Lazy, decepive article!
Isn't Geoff aware that most blackouts are due to transformer failures rather than insufficient generation?
Or that last time there was insufficient generation it was the result of a coal fired power station breaking down?

He displays sheer idiocy when he claims "For near-100% reliability, any given renewables generation capacity can never exceed about 50% of total capacity inclusive of dispatchable back-up. And, on average, the duplicated fossil-fuel 'dispatchable' capacity backing it up supplies much more than half the power actually delivered to users" ...and then claims SA to be an exemplar of this when it's actually a counterexample!

He then slurs activists with the false accusation that they "will loudly condemn any use of fossil fuels as 'dispatchable' power" when the short term use of gas for dispatchable power is well accepted by activists; what they loudly condemn is the use of fossil fuels as baseload power, and particularly the use of coal (which has a very high carbon footprint).

He then goes on to grossly overestimate the cost of storage by trying to apply the dubious conclusions of Californian study to here, even though our renewable output doesn't included the huge seasonal slump that California does.

Then there's the issue of curtailed generation. This is quite a new problem so it hasn't been addressed yet, but a consensus seems to be forming on what will be done: excess electricity will be used to produce hydrogen. Hydrogen is quite useful - it can be used to produce sponge iron, enabling steel to be made more cheaply and value adding our iron ore exports. Hydrogen can also be used to make ammonia, or even to synthesise hydrocarbons.

How much longer will Geoff keep treating easily solved problems like insurmountable obstacles?

Hey Alan B.

You might be all over the place when it comes to Trump, but you're quite knowledgeable when it comes to nuclear issues.
What do you think of these small modular reactors?

http://www.nuscalepower.com/

(Obviously it must be good because they support gender equality by 2030.)

'How much longer will Geoff keep treating easily solved problems like insurmountable obstacles?'

maybe like you Aiden he has witnessed lie after lie from the gw religion and has seen electricity prices increase and increase as renewables have been heavily subsidised by tax payers. It ain't rocket science. Your ideology has blinded you.

Never proven commercially!?

Hard to do, Pete, when on the eve of generating electricity to prove just that! The funding was pulled by that paragon of honest virtue, Richard Nixon of Watergate fame!

runner, for once I can find something to agree with you on!

That bloke couldn't find his feet in the dark with a torch!

There was a time when coal-fired power hadn't been proven commercially! And attested by the operators of water wheels and windmill grinders, Pete! All of who were replaced by the new technology and also put manmade climate change into play!

It's only a question of time before the whole world needs to decouple from coal-fired power and long before renewables will be fit to take over with ABUNDANT clean cheap, carbon-free, energy every boy and his dog can afford!

There are a number of solar power installers posting here and want MSR thorium up and running, like a proverbial hole in the head! And because the available unsubsidised prices would completely ruin their business model!

Of course, we should go modular! Given these small localised power plants could replace the grid and step down transformer stations and save the total combined transmission and distribution losses. Losses the mug consumer still pays for now!

Add in graphene as the current carrier of choice and those losses become negligible or too small to measure.

There're lots of folks critiquing a technology they know SFA about!

And the prime reason we now have to tolerate endless political prevarication confected delays and the highest energy prices in the world!

Well done, take a bow and all the kudos for the current state of affairs in the energy sector!

Something you created with your votes at the ballot box! UNDERSTAND YET, GENIUS?

So take a bow and lap it up, You deserve it! Think, with every new source of energy, mankind has progressed. You think we've gone as far as we can go, GENIUS!?

I rest my case.
Alan B.

runner,
It's bad enough that you've let your own ideology blind you in one eye, but it's worse that you've let somebody else's ideology blind you in the other! How much longer will you keep spreading the neocons' "gw religion" lie?

Open your eyes up! The evidence for anthropogenic global warming is clear, the evidence agains it is non existent, and as Christians we should care about the consequences of our actions.

Don't be fooled by simplistic explanations; always look for the truth.
For example, it's true that the price o electricity has risen substantially in the last decade. But that has very little to do with renewables. There are three much greater factors at play here:
• Spending on poles and wires has risen substantially, and a lot of it has been inefficiently planned and inefficiently funded.
• Power company profit margins have gone up.
• The price of gas went up enormously (partly due to domestic consumers paying international prices after gas companies in eastern Australia started exporting, and partly because of a rise in demand) so users are paying more for electricity when some of it's being generated from gas, which is most of the time.