Thanks again Shady Character,
Are there really such things as Low Bays? Well I never! Next you'll be telling me that the tooth fairy isn't real!

My dog is much smarter than me, but he puts up with my lack of brains (reluctantly) for the food. He's a pretty good role model actually, you could take some lessons. He always says please and thank you for a start. I guess expert managers like you with a dozen degrees and huge erm...factories to play with don't need to bother with such fripperies

Craig arrived at "I am strongly of the view that the way forward is to work toward a renewables-based economy in a managed way, using the best technology available over time."

I tend to agree with SM that these are weasel words to avoid addressing the fact that RE can never be despatchable/on-demand.

There is no secret money bag or yet unthought of energy storage solution that will change matters. Efficiencies and incremental improvements in RE will not free us from AGW. The laws of physics don't change to match blind faith.

Also, what exactly is the "economic" imperative driving Oz towards a renewables-based economy? Why not a nuclear based one?

Shadow,

I am aware of the use of feedin tariffs to cross subsidise renewable energy. The situation is more complicated than you've described because the power from the renewables does drive wholesale prices down. Nevertheless it makes sense to minimize the need for those subsidies, which means making renewable power generation cheaper.

As for the maintenance costs of solar PV and wind turbines, most of the former have no moving parts at all. And while the latter do have some significant disadvantages over thermal power, there are also some significant advantages: no great thermal stresses and no combustion system to maintain.

"While turbines don't have fuel costs, their cost of capital is vastly higher per kWhr generated."
Exactly. like the mechanisation process, there's a shift from operational costs to fixed costs. Generally that's good for efficiency. But right now the financing process is very inefficient, with interest rates the power generation companies pay being much higher than the interest rate the government pays for its money. Fix this inefficiency and the subsidies can be slashed and we can increase the use of renewables while getting cheaper electricity.

Regarding government debt, I urge you to reconsider. Agreeing to disagree on what's happening and what can be done is a copout: the only time it makes any sense is when wasting time with people who can't be swayed by evidence (like Leo Lane).

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Luciferase,

There is no technical reason why RE can never be despatchable/on-demand. We will of course need more storage, but we won't have to resort to unthought of technology.

How many days, weeks, months of storage defines availability "on-demand"? Nobody knows. There is no way we could ever say electricity from renewables is despatchable in the sense thermally generated electricity is (without throwing in hydro and geothermal, where they may apply, to blur the basic matter)

Why don't we just suck all the CO2 we produce out of the atmosphere and keep burning coal? That's technically possible. Then we could make transport fuel from CO2, that's possible too. And so on ad nauseum.

Oz hasn't Germany's luxury of importing from hydro or nuclear sources outside its border, or of dumping electricity back upon them. The feasibility of 100% despatchable renewables has not been demonstrated anywhere, but that doesn't stop the dreamers from insisting our island Oz can do it.

Here's one, why don't we build nuclear reactors?

Luciferase says:” Why don't we just suck all the CO2 we produce out of the atmosphere and keep burning coal?”.
Because there is no scientific basis for the demonization of CO2, so why do we not simply burn coal.
It has not been shown that human emissions have any measurable effect on climate.There is no science to support this baseless assertion.

Aidan,

When you bring a supplier of electricity who is heavily subsidized, erratic and whose power has to be purchased at the market rate, it shrinks the rest of the market for other generators. While the wholesale price may temporily dip, the closure of coal fired power stations means that the wholesale price rises again. SA is a typical example of this where power costs have shot up.

Solar PV is normally situated in dry dusty areas and the cells usually build up dust that drops their yield, and require regular cleaning, and the electronics that turn the low voltage dc to ac needs regular checks. Secondly as the radiation from the sun eventually degrades the cells, eventually these need to be replaced, so while lower in maintenance, it is far from non existant. Wind turbines by their very nature are spread out and and the travelling plus a climb equivalent to 25 stories limits the productivity of those servicing them, and being large rotary equipment with multiple bearing systems the maintenance needs to be regular, and the heavy wear and tear generally limits the life span of a wind turbine to 20 years.

As far as the financing goes, even at 0% interest, the repayment on wind generation would cost more than coal generation, direct government issuing of loans would drive up the debt and interest rate paid on bonds, as would government guarantees.

With respect to our previous debate on government financing, having enjoyed the rigour of a 3 year degree in economics, I found your arguments with respect to government debt unconvincing and still hold to the monetary theories of a string of Nobel laureates.