Bazz: "The number of duplication needed is inversely proportional exponentially to the physical area of the grid."

As they used to say in the Army, "Bulldust baffles brains." Just use big words as you blandly contradict - again without any evidence. You dressed up "No it can't!" with clever sounding words. I know what you’re doing – everyone’s playing this game in here! (Winks).
"If WA is included you might be able to get the duplication down to say four times."
Well it's a good thing the Blakers model includes WA isn't it? Yet their total costings are STILL well below today's prices.

"That is the reason the UK and indeed Europe are bound to fail with wind and solar. Europe is just too small."
Dude. Chill. Distance can be offset by PHES. It depends on your geography – you either shoot for a super-grid or smaller grid with more PHES. The variable appears to be 5% either way. That’s NOTHING!
This paper on an Asian grid compared building a Super-Grid to a more local grid with more pumped hydro. It's only plus or minus 5%, depending on your particular topology.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0360544221016352

But remember this is CLEAN energy. Coal is some major dirty stuff. It chokes us to death. Coal electricity you have to nearly DOUBLE to count the ‘externalized costs’ to our health departments.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/jamesconca/2012/06/10/energys-deathprint-a-price-always-paid/
http://www.energyandpolicy.org/value-of-solar-versus-fossil-fuels-part-two
http://www.abc.net.au/news/science/2018-06-27/climate-policies-ignoring-billions-in-health-savings-experts-say/9836894
BAZZ: "Instead of wasting all that money why not do a virtual simulation with weather stations until you can show that you only have supply failure about once in two or three years."
Why settle for 2 or 3 when you can access 42 years?

Here it is. 42 years data of what would have happened. Griffith university. What did they conclude would help firm renewables, amongst others?

““overbuilding” the renewable energy fleet (that is, allowing for some spilled energy over time) is also likely to be an efficient source of energy firming.”
http://www.griffith.edu.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0024/1615614/No.2022-04-VRE-droughts-modelling-Griffith.pdf

Max said; Why settle for 2 or 3 when you can access 42 years?

Indeed but it is not 24 hour continuous data.
That would be OK if you did not need continuous electricity.
Your acronym PHES, sorry do not recognise it, in someone else's words
Please Explain ?
I think the standard BOM figures that people have worked with are
good but there must be some really good wind sites that the BOM does
not report on. Wx stations in place for a year or so would be a lot
cheaper than a blunder with a 50 wind turbine farm in the wrong place.

BTW, I see the Greens are arranging for people's gas stoves and ovens
to be subsidised by us all to change to electric.
Just what we need a larger peak hour load !
I wonder if Chris Bowen had 22,000 solar panels installed yesterday ?

The cheapest power by a country mile is brown coal. There is currently no international market for the stuff, so still at 2000 prices.

Of course as Europe goes dark, & Germany reopen their brown coal power houses & mines, it just may be needed there. Meanwhile it actually works 24/7 producing power.

Incidentally no one ever mentions the wind drought that occurs along with solar drought at night. It appears no one has noticed the way the wind dies down with the sun, just like solar generation. On the coast it often dies completely at night, A even the reliable trade winds more than halve at night.

I used this fact on a sail from Cairns to Townsville with my parents on board way back in the 70s. Leaving Cairns we hit the South east trade winds at Fitzroy Island. My mother was horrified, near hysterical, at the yacht crashing into the short steep waves they generate. Knowing those winds would reduce by more than half at sundown I anchored behind the island then proceeded after dark to Mourilyan. She enjoyed the sailing in the gentle evening breeze.

I repeated this procedure for the 10 days it took us to make small nightly hops, with the days to explore our anchorages, & she enjoyed her holiday. Gentle night breezes are good for sailing south in the trade winds, but no use at all for generating power when the solar has gone to sleep. Don't ask a green though, they'll claim the wind is always blowing somewhere, perhaps in the antarctic.

Hasbeen said;
It appears no one has noticed the way the wind dies down with the sun,
just like solar generation

I mentioned that here a few times but I guess the stupid just do not believe it.
I remember telling them to notice how many sailing yachts are coming
back to their moorings on motor after a days sailing.
I think that is the sort of info that the sun & wind people don't want.

BAYGON, can you be a good boy and just BEGONE?

"Assessment of the scope of tasks to completely phase out fossil fuels in Finland."

Nearly a third of Finland is north of the Artic Circle. It gets DARK for months of the year!

"The same argument applies across the globe"

Ha ha ha ha - what are you snorting to come to that conclusion? Which month does the sun 'go down' in Australia's winter and not come up for a while?

I'm a FAN of nuclear power, especially in those Arctic countries. Unless they have geothermal or something, they'd be mad not to consider nuclear.

But ANU and Griffith uni's (and others) have modelled Australia's abundant resources - and concluded with a little overbuild we'll be fine for winter!

And the extra PHES we build for storage can also run grid services like frequency management. It sounds like they know what they're doing! I mean, they're a bunch of Professors in a University - but what would they know.

Like I'm going to listen to some internet bloke that names himself after a bug-spray!

Bazz,
It says so right there on page 5!

“MERRA-2 data was downloaded for the period 1st Jan 1980 to 31st December 2021 from the NASA Goddard Earth Sciences Data and Information Services Centre. Hourly, timeaveraged data was extracted for each grid point (Figure 1) and compiled into a local database suitable for extracting specific sites.”
http://www.griffith.edu.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0024/1615614/No.2022-04-VRE-droughts-modelling-Griffith.pdf

PHES is Pumped Hydro Electricity Storage – by which I usually mean OFF-RIVER PHES. We don’t want to have any more Franklin dam debates slowing this down – especially when off-river PHES can be built in 3 years. Or less.
Like this one I’ve talked about before. It's small. They've broken ground, and it's going to be finished by the end of 2023. When finished, if a tree comes down and severs the line, the little town of Walpole will have nearly 3 days of power to get them through until that line can be repaired.
Towns being in charge of their OWN energy. That’s what solar and wind and PHES allow! What’s wrong with that?
ABC news story http://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-11-01/renewable-energy-fix-walpole-power-problems/100579700
Western Power promo - Walpole looks like many coastal Aussie towns. Makes me nostalgic and need a holiday. Kick back and enjoy - 3 minutes. http://youtu.be/vGqdYhVfYwM