I was with some relatives over Christmas and two of the ladies, both
school teachers were discussing the coming Federal election.
As they are both irradescent greens you can imagine the subjects covered.
I just sat there with them listening but not taking part.
I finally said you are missing the ultimate subject that will have to
be faced, ENERGY which will govern everything !

WELL ! they both turned on me and said something like rubbish !
They then stopped the discussion got up and went into the kitchen.
I was amazed how two intelligent women could be so unable to discuss energy.

I have seen reactions like that elsewhere but not so personally.
Is this sort of reaction common with greens ?
It looks like insecurity to me.

No to answer your question, and are they fully paid up party members? I've been a party member for over 20 years, and more than once at branch meetings I have participated in some very lively debates on a wide range of subjects, not always seeing eye to eye on the subject at hand. If you see this as an opportunity to throw brick-bats at the "despised" enermy then go ahead.

What a miserable Christmas discussing politics.

Paul, one is a signed up member and a candidate 2nd on ticket in local election.

ttbn, come now, Christmas is the traditional time for families to have
arguments about politics, football etc etc.
Anyway happy new year to you all.

The Greens have again disgraced themselves over the arson attack on Old Parliament House.

Come now, Lydia didn’t mean it; she said so by retracting her post on Twitter; you all believe her don’t you?
It must have been a mere slip of the digit whilst typing.

"Come now, Lydia didn’t mean it"

I'm pretty sure her Twit(ter) account was hacked by the Russians.

We can't hold a political party to account for
the views of some of its members - can we?

Look at Barnaby Joyce for example and some of
his views.

And that's just one example.

I suspect Bazz that it must have been frustrating
for you 'cause you weren't given the chance to have
your views heard by these two ladies. And that can
be frustrating.

Dear Bazz,

So lets hear your views here.

Go nuts!

Bazz, what was your alcoholic state at the time? Were you blowing a 5 on the alco meter. If all they said was the word "rubbish", maybe they wanted to get rid of Aunty's disgusting trifle, her Xmas specialty every year, before she seen them feeding it to Fido the dog.

For Paul alone, no I was stone cold sober not even the smallest drop
of wine had passed my lips. They said more than Rubbish but they both
spoke at the same time and I can't remember much of it, it was very short.
It was the shortness of their retort that struck me.
There was no problem afterwards, everything was happy & normal.

Foxy.
We can when those views are insulting to the Nation or when those views/utterances are personally insulting to another MP and are of a nature that only the lowest of the low would direct at another woman.

Don't know how much political debate you get into at election time Bazz, but on the streets it can be "interesting", meet some strange folks at times. Had a bloke once come up to me to say, regardless of who won the election Liberal or Labor he would be challenging the result in the High Court if he didn't win. He claimed both candidates were agents of a foreign power, and he alone had the evidence. And this guy was running as an independent, there's more, the guy was a nutter, but got about 200 votes.

Foxy, you want to hear my views ? I have put them out here often.
But to clarify, I am skeptical about the CO2 caused global warming.
Reason, J Kauppenin and others have shown that the well known cycle of
global warming & cooling had the coldest period, the "Little Ice Age"
coincide with the start of the industrial revolution and the start
in fossil fuel burning.
Kauppenin believes that the higher temperatures were blamed totally
on co2 burning and that the current rise due to co2 burning is 0.1C.
The rest is due to the sun.
I should remind you that Kauppenin was an IPPC panel member until retirement.
History, Roman, Viking, European such as the abandonment of the
Ice Festivals on the Thames in 1814 after the Maunder minimum.
Problem is for us the temperature is not expected to start falling
for about 100 years. The cycle is between 600 and 1000 years long.

It is now realised that wind and solar cannot do the job at a cost we can pay.
Britain & Germany have found this out at great expense.
Britain is resurrecting coal fired stations I have heard and Germany
is building a new one or two. They have lost faith in North Sea wind.
The European wind drought has put the wind up those governments.

Paul, I do not get into much political discussion, mostly on here &
a little around here. Some are happy to hear other opinions.
There are always ratbags such as you mentioned, but the public is
never fooled by them hence 200 votes by donkey voters.

Bazz, the problem is that it is commonplace to think that fossil fuels can be reliably and economically replaced with renewables. It is also commonplace to think nuclear energy prohibitively expensive and dangerous. Germany is about to close three more nuclear power plants.

https://www.france24.com/en/live-news/20211231-germany-to-close-nuclear-reactors-despite-energy-crisis

Hopefully the ensuing mess in Europe will make people think a little differently about renewable energy before we go much further down the renewable path in Australia.

Dear Bazz,

I've always admired your civility on this forum.
Thank You for taking the time and effort to
share your views with us. We may not always
agree but it is always good to hear another
point of view, especially when it is well
reasoned and argued.

and remember the Greens MPs are also liars and would do anything for money.

Thanks Foxy. In political arguments those that start insulting have
already lost the argument.
I cannot know for certain that the CO2 argument is wrong but it seems
to me that it is an amazing coincidence otherwise.
There is a tutorial on Fourier Analysis on the internet and after I
read Abbots paper I went and studied it. While previously I knew what
it was but now how it works and it has convinced me that the current
modern warming is caused by the sun. Of course I could still be wrong
for other reasons.
The youngest of us might just see a halt of warming.
My regret is I won't be around to see the proof, grrr !

Fester, thanks for the link.
I am very surprised that Germany is shutting nuclear plants.
After the wind drought in Europe has caused trouble.
Germany is too small to have wind turbines. Australia is big enough
possibly provided West Aus is included.
An "expert" on nuclear last week said we would need 10,000 Km of new
transmission lines for wind & solar but none for nuclear.

As a sceptic Bazz you put up a reasoned argument for your point of view. I do think the science is in and human induced GW is now an established fact. The problem for the politician is he has to make decisions based on complex scientific advice, and that's not easy, as we have seen from the pandemic. Now the argument is not if, but how in regards to future energy provision. Renewables are still in their development stage, and fossil fuels, oil, coal and gas, still hold sway as our primary providers of energy. The question now is how we transition from fossil to renewable in a reasonable time span.

Issy, is your Shooters and Hooters Party still being financed by the foreign NRA of America, with slush money being channelled through the local SSAA. Who paid for Fat Bob's trip to Africa for the mass elephant shoot?

Paul, the argument which is correct will boil down to whether the sun
overcomes the co2 rise and controls the temperature and holds it steady for about 100 years before the decline or the co2 just pushes
it up another degree or two.

My bet is on the sun any day, pun intended.

Paul,
Your remarks indicate that it is not only Greenns MPs who mishandle the truth.
Greens MPs will also swear false oaths/ make legally binding affirmations for money.
You can’t get much lower than that.

Paul, and anyone interested,
sometime when you have nothing to do go to the AEMO web site
and find what was the highest ever demand for electricity.
The size of wind turbines is around 500 to 750 Kwatt. Seems to vary.
Assume 1000Kw or 1 Mwatt to make it easy.
Then I have been told and I think the figures are available that a
wind turbine produces 35% of its nameplate rating in a year.
So divide Max demand by say 1 Mwatt and that tells you how many
1 Mwatt turbines are needed if the wind blew at 25 knots 24 hours a day x 365days.
Then multiply that number by 3 = total turbines needed.
However you cannot put them alongside the first ones, but on more than
two extra sites, because you can be sure the wind would be calm on
two sites at any time. Many sites would be needed.

See the problem ? $ $ $
BTW, no point counting in solar as the peak time in winter is around
5pm to 8pm long after sunset.

Yes Bazz. Capacity factor is the killer for renewables if you want to replace conventional power generation, as has been discussed on OLO. So $30 per MWH might look cheap, but to supply this for 24 hours a day, 365 days a year you must multiply the figure by at least six, then add the cost of storage, transmission and other supply infrastructure. Even at about 20% of supply, Germany's renewable power is about triple the cost of French nuclear power.

I'm not opposed to renewable energy, but compared to nuclear energy it is far more expensive. A bit more problematic than Alan B contends, but it might be an option before Julian Assange gets out of prison.

Fester,
The reason French nuclear power is so cheap is mainly due to the time it was built: most of the capital cost was inflated away in the 1970s. Northern Europe's high population density and low winter sunlight levels make it difficult to serve with renewables alone, so nuclear power can be cost effective there. But it is not a cheap option and even France is investing heavily in renewables now.

Meanwhile in Australia the economics are very different. With hindsight we should've invested in nuclear power in the 1990s, but it's far too late now – it will never be cost effective against solar and wind. Bazz's calculations are worthless because they ignore the benefits of storage.

Please also note that most fossil fuelled power stations have a lower capacity factor than the wind turbines. And SA, with its high reliance on renewables, has the most reliable electricity supply of any Australian state.

France was investing in renewables as part of government policy. The fact that renewable energy compares so poorly to nuclear has led to such policy being revised. Most nuclear reactor closures are political: Keeping them going would provide high capacity carbon free energy. Anti-nukes still rule apparently.

"Please also note that most fossil fuelled power stations have a lower capacity factor than the wind turbines."

Yes, but that is not by design (~70%), which is around twice that of wind and nearly three times that of solar. Also, the capacity of wind and solar is highly variable, whereas for coal fired power downtime is for the most part planned.

" it will never be cost effective against solar and wind"

24/7 renewables would cost many times that of nuclear and will never be built. We will likely see solar with storage as viable for remote locations and personal transportation. I hope that the renewable energy disaster hits Europe hard very soon so that policy might shift to viable alternatives.

How about a few tidal power stations, they run reliably 22 hours out of 24 average (guesstimate) but the Greens and fellow travellers don’t like them.
Tidal power ia inexhaustible till the Moon falls out of orbit and/or the Earth stops rotating. an’ the Sun don’t shine.
Why bother with undependable wind and solar when there is such a free force as the.tides, those tideless areas could use the renewables with a boost from the neighbours tidal stations.
There are tidal mills that have been running for hundreds of years.

Issy, you must stop making false claims about the Greens. Look at those Shooters and Hooters and their coalition partner the One Nutters all that dosh from the NRA of America being channelled through the Australian chapter the SSAA. How is that mate of yours Steve "Dicko" Dickson, did you not claim you two are best buddies?

Paul,
Doing your Goebbels strategy again?

No Aiden, storage does not solve the problem.
Answer the question;
When a still night occurs and you end up next morning with a flat
battery, where and when will you get a full days electricity to recharge the battery ?
Not off the grid, it is flat out running the country.
It is easy, you have another wind & solar system to recherge the
battery.
Err catch 22 what if the next day is windless and overcast ?
Oh, you have a battery twice the size.
Then the next night may also be windless ! Bigger batteries ?
More duplication of turbines and panels ?
They had a very long period of wind drought in Europe.
That is why they got into so much trouble buying nuclear power from France.

I reckon every bridge that spans a tidal estuary or river could have a generater underneath to produce power for local areas. Currents could have a loche to allow watercraft access to other sides. Polarities would automatically change with tidal flows. This would be less intrusive than giant wind terbines killing all our night and giant birds.

Josephus, there have been a number of tidal and wave systems installed.
I think there is a tidal one working in France and one was planned for
the Severn River in Wales.
I don't think any of the wave ones are still operational.
The salt sea environment causes maintenance problems I gather.
There was one trialed at Pt Kembla but it is now a heap of rust on the beach.

Bazz,
Sorry about not responding earlier.

>When a still night occurs and you end up next morning with a flat battery,
>where and when will you get a full days electricity to recharge the battery ?

I used to think the answer was to use the existing gas fired power stations. Going from 99% to 100% renewables would be harder than from 50% to 95%, but could probably be done by obtaining the gas from non fossil sources.

But now I have a different answer: from the grid. Australia will become one of the world's biggest exporters of green hydrogen, and we'll need a massive overbuild of solar power (and to a lesser extent, wind turbines) to power that. But it will only be done at times when electricity's cheap. When it's expensive, power will be diverted away from hydrogen production. And some of the electrolysers used to produce hydrogen are able to run in reverse (as fuel cells) so hydrogen can be turned back into electricity if need be.

We have backup 12 volt power for lighting when there is a power failure it is charged by a water wheel in the creek and boosted by an old car generator powered by a pushbike when someone wants some exercise.
However this setup is kept mainly for sentimental reasons and the tax deductible diesel generator does the job, but unfortunately not everyone can run a standby generator.

Seems a possible Aiden, but I believe, so I have read, the electrolysers
have a 30% loss. Then when converted to a fuel cell, another 30% loss
of 70%, so we need N reversable electrolysers ca[able of running the
country and recharging the batteries with N times a days supply for
N still days.
It seems a very costly solution to try and prevent what happened in Europe.
What would happen to the wholesale cost of electricity ?
I suspect, without actually knowing, this is why the UK Govt is
ordering small reactors from Rolls Royce.

Bazz,
Two 30% losses would be much closer to 50% than 70%. But I've heard elsewhere that the currently available electrolyses are closer to 80% efficient and the R&D teams are trying to reach 86% efficiency by 2030. Not that it matters that much - the input is cheap electricity and the output is expensive electricity, so even at much lower efficiency rates it would still be possible. Just to be clear: by "extensive electricity" I mean electricity at the times when the wholesale price is high, not electricity which is expensive to produce.

You underestimate the size of the overbuild that I, and many others, are envisaging. The batteries would not be charged from hydrogen, but from the solar and wind power that would otherwise be used to produce the hydrogen. Even on days that feel still, the wind turbines produce some electricity. Even on cloudy days, the solar panels produce some electricity.

So what would happen to the wholesale cost of electricity? The hydrogen industry would boost it at times of low demand, and cut it at times of high demand, so overall it would fall.

>It seems a very costly solution...
That's like saying CHP seems a very costly way to heat a building!

>... to try and prevent what happened in Europe.
No, that's NOT the objective. What happened in Europe is not even a threat in Australia. The objective s to get a reliable electricity supply from 100% renewables and to produce a lot of hydrogen (both for domestic industry and for export).

And UIVMM the UK Govt has so far only committed to funding R&D for the Rolls Royce small reactors. It hopes to order them in the future, and I hope it does, but I very much doubt nuclear power will ever be the cheap option its proponents like to pretend it is.