Shadow,

I share your concern, but not your conclusions, about the costs of renewables. Their maintenance does not require a small army, and is cheap compared to fossil fuel costs.

When the Repower Port Augusta people gave a presentation to EA, I questioned their counting local employment as a benefit. But they did make the good point that Port Augusta had a high unemployment rate, particularly for unskilled jobs (as mirror washers would be).

Regarding respected economists, there's nothing like universal agreement. And while the proportion of respected professionals with a particular viewpoint is usually quite a good indicator in most fields, there are good reasons why it doesn't hold in economics. Propositions that were true under the gold standard and fixed exchange rates are often false under the current conditions, but many economists failed to grasp the implications of that. I'm not asking you to take my word for it, of course - I'm recommending you evaluate the "respected" economists' claims and predictions. You'll find they don't match the facts, which is hardly surprising as they're working from a theoretical basis that includes demonstrably false assumptions. Unfortunately they don't seem to lose any respect for getting it wrong - it's not called the dismal science for nothing.

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Luciferase,

You misunderstand. I'm not advocating turning resources away from everything else citizens demand; I'm advocating exploiting resources that would otherwise be idle.

Hi Aidan,
There is very little disagreement among economists these days, actually. The case for an orderly transition away from fossil fuels is pretty much watertight. Where there is quibbling is about the way to manage it, having regard to the need to avoid catastrophic short-term disruption to existing industry while encouraging take up of new technologies.

The water is muddied by the sort of calamitising and opinion shopping that people like SM engage in, but this too shall pass. There are very few industries that can't be accommodated within a renewable dominated power generation model even today, although many may need to examine their models for best practise.

It's not just generation that is changing, so is demand-side technology. My small factory consumed 12kW just in highbay lighting (mercury discharge lamps), whereas the same job can be done better with LEDs using around 3kW. That's a power saving of around 40MWh for one small business in a year. When you add in all the advances in display, lighting and control and start thinking clearly about operations the amount of saving that can be had is really large. As I mentioned previously, the UK has already started mothballing generation plants due to reduced demand from lighting

https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn24805-electricity-use-drops-as-uk-passes-peak-light-bulb/

As can be seen, peak demand has dropped by nearly 7% in the UK between 2007 and 2012 and undoubtedly that trend has continued and will accelerate as LEDs supplant CFLs.

Allowing a few businesses with lazy or dim management to hold the rest of the world to ransom is criminally stupid.

Aidan,

Whatever our opinions, the way renewable power is funded in Aus and in most countries is by guaranteed energy subsidies per kWhr which are paid by the energy retailers and passed on directly to the consumers. The larger the % renewables that get this subsidy, the larger the hit to the consumers.

As for the maintenance costs of solar PV and wind turbines, the low availability of turbines, or solar PV, their small size (relative to the 300-1000MW steam turbines) and their relative inaccessibility , the numbers of skilled people required to maintain renewable generation is far higher than a power station with 2GW of turbines only a short walk from a workshop.

While turbines don't have fuel costs, their cost of capital is vastly higher per kWhr generated.

As for your particular version of national debt management, regardless of the overwhelming majority of economists and texts that differ from your viewpoint, I personally also find little to no merit in it, and will simply in the future agree to disagree.

Craig,

Once again what you post is complete BS

1 If your mercury vapour factory lighting consumed 12kW industrial LED fittings would consume closer to 10kW not 3kW, as I suspect you have used the ratio between incandescent lamps /LED rather than MV/LED.

http://www.p-2.com/blog/is-led-the-most-efficient-lighting-technology/

2 Having read the NS article it is clear that the generation plants being mothballed is not due to the reduction in lighting demand, and that there is no claim that the entire reduction in peak demand is due lighting savings (probably more due to the GFC).

In fact the only claim made is that the risk to the network is lower thanks to lower peak demand assisted by energy efficient lights.

Hi Sludge Mincer,
Thanks for the praise, it's always nice to have confirmation one is on the right track.

I'm afraid you're not thinking through the whole point with LEDs which is that they can be placed closer to the point of use, meaning they can be much smaller whilst still providing good illumination. They're not as hot you see? They also don't need to be stuck with the highbay form factor, they're able to be made much more flexibly than that. They can also be demand-driven, which is to say that they don't need to be left on, unlike thermal power stations. That means they don't consume anything at all when they're not doing anything, unlike your business model.

Never mind, at least you tried.

You see, unlike yourself, who is unable to actually think through a problem, but jumps on the first thing he sees to confirm his preexisting biases, I'm able to consider alternative options. Actually, come to think of it, my dog can do that as well; only this morning he decided to leave his lamb offcuts and come looking for one of his jerky treats, without anybody telling him anything, but he is a cattle dog cross collie, so it might be unreasonable to expect you to meet the standard he sets.

Any further questions, feel free to ask.

We seem to have strayed from the point, here.
There is no science to show any measurable effect on climate by human emissions, so the assertions of the fraud promoters are baseless. They also wish to silence their opposition.

Recently 20 senior climate scientists wrote to President Obama and his attorney general to support a senator’s call that the administration mount a ‘RICO (Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act) investigation of corporations and other organizations that have knowingly deceived the American people about the risks of climate change, as a means to forestall America’s response to climate change’.
Remarkably, Dr Roger Pielke Jr, professor of environmental studies at the Center for Science and Technology Policy Research at the University of Colorado, then discovered that the lead signatory of the letter from the 20 scientists, Professor Jagadish Shukla of George Mason University, has been paying himself and his wife $1.5 million a year, via his ‘non-profit’ Institute of Global Environment & Society Inc. of which he is President and CEO. The money came entirely from public grants and was on top of his $250,000 university salary. Two of his daughters were also on the institute’s payroll. Is it any wonder that he very much does not want anybody to conclude that climate change is not a crisis? Is it any wonder he wants sceptics silenced by prosecution? And is it possible that the huge flow of money he receives has incentivised him to (in his own words) ‘knowingly deceive the American people about the risks of climate change’ in the other direction?
http://www.thegwpf.org/matt-ridley-the-climate-wars-and-the-damage-to-science/

There is no justification for "renewables"
We need reliable, proven coal fired power stations.

Craig,

I can see why your factory went bankrupt if you thought that MV lamps only went into highbays and not into low bays and general area lights. It's sad that you didn't realise that timers, motion sensor and local fluorescent lighting (as efficient as LED and cool) couldn't do the same job 20yrs ago. It is a pity to see a business run into the ground by an incompetent manager. It is clear that your collie is smarter than you.

I have heard that in Brisbane a 600ml beer can is called a wife beater, using your personal experience, perhaps you could shed some light on why.