Posted by Johnny Rotten, Monday, 23 August 2010 9:57:46 AM

" ... My conscience is clear, voted Greens. ... "

Aah yes, so did I. And now the people have spoken AND they have said, neither the blue nor the red of politics shall create any law which shall not be subject to the scrutiny AND authority of the *Greens* Its a beautiful thing!

..

Posted by snake, Monday, 23 August 2010 11:59:00 AM

" ... My neighbour has just put 36 PV panels on his roof and the power company will be paying him! ... "

Great interest info *Snake* I LOVE the concept of energy positive households selling back to the grid and an ever increasing surplus of energy available for industry and manufacturing AND I note that the Ferrari factory in Italy uses more electricity than an entire suburb for such things as liquefying great huge blocks of base metal to be poured into sand molds post 3D printing in turn to be be used for the fabrication of engine and machine parts.

We've got the brains, we've got the loot and we've got all the raw materials. *Christ* only knows why we are not creating. Mayhaps the independent member *Bob Katter* will bring more vigor to this particular debate, not to mention what could be done with ethanol engines, which can be designed slightly differently I believe to take into account the lesser energy potential per volume than that obtained from the smelly old benzine ring.

*The problem is peak demand. Anything to help reduce peak demand like encouraging people to feed back to the grid is encouraged.*

I haven't done the exact calculation snake, but I would be amazed if
subsidising your panels, then paying you 3 times the going rate all
year, would be an economically worthwhile, for in that case power
companies would be installing solar panel farms. But it does
appeal to all the feelgood environmental types and buys votes.
I gather that in NSW they are restricting the amount of people who
can sell back their power, to limit the damage in terms of cost.

Peak load is best solved through gas turbine backup. That is alot
cheaper then coal plants, but with higher operating costs when burning
gas.

That is one of the problems of windpower. It needs full backup
at all times, for when the wind doesen't blow.

One of the reasons for higher electricity costs is that people
don't want more coal generating plants built. Fair enough, it
can be done, gas is there and ready to go. But you just can't do
it for 20c a kw/h, consumers will need to pay a fair bit extra.

So that is the real dilema. People want an ETS, less CO2, which
gas can do, but they don't want to pay the cost.

*Yappy* you need to do a bit more study on alternative energy systems and the surrounding economic issues before making such "leaps of logic" and "grandiose pronouncements" as clearly you are incorrect.

CSIRO's recent announcement of the massive potential of wave power and the fact that prototype systems are already up an running in the Scottish North Sea, coupled with the huge potential of rich solar areas in Australia, wind and other alternative forms, such as geo thermal, collectively, easily manage to cater for Australia's present and future needs.

Geo thermal and wave power pretty much pump solid none stop for free continually. The only cost is start up, infrastructure and maintenance.

The problem is getting the parasites off from feeding on the domestic consumer. As far as I am concerned, in the phase out period, let them sell coal on the international market but get the filthy, polluting <snip> out of the domestic market. And that goes for gas too.

Yabby...I could well be wrong here, but I recall hearing a price of 3c a litre for the gas we export to China.

Pretty cheap I reckon.

We should be using it here though, not selling it all off to create junk few really need, that ends up broken in no time, and fills our tips up.

*but I recall hearing a price of 3c a litre for the gas we export to China.*

TBC, years ago, when NW gas was first being shipped, there was
indeed a single contract signed at dirt cheap prices. Banks
won't provide project finance, without purchase guarantees.

Now that shipping gas, including multi billion $ receival terminals,
has become standard in many places, gas contracts are usually
pegged to the price of oil. So gas is much more expensive

Companies like Origin have freely stated that switching to gas
is quite possible, but given the international price of gas,
electricity charges would rise quite dramatically and you consumers
seem to be quite touchy about the price that you pay, so coal it
is for most of our electricity.

Dreamon, you keep dreaming on. There is at present no technology
that is bankable, that is far advanced enough to replace coal or
gas. There are indeed experimental plants, but they need to prove
themselves before they become bankable and credible. No bank
will fund technology still at experimental stages.

So it comes down to what consumers are prepared to pay. We can
switch to gas, but international gas prices will push the
cost of electricity to far higher levels then apply now, or
we can keep going with coal for the forseeable future. That is
the reality of it. Meantime we can monitor new experimental
plants and see how they perform over time.

88 people at the booth I was on voted greens.
And for the first time their votes never got counted.
This close seat did not need preferences.
If half the green vote had been for Labor it would have been different.
Senate votes count but in this seat at least greens votes helped only a conservative.
Power from the sun need not feed back into the grid.
My system is battery's and I am black out proof.
Only small but about 40 hours of power in a black out.