I was thinking one day about hydrocarbons and I realised that hydrocarbons are a form of trapped hydrogen in a convenient range of forms- from gas to liquid to solid.

I would buy a Hyundai electric car tomorrow if they were not so
expensive. I could possibly buy a Chinese one at $40k + but I am
reluctant to send my money that way.
Having driven a Nissan Leaf, I am just hanging on waiting to see if
the predicted price equivalence to IC cars happens.
The problem of battery storage for a W&S network gets brushed over
without discussion.
As I see it a battery, or a number of them in different areas, has to
cope with a minimum of two or three days in a row of overcast days
with little or no wind.
That seems unlikely in an area the size of Australia, but is just
possible in QLD, NSW, VIC, TAS & SA.
However just a wind failure in three states would not be unusual.
It might only be for half a day, but the storage required is enormous.
It would most likely happen from sunset to early next morning around sunrise.
Also brushed aside is the question; so OK the batteries are flat after
a night of sunset to sunrise, where do you get the power to recharge them ?
Off the grid ? No B$%^&&dy way, it is too busy running the show !
So you either dump heavy industry users or EV chargers the next night.
All this requires CSIROs $1Trillion grid !
Does all that sound like cheap electricity ?

I think I am the only one who has asked these awkward questions.
Hasbeen, there are files you can load into your EV that go VROOM VROOM !

Canem,
1. When I was in high school, we were taught electronegativity was the attraction an atom has for its, and other, electrons. They said the same when I was at uni. So if you disagree, then I suggest you post what you think it is. Then go check: ITYF you're the one whose definition is out of step with the rest of the world.

Excluding the noble gases (which have a very strong attraction to their own electrons but not to others) the top rightmost element is fluorine, which has the highest electronegativity. Oxygen has the second highest, while nitrogen and chlorine are joint third highest. Caesium has the lowest electronegativity of all the elements with stable isotopes.

2. Our abilities with nuclear processes are very limited. We aren't able to put energy in and get it back on demand, which is what people usually take "energy storage" to mean.

3. It depends on the application. For cars the advantage of batteries is that an engine (which is rather heavy) is not needed.

4. Development is going to take some time, but it is thought supercapacitors will eventually become competitive with batteries.

5. Green hydrocarbons are a long term solution. In another forty years they'll probably be the dominant fuel source for short haul aircraft. But nobody is suggesting immediately replacing the entire oil industry with synthetic hydrocarbons. Obviously we go tor the low hanging fruit first. Your "increased world poverty" claim is nothing more than a strawman.

6. It's not one group of people creating solutions and another group creating problems - often the same people do both. And where people aren't creating solutions, often it's because they're denied the opportunity to.

Obviously the problem wouldn't be as big if there were fewer people, but the undesirable outputs would still be there. A lower population is no substitute for valuing the environment far more highly.

Armchair,
Wow, you must be really really really crap at chess - you lose a rook and you think you're checkmated, even though you've put your opponent in a far worse position.

Nobody who understood the situation thought we could just sanction others and use global trade as a weapon and there would be no consequences. Of course there are consequences. But for us the consequences are far preferable to going to war, and in the long term they're preferable to doing nothing and letting countries get away with invading and annexing their neighbours. It's important to ensure Russia and others know they can't benefit from doing so. Yes, it makes us worse of in the short term, but if we ignore it now we'll have to waste far more on military spending in the future.

____________________________________________________________________

Shadow,
Technical issues forced Hazelwood to shut years early, before the renewables to replace it were there. That led to prices abruptly increasing then gradually declining as more renewable power was installed. If the renewables are put in first, the problem is avoided.

I too used to think cheap renewables would remove the need for subsidies. What I hadn't figured on was that for existing electricity companies it's more profitable to do nothing (and charge customers more) than to add generation capacity. The subsidies (which are NOT huge so please stop claiming they are) encourage more electricity is generated from solar and wind, bringing down prices.

___________________________________________________________________________

Bazz,
IIRC the CSIRO's trillion dollar figure was for total electricity industry spending over thirty years, not just the grid cost. Transmission would account for under 10% of that.

And didn't I tell you before? The solution is a large overbuild of solar and wind generation, with the excess used to produce hydrogen. If there are prolonged dark calm conditions with high demand, some of the hydrogen can be turned back into electricity

Hey I've got an idea to make free energy.
Anyone remember I once talked about the best battery being a dam
- The whole entire dam is a battery in that it holds stored energy

Remember I said said we should use solar panels to pump water from a smaller holding pond at the bottom of the dam back up into the dam?

I think I originally came up with this idea when I heard that WA was purging solar panel power and I thought it should be diverted to refill the dams?

- And I thought that maybe we could use Archimedes' Screw, kind of like this:

1 minute video - Archimedes' Screw
http://youtu.be/A-xPRbj88V4

If you look up the ideas such as Leonardo da Vinci perpetual motion machines, they say they cant work.
- That you can't get more energy out than you put in...
http://youtu.be/A-QgGXbDyR0

Well I came across another invention that doesn't require any power at all to pump water.
I think it's essentially a siphon.
What if you combine a dam, that can generate power from water flow, or even a water well for example but you could refill the water back up to the top without using any energy at all?
Wouldn't that mean FREE ENERGY?
Let me show you this idea, something I found on YouTube, I really wish I was some kind of engineer, I'd almost love to build it and see if it works, just for fun.

How to pump the water back up to the top, for free.
http://youtu.be/dV9B_yWgYEs

So it's completely isolated from any other kind of power be it solar, wind or water flow.
Would it work?

Would it pump water back up to the top, and then power a water wheel as it flows back down?
Anyone have any ideas?

Hey Aiden,

"Wow, you must be really really really crap at chess - you lose a rook and you think you're checkmated, even though you've put your opponent in a far worse position.

Nobody who understood the situation thought we could just sanction others and use global trade as a weapon and there would be no consequences. Of course there are consequences. But for us the consequences are far preferable to going to war, and in the long term they're preferable to doing nothing and letting countries get away with invading and annexing their neighbours. It's important to ensure Russia and others know they can't benefit from doing so. Yes, it makes us worse of in the short term, but if we ignore it now we'll have to waste far more on military spending in the future."

I've made it clear time and time again that I support Russia.
I don't support sanctions as its collective punishment, and I don't support liberal intervention and overthrowing other countries.
The whole mess would've been avoided if the US didn't overthrow the country in 2014 when Yanukovych decided not to go with the EU and stuck with Russia.

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-25162563

It could've also been avoided if the West had've made clear that Ukraine would not be permitted to join NATO and they created a similar situation such as the US has per the Monroe Doctrine.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monroe_Doctrine

Russia had been saying for years that Ukraine becoming a NATO country was a red line for them, but the US ignored it.
It also could've been prevented if Ukraine had've kept its part of the Minsk agreements which it didn't.