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The Forum > Article Comments > Solar and wind power simply don’t work - not here, not anywhere > Comments

Solar and wind power simply don’t work - not here, not anywhere : Comments

By Keith DeLacy, published 23/6/2016

On the basis of evidence everywhere we could easily double the price of electricity and get nowhere near the 50 per cent target.

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Judging on your flawed standards Cobber? Anyone with a laptop and the will can check numbers that stack up.

That said, finally someone rational who gets it? Even so there are other carbon free alternatives that are cheaper than coal, like thorium which if rolled out as industry specific projects not connected to the big white elephant of a national grid, could supply peak demand power for just 2-3 cents per kilowatt hour? At which price we'd have the energy dependant high tech industries of the world queuing to relocate here. And nearly everyone else if we could just get real tax reform done?

Real tax reform would look like a stand alone unavoidable expenditure tax and bet set lower than some nation's VAT yet still collect more than enough revenue to fund all services while creating endless surpluses!?

Simply put, we need to stop living in a fool's paradise waiting for someone else to do it for us! But just get busy ringing in the changes we need! Even if that causes some angst among debt laden foreign investors, Who not only think the world owes them a living but that we are the blind fools who can be endlessly gouged to provide it?

We have a super fund of around two trillion dollars, that currently earns virtually no tax revenue for us? Moreover, other nations currently gain the economic advantages and multiplier factors that these funds create, for everybody anybody else! Just not here!

A pragmatic leader would get his cabinet to realize that these funds could be put to work right here if the income earned from thirty year self termin We'd be no worse off given 30 year self terminating bonds were given a tax free status? And every cent could be put to work on income earning projects, ideas and endeavor! And that's where all the new revenue could come from?

Some of which could be carbon free cheaper than coal energy projects!? Simply put, a good businessman knows without being told when to cut the losses and get out!
Alan B.
Posted by Alan B., Thursday, 23 June 2016 11:37:02 AM
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It is pretty obvious renewables will never provide our entire electrical needs at current demand levels.

Nuclear is the solution, but not existing silly uranium powered technology.

Liquid Floride thorium reactors (LFTR) are the only sustainable electrical generation source we can sustainably rely on for the future.

LFTR operation not only provides cheap electricity, it can generate liquid fuels (similar to diesel), reprocess spent existing nuclear fuels, produce much needed medical isotopes and a myriad of other benefits. LFTR is also scalable and can be mass produced if required.

This technology is also safe, it operates at low pressure/high temperature, thereby negating the current nuclear technology problems and most importantly, the world has an abundance of Thorium unlike uranium.

A no brainer, we should embrace this technology now but probably won't because of political mismanagement, corruption via vested interests and the ridiculous scare mongering by green manta advocates.

Green energy, particularly in its current guise is a Ponzi scheme.

Geoff
Posted by Geoff of Perth, Thursday, 23 June 2016 12:09:19 PM
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Excellent article. It great that people who actually understand the economic consequences of the distortions governments have been imposing to try to incentivise reneweables are beginning to get more exposure. In the USA, subsidies for solar and wind power are 100 times and 20 times higher than for nuclear. But, whereas nuclear provides reliable power supply, solar and wind do not. As Keith says, solar and wind provide low value power for enormous cost. This chart compares the US Federal government subsides: https://i2.wp.com/i.imgur.com/m72CxQv.png

US Federal Government subsidies per MWh
Solar = $280
Wind = $35
Hydro = $1.47
Nuclear = $2.10
(Note: The Federal subsidies included here are only part of the total subsidies paid by Federal Government, State Governments, local governments, tax payers, rate payers and consumers).

EIA, 2015, Direct Federal Financial Interventions and Subsidies in Energy in Fiscal Year 2013 http://www.eia.gov/analysis/requests/subsidy/
Posted by Peter Lang, Thursday, 23 June 2016 12:56:51 PM
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A superb essay.

Also the percentage of renewable power drops even further if vehicles are counted.

If vehicles, from cars, trucks to trains and aircraft?, had to ditch their petrol/diesel engines the vast demand on renewable electricity would prove even more cripplingly expensive.

China (likely to increase by 100+ million vehicles in the next decade) doesn't include vehicles in its Greenie convincing renewable propaganda.
Posted by plantagenet, Thursday, 23 June 2016 1:18:47 PM
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@ Alan b...mmm you seem to be reading a lot in my post.
The fact is the author has left out quite a few things that would perhaps led readers to a different conclusion. It's something many people do to re-enforce their point.

Perhaps if you think fossil fuel burning isn't a major contributor to the climate change we are experiencing then making cheap energy by burning coal makes sense. If on the other you do then no matter how cheap it is it's a dumb idea.

Given that I think we should be making use of nuke power which I see by your post you do too, I'm not sure on what your point of disagreement is?
Posted by Cobber the hound, Thursday, 23 June 2016 1:40:52 PM
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oh and by the way this is a counter to Peter Lang post http://issues.org/22-3/realnumbers-21/

Now I'm sure they have left out some items to help make their point too.
Posted by Cobber the hound, Thursday, 23 June 2016 1:46:27 PM
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