I think I've finally come up with a resolution for this.

We install cutout devices on every consumer's power line. This device constantly monitors the power taken by the consumer, and sends that information back to NEMCO.

Consumers will then be divided into two groups. The first group believes that windfarms can provide adequate power continuously. When the windfarm generated power drops below the aggregate demand by the group, members of the group will have their power disconnected, to limit the load represented by that group.

The other consumers will be provided with power from a separate non-intermittent supply. This may include other wind-generating capacity, but will in that case also include backup generators. Those consumers will have to pay extra for this guarantee of supply. The extra money will pay for the backup generators.

That way, people get to put their money, or not, as the case may be, where their mouth is. Those who have misguided ideas about the practiciality of unbacked-up wind-farms will suffer power cuts, but won't inflict them on others. They can spend the money they save on various other gambling schemes based on their belief in a law of averages.

BTW, the baseload is not an average (as I've said before). The baseload is the load that exists continuously, 24 hours a day. Any variations in total load are additions to the baseload, not simply deviations from it.

The other thing I don't think is necesarily fully understood here is that the power consumed at any moment in time has to equal the power generated at that moment (apart from the fraction of a second required to power to transit the grid). Power generated 5 seconds ago is not available to meet demand that exists now. Nor is power that will be generated in five second's time.

Sylvia.

Most of what has been said is true however in my opinion I do not see the need for nuclear power at all. A mixture of wind and solar thermal plus solar thermal plants producing storable natural gas would do the trick. What other posters have said is that we need an intelligent distributed grid - one that battery electric cars form a part of.

Read this post on my blog http://stevegloor.typepad.com/sgloor/2005/06/solar_power_is_.html.

For clean coal we would have to bury 140 million tons of CO2 per year.

On TV last night a Tas Hydro executive seemed to be saying a key reason for the Basslink undersea cable was for Tasmania to access coal fired electricity when dam levels were low. If you accept the link between climate change and fossil fuels this seems to be a circular process; we need to burn more coal because dam levels are low and the reason we have low water levels is because we burn more coal. Using less doesn't seem to be an option.

My understanding of 'baseload' is minimum output plus a variable amount, which is more easily done when fuel use can be controllled. Don't sell your shares in coal companies just yet.

I am not going to pretend that I have the technical knowledge that others such as Sylvia possess. I find her posts particularly well argued but also dismissive.

OK wind power, solar power aren't producing sufficient returns - YET. However this doesn't mean we should ditch these alternatives in favour of a power source that produces an indefinite and toxic waste and also is potentially a disaster in the making (Chernobyl).

We must continue to develop renewables - our ability to produce solar cells has improved - who knows where the capacity for micro cell storage may lead. Nanotechnology can come into play here. I know I can easily be 'knocked out' by the more technically educated (such as Sylvia) here, but I am concerned when new technologies such as renewables are given such short shrift. Surely we should be looking at every possibility for alternatives to oil and nuclear power?

Just a thought - feel free to inform me of my ignorance.

I'm sorry if I seem dismissive on occasions. What I try to do, and I seem to annoy a lot of people this way, for some reason, is to discover the facts, apply approriate (and I hope transparent) analysis, and therey by reach conclusions. If people dislike the conclusions, the facts and analysis are there to be disagreed with. But it makes no sense just to disagree with the conclusion.

I get frustrated when people offer what they see as counter proposals that are alleged to be solutions, but where insufficient attention has been made to the detail.

My background is engineering - of software, as it happens - but engineering nevertheless. Unlike politicians and managers, engineers work with real constraints that cannot be ignored, and the systems they build either work or they don't. If a problem is over constrained, then there is no solution, and the engineers cannot provide one no matter how much people wave their hands.

An example of an over-constrained problem is one where renewables are required to provide reliable power at a cost below what the engineers can achieve.

If you constrain the problem less, for example by omitting the cost requirement, then you can ask the engineers how much it will cost. But there's then no point in trying to argue if you don't like the answer.

Another example of an overconstrained problem is where you require that reliable power be provided by wind-farms alone. It seems clear to me that that problem is not capable of a solution. I remain bemused that others think otherwise.

Sylvia.

Sylvia - while I am not an engineer I have analysed the situation in my own limited way. There is no question that renewables are going to be cheaper but how expensive is climate change? Nuclear power is at least twice as expensive a coal even with all the massive subsidies that it receives like the Price Anderson Act in the US. Wind power is getting cheaper all the time however there is also no suggestion that all Australia's power needs can be generated with wind power alone.

A mixture of wind and solar thermal is ideal for peak demand when it is the most sunny and windy during the day. Solar thermal plants placed near gas pipelines can produce methane and/or hydrogen that can be stored. Base load can be generated in normal CCGT plants 24X7 from this store of renewably produced gas. Current natural gas supplies will last long enough for the solar manufacturing plants to come online.

Australia with its abundant land area and some of the best wind resources in the world simply does not need nuclear power.