My question is "Why is Labor committing to vastly increase renewable generation when Europe, to whom we are constantly compared, is applying the brakes?"

Quoting Graham Lloyd:

"Increasingly, however, it is not funny. Particularly not for German electricity consumers whose power bills have risen to become the second highest in Europe, behind Denmark. And not for German industry, which has threatened to shift manufacturing offshore because it cannot compete with lower energy prices in the US.

The German government has since slashed subsidy support for new wind and solar projects after it was forced to face the economic reality of what had been promised. The German experience is relevant for Australia given the ALP’s pledge this week to boost Australia’s renewable energy target to 50 per cent by 2030 without any real details on how this would be achieved and the possible cost.

Also relevant is the green energy subsidy train wreck unfolding in Britain since the national election. This week, the Cameron government’s Energy and Climate Change Secretary, Amber Rudd, cut the subsidies to small-scale solar projects following earlier cuts to subsidies for onshore wind, large-scale solar and energy efficiency schemes. The newly re-elected government also has angered the renewable energy industry with the introduction of a tax on producers of green power.

But Britain and Germany are not alone.

Since the global financial crisis, renewable energy subsidies have been slashed across Europe including Spain, Italy, The Netherlands, Denmark and elsewhere. The lesson around the world is that while projections for future investment in renewables remain high, the free ride from electricity users in developed nations is coming to an end."

The European land area easily fits inside the continent of Australia with a fair bit left over, it is obvious that the greater the land area the greater the potential to produce renewable energy.

http://blog.australian-native.com.au/2009/12/03/australia-europe-comparison-map/

Europe generates at least 3 times more electrical renewable energy, than the total amount of electrical power generated in Australia. This suggest to me that for us to achieve 50% renewables by 2030 would be a walk in the park.

The cost however depends so heavily on the assumptions one chooses to make, as to make it impossible to make an estimate that will be widely agreed to be accurate, but what is certain is that the fossil fuel fired stations will fight tooth and claw to resist the rise of renewables.

WarmAir,

The problem with reaching the renewable target of 50% by 2030 is that we already have excess generation capacity, and the additional renewable generation will cost about $100bn, push the cost of electricity through the roof, and make the grid unstable.

At 30% renewable generation, Europe is already having serious problems with the costs to industry making them uncompetitive and is getting a backlash from consumers/voters. Yet Labor seems determined to repeat the same mistakes.

Europe's merely easing off the accelerator. Whereas in Australia, the government stamped hard on the brakes by sabotaging the CEFC as well as removing the price on greenhouse gas emissions.

just more hot air from Labour. Remember Bob Hawkes promise of no child being left in poverty, Rudds biggest moral issue of the century before dumping an ets and now Billy boy. It might give the gullible a rush but surely anyone who can think just a bit know its hot air. I suppose with groups like getup and the abc we have dumbed down people enough to accept anything that is said from any progressive no matter how ludricous and how many broken promises.

It is interesting indeed as Mark Kenny points
out in his article in the Sydney Morning Herald -

"the decision to go hard on climate change sets
an intriguing political contest with the Abbott
government in the next federal election which could
come as early as the last part of 2015 but which is
due in any event by Spring of 2016."

Labor's ambition is to see 50 percent of our electricity
energy mix generated by renewable energy by 2030.

"The 50 per cent renewables mandate would propel Australia
towards the top of the list of environment-conscious
economies, with Denamrk committed to the same target
but by 2020, and California aiming also at 50 per cent
renewable energy by 2030."

Kenny tells us that "Australia still lags behind
New Zealand which is aiming at 90 percent renewably by
2025, and Germany which is pitching for 55 to 60 per cent
by 2035."

Kenny explains that - "last year fossil fuels -
black coal, brown coal, gas - accounted for 86.53 per cent
of energy production while renewables - wind, solar,
hydro and others accounted for 13.47 per cent at 16,000
gigawatt hours for the year."

Bill Shorten has stated - "...We will have sensible
policies designed to reduce pollution over time
with minimal impact on households and businesses.
This will include an Emissions Trading Scheme using market
forces (and) linked to international markets."

The Abbott government is yet to announce its post 2020
emissions reduction target - that is expected in
August.

It promises to be an interesting election contest.

Broken promises runner?
What like no cuts to the ABC or SBS, no changes to the pension, full support for the NDIS and Gonski, no changes to health and education, no GST increase, one million new jobs, no deals with minor parties or independents, a double dissolution, no suprises, a grown up government.

foxy,

A project that is going to cost roughly an additional $7bn p.a. from 2017 to 2030 without any economic benefit to the country is going to need bipartisan support, otherwise it will simply be ditched after a change of government as we saw with the world's biggest carbon tax.

Have labor or their supporters given any thought to how they can achieve such targets.

Of cause while chasing this dream, they will also be looking to secure jobs and continue to increase wages and conditions for all workers. It's a complete joke.

How do they propose to continue mining on the same scale,, or in fact increasing production to meet world demands, or how can they sustain our agucultrual export numbers while slashing emissions, because this sector, especially livestock production is a huge contributor.

Labor is a floundering ship and they have no captain Bligh and no Mr Chirtian stepping up to perform a mutiny. They are dead in the water hopelessly floating along in a boat with no paddle.

Sadly, we have a government that appears to have lost it's way and no alternative to take it's place, other than the train wreck that has left us in such a mess (AGAIN).

The sooner people come to the realization that our future power source will come from nuclear power the sooner we can stop this renewable rot and redirect our funding into something more worthwhile. Something that not only provides our cleaner energy needs, but also protects our jobs and livelihoods.

Until such is realized, and accepted, the renewable energy dreamers will simply continue to waste money we simply don't have.

"The European land area easily fits inside the continent of Australia with a fair bit left over, it is obvious that the greater the land area the greater the potential to produce renewable energy." Whilst this is true warmair, it is also one of the major problems with Mickey Mouse power.

The cost of transmitting wind power from suitable points of generation is often greater than the cost of the facility to produce that power, & makes most of the large projects economic stupidity for about the 4Th reason.

Germany is already in trouble with their grid being near to breaking with the problem of absorbing highly fluctuating power. It does not have the capacity to transmit it's wind power from generation point to the industrial area that may be able to use it. It is currently, [like it] using neighbouring countries transmission capacity to be able to use much of this job, & those countries are threatening to pull the plug, [another one], on them.

Even in small countries transmission lines are hugely expensive.

The UK have delegated approval of wind farms to local councils, effectively preventing any more on land development of this monster, & they are still trying unsuccessfully to actually get power from their off shore farms back to land , let alone to where it's needed.

Wind is rubbish. Thank god we have a government with enough sense to shut the door before the horse has bolted.

Dear Shadow Minister,

Natural resources are finite and polluting.
They use existing power producing plants that
are antiquated and would cost enormously to
be replaced. Why then not invest in new power
generation (for the cost of replacing the antiquated
polluting power stations) using renewable power sources
such as wind, sun, and water, which costs nothing to
resource. We have to look at long term economics -
not immediate short-term solutions. The phrase -
"If it ain't broke, don't fix it," does not apply in this
case because it is already on the verge of breaking.

The current outlook of the government may be relevant in
the short term of our life-time but it certainly is
mis-guided when we look at the future needs of our nation.
And coutries like Denmark, Germany, the US, New Zealand,
will advance into the future while we will be left
behind into the backwater like many African countries
today. Do we really want to be that regressive.
We already are losing ground in our international reputation
as it is - we certainly don't need to add to it.

As I have said before but it appaears no one is listening.
It is due to the low Energy Return on Energy Invested (ERoEI).
Forget the money numbers, that is irrelevant.
What really counts in the end is how much energy you get out for the energy put in.
Unless you get a significant increase then you are going backwards.
Ultimately this is reflected in the cost per kw/hr.

Forget global warming, this problem is bigger than that.
The ERoEI of oil and coal is declining and we will have to leave oil & coal before they leave us.

We have to find an energy source with a high ERoEI.
I suspect that the European governments and it seems our government
has woken up to this problem and that is why funds are being removed
from wind subsidies and diverted to a search for better alternatives.
I do not think it is a co-incidence that all this switching is happening just now.

I keep arguing that wind turbines just do not work. The turbines need up to 100% backup for however a short period - (ie) several days. If you have a system like this why build it in the first place? It seems that the so called environmentalists believe we can live in utopia by doubling up by wind, solar, biomass and wave but do not consider the costs.

I wrote the following to the Australian newspaper last week. It was not published.

Dear Sirs,

I would like to paint a picture. It has been an extraordinary hot day and the slightly cooler evening is coming, but no promise of anything but the mildest sea breeze. Still 40 degrees, with the sun setting in the west, and air conditioners humming. An intense high system over eastern Australia promises more of the same tomorrow, another typically summers baking day. Back in the 2020's the so called Environmentalists had finally got their way and most base load coal generators in Australia had been closed. Australia was relying on renewable energy, and the Environmentalists were ecstatic. Hundreds died that night, the elderly in their homes, hospital emergency departments collapsed as they who could not call on reliable base load electricity. Backup batteries were exhausted, and no power was available for emergency power. The electrical distribution system collapsed, and stayed collapsed. The above scenario just couldn’t happen, could it?

Foxy, you said to SM;
The phrase -
"If it ain't broke, don't fix it," does not apply in this
case because it is already on the verge of breaking.

The problem is wind never worked.
There are a number of possibilities.
Hot Rocks, long way down but lots of energy down there.
Commercial development has failed but with government funding it may
be possible get it going. Suitable granite hot rocks in Sth Aus & NSW.

Tidal but needs backup which is normally a killer to the ERoEI.
Also high tides only in NW WA and Nth Qld. Transmission losses !
Any backup installed has losses and not only does it have to be
charged to cover the down time, but extra generating capacity has to
be in place because the charging has to take place at the normal usage time.

The world has tried wind and it is a proven failure.
Solar has a worse ERoEI than wind but there may be room for improvement.
I think there is a physical limitation to the maximum output possible
on the light to electricity conversion but from what I have read it is
still possible to get higher output if someone can work out how to do it.
However it needs backup and that is the killer.
Backup has a really bad effect on ERoEI of the total system.
I suspect that no one knows how to produce what is needed but they are trying.

Nuclear is the only certain way to produce electricity 24 hours a day
365 days a year. The catch as I see it is that we have left it too
late and we can no longer afford to build a fleet of nuclear power
stations.
One way might be to use the money provided by storing the worlds
nuclear waste and building reprocessing plants and power plants.

The alternative I think is to stock up on candles !

Dear Bazz,

I'm certainly not an expert on this subject.
All I can do is suggest that we continue to
look for solutions to our future energy problems
by investing with people who are experts in
these fields. Look how far our technology has
come thus far and we can only trust that it will
continue to advance. Not to invest in the future
at least to me would be rather foolish because as
I wrote in my earlier post - fossil fuels are a
finite resource and sooner or later we will have
to seek alternative energy sources.

I realise that the use of winds, tides, or sunlight -
still appear, after years of intensive research,
too inefficient or uneconomic for large-scale use
at present. But we should not give up.

As for nuclear? There are many nuclear plants around
the world but many of them are managerial, financial,
or engineering disasters. Nuclear reactors produce
notoriously hazardous wastes. What is needed is a
place that will safely contain the waste for at least
10,000 years, which is long enough for most of it to
decay.

The location of such a site is a ticklish political problem,
for the obvious reason that people are generally unenthused
about the prospect of having a radioactive dump in their
own neighbourhood.

The disposal problem seems to be one that has no
acceptable technological fix, at least for now.
Proceeding with renewables seems like a better solution.

Yes Foxy renewables would be ideal but we should not waste resources
on known failures. Australia should ban the export of coal & gas and
keep it for our use only as we have no idea how long it may take to
find the new energy regime, it could be 100 years or more.
Fusion is one possibility but it has always been 60 years away.

Dear Bazz,

We don't have any set government policies as yet
on renewables -
so we have to wait and see what will be on offer
prior to the next election. All we can hope for
at the moment is that they will present us with
sensible policies designed to reduce pollution over
time with minimal impact on households and
businesses. But we shall have to wait and see.

As I stated earlier - the decision to go hard on
climate change sets an intriguing political contest
with the Abbott government in the next federal election.
And Labor's 50 per cent renewables mandate would
propel Australia towards the top of the list of
environment-conscious economies (with Denmark
committed to the same target but by 2020, California
by 2030, New Zealand aiming at 90 per cent by 2025, and
Germany 55 to 60 per cent by 2035).

Foxy, the problem is that there are no viable renewables in sight.
At the next election we will go to the polls with unacheivable goals on wind and solar.
We need to go to the election with a program of research objectives on some
realistic projects such as geothermal and tidal generation electrical
transmission research to see if we can get the voltage high enough to make it viable.

That is the sort of energy program I would take to the election if I were PM.
Forget global warming, the eroei of coal and oil will solve that.

Dear Bazz,

It will be interesting to see exactly what the
political parties come up with.

Foxy,

Spending a vast sum of money to replace a cheap reliable (but polluting) source of power with an expensive and unreliable source will do untold damage to the economy.

Notably the countries with the lowest energy costs are the ones recovering the fastest from the GFC. e.g. the USA with the fastest growth and lowest unemployment in the developed world.

Dear Shadow Minister,

Most people do have a propensity to discount the future -
"a bird in the hand is worth more than two in the bush..."

Discounting the future is one of the most common practices
in the business world. There are also psychological
reasons to risk aversion. Any one of us might not be around
to benefit from a good time in the future so let us have
it now regardless of the long-term consequences.

New ideas, instead of being welcome for the opportunities they
open up for the improvement of the human lot are often seen
as threats to those who have become comfortable in their
ideologies. Things won't change in a hurry when ignorance
and vested economic and political interests come into play.

Still, I am optimistic in the upcoming federal election.
I feel that we can -this country come
up with the right policies that will have minimal impact
on our economy and will give this country a good mix of our
energy generated by renewables by 2030.

Foxy,

There a difference between risk aversion and a propensity for suicide.

I too am optimistic in the upcoming federal election. I feel that we can -this country come up with the right policies that will have minimal impact on our economy and will give this country a good mix of our energy generated by renewables by 2030. Led by a liberal government.

Dear Shadow Minister,

Keep an open mind until you've heard what
the policies from both sides are.
That's what I am going to do.

Foxy,

I was commenting on Shorten's back of a cig box policy making.

Foxy,

As a businessman once said to me, "you can't eat reputation"

While I agree with replacing aging equipment with non CO2 emitting plant, we still have about $100bn worth of plant most of which has productive life of decades, and which is already capable of producing all the power Aus needs.

Labor has just committed to going from about 14% now to 23% in 2020 which is already double the rate from the last decade. Now Shorten has pledged to go from 23% to 50% in 10 years which is nearly double again.

Notably Shorten has just admitted to journalists that the 50% RET target is unachieveable without bipartisan support from the libs, which is not going to happen. And if Labor reintroduces a carbon tax again, it will be repealed again.

Shadow Minister, "the 50% RET target is unachievable without" changing the laws of physics.

There is no way any electricity grid in the world can survive if fed by that much intermittent wind & solar power.

Currently the Danes & Germans have to feed a large amount of wind power to Sweden, when their windmills are actually producing, to pump water up hill. Their grid would fail if this outlet was not available.

They give this power to Sweden currently, but there is talk od Sweden demanding some payment for taking it off their hands.

Great investment hey? Hugely expensive, economy destroying, wind power, & you have to pay to get rid of it.

We should shorten Shorten, by cutting him off at the knees, before he really causes us massive damage with this stupidity.

As Hon. W.C. once indicated, some people can be fooled some of the time but not all people all of the time.
A majority of sensible people including most scientists worldwide do not agree CO2 is causing climate change.

I think it amazing some regulars here on OLO are still dumbed down considering insight here on OLO, to evidence warmth in ocean algae plant matter is not measured and assessed in AGW,IPCC and Kyoto associated science.

JF Aus,

"A majority of sensible people including most scientists worldwide do not agree CO2 is causing climate change."

Lol!

JF Aus,

You know and I know that the 'Environmental" claim that most Scientists reject the notion of Anthropological Global Warming is absolutely wrong. It was done on the publication of scientific papers, papers produced by those scientists that were on the public teat (ie) Global Warming Bandwagon.

What many are opposed to is the method of imposing 'renewable energy' on society as the solution when if you know anything about renewable energy you should have worked out it 'Does Not Work'.

The world has got to stop fluffy around the edges and have a concerted effort to replace coal generators with Nuclear Power. The safest and cheapest energy generating system yet devised by mankind.

Regards,

just like the coolest predicted the ice age in the 70's, the alarmist were convinced we were out of oil before 2000, the y2k bug was going to destroy the earth now the warmist follow their faith, they will need a new funding source in the future. Idiotic regressive Governments love to fund their mates and faith based ideolgies which inevitably show up as scams. The national broadcasters rely on this type of rubbish. It is obvious that most holding to this nonsense like the getup crowd have grown up with group think and are incapable of using their brains. A few old feminst also need this 'moral'issue as they have thrown up decency.

Dear Shadow Minister,

Your quote about "reputation," points to the heart
of the problem. I'm glad that you've brought it up.
Making up numbers to scare people - is a well worn
political tactic - certainly from the Liberal Party
we've got the "carbon tax," as a perfect example.

Therefore I am dubious that real action on climate
change will be taken by the Abbott-led Coalition when
Mr Abbott has spent his adult life being sceptical
about it. It's therefore logical not to be
overly optimistic that things will change.

There was a recent article in The Australian where
ACIL Allen Chief Executive Paul Hyslop quoted that
11,000 additional turbines will have to be built
with costs estimated at being $65 billion.

However as the Australian Financial Review pointed out,
Mr Hyslop's estimate referred to capital costs not
consumer costs and his estimate was also based on wind
power alone, when Labor has said its goal would be
achieved through a variety of policy mechanisms.

Solar technology is becoming cheaper by the day and
advances in other technologies will also do the same.

Therefore I am optimistic and prefer to agree with
the Clean Energy Council Chief Executive - Kane Thornton
who said that by 2030 - Australia's energy system
will contain a range of energy technologies including
wind, large-scale solar, wave and bio-energy.

JF Aus, like a number of people on here you have misunderstood what the
discussion is about.
It has nothing to do with global warming.
It is all about how to build a new energy regime.

At present reliance has been placed on solar and wind, but as the
Germans & others are finding it just cannot be managed as hoped.
The backup requirements are not affordable and a better base load
system is required.

That in a nutshell is what the problem is about.
It seems the government is more switched on (pun intended) than any of us realised.
It seems that this why they have switched the money supply from wind
subsidies to research for a better system.
We do not have a lot of time.
I have doubts that we would be able to afford nuclear and anyway the
battles to install it would be monumental.
Geothermal of whatever sort and tidal if we can solve the transmission
problem are good bets. That is where we need to spend money, not
building a bigger grid management problem.

Foxy said, "Labor has said its goal would be achieved through a variety of policy mechanisms". Foxy just why do you think they made such a vague statement, as if it was actually a policy? It is of course because Shorten has no such policy. This statement was to simply mollify their hard left/green wing over the switch to turning back the boats policy.

Of course he & we all know he could never survive in Labor leadership if he did actually stop the boats. Talk about wink wink, nudge nudge, & hope to fool enough to get a few votes.

There is no low CO2 generation technology in existence, or prospect, to achieve this "aspirational" statement, other than nuclear, & we know how likely Labor is to develop nuclear.

Even with nuclear there is no way we could afford or achieve the development so much of new generation capacity within that time scale.

Please get of those propaganda sites you frequent, & do a bit of wider research. You are permitting yourself to be coned, by shutting off from learning the true facts. As a librarian you know you should.

Foxy,

As the 2007 election campaign by Labor and the unions was almost exclusively a scare campaign the left you don't have a leg to stand on.

The EU has started to realise that the high cost of energy is crippling its economy. By comparison the US who was the worst hit by the GFC, but has worked on reducing energy costs to far below that of the EU has nearly twice the growth and half the unemployment. The EU is losing in Competition with the US and China / India is taking its toll.

With the EU being virtually the only only country with a price on carbon, the comparison is clear that without an equal measure of effort from one's competitors, the consequences are severe.

The Kevin '07 election campaign, Shadow? ISTR most of the scaremongering was done by the Liberals, who tried to paint Labor as a bunch of union bosses. But as the Libs had already implemented Workchoices, that didn't seem so bad.

Labor tried to run a scare camoaign in the mid '90s. The public saw through it and John Howard comfortably won the election. I think Labor sensibly avoided the tactic from then on, BICBW as I was out of the country for a few years.

But with a compliant press, Tony Abbott's built his success on scare campaigns, including blatant lies about the effects of the carbon tax.

The governmentment would be better off concentrating on solar power and
supporting new ideas
For affordable solar power for every home in Australia. Those wind turbines
Are a visually environmental eyesore,they
look awful and like some kind of
grotesque joke in large numbers.
They destroy the peace and tranquility and this makes them invironmentally
unfriendly and a blight on the natural beauty of rural landscapes.

Wind power is best generated where wind exists. sun solar power is generated during midday sun. when wind is least windy little power is generated. where the sun is blocked by clouds little power is being generated.
Coal power is reliable, constant, and apparently cheaper to produce.

energy produced by sun light can only be used during sunlight hours. the only way I can believe sun light energy can be stored, is that electricity pumps water into a higher level dam, allowing stored water to flow through generator when needed.

many houses have solar cells yet is the power being generated being used?
A better discussion is Why Are These Ideas Not Public Knowledge?

Steve;
There are very significant problems with the intermittancy and variability
of wind and solar. Trying to cope with it has turned out to be very
expensive for Germany and Denmark.
Germany has an arrangement with Sweden that they can send their excess
to Sweden but is becoming a problem there. Sweden is now suggesting
that Germany pay Sweden to be able to send power to Sweden.
ie the electricity from Germany has a negative value!

The unpredictability of the supply variations is a problem.
Storage would be the answer if dams are available.

Oh, really? I have no idea.

Facts are far more boring than opinions, but I hope these will give people a better idea of the true situation.
There is nothing special about Germany (apart from the fact they are winding down nuclear) they produce very close to the average amount of renewable electrical energy for Europe.

Spain which would comfortably fit inside NSW uses a similar amount of electrical power to Australia, but comfortably managed to produce 42.8% of its power from renewables in 2014. Australia has much greater potential than Spain to produce renewable power, but yet could only manage a miserable 13.47% in 2014.

Figures for Europe 2013
% of gross electricity consumption
Norway____________105.5
Austria_____________68.1
Sweden____________61.8
Portugal___________49.2
Latvia_____________48.8
Denmark __________43.1
Croatia____________38.7
Romania___________37.5
Spain_____________36.4
Slovenia___________32.8
Italy_______________31.3
Finland____________31.1
Germany___________25.6
EU-28_____________25.4
Greece____________21.2
Ireland____________20.9
Slovakia___________20.8
Bulgaria___________18.9
France____________16.9
United Kingdom_____13.9
Lithuania__________13.1
Estonia___________13.0
Czech Republic_____12.8
Belgium___________12.3
Poland____________10.7
Netherlands_______10.1
Cyprus____________6.6
Hungary___________6.6
Luxembourg________5.3
Malta______________1.6

World 2013
% of gross electricity consumption
EU__________25.4
China________21.5
US__________12
Australia_____10.13

12 countries generated 99%+ of their electricity from renewables world wide.
17 countries generated 90%+
56 countries generated 50%+
Tasmanian generated 95% (2014)
South Australia 40%(2014)

Sources:-
http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/images/5/5d/Renewable_energy_YB2015.xlsx
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_electricity_production_from_renewable_sources
http://www.cleanenergycouncil.org.au//cleanenergyaustralia

Warmair,

What you forgot to mention was that many of these countries have hydro electric power, which is reliable and ready to ramp up at a moments notice, and can compensate for wind and solar's unreliability. Notably the next largest hydro project in Aus was blocked by the Greens notably the Franklin Hydro scheme in Tas.

Also due to wind and Solar, Spain Denmark and Germany have virtually the highest electricity costs in the EU which is hurting consumers and industry.

Warmair,

Do not know where you get your figures from but obviously false. One example is Sweden 60% renewable yet it has 50% nuclear! The only way Denmark survives is pumping unused wind energy into Sweden and taking nuclear energy when the wind does not blow. Crap in crap out!

Regards,

Shadow
I can not find any support for your claim that wind and solar are responsible for high electric prices in the EU.
Germany renewable sector is very close to the EU average and therefore is not the reason that Germany's electric prices are high by European standards.

The 3 main reasons appear to be:-
1 They are phasing out existing nuclear power plants well before their economic life span, and replacing them, and not necessarily with renewables.
2 They tax power heavily at 51.6 %
3 They import power from elsewhere to make up the shortfall.

The Eu countries have two tariffs one for domestic and one for industry, Both Spain and Denmark charged below the EU average for industrial power in 2014 and have reduced their tariffs in recent years. The domestic prices are high but this appears to have more to do with government revenue raising than anything else.

Data and quote from here:-
http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php/Energy_price_statistics#Electricity_prices_for_household_consumers

"At the other end of the scale, the highest proportion of taxes in the final price of electricity for consumers was recorded in Denmark, where more than half (56.8 %) of the final price was made up of VAT, taxes and levies, as was the case in Germany (51.6 %); Portugal (41.7 %) had the next highest share."

Figures EU 2014 Euros per KWh for industry

Eu Average Industrial 0.120 €/KWh

Germany 0.152 €/KWh and rising

Portugal 0.119 €/KWh small rise

Spain 0.117 €/KWh and falling

Demark 0.088 €/KWh and falling.

Warmair,

Then you are obviously not looking.

http://www.bloombergview.com/articles/2014-09-22/germany-s-green-energy-is-an-expensive-success

Germany's subsidy to solar and wind now exceeds E20bn p.a. and is subsidized primarily from household consumers who pay the second highest prices in the EU. Industrial consumers pay nearly 3x what Aus industries pay.

Graeme of Malvern
I spend a good deal of time checking my information comes from reliable sources. Your figure of 60% nuclear for Sweden is definitely wrong.

My Figures comes from this link
http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/images/5/5d/Renewable_energy_YB2015.xlsx

See figure 2 on the spread sheet.

I can not find current reliable figures for Sweden's nuclear power, It be should be around 38%, but according to the highly biased world nuclear site it is 40%:-

http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/Country-Profiles/Countries-O-S/Sweden/
Quote
"About 40% of domestic production is nuclear, and up to half hydro, depending on the season (affecting hydro potential). In 2013, Sweden generated 152.5 TWh, of which 65.8 TWh (43%) was from nuclear and 61.3 TWh (40%) from hydro. Wind provided 10 TWh and various fossil fuels 5 TWh and biofuels & waste 10.6 TWh"

Shadow
The Bloomberg article is not backed up by any evidence whatsoever, which is as about as useful as certain redundant parts on a bull.

Warmair,

You provide a hodge podge of data with much of it out of date yet try and claim that the article in Bloomberg is worthless because it does not publish spreadsheets of data. What bollocks. The article contains links to other sites with the requisite data which I guess you missed. Also Bloomberg is one of the most respected financial journals which is based on sound analysis not opinion.

Try this:

http://instituteforenergyresearch.org/analysis/germanys-electricity-market-balance-must-pay-flexible-back-power/

It should have enough facts for you.

warmair,

Regarding Shadow Minister's most recent link - the Institute for Energy Research:

http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Institute_for_Energy_Research

"The Institute for Energy Research (IER), founded in 1989 from a predecessor non-profit organization registered by Charles G. Koch and Robert L. Bradley Jr., advocates positions on environmental issues including deregulation of utilities, climate change denial, and claims that conventional energy sources are virtually limitless.

It is a member of the Sustainable Development Network. The IER's President was formerly Director of Public Relations Policy at Enron.

IER has been established as a 501(c)(3) non-profit group. It is a "partner" organization of the American Energy Alliance, a 501c4 organization which states that it is the "grassroots arm" of IER. AEA states that, by "communicating IER’s decades of scholarly research to the grassroots, AEA will empower citizens with facts so that people who believe in freedom can reclaim the moral high ground in the national public policy debates in the energy and environmental arena." AEA states that its aim is to "create a climate that encourages the advancement of free market energy policies" and in particular ensure drilling for oil is allowed in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and in US coastal waters."

"In 2009 IER run a campaign on "green jobs" attacking the expansion of renewables energies. IER commissioned three studies on renewable energies and green jobs in Denmark, Germany and Spain. These studies by different think tanks were than promoted by IER and other free market think tanks in the US but also used in Europe and Ontario, Canada. The study on Germany e.g. was translated into German and taken up by German media - without mentioning that the study was financed by IER with its close business links. The German institute that wrote the study (called Rheinisch-westfaelisches Institut fuer Wirtschaftsforschung, RWI) didn't acknowledge the funding from IER until they were challendged by investigative journalists."

Quote Shadow
"Industrial consumers(EU) pay nearly 3x what Aus industries pay."

There seems to be a serious mismatch between your statement and reality here.

Average price paid (2014) by industries for electricity in EU was € 0.12 KWh as per link above or A$ 0.18 at current exchange rates and this includes cost of access to the grid.

There is no specific data for Australian power prices for industries, as they don't get any special treatment re taxes as they do in Europe, but I assume that Aussie industries do get discounts due to bulk purchase of power. Now the current domestic price of power in Australia is around A$ 0.30+ KWh (Inc access to grid) so industry here would need a discount of over 60% just to match EU prices.

So it would seem that the EU prices for industrial power are possible cheaper than in Aus, but the EU produces a much higher (X2)proportion of its power from renewables than we do.

There is an urgent need to move away from pumping gases into the atmosphere. New wwys of producing energy need to florish. Yes there will be extra expense initially, that may be the price required.
Example when computers were introduced to offices/businesses typing pools vanished that was the price. So the cost of supplying electricity will rise. It has aready despite what politicians say.
We were told that abolishing the Carbon Scheme would save us $550 a year that never happened. The price of electricity production and distribution will rise regardless.

Warmair,

FYI, I work in a large industry in Sydney that buys electrical power at just over 6c /kWhr including network costs or roughly 1/3rd of what those in the EU pay. While the average industry price might be slightly higher, (for which I don't have figures, the average commercial property pays about 15c (which includes shops, cafes etc).

Parrot,

I notice that you don't comment on the Bloomberg article for which the second link was for corroboration. For someone that cries foul when one tackles the messenger rather than the message, you are being hypocritical. I can easily find a wide variety of sites that say exactly the same thing.

The facts are simple,
1- the higher the proportion of wind and solar, the less stable the network. The countries nearing 30% of energy supply from wind and solar are already beginning to experience problems including blackouts and brownouts.
2- Wind and solar is still considerably more expensive than fossil fuels, and passing these on to commercial and domestic users has a negative effect on the economy and especially energy intensive industries.
3. The countries that generate >30% renewables generally have a large proportion being hydroelectric and biomass.

Given that Aus has no further hydro capability (unless the Franklin dam is built) and biomass is regulated to death, the limit for renewables peaks at about 40% with existing technology.

Shadow, what you claim are "the facts" are nothing of the sort, for they rest on unstated assumptions which are not always true, and are actually controllable.

1. It is simply untrue that "the higher the proportion of wind and solar, the less stable the network". Firstly adding more non dispatchable power capacity doesn't reduce the amount of dispatchable power capacity available, and says nothing about whether the transmission infrastructure is sufficient. Secondly solar thermal is dispatchable. Thirdly, network stability can also be achieved through demand management.

2. The ongoing cost of wind and solar power is much lower than that of fossil fuel power. Whether the total cost is higher or lower depends on the cost of finance.

3. Countries with a large amount of hydro power had a significant head start, but it isn't actually a requirement. Solar and wind make up over 30% of South Australia's electricity supply despite the none of the state's power coming from hydro or biofuels.

And where does your 40% figure come from?

Quote:
Thirdly, network stability can also be achieved through demand management.

Hmm, Otherwise known as Load Shedding.

When looking at the average supply available from solar & wind it
looks fine, but if you change the period considered it is a different matter.
In an hour output can go from max to min several times and be down at
min for just a couple of minutes.
That is where load following has great problems if there is no full
scale base load generator also on line.
My understanding is that even gas stations have problems following.

No, Bazz, demand management is completely different from load shedding.

Load shedding is interrupting the supply to some areas.
Demand management is varying demand to enable supply to be maintained to all areas.

"When looking at the average supply available from solar & wind it
looks fine, but if you change the period considered it is a different matter.
In an hour output can go from max to min several times and be down at
min for just a couple of minutes. "
For a single site that's true, at least for solar. But because solar power is generated in multiple locations, it's far more predictable.

"That is where load following has great problems if there is no full
scale base load generator also on line."
Why would having a full scale base load generator on line change anything at all?

"My understanding is that even gas stations have problems following."
My understanding is that single shaft combined cycle gas turbines have problems load following, but open cycle and multi shaft combined cycle gas turbines do not.

Aidan,

What I suggest you do is google "network stability and renewable generation".

What you will find is endless articles including those such as ABB (one of the largest supplier of wind turbines) talking about methods to compensate for network instability from connecting renewable generation. The greatly increased brownouts and Blackouts in Germany corresponds to their increasing proportion of wind and solar, and is a text book case study for network /protection engineers.

Secondly the ongoing maintenance of wind (imagine working 30 stories up) and solar plants and their diverse networks is far more expensive than you realise, and can easily equal the maintenance and fuel costs of fossil fuel plants. Especially those sited on coal mines that just dig up and burn the fuel.

Thirdly SA is not a country, and if all its generation failed, it would simply draw off the Aus network.

The 40% comes from the roughly 10% renewable generation that is hydro and biomass and not wind or solar, and the current practical limit of 30% wind and solar.

Finally, load shedding is the most common and effective form of demand management and the most expensive. Most customers have no means of regulating load and shutting plant generally costs orders of magnitude more that the electricity. Load following is yet to be successfully implemented on any large scale.

Shadow
I can find numerous sites that support any opinion on any subject you care to name.Here for example is one claiming that fuel subsidies in Germany for coal (black and brown) cost some €418 billion, for and nuclear €213 billion whereas renewables have only been subsidized by €67 billion.

http://energytransition.de/2015/02/what-electricity-really-costs/

Here are several that argue coal is too costly because of the hidden costs and other stuff ups.

http://reneweconomy.com.au/2014/wa-grid-may-become-first-big-victim-of-death-spiral-41428

http://reneweconomy.com.au/2012/the-true-cost-of-electricity-wind-is-half-the-price-of-coal-73416

http://www.skepticalscience.com/true-cost-of-coal-power.html

http://www.euractiv.com/sections/energy/eu-investigates-government-subsidies-power-stations-314201

http://www.greenpeace.org/australia/en/what-we-do/climate/renewable-energy-myths1/

If your industry is paying 6 cents KWh for power then somebody somewhere is subsidizing your energy, that price only just covers the wholesale price of power from coal, never mind paying for grid, and when we consider that a number of the NSW coal fired stations are running at 50% of capacity. I can only assume that it is the ordinary householder that is picking up the tab, when they are paying as much as 32 cents a KWh.

http://www.smh.com.au/business/comment-and-analysis/coalfired-power-stations-face-existential-crisis-20150611-ghlokl.html

It is not the question of "Is the Green dream crashing in Europe?', it is really completely past tense.

The dream has become a nightmare for all but the most obtuse of gravy train riders. Even many of them are starting to worry about the future, or lack there of, they are bequeathing to their kids.

Tell us warmair, where did you get your ticket, or are you one of the ratbag greenies, who want to damage human civilisation in any way possible? No one with an education, could really believe the garbage you push.

Shadow
I did as you suggested and Googled "network stability and renewable generation".

Here is an official Australian government study:-

http://www.google.com.au/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=5&ved=0CDoQFjAEahUKEwjK47HluKDHAhUD2qYKHcq8AKM&url=http%3A%2F%2Farena.gov.au%2Ffiles%2F2015%2F03%2F150302-Impact-of-Variability-Report-for-public-release.pdf&ei=vZvJVYqRL4O0mwXK-YKYCg&usg=AFQjCNG9BHgwyaq0FYvhty3Dmb7ZBnqsgg&bvm=bv.99804247,d.dGY&cad=rja

Quote
"The results demonstrate empirically that it is possible to install large amounts of PV, potentially exceeding 60% of demand, into existing networks without disrupting the underlying variance that normally exists in grids, as long as there is adequate spatial distribution of the PV input."

The German grid is one of the most reliable in Europe, or the world for that matter and is 4 times better than Britain.

http://www.cleanenergywire.org/sites/default/files/styles/large/public/images/dossier/saidi-international.jpg?itok=ST5hhpIA

Hmmm, the German grid has 60% renewables, hmmm what do they do when
the sun goes down on a winter mid afternoon ?

I think I know, they buy electricity from France !
60% of 60% is 40% approx, so they need 60% of their total electricity
supply from France or their own coal.

It gets dark around 4pm and the kids are going to school in the dark
of a morning so solar would not contribute much in winter especially
with the sun being so low in the sky at mid day the cells would be loafing.
Yes the excuse for the big blackout was, wait for it;
The wind does stop everywhere sometimes !

Ask any sailor what happens to the wind around sunset, just when mum
is putting the dinner on !

Shadow,

In early November Central Europe goes under a thick blanket of very cold cloud and it is very still. For something like two weeks renewable energy works at something like 7% of it's 80 GW capacity. Give or take 10% (ie) 7.7 - 6.3%!
Germany needs the nuclear power from Poland, Chech republic and France depriving those countries of power (Germans pay more). You just have to face facts. Google "Germany's Green Energy Bust a completely factual paper without emotive arguments. Australia just has to go Nuclear if we are to replace coal fired generators. All economic arguments say so.

As for the Green Movement depriving India of Coal you just have to hang your head in shame. Reliable energy changes peoples lives for the good. Less babies, more commerce and increased life style. If Australia does not produce the coal someone else will. The net CO2 production will be the same. Again until India builds enough Nuclear Reactors (which they are doing) coal is an essential element in their energy requirements.

Regards,

Shadow, I'm well aware that the output from solar PV and wind is less stable than from fossil fuels and nuclear. But that doesn't equate to network instability; it merely introduces technical problems that will have to be overcome. And they can be overcome. But people like you seem to treat every technical problem as an insurmountable obstacle!

Secondly, where did you get the ridiculous idea that solar and wind power have maintenance costs comparable to the fuel costs of fossil fuel power? They're designed to be low maintenance.

Thirdly, although SA is not a country, it has more people than Estonia and is bigger than any country that's entirely within Europe. Claiming "if all its generation failed, it would simply draw off the Aus network" shows a very poor understanding of the situation: SA only has two connections to Victoria. There's no direct connection to the NSW or Queensland grids, and no connection at all to those of WA or the NT. Around the turn of the millennium, before SA's wind turbines were built, SA had frequent brownouts and had to resort to load shedding.

Fourthly, the current practical limit of 30% wind and solar is a figment of an imagination so limited it can't even comprehend technical problems being overcome!

Finally, load shedding is not demand management, it's failure of demand management: the demand still exists but is unsatisfied. Most customers have no means of regulating load YET, but that's something that could easily change in the future. The cost of shutting plant varies a lot - it can be high or it can be very low (air conditioning being an example of the latter). And a primitive form of demand management has been in operation for years, with some equipment automatically taking advantage of the cheaper electricity after midnight. Why do you imagine we can't do this in real time?

Aidan,

Just an idea you should be interested in.

I would like to paint a picture. It has been an extraordinary hot day and the slightly cooler evening is coming, but no promise of anything but the mildest hot sea breeze. Still 40 degrees, with the sun setting in the west. An intense high system over eastern Australia promises more of the same tomorrow, another typically summers baking day. Back in the 2010's the so called Environmentalists had finally got their way and most base load coal generators in Australia had been closed. Australia was relying on renewable energy, and the Environmentalists were ecstatic. Hundreds died that night, the elderly in their homes, hospital emergency departments collapsed as they who could not call on reliable base load electricity. Backup batteries were exhausted, and little power was available for emergency power. The electrical distribution
system collapsed, and stayed collapsed.

The above scenario just could not happen, could it?

Aidan, It does not matter how many overbuilds of the electrical generating system in renewable energy it will ALWAYS need almost 100% backup so do not build it. In 2014 South Australia lost 28.9% of its wind power in a 5 minute period. Building renewables is just crazy stuff.

Graeme
The only case that can be made for Australia to go nuclear is to reduce CO2 emissions, if you don't accept that is necessary then there is we have no reason to go nuclear, even using the most favorable figures, and making highly optimistic assumptions nuclear would be 2 or 3 times more expensive than coal in Australia. I don't happen to think that there is any good argument to go nuclear in Australia as we have plenty of potential to use premium sites for renewables at a lot less than the real cost of nuclear.

One of the great advantages of wind and PV solar in Australia is the fact that they don't need water to run them and we are going to need to save every drop of water we can because of the increasing population, plus rain fall trends in south east Australia have been in are steady decline for the last 30 years.

Bazz
The proportion of renewables used in Germany is 23% not 60% and at the present they are increasing their use of coal but of course because German power prices are high and rising it must mean renewables are a bad idea go figure !
It is just possible it has something to do with the fact power is taxed at 56% in Germany and they have closed down a load of nuclear power plants well before their use by date.

I don't think you guys have any idea just how interconnected the European grid is, in fact Germany is a net exported of power. Hover the mouse over the countries you are interested in.

http://www.energy-charts.de/exchange.htm

Graeme
The hottest conditions in South East Australia occur under very favorable conditions for renewables when skys clear and strong northerly winds. In fact prior to the widespread take up of roof top PV solar, the grid struggled under precisely those conditions,

http://www.theguardian.com/environment/southern-crossroads/2014/jan/17/heat-wave-australia-record-breaking-climate-change-bushfires-melbourne

Quote

In fact, according to the Clean Energy Council, without rooftop solar "acting to reduce the demand from large-scale power stations, it is very likely that Victoria would have set a new record for power use". So we can thank renewables that there weren't blackouts due to lack of supply.

I think the point is being missed here somehow.
Can I simplify my puzzlement.

If we build enough solar and wind to supply 100%, we know that will not
be sufficient, because the sun does not shine all day & night and there
will always be clouds and we do not live in a continous gale.

So, how many times 100% do we have to build with solar & wind given
our relative large geographical area, given zero losses in transmission ?
Do we have real figures for wind and sunshine for every, say 100sqkm of Australia ?

I have been in my mind going back many years to my work experience
with control systems.

If it is not practical to either establish those figures then no demand techniques could control the network.
Three term control systems require feedback loops to establish
stability, however in this case the primary input (wx) can not be
in a loop & controlled so the problem is basically unsolvable.

Therefore either coal fired power or nuclear is essential as 100% backup.

Further to may last thoughts;
The ERoEI of world coal is continuing to fall and will at some time in
the future become uneconomical to extract.
Australia is in a fortunate position with coal, but if we do not want
to use nuclear we should stop exporting coal and keep it for ourselves
to build whatever new generation systems become available.
We need to stop export because we have no idea how long it will take
to build the new energy systems, it could easily take 50 or 100 years.

With falling GDP we may never be able to afford a fleet of nuclear stations.

Bazz
It is worth repeating that the main sources of renewable energy are hydro, wind, biomass, solar thermal, and solar PV . Hydro and biomass can produce power on demand, solar thermal can produce power 24 hours straight (using heat storage), wind can be stored using hydro pump storage and all can be stored using large scale batteries. It is simply a mistake to think that any one source is going to produce all our power. The combination of wind along the coast and solar thermal on the inland side of the Great Divide, could actually supply a high proportion of our power needs, also it is fairly typical of our weather systems, that when the wind does not blow we have clear skys. On the few occasions when both wind and solar are insufficient, we then have the option of hydro, biomass, and storage. Technically it is not a problem to achieve 100% renewable electricity for Australia, the only questions are how quickly we wish to get there and over what period do we wish to make for the transition.

There is good data available for hours of sunshine and wind speeds for many parts of Australia.

http://www.bom.gov.au/climate/averages/tables/cw_086282.shtml

Despite adequate wind speeds at this location there might be a problem with large birds.

http://www.bom.gov.au/climate/data/index.shtml

I am not a fan of the ERoEI concept as it is being used to prove anything you like, by those who wish to push a political agenda, as far as I can tell the ERoEI of wind is better than most of the other sources of power.

There is a problem with hydro in Australia in that it rquires lots and lots
of bulldozer work to build the dams, if the greenies will allow them
to be built. Question; is our rainfall adequate anyway ?
You cannot ignore ERoEI, it is a numerical measure of overall performance
and is only criticised by those who find it rules out their favourite
system that they have been pushing for ages.
It was indeed the cause of the fall of the Roman Empire !

If it uses as much or more energy to produce its output, whats the point ?

True wind is the best of the renewables, it does in fact exceed the
minimum viable figure of 7, just, from figures I have seen.
The problem that arises is that the ERoEI falls greatly when backup
is provided, and you will always need backup.

Biomass, don't know much about that, only figure I saw was that to
fuel Europe ponds the size of Ireland were needed, but Rhosty told me
about a continous flow system to produce diesel.

Solar thermal; the one plant in Spain went broke which suggests that
its ERoEI was not good enough. That of course is the ultimate measure
as if it cannot sustain itself it is not producing enough output
for its input, (costs).

You said;
Technically it is not a problem to achieve 100% renewable electricity for Australia,

Oh yes ? That is indeed a brave statement, why has no country even
got near it ?

Have I misunderstood the graph you sent ?
45 clear days in a year around Melbourne ?
Well Victoria will need a lot of candles !
I admit it agrees with my experience of Melbourne, they don't call
it bleak city for nothing !

Bazz
Biomass in this case simply means waste usually from agriculture and forestry that can be burnt, it actually accounts for a considerable amount of power generation in Europe. It is also possible to grow wood solely for the purpose of power generation which at least in theory is carbon neutral. There is no reason why we could not harvest some of the fuel that goes up in smoke during controlled burns. We do not need more hydo to cover the short fall, we have enough especially if we use other renewables to pump the water back up to the dams, also it is possible to add some small scale hydro as in stream flow units.

Solar thermal is proven Technology there are numerous examples world wide, the price is coming down, but has a bit to go before it can compete on equal terms with coal.

There are several in Spain (12?) I don't know of any that went broke.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extresol_Solar_Power_Station
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_solar_thermal_power_stations

Wind is a lot more reliable than people realize, the wind farms at point Grim in Tasmania only loses a handful of days a year due to lack of wind, in fact they lose more days due to excessive wind. I notice a number people are confused about the meaning of capacity when it comes to wind, typical figures of around 1/3 are quoted for wind. It does not mean that the only produce power only 1/3 of the time it means that on average the produce 1/3 or more of their rated power most of the time.

There are some 12 countries in the world that generate more 98% of their power from renewables.

The Romans used water power, wind power and horse power I don't believe that ERoEI had anything to do with their demise.

http://www.history.com/news/history-lists/8-reasons-why-rome-fell

"Technically it is not a problem to achieve 100% renewable electricity for Australia, the only questions are how quickly we wish to get there and over what period do we wish to make for the transition."

You're absolutely right, not a problem at all!

We'll dig holes to make mountains wherever there are none. When it rains we capture the water for hydro. And, when it comes downhill, we'll pump it up again!

Yeah, and anothery.....we subsidize ourselves cheaply into wind/solar with enough batteries to get us through the night (I can already hear the ad campaign jingle!), then burn trees we plant and harvest for longer periods of windless darkness.

Then there's solar thermal. Just harvest the potential (a la smell the two-stroke)!

Of course EROEI is of no consequence to these plans because none of them costs money or energy. It's all free, free from the sun and air, enough for all!

You nuke people don't get physics.

Warmair, right on que Gail Tvberg publishes an article on the subject
of our discussion.

http://www.resilience.org/stories/2015-08-11/how-economic-growth-fails

Section 9 refers directly to the subject of our discussion.

You said;
if we use other renewables to pump the water back up to the dams,

Here ERoEI raises its head again, the energy needed to build the
storage at the bottom of the race, remember it has to involve a
massive earth moving project, the loss in the generating turbines
and the losses in the pump motors are all subtracted from the output.
As I said providing backup always means a large reduction in efficiency ie ERoEI.

You mention biomass and obtaining trees from forestry etc.

When you say things like that I suspect you have no understanding of
the scale of the problem. Think about all the effort required to get
the trees to the power station and it would all be gone in 10 minutes.

I find these discussions would be very much assisted by a visit to
a power station, it might give you an idea of the scale involved.

Aidan,

Sorry, but the unreliability of any supply is exactly the reason that networks become unstable. IF demand too closely approaches available supply, or exceeds it parts of the network start dropping out of sync, protection systems try to compensate and network outages cascade, and it takes hours to bring the network back.

As stated before, blackouts and brownouts have quadrupled in Germany over the past decade.

Warmair,

We don't have the hydro capacity, nor the biomass that can supply more than about 6% of peak demand, and battery storage of anywhere near that capacity is not likely to be technically possible for many decades.

All of the renewable generation is going to cost a fortune to replace existing generation, which is essentially paid by a tax on electricity.

"Here ERoEI raises its head again, the energy needed to build the
storage at the bottom of the race, remember it has to involve a
massive earth moving project, the loss in the generating turbines
and the losses in the pump motors are all subtracted from the output.
As I said providing backup always means a large reduction in efficiency ie ERoEI."

Yep, and batteries are worse in their robbing effect on EROEI of than hydro storage in the cases it can be applied.

Indeed Luciferase, batteries have a worse loss than generator -> motor losses.
They always have internal losses and the longer you hold the charge
the greater the losses.

However except for restricted areas batteries for a city are just out
of the question. Imagine the size of battery to keep Sydney going on
a cold winter night while mum is cooking dinner, the kids are watching
two TVs and the older brother is on the internet while the air conditioner
is trying to keep them all warm, as Dad is on the 35th floor waiting
for the lift so he can get to the train.
Street lighting has come on and all the traffic lights are working.

This is what people think can be done when all the pollies, greenies
and pixies at the bottom of the garden are talking alternative
energy, and it can all be done even on a still night.
Gawd, some people need a reality check !

Oh, and for the feminists Mum is a school teacher and has been home since 4pm.

Graeme of Malvern,

No, your scenario couldn't happen. Firstly, as has already been pointed out, a lot of solar power is generated on those hot days. Secondly it's reliable peak load electricity we need, not base load. As Keith Lovegrove said: "People made plants that weren't very good at ramping up and down, looked for things to do with then and called the baseload"

You say renewable energy will ALWAYS need near 100% backup. But how near and 100% of what, exactly? Fortunately we don't need backup supply for anywhere near 100% of the electricity we only use 0.1% of the time, as the conditions that cause demand to be so much higher then than the rest of the time occur when there's a large amount of sunshine.

_____________________________________________________________________________________

Shadow,

Of course we need reliable supply. I never said otherwise, but I contend that reliability is the ability to meet demand. Demand can be met by increasing supply or reducing demand. Either way it's usually a response to a rise in electricity prices.

Keeping supply reliable and the network stable is a technical problem that Germany has apparently failed to adequately address. That doesn't mean it can't be adequately addressed.
_____________________________________________________________________________________

warmair,

The viability of solar thermal depends on how cheaply they can borrow money. At 4% it's commercially competitive without subsidy.

There's a lot more than 8 reasons for the decline of the Roman Empire:
https://www.utexas.edu/courses/rome/210reasons.html

URL fixed: http://www.utexas.edu/courses/rome/210reasons.html

Bazz,
I'm baffled as to why you, and so many others, believe the ludicrous claim that there's a minimum viable EROEI figure of 7. It can't be a technical limit, because if EROEI was 4 then you could just install twice as much and get the same net energy. And it can't be an economic limit because it takes no account of the cost of non energy inputs (though some have tried to factor these in, in a way that inevitably relies on false assumptions). Renewable energy, even with battery backup, is likely to get a higher EROEI figure in future, but that's not what determines viability.

It's time to start ignoring EROEI and focus instead on real viability.

We shouldn't let the difficult (but achievable) task of getting 100% of our energy from renewables deter us from the much easier task of getting 50% from renewables.

As for what the requirements would be to get 100% of our energy from renewables, we really don't know yet. We can't yet tell how fast battery technology will advance, or how much metal smelting we'll do or how good we'll be at varying demand to exploit low electricity prices and avoid high electricity prices. We don't know how good we'll be at exploiting geothermal energy or wave energy. We don't know how good we'll be at synthesising fuel, and how much scope there is for varying that process according to supply. We don't know whether by then we'll be trading electricity with Indonesia. We don't even know what our population will be.

Technology advances all the time and so do our expectations. Try looking at what can be done instead of dubious reasons why it can't.

Adrian
We all fall for the hype from time to time The German grid is one of the most reliable in Europe, it is only the anti renewable people that would have you believe otherwise.
I have given this link before but I guess you missed it.

http://www.cleanenergywire.org/sites/default/files/styles/large/public/images/dossier/saidi-international.jpg?itok=ST5hhpIA

Others
5 or so years ago I would have said to achieve 100% renewable electric power was not practical. Things have moved ahead rapidly since then wind power is nearly competitive with coal and prices continue to fall, solar PV prices are falling even faster. In Australia we still have other options that we have not started to utilize such as tidal, geothermal (conventional) and biomass and for the really ambitious how about ocean thermal energy conversion.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ocean_thermal_energy_conversion

Power storage is developing rapidly on many fronts from hot salt storage for solar thermal plants to large scale batteries which all have their uses in particular applications. Hydro pump storage using renewables is the cheapest current available storage and is in widespread use elsewhere. Using pumped storage means that hydro could provide a much higher proportion of our power requirements and nor are we limited to the typical large hydro dam as only relative small amounts of water are needed to provide reliable power source.

It is also a complete furphy that renewables require 100% backup they don't any more than any other type of power source. All power stations can and do break down from time to time, but that does not mean we have twice as many power stations as required running all the time.

http://reneweconomy.com.au/2014/pumped-hydro-the-forgotten-storage-solution-47248
http://ecogeneration.com.au/news/ramping_up_hydro_pumped_storage_schemes/075440/

Aidan,

You are entitled to your opinions but the facts are not for dispute.

Fact:
Power cannot be stored on the networks. Stability is only controlled by matching demand to supply on a second by second basis.

Supply on the networks is managed between the networks and generators in as little as 10 minutes time slices based on actual demand where suppliers bid to supply power and networks accept, based on predicted demand and reserve capacity, subject to the above.

Fact:

Most customers have annual contracts, the price of power has a long term effect, but no short term effect.

Fact:

Consumer demand has a very similar shape in each country with mid level demand during the day, a small peak demand early in the morning and large peak demand in the early evening around 7pm.(roughly double the midday demand when solar is useless) and drops to a very low level in the early morning of about 1/2 of midday. This curve changes with weekends, summer and winter and weather.

Fact:

Networks pay for power from the generators, but also to have reserve capacity available (which is a significant portion of the cost). This is sufficient most of the time to cope with variations sudden consumer demand, low supply from renewables, or equipment failure, but when there is a perfect storm, ie renewable power collapses, and peak demand surges, then it takes very little for the network to lose control.

Fact:

Wind power without heavy subsidies is far from competitive with coal in Australia. In countries that have to import it, it comes closer, but still relies on fossil fuel generation to back it up.

Fact:

Thermal solar is still far more expensive even than wind, and is far from commercially viable.

Fact:

Geothermal or "hot rocks" power has been scrapped because of "technical" and commercial problems.

Fact:

Batteries are progressing rapidly, but need to reduce their cost by a factor >1000 before they become viable for the grid.

Fact:

Commercial hydro plants need huge volumes of water dropping significant distances to be viable. Large storage requires large dams.

Actually SM each hydro needs two large storages, one above the generator
and one below it, unless you are going to throw the water into the sea.
Regarding batteries, maybe if they can also fix the self discharge rate.
Such batteries would cost about the same as the windfarms that generate
the charge put into them.
I think we will be looking at some form of miracle to get batteries that good.
Geothermal must be our best non nuclear hope. The only problem I was
able to find out about was corrosion, presumably in the pipes going
down to the granite. It is a pity, but I think that perhaps it is
one of those projects that government money should be used.
There is probably enough heat down there to supply us for 1000 years.
What is the half life ? Is it some thousands of years ?
I know some half lifes are 100,000 of years but I do not know what
isotopes are in the granite.

Aiden,
the reason 7 is used as an approx point is because that is where
the net energy curve goes almost vertical.

Shadow, some of what you think are facts are highly dependent on assumptions. Others are merely descriptions of the current situation.

Though the network itself does not store power, there are things on the network that do (for example the pumped storage at Bogong). Some places overseas store power in flywheels to provide network stability. Others use vanadium batteries (an Australian invention). Those are expensive so scientists are trying to find a way to use iron instead of vanadium.

Most customers have annual contracts at the moment – most do not even have the option of paying based on the wholesale price. That's something that can easily be changed.

In the absence of subsidies, the competitiveness of wind power depends on the interest rate. But because wind power's on whenever the wind blows, it drives down the cost of electricity more than coal can.

Solar thermal is more expensive than wind, but it's dispatchable so its output is more lucrative. And there's great potential to combine it with those ceramic fuel cells that Rhosty's so mad keen on.

Currently we're not making anywhere near as much use of hydro's dispatchability as we could with the existing dams.

I'm not aware of geothermal power being scrapped because of "technical" and commercial problems. Do you have a link?

_________________________________________________________________________________________

Bazz,
"the reason 7 is used as an approx point is because that is where
the net energy curve goes almost vertical."

That's a lie!

How is it possible solar heat in ocean algae is not part of the discussion on this thread?

http://www.climatecentral.org/news/algae-accelerate-arctic-warming-18929

How will CO2 emissions reduction and trading reduce sewage nutrient overload from feeding algae?

Aidan,

As I am an electrical engineer having designed, built, and maintained generation plant and minor networks, my assumptions are based on physics and maths and I challenge you to provide a smidgen of evidence that any one of them is incorrect.

This explains the demise of Geothermal power generation

http://reneweconomy.com.au/2012/australian-geothermal-stuck-between-a-rock-and-a-hard-place-86327

The geothermal plants don't generate enough power to pay its staff let alone repay the steep construction costs

Shadow,

Rhosty, I think you misunderstand about assumptions. Most of them are nothing to do with physics; they're about what the conditions are and will be. For instance you assume that most users will remain on fixed price contracts. That's nothing to do with physics and maths!

You make assumptions about the commercial viability of renewable energy (and indeed of batteries) but you seem to ignore how sensitive it is to the cost of finance. I don't think you've even done the maths!

You claim that if all SA's generation failed, it would "simply draw off the Aus network", then you expect me to believe you're an electrical engineer!

And your link doesn't provide any evidence of geothermal power having been scrapped because of commercial and technical problems. In no cases were they scrapped – there were never any definite plans to begin with, and the original objective remains an objective albeit on a longer timescale.

(Sorry, the above post was directed at Shadow Minister; I don't know why I mentioned Rhosty.)

Aidan,

At least you have accepted as fact that supply has to be tailored to demand to demand, and that introducing a variable supply into a system introduces instability to the system. (basic physics)

Secondly, I said that consumers are on fixed annual contracts not fixed price contracts. Their supply is guaranteed, even if the price is TOU.

I guess that you are not alone in assuming that wind power is free once the equipment is installed. Not true. Maintaining wide spread spinning equipment 30 stories high by specialized crew is more expensive than maintaining single 500MW generators and boilers.

The share price of Geodynamics has crashed due to its inability to cover even a small portion of its subsidized costs. Its main investors have abandoned it, and it is essentially dead in the water.

If all SA's renewable generation failed, it would draw off the Aus network, so its network stability is presently not reliant on unreliable renewables.

Shadow,

Yes, it's one of two potential sources of instability in the system (the other being demand variation). Similarly stability can be restored by altering the demand as well as by altering the supply. Just because supply is guaranteed doesn't mean there should be no financial penalty for using more when demand is high.

I'm aware that there's a maintenance cost for renewable energy, though I wasn't aware that it was proportional to output. And even if it exceeds fossil fuel's maintenance cost, it's still nowhere near the fuel cost.

Geodynamics's main problem is that it's so far from the grid. If we had a connection between SA and Queensland (which would be useful for price and network stability reasons) Geodynamics would be commercially viable, but as yet we don't.

Do you think if all Germany's renewable generation failed, it would draw off the Europe network, so its network stability is presently not reliant on unreliable renewables? If not, what do you think the difference from SA is?

The SA grid was far more unstable before the solar and wind power was connected than it is now.

Aidan,

South Australia is relatively small, whilst Germany is the biggest electricity consumer in the EU. If Belgium had the same problem, then probably their loss of renewables would not be an issue.

Germany buys a lot of power from France (nuclear) and Italy (coal) already, and relies on them to help manage Germany's peak loads. However, there are limits as to what can be supplied with little warning. Already unexpected load demands from Germany have created problems in Germany and Italy with their networks experiencing outages.

Finally, the only successful load management system involve load shedding. In some countries, some management has been achieved by cutting out non critical load such as water heaters, but this helps by a couple of % at best. If you have something the rest of the world does not know of, you could make a fortune by patenting it.

Shadow

" Germany buys a lot of power from France (nuclear) and Italy (coal) already, and relies on them to help manage Germany's peak loads. However, there are limits as to what can be supplied with little warning. Already unexpected load demands from Germany have created problems in Germany and Italy with their networks experiencing outages."

Sorry I don't know where you got that from, but it is just plain wrong apart from the fact the France does export some power to Germany.

The fact is wind power needs an alternative for the few occasions when it is not available, but it does not suddenly stop blowing without warning so it really does not have much to do with peak loads.

Facts
Germany is a net exporter of power mainly to the Netherlands, Austria, Poland, and Luxemburg. It exports the slightly more power to Poland as it imports from France. It neither imports or exports any power to Italy. Italy has the second worst figures for reliability in Europe ! maybe its all the coal they burn.

Germany to Netherlands 12.5 TWh
Netherlands to Germany 126 GWh

Germany to Austria 8.6 TWh
Austria to Germany 1.9 TWh

Germany to Switzerland 6.9 TWh
Switzerland to Germany 1.6 TWh

Germany to Poland 4.5 TWh
Poland to Germany 16 GWh

Germany to Luxembourg 3.1 TWh
Luxembourg to Germany 698 GWh

Germany to Denmark 3 TWh
Denmark to Germany 2.8 TWh

Czech to Germany 3.2 TWh
Germany to Czech 1.8 TWh

France to Germany 4.2 TWh
Germany to France 1.1 TWh

Italy to Germany is a big fat zero
Italy is a net importer of power mainly from France and Switzerland

Source
https://www.energy-charts.de/exchange.htm

Fact
The German grid is the most reliable in Europe after Denmark and probably better than any grid in Australia.

https://www.cleanenergywire.org/sites/default/files/styles/large/public/images/dossier/saidi-international.jpg?itok=ST5hhpIA

Conclusion renewables if anything are improving the reliability of the German grid. It is interesting to note that Denmark with its high proportion of renewables has the best record of reliability in Europe.

Fix for links above
Power imports exports Germany
http://www.energy-charts.de/exchange.htm

Reliability grid.
http://www.cleanenergywire.org/sites/default/files/styles/large/public/images/dossier/saidi-international.jpg?itok=ST5hhpIA

Warmair,

You state that 'Wind does not suddenly stop'. Well how do you account for 28.9% of wind power stopping in a 5 minute period in SA! NEM data 2014.

If this occurs constantly/occasionally you need a constant load following source and in Australia that is Coal not Nuclear base load power. The coal generators choofing out CO2 but this is not accounted for. It is all crazy this renewable energy.

Regards,

Graeme of Malvern
Quote
"Well how do you account for 28.9% of wind power stopping in a 5 minute period in SA! NEM data 2014."

That's an interesting claim but can you substantiate it. It is possible that some other power source undercut the wind price, but it seems highly improbable that all the wind farms suddenly stopped at the same time. There are some 16 wind farms in South Australia which are reasonable well separated by distance.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_wind_farms_in_South_Australia

Graeme of Malvern, can't you even finish reading a sentence before replying?

Warmair didn't claim wind never suddenly stops; merely that it doesn't do so without warning.

You do need some backup, but baseload generators are pretty crap at that. And load following (and more importantly, peak load) generators usually use gas in Australia.

Obama says, 70% renewable energy is required globally to avoid CAGW.

How and by when? Putting affordability aside, as good Greens do with everything they like, the time-scale available to achieve the target is as absurd as the target itself.

Burning gas to meet the 30% remainder would bring some CO2 abatement compared with coal, but two degrees is already built-in and guaranteed. We're choosing a gradual path to some compromise, when we can't be sure the degree of CAGW is linear with CO2 level. On that, something interesting:

http://www.econstor.eu/bitstream/10419/89722/1/cesifo_wp4573.pdf

World committment to affordable nuclear energy is needed to hammer GW as quickly as possible, to head us towards zero emissions. Renewables will have the role of effectively extending the grid, not a central one. All else is gambling that we've got the measure of CAGW.

Suggest to Obama he have the impact of ocean algae plant matter included in AGW science or modelling or whatever they call their non-sense to sell batteries and windmills.

For Gods sake, wake up.

http://www.climatecentral.org/news/algae-accelerate-arctic-warming-18929
And
http://www.pnas.org/content/112/19/5921

Warmair,

Firstly I never said that Germany had an unstable network. After spending Euro bns the German network is probably the most secure in the world. What I did say is that it is suffering a significant increase in outages and that increased wind and solar would lead to increasing instability.

Secondly while I will admit that Germany generates more power than I expected, looking at the information on the website more closely there are certain trends that would give engineers sleepless nights.

My cursory analysis gives me:

The generation by renewables varies considerably i.e. sometimes by as much as half of total generation in a matter of hours. This is compensated by getting the conventional generators to rapidly increase and decrease generation and the export and import of vast quantities of power to other countries to balance supply and demand. That the flexibility of the generators to adjust load is reaching limits is the occasions when the spot price of power drops steeply negative (i.e. Germany is paying other countries to take power as its large generators cannot be stopped.

Considering that power exported correlates very closely with the solar and generation which is paid for by consumers at about 125 Euro /MWhr and exported at roughly 25 Euro/MShr whereas power is imported at peak times at between 50 and 100 Euro/MWhr. All in all making the French a tidy profit, and displacing energy generated by nuclear power, thus saving far less CO2 emmissions.

Shadow

I don't know how reliable this source is but I can not find anything to disprove it.

http://www.renewablesinternational.net/german-power-exports-still-more-valuable-than-imports/150/537/79015/

It appears that Germany gets more for its exports to France than it pays for its imports. It makes sense as France's nuclear power plants are pretty inflexible, the idea being to run them flat chat all the time. This means that when demand is low France has to sell its excess for whatever it can get for it. On the other hand when demand is high, they will need to import power, which Germany may be able to provide and can then charge a premium for

Warmair,

There is nothing wrong with the figures, just the conclusion. The import/export of power due to supply/demand differences is eclipsed by the power purchased from one country and sold to another at a higher price to cover network costs pretty much like Transgrid and Ausgrid do in Aus. The costs from the generators is 3-4c/kWhr and sold to industrial/domestic consumers from between 6c and 35c. The balance is network costs.

Irrespective, the feed in costs for solar is about 135 euro /MWhr and is sold on at 25-50 euro, effectively subsidizing external customers. No wonder Germans are getting annoyed with the 70% increase in real power costs in the last decade.

As for stability just look at https://www.energy-charts.de/price.htm
and look at week 19 incl the intraday prices.