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.