. He seems to be incapable of admitting when he is wrong or of retracting his wrong assertions. It is people like him who are the main cause of the ongoing delays to real progress.

."Wind power is economic if it has access to cheap finance. As indeed are solar PV and solar thermal."

How dumb a comments is that? Coal, gas, nuclear are all far cheaper than renewables if they also have cheap finance. But cheap finance has to be subsidised by somewoe. Aidan's comment is probably a copy from a comment on another site, where I already refuted it: http://euanmearns.com/el-hierro-revisited/#comment-11673

>"Does the idea of building and maintain massive nuclear infrastructure, only to have to supplement it with fossil fuels, seem plain dumb? Because most places with nuclear power do have to supplement it with fossil fuels."

What is dumb is being obstinately innumerate and dishonest. It has been explained to Aidan on many different threads and web sites that renewables cAnnot make much of a contribution to reducing global GHG emissions but nuclear can. The current and past Nuclear plants can supply over 80% of electricity (as France has been demonstrating for over three decades). At a little higher cost they could supply nearly all electricity (the argument that they cannot load follow is a furphy - as demonstrated by nuclear subs and ships). Conversely, renewables cannot. France has near the lowest cost electricity and near the lowest CO2 intensity of electricity of any EU country. Germany and Denmark with the highest proportion of non-hydro renewables have near the highest cost electricity and near highest CO2 emissions intensity in EU.

A person would have to be either stubbornly innumerate or intellectually dishonest to continually repeat the nonsense Aidan keeps repeating. He's clearly just a Greens advocate, for whom it seems intellectual honesty is irrelevant.

Hi Aidan,
1. France took their grid to 75% nuclear in under 20 years. (It was already 25% hydro). Denmark tried to deploy wind as fast. France is at 90 g CO2 / kwh, Denmark at 650 g CO2 / kwh. Who is winning this race? Also, Denmark now export much of their wind energy when it blows because it's not actually useful in Denmark *when* it blows. It is distributed across the Nordic Grid, and only forms about 8% of that grid.

2. German solar is 3 times more expensive than nuclear: and it doesn't run on a cold German winter night.
"An analysis by the Breakthrough Institute finds that the entire German solar sector produces less than half the power that Fukushima Daiichi – a single nuclear complex – generated before it was hit by the tsunami. To build a Fukushima-sized solar industry in Germany would, it estimates, cost $155bn. To build a Fukushima-sized nuclear plant would cost $53.5bn. And the power would be there on winter evenings."
http://thebreakthrough.org/blog/2011/03/doing_the_math_comparing_germa.shtml

3. Storage in northern nations like Germany could bankrupt any nation that tried it. You can *either* buy Tesla Powerpack batteries to back up *one week* of winter in Germany (at a hypothetical 30% penetration of wind and solar, and these wind and solar farms must still be bought), OR you can just buy safe modern nuclear-waste eating nukes that will do the whole job for 60 years. Again, *backup* a third of a renewable grid for just one week, or nuke the whole grid for 60 years! That’s the economics of renewable storage V nuclear.
Point 2 at the link below
http://thebreakthrough.org/index.php/issues/renewables/the-grid-will-not-be-disrupted

Peter,

My comments are no more Greens' spin than yours are anti-Greens' spin. Nor were they copied from that site you linked to – I was only vaguely aware of that site and had not visited it since those comments were made.

Your comment "How dumb a comments is that? Coal, gas, nuclear are all far cheaper than renewables if they also have cheap finance" PROVES YOU DON'T UNDERSTAND THE SITUATION AT ALL!

Renewables, nuclear and fossil fuels all have different cost structures. With fossil fuels the fuel cost is a large proportion of the fuel cost, and the infrastructure cost is much smaller, so cheaper finance would only result in a very slight reduction in electricity cost. For nuclear the reduction is better, but still nowhere near as good as for renewables.

I'm saying cheap finance should be subsidised by the government, as there would be a significant public benefit: cheaper electricity. (I think that puts me closer to the Lomborg position than to the standard Greens' position. So do you still think I'm just a Greens' advocate?)

The idea that renewables cannot make much of a contribution to reducing GHG emissions is as much a furphy as the idea that nuclear reactors can't load follow. They're based on truth (in nuclear's case, the major technical problem of xenon 135 buildup). But the technical obstacles are not insurmountable.

And it's hardly surprising that electricity in Germany and Denmark is so expensive when they've been funding their renewable energy infrastructure with inefficient feedin tariffs. Had they used concessional loans instead, their electricity would've been much cheaper by now.

Aidan,

You keep making baseless, ill informed comments. You continually ignore the relevant facts and divert discussions to irrelevant, down in the weed's factoids.. You do not provide support for your beliefs. You dodge and weave and avoid the issues then raise something else. You don't understand what you are talking about. It's disappointing that ill-informed people like you are delaying progress.

You didn't respond to the comment where I explained how weighted average cost of capital is calculated. You didn't say "now I understand".

Low interest rates loans from governments are subsidies. They are paid for by tax payers. They can make the chosen electricity technology cheaper, but at a net economic cost to the country. There's no free lunch Try to get your head around this really basic text: "Economics in one lesson": http://steshaw.org/economics-in-one-lesson/contents.html . Let me know if you think you've learnt what's important and relevant.

Nuclear generated electricity is about 1/3 the cost of renewables when all system costs are included. But renewables cannot reach high penetration levels sustainably. Nuclear can. You also didn't say you understand the contrast between high nuclear France versus high renewables Germany and Denmark See Figure 1 here: http://euanmearns.com/green-mythology-and-the-high-price-of-european-electricity

"the city of Peterborough, ... attempts to develop solar and wind power recently came to a grinding halt. Is Peterborough’s experience a sign of things to come elsewhere in the world? http://www.peterboroughtoday.co.uk/news/politics/politics-news/multi-million-pound-solar-panel-scheme-for-peterborough-faces-uncertain-future-1-6933371

It would seem so:

"Denmark’s Government Readies U-Turn on Ambitious Climate Targets" http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-09-01/denmark-s-government-readies-u-turn-on-ambitious-climate-targets

"Finland to get less wind power as government overhauls subsidies" http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/09/04/finland-windpower-idUSKCN0R40NH20150904

And you should know that Spain stopped most of its subsidies and UK has now realised the enormous cost and is winding them back too.

Aidan, you really don't have much of an understanding what you are talking about but it doesn't stop you making no end of baseless assertions and never acknowledging you've learnt anything from the responses to your comments on the various blogs where you post.

I'd urge you to open your mind, throw off the blinkers, avoid motivated reasoning, and stop dodging the relevant facts.

In one decade (1977–1987), France increased its nuclear power production 15-fold, with the nuclear portion of its electricity increasing from 8% to 70%.

In one decade (2001–2011) Germany increased the non-hydroelectric renewable energy portion of its electricity from 4% to 19%, with fossil fuels decreasing from 63% to 61% (hydroelectric decreased from 4% to 3% and nuclear power decreased from 29% to 18%).
Next Big Future Jan 2014
http://nextbigfuture.com/2014/01/climate-and-carbon-emission-study-by.html

The hype about nuclear power has always far exceeded the reality. Historically just over half of the nuclear power stations world wide, where construction was commenced reached the point where they actually produced any power.

To Quote Al Gore
"Of the 253 nuclear power reactors originally ordered in the United States from 1953 to 2008, 48 percent were canceled, 11 percent were prematurely shut down, 14 percent experienced at least a one-year-or-more outage, and 27 percent are operating without having a year-plus outage. Thus, only about one fourth of those ordered, or about half of those completed, are still operating and have proved relatively reliable."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_canceled_nuclear_plants_in_the_United_States#Canceled_nuclear_plants_and_units

http://agreenroad.blogspot.com.au/2012/12/abandoned-nuclear-powerplants-worldwide.html

Typical of the sort of stuff ups that occur on a regular basis, is the British Hinkley Point nuclear plant, which has had to have a price guarantee of $200 per W/h for 35 years just to make it economically viable, but don't worry it is being built by the French who are experts in nuclear power. It is already over budget and time, and runs a fair chance of being cancelled.

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/b8741dd0-1048-11e5-bd70-00144feabdc0.html

Currently there are some 60 odd new nuclear plants under construction, my guess is that they will be lucky if they complete 36 of them, despite the fact nearly all of them are using PWR which has been the dominate technology for the last 50 years.

http://www.theecologist.org/News/news_analysis/2562146/three_in_every_four_nuclear_power_builds_worldwide_are_running_late.htm

To paraphrase John Cleese "don't mention the Japan nuclear crisis."

Peter,
You're doing the things you accuse me of!

I don't recall seeing the comment where you explained how weighted average cost of capital is calculated. What thread was it on?

There seems to be a big difference in the way we think. Rather than just saying "now I understand", I'm more inclined to look at what assumptions are made, what the effects of changing those assumptions would be, and what conditions would justify changing those assumptions.

How low do you think the interest on something has to be to constitute a subsidy? Is is still a subsidy if it's profitable?

Infrastructure subsidies are a gross economic cost to the country, but if they result in improved productivity, they're unlikely to be a net economic cost to the country.

The "Economics in one lesson" site's one basic point is good, but because it fails to understand how inflation is affected by savings and productivity improvements, many of its conclusions are wrong.

Your claim "Nuclear generated electricity is about 1/3 the cost of renewables when all system costs are included" relies on several unstated assumptions. And your claim that "renewables cannot reach high penetration levels sustainably" is rather dubious, as their penetration levels are being limited by political rather than technical factors.

You also didn't ask me whether I understand the contrast between high nuclear France versus high renewables Germany and Denmark. The answer is yes. And Germany would've been better off deciding not to phase out nuclear. But that's a matter for the Germans. With their high latitude and relatively high population density, the cost of genuinely high levels of renewables will also be high, but it's not a technical impossibility.

I have already expressed my opposition to the very inefficient policy of using feedin tariffs to encourage renewable energy, so I don't know why you're bothering to post so much evidence of the cost of that policy and the results of governments baulking at its cost. Using concessional loans instead wouldn't have that effect.

"Infrastructure subsidies are a gross economic cost to the country, but if they result in improved productivity, they're unlikely to be a net economic cost to the country."

We're not talking of productivity. The cheapest option on that basis, all considered, is coal.

We're talking about a shift of energy source to avert CAGW. Any subsidies should be directed at the best chance of achieving that affordably, and it's not renewables.

Correction, in AUSTRALIA coal's the cheapest way to productivity, not everywhere. Nuclear trumps coal in many parts of the northern hemisphere, particularly.

Aidan,

“I don't recall seeing the comment where you explained how weighted average cost of capital is calculated. What thread was it on?”
A classic example of you not reading links and not looking back to see the link. In your words “How dumb is that?

“I'm more inclined to look at what assumptions are made, what the effects of changing those assumptions would be”
No you don’t. You don’t do a reality check to see if your beliefs make sense or can be supported. You simply look for excuses to make up nonsense. Like this pearler from your previous comment: .

“Your comment … Coal, gas, nuclear are all far cheaper than renewables if they also have cheap finance" PROVES YOU DON'T UNDERSTAND THE SITUATION AT ALL!

Renewables, nuclear … have different cost structures. ... For nuclear the [cost reduction from cheaper finance is] nowhere near as good as for renewables.”

How ignorant is that. Have you checked. Tell me the percentage saving for cost of electricity (including grid costs) for nuclear versus renewable if discount rate is reduced from 10% to 5% (using AETA LCOE figures for technologies and OECD figures for grid costs http://www.energyinachangingclimate.info/Counting%20the%20hidden%20costs%20of%20energy.pdf ). Go on – see if you can do it. I reckon you can’t.

Then there’s your ignorant dismissal of the classic economic text "Economics in one lesson".

And your ignorant comment that the limits on renewables are political but not recognizing the constraints are physical despite having been told dozens of times by people who actually know what they are talking about, unlike you.

“Your claim "Nuclear generated electricity is about 1/3 the cost of renewables when all system costs are included" relies on several unstated assumptions.”

Please state what are the unstated assumptions and what is the significance of them – tell me the percentage change they’d make to the result if changed. I bet you can’t do that.

Aidan, you continually avoid the relevant facts and raise trivial issues.

Warmair,
The way you harp on about nuclear build times is as if it's the nuclear industry's fault. Did you ignore the way Greenpeace and other activists get in their and challenge every build in court? Or the way anti's fired rocket launchers at the Phenix reactor in France? Or every other delaying trick in the book? Are you seriously trying to blame the nuclear industry for this?

Also, harping on about build delays in decades gone by, with older technologies, is a little bit like condemning the whole modern aviation industry because of the Hindenberg. You need to get with the times. ThorCon have a plan for *assembly line* produced thorium BURNERS (not the BREEDERs which are 10 to 15 years away) at about HALF the price of coal. Designs, safety, and costs are all modularised and systematised and factory produced.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VfsOYzOpYRw

Lastly, you haven't actually said how Germany are going to deal with the problems of renewable energy I have listed. But have you forgotten France?

"In one decade (1977–1987), France increased its nuclear power production 15-fold, with the nuclear portion of its electricity increasing from 8% to 70%.

In one decade (2001–2011) Germany increased the non-hydroelectric renewable energy portion of its electricity from 4% to 19%, with fossil fuels decreasing from 63% to 61% (hydroelectric decreased from 4% to 3% and nuclear power decreased from 29% to 18%).
Next Big Future Jan 2014"
http://nextbigfuture.com/2014/01/climate-and-carbon-emission-study-by.html

Peter Lang,

"A classic example of you not reading links and not looking back to see the link."
Huh? You said you'd explained it in a comment, and now when challenged you're claiming you only linked to an explanation, and calling me dumb because when I tried to find your comment that explained it I couldn't.

(BTW I have seen an explanation of how LCOE is calculated; just not by you).

"In your words 'How dumb is that?'"
They're actually your words, although I did previously use them against you.

You seem to have trouble comprehending the different cost structures of different electricity sources. Do you dispute that the capital cost of renewables is higher per unit output than nuclear, and that for fossil fuels it's a lot lower? My main point is a logical result of that. I don't need to do the full calculations to be able to tell you that cheaper finance cuts the cost of renewables more than that of nuclear, while it has much less effect on electricity generated from fossil fuels.

(TBC)

(continued)

"Then there’s your ignorant dismissal of the classic economic text 'Economics in one lesson'."
While the irony of you ignorantly dismissing my very brief criticism of it as an "ignorant dismissal" is amusing, it does highlight a much deeper problem: you're assuming anyone who disagrees with your opinion to be ignorant, even when the ignorance is actually on your part.

I could've said much more about EI1L. For example I could've mentioned the misplaced criticism of the saying “In the long run we are all dead.” Keynes said that not in regard to the long run effects of the policies he favoured, but in response to claims that the policies he opposed would work in the long run. Or I could've mentioned that while investment and savings are related, there is no simple relationship between the amount saved and the amount invested. But that's not of much relevance to the matter we're discussing; I mentioned the one thing that was.

I'm not saying there aren't physical constraints; I'm saying the physical constraints can be overcome.

Unstated assumptions include, but are not limited to, which renewable and nuclear options are being compared, the cost of finance, the way things are funded, the location of the infrastructure, the availability of storage, the pattern of demand, the availability of energy from other sources, and the ability to vary demand. I don't have sufficient information to tell you how each one affects the figures, and I wouldn't waste my time on it even if I did!

You're the one who keeps raising trivial issues; I make no apology for ignoring them.

Aidan,

You didn't answer these two questions:

1. Tell me the percentage saving for cost of electricity (including grid costs) for nuclear versus renewable if discount rate is reduced from 10% to 5% (using AETA LCOE figures for technologies and OECD figures for grid costs http://www.energyinachangingclimate.info/Counting%20the%20hidden%20costs%20of%20energy.pdf ). Go on – see if you can do it. I reckon you can’t.

2. Please state what are the unstated assumptions and what is the significance of them – tell me the percentage change they’d make to the result if changed. I bet you can’t do that.

BTW, there not unstated assumptions. Comparisons that are done on a properly comparable basis demonstrate: "Nuclear generated electricity is about 1/3 the cost of renewables when all system costs are included"

As I said "Aidan, you continually avoid the relevant facts and raise trivial issues."

In your own words, your comments: " PROVES YOU DON'T UNDERSTAND THE SITUATION AT ALL!" You are clearly incapable of doing basic analyses to check your beliefs before you post ill-informed comments. But you are two tied to your ideological beliefs to challenge them or to allow facts to change your mind.

Peter,

I'm not going to do your calculations for you!

BTW unless you state exactly what a "properly comparable basis" involves, the assumptions are unstated.

I notice you did not answer my questions either, even thought they did not require you to do any calculations.

Hi Aidan,
can I chime in here and ask which reports have convinced you that Australia can do 100% renewables cheaper and faster than nuclear power?

What do you make of studies like this?

"An analysis by the Breakthrough Institute finds that the entire German solar sector produces less than half the power that Fukushima Daiichi – a single nuclear complex – generated before it was hit by the tsunami. To build a Fukushima-sized solar industry in Germany would, it estimates, cost $155bn. To build a Fukushima-sized nuclear plant would cost $53.5bn. And the power would be there on winter evenings."
http://thebreakthrough.org/blog/2011/03/doing_the_math_comparing_germa.shtml

Aidan,

I've done the calculations and provided links previously. You continually make unsupported assertions and silly, irrelevant diversions trying to pretend you understand. When challenged you don't respond, don't admit when you are wrong.

By not responding you have demonstrated you can't do even the most basic reality checks on the nonsense you write. The reason I asked you to do the calculations yourself is because it is the only way you'll learn how to check the silly things you say before you write them.

Hi Aidan,
please watch this documentary about committed environmentalists who have been thinking through these issues. It's about 90 minutes. Grab a coffee or beer or brew, and take a break and check out some of the names involved in this doco. Cheers.

http://www.news.com.au/video/id-B1MHYxdDoM4HQ3g8YNMi_LziZzAyXj60/Pandora's-Promise