ttbn said;If manufacturing is to be maintained, there can never be 100% renewable energy
---
Exactly, which is why I suggest the study, if it cannot be afforded
then we have no alternative than nuclear in the longer term.

Aiden said; I think a few such studies have been done
---
I cannot find anything like what I have suggested and I maintain, in my
ignorance, that we need to know the cost of building, if it is indeed
possible at all. We are going full steam ahead without having a clue.

Belly said;
For the present time, and some time in to the future coal will have
its [reduced ]part to play
---
True but the ERoEI of both coal & oil is falling and will never rise again.

Armchair said; I'll fix the problem myself, starting with second hand
panels and inverters.
---
That is your problem fixed. Where are the technical people to fix everybody elses ?

ttbn said; Batteries. Very expensive, good for smoothing output of
solar farms and assisting stability but that is all.
---
Aiden said; Whereas old power stations are increasingly unreliable.
---
Only because they have not spent the money on maintenance. Power
stations are made of hundreds of different components each of which
can be given the three Rs, repair, refurbish or replace.
Friends that have worked in power stations all their lives tell me
that given the will they can run for hundreds of years.

The costs involved are so massive that if we make the wrong decision
we may never recover in our grandchildrens' lifetime.

Can you imagine that ANY politician has considered this problem
in a really engineering way ?

I do not care what you say, since renewables, power prices have increased year on year. We are in a position where we have allowed a few companies to gouge us daily backed by the green idiots thinking they are leading us into Nirvana and politicians swallowing the global warming nonsense. Just wait until we start getting brown outs the idiots of the MSM will turn on all the green and political idiots and they will have you all for breakfast. Personally I think this will hasten our meeting with the next depression and I bet you lot will blame me?

ttbn (continued)
>Rather than call other people's posts stupid, he needs to look in the mirror to know what real stupidity is.
Do I look stupid? I think the answer to that would be entirely subjective. Whereas investing in baseload power (consuming fuel all the time yet producing no more at peak times than when demand is at a minimum) is OBJECTIVELY stupid.
____________________________________________________________________________________

Belly,
>Aiden yes got it wrong
How so?
____________________________________________________________________________________

Bazz,
I'm referring to studies such as http://energy.anu.edu.au/files/renewable%20electricity%20in%20Australia.pdf
I'm not endorsing that study - already it's becoming clear that its assumptions are too conservative. But it is one attempt to look at what's needed to reach 100% renewable cost effectively.

But right now there are so many known unknowns that such studies are highly speculative. We simply don't know how the cost effectiveness of more transmission lines will compare to that of more storage, nor what will happen to demand. But it is very unlikely a long connection "a little north of the tropic of Capricorn" would be cost effective, as population density is low in that part of Australia and there's not all that much heavy industry.

And certainly, spending money refurbishing old power stations to make them reliable and able to run for centuries is technically possible. But it's far from cost effective.

J Bower, I think you do not understand that most here are very
skeptical about the possibility of 100% renewable.
I personally think that such a system would be totally unaffordable.
However the politicians and the greens are going to try and probably
send us totally broke trying.

That is why I would like to see someone like CSIRO undertake to model
the whole system. I suspect they would find out well before they
completed it that it will not work because we cannot afford to build it.
Best to know that before the poiticians & greens try.

Aiden, yes to build new might be cheaper but it would be a lot quicker
and at present that is critical.
Re North of Capricorn that was to get better output and have a 2 hour
longer day. In the 100% grid it will be near the solar farms anyway as
the solar farms would be in a line across Australia.
Still that detail would be ideal to model as it might be more
effective to have them all in the desert.
I have been looking for the US article I mentioned but is hiding
somewhere on my hard drive.

Bazz, the CSRIO are part of the green problem. Totally infiltrated like BOM and they telling dumb pollies we have to go renewable. The end game will be when we get the depression we have to have, then public service and political pensions go front and centre. Not only reduced but with a continuing reducing factored in. Do to them what they have done to us and lets see how happy they are.
I think it will all come to a head very soon!

//Can you imagine that ANY politician has considered this problem
in a really engineering way ?//

I have my doubts... as far as I know there are no engineers in the Parliament, and precious few people with any sort of scientific or technical education.

But as I understand it, they take advice from engineers. Or at least, they're supposed to. In theory, that's how it should work.

But the Westminster system of democracy seems to have been somewhat corrupted to the point where politicians feel that democracy means that if you get elected, that is the best and only qualification one requires to formulate policy on areas where one has zero expertise.

And it seems there's sod all the average voter can do about it except vote for scientists and engineers... good luck finding one in your electorate.