“Black holes are dense”: so are the people who chant that renewables are cheaper than coal. Renewables exist only via the largesse of the long suffering taxpayer and victims of gouging power companies.

Remove the subsidies, and the con will be revealed. Actually, the people who are now paying for the most expensive electricity in the world have already had it revealed to them.

The ACCC looked at direct RE costs such as subsidies and feed in tariffs. However indirect costs may be quite substantial and help explain why emissions keep increasing. In Australia fast response open cycle gas turbines and diesel are used more than more efficient combined cycle turbines. Coal is forced to vary output away from the optimum heat rate.

That's emissions then there's frequency correction FCAS which costs $5m some weeks. In the 'bad old days' of baseload dominant power supply frequency was rarely a problem. There are also some strange goings-on with renewable energy certificates eg a steel mill's energy savings to somehow make Melbourne trams go green. In heatwaves when wind is AWOL big electricity users will now be paid generously to reduce consumption.

Most of this is kept from the public who have politely refrained from asking why emissions keep going up despite huge support for renewables. Perhaps it is a mass delusion rather than a scandal.

The problem Carmody points to is well known - renewables wreck the grid and destroy the facial incentives that ensure we have reliable power -but has always been waved away by activists as unimportant. Just put more power storage on the grid.. building X number of pumped hydro facilities won't cost very much at all. Just to get involved in the debate is to plunge deeper into this rabbit hole of fantasy and delusion.

Howard, Rudd, Gillard and Turnbull have sold out to gw madness. How the alarmist became rich? Dumb and dumber.

For once I agree with Taswegian.

Also, with author Carmody.

However, I have one minor issue, which follows. Carmody's curve breaks down when storage is introduced. Storage is like magic - it seems always to be provided by others, at no cost to the uncontrolled and unreliable, weather-dependent generators that cause it to be needed.

Let's do a rough calculation of the cost of batteries.

How much storage? Since Tony Abbott reduced the annual "renewables" target to 33,000 GWh/year, let's contemplate just one day without weather-dependent electricity. Remember, this is for only for about 25%, not 100% renewable energy in the mix. So we are still a country mile from the dream of 100%, but it's a start. It's also about 100GHh of batteries.

But at what price?

If reports are correct, then the SA battery cost $150M for 128 MWh, ie a tad over $1M/MWh.

Storage = 100GWh = 100,000MWh
Battery cost per MWh = $1M/MWh
Total cost of battery = 100,000MWh * $1,000,000/MWh = $100B.

That's 100 billion dollars for a single day of backup, and only at Tony Abbott's reduced target of about 25% renewables.

Still want 100% unreliables?

Lots of propagandized misinformation in this space!

If renewables are cheaper? When and how?

When a constant gale persists or the sun shines 24/7 above the arctic circle? But not when the long night comes and stays until spring!

Or if the government alters free and fair competition.

By #1/ Granting subsidies?

#2/ By forbidding other less costly alternatives, from getting a look in? And here I'm referring to the energy, whose name can't be spoken, i.e., nuclear energy!

No not traditional nuclear energy but something abandoned in the seventies because of the difficulty of weaponizing it. And because it threatens the livelihoods and business models of the fossil fuel industry, big nuclear and big pharma alike.

The latter threaten by miracle medicine that would cure patients all over the world who had previously been a source of endless and huge funds as curable conditions were managed until every possible cent had been wrung out of them treating accompanying pain, red-raw inflammation and almost impossible itching.

[To the point where the only remaining option was euthanasia!?]

Curable if the condition causing all the associated conditions! Is successfully treated.

In so many cases it'll be untreated untreatable cancer and cancer that therefore has spread far and wide.

Only then being able to be treated with oncology radiation, i.e., Alpha particle isotope bismuth. Which is attached to an antibody that then exclusively targets cancer. and wherever it has spread! And kills it in minutes, without harming healthy cells.

Moreover, we have been able to make this stuff for over half a century. But limited in its ALLOWED production to ensure it's both expensive and unobtainable by the majority!

Forget that in the process of making it and saving thousands of condemned lives every year, we can make electric power for as little a 2-3cents per KwH!

[Imagine the SOVEREIGN RISK inherent in that and the very reason our alleged representatives, won't have a bar of it!?]

When we can get a precious renewable to do those two aforementioned things and without subsidies, I'll be first in the queue!
TBC, Alan B.

And here we have yet another case of GIGO!

In this case the Garbage In is that, in Geoff's words: "Importantly, it assumes extra costs from stop-start activity roughly offset fuel input cost savings from such intermittency."

That might be a credible scenario if the baseload plants were treated as peakload plants, but that's not what would happen in reality. Instead they'd be on with high (though not always full) output for days at a time, and off for weeks at a time.

This completely invalidates the basic picture, despite Geoff's unsupported assertion to the contrary.

We have to get past the risible rubbish of sovereign risk. In any free market economy, investors live or die by their own choices and the government imposed rules and regulations that either allow the best safest cleanest most affordable option to at least have a place at the table And stand or fall on merit!

If that were truly the case and the Australian consumer, not a captive market held hostage by compliant pollies?

Who does their master's bidding? Instead of those who elected them to represent their best interests?

We would surely have a fledgeling nuclear industry right here right now!

NOT JUST ANY NUCLEAR INDUSTRY BUT MSR THORIUM! For the unbeatable power price, it could deliver, especially if rolled as funded and facilitated employee co-ops.

Only prevented by the ideological imperatives on both sides of the aisle!?

And or their foreign masters?U233 is made exclusively from thorium? And U233 is the single source of officially withheld, miracle cancer cure, bismuth 213! And has a proven record of clearing tumours in minutes!

Even in death sentence stage 4 cancers!

Even in clinical trials of ovarian cancer in Europe in 2006 (google scholar) And because it's officially denied, at one thinks the behest of the abysmally ignorant, antinuclear brigade.

Thousands have had virtual death sentences to endure along with a host of associated conditions, one wouldn't wish on their worst enemy!

How many more need to die to early or in vain, and or be offered an armful of Nembutal as their only available, cost-effective remedy, while pollies concentrate on mindless point scoring and saving their own bacon!?

Every objection by the famously ignorant, antinuclear brigade is more than rebuked by the established facts and the proven science.

WE'VE BEEN ABLE TO MAKE BISMUTH 213 FOR OVER HALF A CENTURY!

Look, this is the simple undeniable truth, THORIUM>U233> BISMUTH 213.

HOW MANY MORE NEED TO DIE, BEFORE TOO MANY HAVE DIED, SOMETIMES IN A DEATH YOU WOULDN'T TOLERATE FOR A STRAY MONGREL!
Alan B.

I've seen credible estimates for coal-fired (private enterprise) power for as little as 3 cents per KwH. But in the U.S. of A. and using ROM coal?

Or an averaged price that's part coal, gas and nuclear, of 6 cents. Nuclear on its own, 12 cents?

And from a 350MW reactor needing during its lifetime to burn 2551 Tons of expensive, enriched fuel.

Which is only partly consumed by the waste creating technology (1%-) to leave 2550 tons of highly toxic partly spent fuel to dispose of, or reprocess in a breeder reactor.

Now extrapolating from Oak Ridge's fuel consumption it's reasonable to assume for the thirty-year life of a thorium burning UNPRESSURIZED MSR.

Only one ton of fuel will be required in a 350 MW thorium MSR, leaving around 1% as unburnt and far less toxic waste, that's eminently suitable as long life space batteries!

Reactor build costs, significantly lower and able to be mass produced and factory-built. For a fraction of the cost of either coal or twice as expensive, traditional nuclear.

Given the massively lower build costs and astronomically lower fuel and running costs!

It's easy to see why Economist Professor Robert Hargreaves estimates, that a private enterprise company, could provide, carbon-free thorium fired power for less than 2 cents per KwH.

Or for free if used as paid to burn, waste burners!

Yet we here argue the pros and con,s as if the only two games in town were either coal or renewables!

Almost as if this were planet ignorance personified, where naught else exists or is ALLOWED!

WHY IS THAT!? AND WTF'S WRONG WITH YOU PEOPLE!? CAT GOT YOUR BRAIN!?
Alan B.

Peak load? What? The sort we get during an enduring heat wave that sees almost every air conditioner in the land turned on and operating for days at maximum capacity? When coal-fired power plants, still cannot get past a 20% energy coefficient?

Or when aging boilers succumb to internal corrosion and need to be replaced? And when the shutdown of one single unit causes an automatic overload that trips out whole suburbs and cities as transformers react, by burning out?

This debate can go around and around, with promises of future cheaper renewables able to match or beat coal.

Even as the cost of raw materials, shipping and wage inflation as high as an annual 30% impacts on the price and profit curve!

All we need, say the renewable enthusiasts, is enough battery storage; and the ensuing prohibitive cost that forces our remaining manufacturing offshore! Couldn't have implemented planned de-industrialisation any better!

And so it goes, up goes power prices and pollution! With no end in sight! As curable cancer victims keep adding to the death toll by the entrenched application of idiotic ideological imperatives.

And as the caring "doctor" advocates for death sentence cancers to be treated with a lethal dose of Nembutal! As an alternative to miracle cure radio alpha particle isotope, bismuth 213.

Why? Because vested interest (the renewables) assisted by current power prices would all be ruined by the accompanying much lower, thorium MSR, unsubsidized power prices! That's why!

We could bring down the crippling cost of power as an alternative to, economy-wrecking tax reductions and the accompanying wealth concentration?

But that would require honesty, inherent integrity, plus pragmatic bipartisan policies!
Alan B.

"This completely invalidates the basic picture, despite Geoff's unsupported assertion to the contrary."

So, for unpredictable periods of "weeks at a time" FF generators can leave plant and personel idle while remaining on call for unpredictable periods of "days at a time", and such inefficiency costs nothing? How is a private business case built around such an uncertain scenario that won't lead to high spot prices? Of course, socialists will make this a public enterprise and hide the true cost within the unworkable boondoggle the pursuit of renewables is, together its already hidden extreme of publicly subsidized support.

It's working so beautifully in Germany, on both cost and emissions, isn't it just? Renewables enthusiasts won't let reality get in the way of a good dream. GIGO indeed!

Those claiming intermittency as a reason to oppose solar ought update their knowledge about concentrated solar ...

https://www.cleanenergycouncil.org.au/technologies/concentrated-solar-thermal.html

intermittency is clearly NOT a factor for all solar

How is anything that relies on storing solar going to be viable up against 24/7/365 despatchable electricity? You have to marry it with FF or nuclear backup, like every other unreliable source. All you're doing is saving a little fuel without making a useful difference in emissions (even if the whole world was doing it).

Like whack-a-mole, the same furphies just keep popping up to be bashed down. When will enthusiasts accept the game is up and clear the way for real action? The following is a good read: http://4thgeneration.energy/response-to-brown/

Luciferase,
>So, for unpredictable periods of "weeks at a time" FF generators can leave plant and personel idle while remaining on call for unpredictable periods of "days at a time",
Not entirely unpredictable, as we have the ability to forecast wind and solar power generation and electricity demand.

>and such inefficiency costs nothing?
I didn't say that.

Of course there's a cost. But the cost is trivial compared to the cost of fuel and of paying the workers to be there all the time. IOW what you regard as "such inefficiency" would be an efficiency gain!

>How is a private business case built around such an uncertain scenario that won't lead to high spot prices?
This would be a response to high spot prices that would bring them down. It's simply a case of optimising the use of existing assets. And when it comes to replace them, CCGTs are probably the best solution.

>Of course, socialists will make this a public enterprise and hide the true cost within the unworkable boondoggle the pursuit of renewables is, together its already hidden extreme of publicly subsidized support.
There's little publicly subsidised support at the moment - they tried to go with cross subsidies instead, which was a bad idea as it pushed prices up.

Having said that, a small levy on electricity bills to pay power stations to be available when the AEMO determines they're needed would probably more than pay for itself with cheaper electricity at times of high demand. It's certainly more efficient than requiring a certain proportion to come form dispatchable sources.

>It's working so beautifully in Germany, on both cost and emissions, isn't it just?
O course it isn't. They're not a sunny country, and they stupidly decided to phase out nuclear power.

>Renewables enthusiasts won't let reality get in the way of a good dream.
Renewables detractors won't let reality get in the way of a bad dream!

>GIGO indeed!
It is amazing how bad renewables detractors are at spotting garbage!

Luciferase,
>How is anything that relies on storing solar going to be viable up against 24/7/365 despatchable electricity?
By making power available when it's needed - for it is itself dispatchable, albeit at varying capacity.

>All you're doing is saving a little fuel without making a useful difference in emissions (even if the whole world was doing it).
What would you regard as a useful difference? And wouldn't it be comprised of many little differences? If so, would you regard those as useful?

Whack! to all of it.

All renewables require built in redundancy of of an entire working FF based extra/co-generation system. The total system runs so inefficiently as to result not only in high cost but high emissions. Your "it's simply a case of optimizing the use of existing assets" shows you know little of what constitutes a private business case. AEMO, or any other gov't instrumentality, cheaply running anything defies history and is a divorced from business thinking. Hiding true cost in the renewables subsidy boondoggle would result whether the providers were public or private, you can be sure.

The only thing fully predictable in advance is the sun goes down each day. Wind and solar vary year by year (let alone day by day or week by week) and we can't even get that forecast right, partly because climate is changing.

CCGT generation runs very inefficiently under this scenario so OCGT is the norm. But while fracked gas is cheap, and abundant (or could be) who cares, while all your "little differences" add up to a big fail against AGW. HELE would achieve the same insufficient result without all the boondoggle.

In the US nuclear is being closed down in favour of FF with renewables (strange bedfellows, frackers and renewablistas). This cruels the fight against AGW while viable storage remains a sweet dream. Your passive-aggressive stance against nuclear, together with outright opponents of it, is part of the detritus that must be cleared before any real progress is made.

That fight has a long way to go with the ideologues not keen to forsake their religion https://tinyurl.com/y9s4jtus
Without extension leads into French nuclear and Nordic hydro, as well as burning coal big-time, Germany would be even more of an energy and emissions basket-case, yet renewablistas plow on regardless.

The greenies are now understanding the problems of intermittant solar
and wind. So their new tack is to suggest that large countries can
use the weather difference over large areas all linked on the grid.
Europe has toyed for years with having sites in Africa.

The idea is that you know what the maximum demand peak over a year
is and then you install a multiple of that figure of wind and solar.

Now the trick is what is that figure ? The article that I saw said
for a very large country 12 times looks reasonable.
It admitted that this is a rough guess.
It seems no one has attempted to model a real country.
It is probably true that the smaller the country the X factor becomes
exponentially proportion to the smallness of the country.
Frankly I think it is madness and probably unaffordable.

Taking into account the falling Energy Return on Energy Invested of
coal, oil and gas over the years it will reach the point where nuclear
uranium/thorium is the only option left.

Luciferase,
Renewables certainly require redundancy. That doesn't necessarily have to come from FF, but it makes sense to use the FF infrastructure thats already in place.

'Tis simply untrue that "The total system runs so inefficiently as to result not only in high cost but high emissions." That's what FF advocates predicted fifteen years ago, but it has proved not to be the case. Even in Germany, emissions are falling.

What's the source for your claim that "In the US nuclear is being closed down in favour of FF with renewables"? I understood nuclear's share to be steady there, with renewables and gas growing at the expense of coal. I'd like to see more nuclear power in the USA, but AIUI the reason for their failure to construct more is not opposition but economics - they currently have a lot of cheap gas, and meanwhile nuclear safety standards had to be improved in the wake of Fukushima.

I'm not passive-aggressive against nuclear. I'm pro nuclear, but I will not support cutting corners with safety, and I'm very skeptical about the economic case for it in Australia. Those who spruik it typically greatly underestimate the capability or renewables while overestimating the cost.

Regarding predictability, it depends how far in advance is being forecast.

CCGT doesn't "run very inefficiently". I'm well aware that OCGT is generally better suited to backup. But as more storage is added to the network and the coal plants are decommissioned, CCGT becomes more viable. And forget HELE - its CO2 emissions are too high.

I can't abide by blithe mention of storage being added to networks as if there is some feasible, economically viable form of it.

Also, any notion that gas, as a bridge for renewables towards a future marriage with this mythical storage, can do anything really useful to battle AGW along the way, is foolish. Your nuances and "little differences" have no impact.

Australia can go down the path of renewables plus OCGT gas, and succeed in meeting electricity demand at high cost and inefficient, hence more expensive, gas usage. It can go baseload down CCGT or even HELE paths. None of these yield sufficient emissions reductions to significantly mitigate against AGW. These facts are irrefutable.

The zero emissions option, the only existent and proven option towards achieving anything against AGW in the time we have, you say is too expensive. SMRs are a nigh, storage isn't, so cut the passive-aggressive stance against it and look all the facts in the eye.

Regarding what's going on in the US and Europe, pro-nuclear environmentalist forces are gathering to oppose nuclear shut-downs be they for greenie ideological or economic reasons. Everyone is in agreement on safety, pro- and anti-nuke. My sources on closures, threats of closure, and deals done to hold nuclear as a hostage to the ransom of even further renewables subsidies, is all over the internet. You can start by looking at what happened in New Jersey.

https://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/energy/2014/09/140924-natural-gas-impact-on-emissions/

https://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/energy/2012/03/120314-natural-gas-global-warming-study/

http://www.nuscalepower.com/ et al.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/energysource/2018/04/12/saving-new-jerseys-nuclear-plants-came-at-a-hefty-price/

The Chinese think nuclear has a future, with two new EPR reactors coming online.

https://mailchi.mp/world-nuclear-news/weekly-digest-29-june-6-july-2018?e=381da1a0be

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EPR_(nuclear_reactor)

Mass production is the way forward https://tinyurl.com/y6vsdkop