LF,

I think Germany is a good example of the limits to which renewable power can be realistically absorbed by the grid. Already, there are times where renewables generate 100% of the grid capacity and Germany has to pay France to take the power from its coal and gas generators, and many days where wind and solar generate as little as 5% of the demand. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to see what would happen if they increased the % of renewables.

Yep, Germany swings between being a beggar and Santa Claus, France the big winner. It's why Germany is building coal-fired power.

As I see it, because of the Luddites in the Green party, Australia will not go down any nuclear path anytime soon. That leads to the ultimate inevitability that Victoria will have to build another brown coal fired station at Loy Yang. Hazelwood is on its last legs, as of a couple of days ago it appeared that only two of the eight stacks were emitting smoke.
Craig Minns, using GPS based technology, I could build you a 50 Hz reference which is accurate to 1 part in a trillion, but that would not help to feed a windmill into the grid, because the grid actually is not run with that degree of accuracy. The frequency is somewhat dependent on fluctuations in the load, even though it averages out to 50 Hz.
David

Hi David,
What a wonderfully pickled red herring!