Even if mandated wind power forces out some gas fired generation there must be a minimum level of gas to meet electrical demand through wind peaks and troughs. Some say that is 35% wind power in which case emissions would be 65% of mixed cycles gas emissions intensity. The claim is that would be about 320 grams of CO2 per average kwh whereas the IPCC wants power generation to get down to about 50 grams.

I think SA should get a mid sized nuclear plant to replace imports of coal power from either Vic or NSW. If those states eventually replaced their own coal plants with light water nuclear then the SA plant should be able to re-use much of that spent fuel. Several approaches may do this. Bury the leftovers up near Woomera.

It's interesting to note the converter station for Basslink HVDC cable is next to the Loy Yang brown coal plants. About a year ago the cable was fried sending too much power to Tasmania. Eventually the Vics want to import power after closing all the brown coal. It's not going to add up.

It's all beyond me; all I can say is that Australian politicians are madder than March hares, and I am dreading the long hot summer in South Australia, where the maddest politician of all has seen to it that we will have blackouts like never before, and he has now started yapping about some weirdo scheme to cut emissions as well, which will further increase prices of power. However, as we will be without power for much of the time, there will be a cost saving, I suppose; and when we die like flies in the heat, all our worries will be over.

"But the large supply of power from wind farms has destroyed the ability of the gas fed generators in South Australia to act as base load suppliers of power and so require higher prices for the delivery of power."
Firstly, the effect's not due to the large supply of power from wind farms alone; it's the combination of that and the ready availability of cheap baseload power from Victoria.

Secondly, the generation companies charge higher prices because they can. They would do the same thing if SA's power were coming from gas baseload rather than wind.

"Although the installed capacity of wind farms in New South Wales is only some 500 MW"
They're outputting 571MW now, so I think your figures are out of date.

"Worse may follow from the inherent instability of a system with a large supply of renewable energy"
There is no inherent instability. Whether a power supply is stable or not depends on what is done to keep it stable.

"The consequence of this is a distortion of the market that drives out high priced generators, such as the cleaner gas-fired plant"
Letting brown coal generators spew out huge amounts of pollution for free is a bigger distortion of the market that drives out high priced generators, such as the cleaner gas-fired plant!

___________________________________________________________________________________

Taswegian,
SA's population is too low for a nuclear power plant to be viable.

On what do you base the claim that the fault in Basslink was the result of sending too much power to Tasmania?

Considering the amount of hydro capacity available, it's hard to see what makes you think it won't add up.

ttbn: However, as we will be without power for much of the time, there will be a cost saving.

There is obviously 'cost-saving' method in the SA premier's madness.

Sadly, much of that madness has blown across the border to inflict the brain of the Victorian premier.

Thus, both premiers have hit upon a yet-to-be-announced effective way of reducing total power consumption (thereby cutting CO2 emissions) in their states, namely: discouraging new industry and frustrating existing industry into leaving -- but certainly not for greener pastures.

Taswegian. Couldn't agree more. Uranium oxide available 'on site', process rods 'on site' and manufacture small portable (shipping container size) PRISM reactors and sell to the world on a 'swap and go' basis like gas bottles at the servo.
Provide free power to any industry investing in SA.

Aidan I'm not saying twin AP1000s (2200 MW) as discussed at the Royal Commission though one day SA might link Perth to the east coast. Something like a 700 MW Candu as used in Qinshan China to re-burn light water fuel. Just a few months ago SA mothballed the 485 MW Pelican Pt and was about to retire the 400 MW Torrens Island A, both gas fired. The 540 MW Pt Augusta coal station closure was back in May.

The question of whether Basslink was fried by overuse is still with the lawyers. When the Tas dams got down to 13% full the smelters were on reduced power. Whatever sweeteners they got plus the hire of 100 diesel gensets was very costly. The new policy is that dams must be at least 30% full so there may be no power export in the next drought.

Looks like Victoria is following South Australia in a predictable way down the rust-belt gurgler.

This will certainly answer the prayers of Greens and leftwing ALP trendies who want to de-industrialise.

This is a process that will make life harder for people less well off than Greens and leftwing ALP trendies.

Oh yes limiting Climate Change?

If Australia takes extremepainful measures now - but developing India and China will grow sharply in the next 10-20 years anyway - there will be no actual benefit from Australian climate change efforts.

According to BBC News, in September 2014, China surpassed the European Union's per capita carbon emissions for the first time in history. China's per capita carbon emissions now stand at 7.2 t/capita.[5] China's carbon emissions have increased rapidly since its economic boom in the early 2000s. Since then, their per capita carbon emissions have increased by more than 2.5 times.[6] More http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climate_change_in_China

the saddest part is that these gw charlatons are and never will be held to account. Despite numerous dud predictions they shamelesssly carry on with this mad gw madness dogma as if it is science. It does go to show that when people reject the truth they will carry on with all sorts of madness. The high priests and well paid propagandist will continue to be able to fly around in jets spruiking their lies and dumming down kids while pensioners will freeze in winter and fry in summers. You can be sure these hypocrites won't be the ones taking the hit. They will remain on their high moral horse and demonise anyone interested in true science when it comes to climate. Hopefull the deplorables will wake up from their sleep.

Raycom,

They are both barking, both Labor.

I shouldn't worry too much! Given there's enough hot air coming out of our do nothing talk fest Parliaments, to power the whole of Australia!

Look, we have enough easily recovered thorium in our topsoils to power the world for a thousand years and thousands more if we mine igneous rock, for the most energy dense material on the planet.

The only thing denser, being the pea brains inventing half assed excuses for just not looking ever; at this CHEAPER THAN COAL,
SAFER THAN COAL, CLEANER THAN COAL option!

And if ever embraced as our least costly alternative,( power bills a low as a possible $1.00 a year) and kept as the people's power!

[I kid you not, and the very reason why both the fossil fuel industry and big nuclear are fighting tooth and nail to keep this stuff in the ground!]

Given the only thing missing is added, the political will, it could be!

And do a lot more than just keep the lights on, but resuscitate our energy dependant industries and drought proof Australia as well!

VERY DOABLE!

Now who in their right mind could possibly want that!?

I ask you, how long were electric light bulbs burning in other places before we lit more than a country town here, with them?

And is it true that our visionaries were limited to just one farsighted Tamworth shire council?

And if true, how much has really changed at the nation's helm in a century or more? Where timidity reigns supreme and or, being last to embrace proven technology is praiseworthy? In the aptly named COWARD'S CASTLE?
Alan B.

With the imminent closure of Hazellwood about to become a reality, Victoria is going to require a new base load power station of at least 1Gw capacity. We have 3 alternatives, gas, brown coal or nuclear. If we want to reduce CO2 emissions it will have to be nuclear. It doesn't made how much wind generating capacity we build, in adverse weather that will all go to nought and we will have blackouts as happened in S.A.

David

Prompete and David: Finally a couple of posters who not only get it but think with a brain rather than a half assed ideological imperative!

I urge those who want to know the irrefutable facts, to look at, thorium and what they didn't want you to know, on google tech talks, on U tube. Or thorium V greens.

You can waste time here trying to get through the carved in stone ideology of the pea brain anti-nuclear brigade and their hopelessly outdated museum piece presentations! Or get educated!

No, I can't direct you to an operational thorium reactor. Nor a model T ford pick up!

But I can point you to documentary evidence of their existence and startlingly successful incident free operation, replete with a blow by blow video assisted description of the entire assembly of the Oak Ridge, Tennessee, thorium reactor.

What's your pleasure, the pernicious propaganda of prehistoric postulants? Or the marshaled facts presented by a number of fact checking, highly credentialed scientists?

We can indoctrinate or educate?

We have time and patience for just one or the other, not both! So, name your preference?

As for the model T, my father 'ad one 'e bought second'and, for twentyfive quid and drove around a million miles in, with little more than routine maintenance! Moving 'ay, 'orses, 'andsome 'ousewives, 'aberdashery; hand hassorted hornements.
Alan B.

AlanB. I think you need to have a wider look at the Thorium situation. In theory it sounds easy. Just start off with some thorium, add a bit of U233 to produce some neutrons which, after a couple of radioactive decay steps produces some more U233 and so off we go. Unfortunately in the real world it isn't that easy. The reactants are there as a molten fluoride salt which needs some sort of a containment vessel and the the list goes on. Over the past 50 years or thereabouts the US and others have spent a very considerable amount of money trying to produce something practical and all but India has given up.

David

Upthread I suggested gas backed windpower was unlikely to get below 300 grams of CO2 per average kilowatt hour when we'd like 50 grams. As an afterthought I suggest it will cost over $90 per Mwh more than double the current wholesale price held down by the dominance of coal. If you look at the AEMO home page you see spot electricty prices by state currently range from $16 to $45 per Mwh. Gas prices range from $7 to $10 per gigajoule.

The retail price of wind power includes the NEM traded price, GST, transmission charges, retail margins and about $90 per Mwh LGC subsidy. Unless the NEM price is negative windpower will always cost more than $90 per Mwh retail. At 40% heat to electricity conversion efficiency the fuel cost alone (no wages or depreciation) of gas fired electricity per Mwh will be 9X the price per GJ. That's since a Mwh is 3.6 GJ and we need 1/0.4 or 2.5 as many. So gas fired electricity will be at least 9 X $10 = $90 per Mwh and wind power gets $90 subsidy plus extras so any combination must be over $90. Again that's double typical grid wholesale prices at the moment.

The only places that can do wind + gas cheaper than coal have low gas prices, no carbon tax and low wind power subsidies. That might have been the US at one time but Trump could change the subsidy aspect.

Nuclear advocates need to consider:

Nuclear power reactors in Victoria are non-starters due to:

- the overly leftwing trendy nature of Victorian voters and their political leadership

- even in a positive political climate establishing the business case, legislative changes, insurance, environmental approvals and construction time = 20 to 25 years...to get a power reactor (or preferably 3) feeding the grid.

Go for gas instead!

THORIUM?

If Australia were at the forefront of nuclear innovation we would have a remote chance of making Thorium technology viable - but we're not, so it isn't.

Point to much more advanced nuclear countries making Thorium a viable electricity producer. Why haven't they made it?

I have almost 40 years in the power industry, including coal fired, GT, solar thermal and diesel.

This article is both timely and well written.

Others have stated the obvious, which is that governments including SA, Vic and Australian, are not yet enthused by nuclear power, but that is to be expected - the discussion must precede any change of opinion, if that is to happen.

OLO deserves to be congratulated for bringing this to us. I happen to agree generally with what Taswegian has written, but that is beside my point, which is that topical, researched, facts-based articles such as this are essential

I had hoped our chief scientist would lead the nuclear debate but he is as doe-eyed about renewables as some here.

What's the point of taxing carbon, in one form or another (which is what the RET scheme is IMO), only to waste the money on renewables with the dream of some storage technology miraculously arising?

Do it once, do it right, nuclear for SA and the eastern seaboard.

Well forget everything, here is the answer, apparently!

"A fusion reactor capable of producing limitless clean energy is up and running in Germany.

The Wendelstein W7-X fusion energy device known as a stellarator produced its first batch of hydrogen plasma when it was started earlier this year.

The device essentially works like a star in a jar, harnessing the near infinite power of the sun. Since then scientists have been monitoring the device and recording readings, according to a study in the journal Nature Communications.

Once the technology is viable it could be incorporated into power plants across global cities allowing Earth to run on limitless clean energy indefinitely.

The W7-X is the world's largest stellarator and is currently operated by Max Planck Institute for Plasma Physics in Germany.

However, its development has been an international effort with scientists from the US Department of Energy's Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL) working in collaboration with German officials.

Principal research physicist for the advanced projects division of PPPL, David Gates, issued an email stating the W7-X was running as planned.

"This lays the groundwork for the exciting high-performance plasma operations expected in the near future," Gates said.

"Fusion is a problem best solved by the peoples of all nations working together, since the entire world will benefit from it."

Here is the reliable (sic) link: http://www.9news.com.au/World/2016/12/10/11/27/German-scientists-create-a-star-in-a-jar
Cheers, Geoff

"A fusion reactor capable of producing limitless clean energy is up and running in Germany."

Well hardly. Scaling it up to something useful will be another thing. They haven't even got it producing continuously yet, just a burst of a second or so. Big deal. That is when the fun will really start.

David

David: Had more than the cursory look you seem to be claiming for me?

I very likely remain one of half a dozen posters who have hands on with radioactive materials!?

And it is as simple as the scientists who actually operated the WALK AWAY SAFE, Oak Ridge, molten salt thorium reactor in tennessee for five 24/7 incident free years, say it is!

The real problem as I see it, is the less than forthright debt laden, speculative middle men, who might get interested, and the massive profits they could rip from we Australians, if allowed? From a source that they could resell, with a little help from their "friends"? Costing them around a dollar a year per household?

And claim that we should remain eternally grateful for private power reticulated for 3 cents per kilowatt hour! And where they'd make a killing?

But also, and here's the kicker, expatriate profits and avoid tax? Alternatively we could given decisive informed leadership? Do it ourselves! And finance can't lose energy projects with, popular overseas, but a yet rigidly resisted here, government guaranteed, self terminating, thirty year bonds?

And divert"Australian" capital, that currently is invested elsewhere, to minimise tax?

Therefore, we'd lose absolutely nothing if we gave them a tax free status!? Meaning, the capital, our two trillion super fund would have every reason to stay here!

To effectively do fourteen trillions, or more, worth of increased economic work if you factor in the usual, times seven plus, economic flow on factors!

If you can make a substantiated fact checked case for something else less expensive or safer or cleaner? Or a better less opaque funding mechanism! Then make it! Rather than infer I lack understanding or scientific rigour!
Alan B.

Thorium does what fusion enthusiasts espouse and more? Low cost carbon free energy even the poorest nations can afford!

So cheap in fact it scares the bejesus out of the fossil fuel industry and big nuclear!

You'd think that nuclear advanced countries would opt for thorium?

Don't be stupid!

That'd make a complete nonsense out of all there current investments in plant, R+D, or the current expertise of generations of so called nuclear scientists!?

All of who have everything to lose, with a successful transition to thorium! CHEAPER THAN COAL, SAFER THAN COAL, CLEANER THAN COAL,OR ALMOST ANYTHING ELSE, THORIUM, would sound the death knell for fossil fuel industry, wind farms battery/solar technology and current big nuclear; and the weapons spinoff industries!

All stand to lose big time!

Thorium no longer needs any uranium to get started, but works just as well with a thorium isotope, thorium 303!

And should allow the uninformed reader to understand, who's up to date with their understanding of the process and others who knowingly and quite deliberately obfuscate; and or, just aren't up to speed, yet are able to infer others are less knowledgeable than they are, on the topic!

Australia needs to join the nuclear queue, not as a follower of failed technology, but a leader at the helm in a safer, cleaner, cheaper area, that has yet to fail!

Can't say more than that! Or ask for or expect less!
Particularly now!
Alan B.

Hi Geoff of Perth

Re "fusion reactor".

Here's a better, more contentious, source http://www.inquisitr.com/3786218/wendelstein-7-x-star-in-a-jar-fusion-reactor-works-promises-infinite-energy-according-to-new-research/ than "9news"

eg. the inquisitr article carries the comment: “The plasma is so hot, in fact, that it would instantly burn material used to contain it,” according to Space.com."

I wonder if this fusion experiment has resolved a major problem of previous experiments ie. the need to focus MORE heat, electrical and magnetic energy to initiate the fusion reaction than the LEVEL of energy produced by the fusion reaction...AND how long is the experiment? (a few milliseconds?)

Pete

The whole problem is a lot more complicated that has been discussed here.
First, has no one noticed that the major oil companies have stopped
investing in search & development projects ?
We will need increasing amounts of electricity to compensate.

The European fusion project has reported they can get an ERoEI of 10.
I think they said for several minutes.

I am in favour of nuclear, but in the period ahead can we afford to
build it ? Indeed do we have the time to build it ?
Will anyone finance us to build it while our debt is at its present
level and not being repaid ?

There seems to be a reluctance to look the big problem square in the face.
Reliability !
The following is the current standard;
The reliability standard currently requires that no more than 0.002
per cent of customer demand within a region (11 minutes per year)
be unserved as a result of a shortage of generation capacity once
demand-side response and imports from other regions are taken into account.

Using solar & wind as you approach that standard the cost escalates
in what looks like an exponential curve and I suspect would reach
a cost of $infinity.

As that is an impossibility, some cost isolated base generation is
not just necessary, but must be the centre around which solar & wind
are just useful additions.

It is just the way it is, get used to it !