Leading German economist, Hans Sinn, has laid out 6 "formidable problems" with Germany's and the EU's green energy push. The 6 points could be applied to any country in the First World, including Australia.

. The Paris Accord is non-binding and has been signed by only 61 of 191 countries. Two thirds of the world is not obliged to do anything. The 61 signatories will just outsource their emissions (ruining their industries and economy) to the other 130 countries. So the Accord will have no effect on global emissions.

. Targets are "utopian", leaving Europe dependent on other countries, like Russia. The belief that the EU can get by on "volatile renewables" is just "media propaganda".

. Electricity from wind and sun is "too volatile" to assure an affordable and complete power supply".

. The market as a discovery process to innovate low CO2 technologies is being shut down in favour of "doing it by decree".

. Electric cars using Germany's current electric supply mix are emitting "far more CO2 over their lifetimes than conventional combustion engines". Even after 150,000 kms, a diesel VW Golf emits less CO2.

. Going without fossil fuels will not just have a tiny effect on emissions, but rather "no effect". Whatever fuels Europe opts to use, all the other 130 countries will simply burn them (fossil fuels) instead. CO2 emissions will keep growing - "no matter what Europe does, decrees or decides".

The same applies to the rest of the West, including little old Australia, with 25 million people.

What our local fundamentalists refuse to admit or see is that though Australia is a big country in size it is unimportant on a world scale, if we stopped all emissions it would make no difference, except to us financially .

is Mise,
Australia doesn't have an emission problem though it has a pollution problem that does affect the local environment !

What a pity it isn't a baseball game. "too volatile"? Not words I'd use to describe a piddling amount of unreliable power coming from a large area. Can someone tell Adam that a power crisis was ended by coal fired power and not caused by it?

There is a surge in coal demand in China and India – as well as in the U.S., where coal use jumped by 17% last year

By the end of next year, China will be producing about 4.4 billion tons of coal per year and India will be mining about 1.2 billion tons. Add those together and you get 5.6 billion tons of coal, which is more than 9 times the amount of coal that will be mined in the U.S. this year. 

In India, the push for more coal has led the government to give a "special dispensation" to the Ministry of Coal which allows the agency to relax environmental controls and public consultations so mines can produce more coal.

I think the whole world is full of crap.
I told you all that I think the best kind of battery is stored energy in the form of water in a dam.
Why cant they just pump the water back up into the dam from a lower holding pond after its gone through a turbine?
If this guy in a Vietnamese rice paddy can figure out how to pump water for free then why can't it be done?
http://youtu.be/dV9B_yWgYEs

Free energy, forever.

AC

Don't you find it amusing that free energy is easy to find on the internet? Perhaps you could convince municipal authorities to implement the concept in a world first "pushing s$!t uphill" sewer? It would complement the renewable energy strategy nicely.

Yes, hydroelectric storage is the cheapest by far, but it has physical limitations, and building storage dams, if possible, would increase the cost. Do you think the Greens might be interested in damming the Franklin to help fight climate change?

The problem regarding anything in our society is profit. There are lterally dozens of solution regarding energy but because of demands for profit most become unviable.
What's needed are Govt run schemes that focus on sustainability rather than private/corporate schemes that require excess profit.
The private/corporate sector has become a self-devouring monster for which there are no animal trainers.

Pumped hydro, like hydrogen, needs more energy to produce than it puts out.

Wasn't that what communism was supposed to demonstrate? The problem communism and renewable energy share is one of the ideology blinding you to the reality.

FYI I'm all for coal.
Coal allowed me to live a life above that of a neanderthal.
These greenies want to take us back there.

The US has given Ukraine 57 billion dollars in aid since the war in Ukraine began.
I remember seeing secondhand solar panels on gumtree for AUD$40 each less in bulk with 90 - 95% output.
- So lets say USD$30 each.
57 thousand million divide by $30 each = 1 billion 900 thousand solar panels. 45000+ megawatts,
10 times more than we need on the entire continent.

I've seen so fairly creative and ingenious ideas.
We're in an age where 3D printers and robots could manufacture most of the stuff we need, but sure labour is always going to be a factor.
That's actually a benefit as it keeps human beings useful.

Water is the single most important resource on the planet.
Most of it flows through pipes why not harness the energy from the flow?
There's no end of better ways we could do things, if we actually wanted to.

We could generate power from many different sources.
If you wanted to pump crap uphill, we could put small turbines in those pipes and generate energy from that too.

Apparently bombs are more important.
Or bombs to conquer land and control oil pipelines anyway.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Odessa_Brody_pipeline

"Following the Orange Revolution and the election of Yulia Tymoshenko as Prime Minister who on March 5, 2005, announced that the oil would flow from Brody to Europe, Ukraine opposes Russia's plan.
On 24 March 2010, Ukraine's ambassador to Belarus proposed the pipeline begin operating in the averse direction in order to deliver Venezuelan crude to Belarusian refineries.
In March 2020, Ukraine resumed transporting oil from Brody to Belarus and Poland."

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

"Some have proposed that the actual motive for the United States-led Western invasion of Afghanistan in 2001 was Afghanistan's importance as a conduit for oil pipelines to Afghanistan's neighbouring countries, by effectively bypassing Russian and Iranian territories, and breaking the Russian and Iranian collective monopoly on regional energy supplies."

What about Syria?
http://www.news.com.au/world/middle-east/is-the-fight-over-a-gas-pipeline-fuelling-the-worlds-bloodiest-conflict/news-story/74efcba9554c10bd35e280b63a9afb74

It's all about pipelines.

Sorry I meant 1 billion 900 million solar panels, my mistake.

Institute of Public Affair's Daniel Wilde (sneers and cage-rattling from the leftists) writes that the energy crisis being inflicted on the east coast of the country, and threatened in SA, is a "core design feature" of the zero emissions stupidity "still supported by both major political parties".

"Over the next decade, at least 20 per cent of Australia’s energy generation will be eliminated in the name of net zero, without any form of affordable and reliable energy generation taking its place".

The excitable Chris Bowen's 'even more renewables' shows how unfit he is for his portfolio. Umpteen more renewables still won't work at night, when there is no sun or wind, or when there is too much wind.

And yet these political morons are forcing reliable and affordable electricity producers out of the market with heavily subsidised, unreliable and unaffordable, off-and-on renewables that are at the mercy of nature.

Once the rolling blackouts start happening I think the idiocy will stop. WA does not share Eastern Australia's problem as its system favours continuous over piecemeal energy supply. From memory renewable energy starts making the grid supply chaotic when you try to supply more than 25% of power from it. Coal fired generation that can be converted to nuclear is what China is doing and makes more sense.

And there is the ever present, continuous (except for a few minutes a day),never ending Tidal Power.
Costs nothing to generate, no one owns it, it’s free…and therein lies the problem, cuts the profits.
Where there is no tide or where a country doesn’t have sea access then use alternatives.
All of the Australian coast is tidal, we are in a position to explore and use this never ending power.

As at 17/6/22, electricity was being sourced as follows:

Coal 57%
Gas 23%
Wind 1%
Solar 0.9%
Hydro 15.5% (Tas.)

Does that mean Australia's power supply could almost be 100% renewables if 40 times the current wind and solar capacity were added to the system? It frightens the crap out of me that people in power would even consider doing this.

To be honest with you all, I don't really care where the power comes from, so long as the lights turn on.
But large wind turbines are probably the ugliest.

The news on the ABC at the moment is to expect blackouts in some States; fortunately we have reliable backup.
The old steam tractor, once a full head of steam is raised will drive the generator for hours without any attention.

ttbn,
I don't know where you got your figures from, but according to http://opennem.org.au/energy/nem/ the figures for the NEM yesterday were as follows:
Coal 57.2%
Gas 17%
Wind 2.7%
Solar 7.6%
Hydro 14.9% (Tas,Vic,NSW,Qld.)

___________________________________________________________________

Is Mise,
I heard the threat of blackouts had receded, but then a coal fired power station caught fire.

As for tidal power, it's typically quite expensive and can be environmentally destructive. But there may be some locations where it's viable.
___________________________________________________________________

Fester,
>Does that mean Australia's power supply could almost be 100% renewables
>if 40 times the current wind and solar capacity were added to the system?
Abut half that, and it would create a huge new hydrogen industry.

>It frightens the crap out of me that people in power would even consider doing this.
It shouldn't: being big is nothing to be scared of.
People in power failing to consider it should be a far greater concern.

Thanks for the link Aidan. Based on the link you provided, Australia generated about 830 GWH of electricity from wind and solar over a seven day period. That would suggest a capacity factor of a bit over 15%. I have great trouble seeing how such a huge amount of generating infrastructure and industry sitting idle for most of the time, and less than 20% efficient hydrogen generation, could be competitive with a continuous, predictable, and high capacity factor coal and/or nuclear power generation.

At least demonstrate the "great system" on a small scale before deciding on a massive expansion.

Aidan,

Cost can be a big factor but modern floating tidal generators are relatively inexpensive and require no structures only anchors to hold them in place.
An experimental setup that worked admirably was recently tested in Galway Bay, Ireland.

Thee is also a tidal corn mill on Galway Bay that is a few centuries old, it probably cost a lot to set up but has long since paid for itself.

As a static example of cost effectiveness over time, the piers on the Shannon River (Ireland) cost £50,000 when they were built in the 1840s, a staggering amount, in those days but are still in use even the stone bollards.

To Armchair Crtic- From memory it was Paul Wolfowitz and Richard Perle that created a paper for the American Enterprise Institute in 1982 that proposed the Afghan pipeline. But hydrocarbons (oil) are pretty important for economic growth.

But our problem is not energy creation but energy storage.

At this stage nuclear seems like the best option.

I like the idea of tidal but it will make our coast line ugly.

We should do research into CO2 to gasoline technology maybe build a medium scale test reactor- the government may be able to offer some leadership here. I'm sure that many uni engineers will be pushing for some large injection of tax money. It's always good for special interests to go to war for some "good cause"- there was the war on cancer, drugs, etc- never achieved anything but it got plenty of newspaper print.

Gasoline is one of the best energy storage mediums.

.. no one owns it, it’s free
is Mise,
if only it were that simple. The turbines which require immense maintenance aren't free !
In a Dollar-obsessed Australia progress is hampered by regressive thinking & the only progress there is, is in regression.
Just look at what happened to enterprise & service here ! If Australian economic management were a ship it could only sail with a foreign crew because local crew would invariably sink it !

Aidan,

"ttbn,
I don't know where you got your figures from, but according to http://opennem.org.au/energy/nem/ the figures for the NEM yesterday were as follows:
Coal 57.2%
Gas 17%
Wind 2.7%
Solar 7.6%
Hydro 14.9% (Tas,Vic,NSW,Qld.)"

What ttbn's information shows is that renewable energy supply is erratic. Yes, wind and solar might provide an average of 10% of supply, but at times it might be less than 2%. In my opinion, dealing with the erratic supply and low capacity hurdles of wind and solar would be many times the cost of high capacity and predictable nuclear power. It would be a national disaster.

Fester

Erratic describes renewable energy very well: not enough, or too much at the wrong time. Ignorant boofheads like Aidan have no knowledge - just ideology. That’s why I ignore him and his kind.

ttbn,

I think rubbishing people and ideas a bad idea. What matters to me is keeping an open and civil dialogue. My sister gets shut down by her daughter when she tries to discuss climate change and renewable energy with her. That is the worst outcome as far as I can see.

Hi Fester,
"I think rubbishing people and ideas a bad idea. What matters to me is keeping an open and civil dialogue."

Some people say stupid things, it's sometimes difficult to have patience for people who are less informed, and I too am very much a layman on many topics and have been guilty of rubbishing others at time, but I do agree with you.

I've come to the conclusion that so many things in society these days seem to divide us, (which may very well be by design) when we should all just be trying our best to find common ground in that which unites us, and for me the best policy I can see is 'unity in self sufficiency' for the betterment of our nation and all of it's citizens.

If we're not well grounded in the foundations of where we're going moving forward, then the whole system from the top down to the bottom is going to fall apart with everyone at each others throats.

Hey Canem Malum,

"From memory it was Paul Wolfowitz and Richard Perle that created a paper for the American Enterprise Institute in 1982 that proposed the Afghan pipeline. But hydrocarbons (oil) are pretty important for economic growth."

Ahh, the 'Prince of Darkness'.
I've heard the Neoliberals are now just as bad as the Neoconservatives...
I think it's like its own little isolated food chain.

Make bombs, Make war and blow people up, Remove them from their land,
Build pipelines, Get (oil) - Energy for your society, Sell (oil) Energy for others:
Then use money (profits) and build more bombs...
- Rinse and repeat -

Thank you AC. Very sensible comments.

Hey Fester,
I feel as though the simple idea of 'Unity of Self Sufficiency" transgresses all of our endless petty squabbles.
It's neither left or right, but politically neutral.
It cares not about race or gender, social justice, political correctness or anything else.
Nothing more or less than a path to being independent, on our own terms with a goal in mind to build better policies for our nation and people upon.
- And neither side of politics can argue with it, which means we can all unite and be on the same page, despite all of our different viewpoints and disagreements on the less important things that divide us.

Thanks for your response;
- Occasionally, I come out with something sensible.

I think the word I was looking for was 'transcend', not 'transgress'.
Damn, there goes 'sensible'.
I guess nobody's perfect.

AC,

I am as guilty as anyone here of letting my emotions get the better of me. I agree with your comments and think the height of achievement I could have on this forum is to have pleasant exchanges with people I disagree with passionately. I wouldn't have time to follow all your links, but I appreciate the efforts you go to in making your arguments.

Cheers

Fester

True. This is why I have ceased to respond to certain posters. In fact, I no longer see the point in responding to other posters at all, unless they are of the same mind. I am as sure as Hell not going to change my opinions just because someone else objects to them, and it has been quite obvious over the years that others think the same - the difference, of course, being that some of them think that I and others will suddenly agree with them. There is no point arguing the toss with anonymous posters who use the anonymity to try to counteract their real-life-loser status. They wouldn't say boo to a goose in real life. Stick to the subject, and no chat is the way for me in future. Fingers crossed:).

ttbn,

I do see people in real life with some extraordinary opinions and ideas. I think it takes effort to think about things and form an opinion, so in that sense any person willing to do as much is commendable. I have had conversations with fathers with their kids present and notice the kids wanting to sink into the ground when dad turns into conspiracy dad. I think they want to be respected as people more than they would wish to change opinions.

The reality is those who control the oil (and other resources) control the world. When a substitute is found there is no reason to do anything that anyone else says and the world will become more unstable and dangerous. The UN was supposed to stop WWIII but it may cause it.

In Godfather III they say "power cannot be given" in Terminator they say "the only future is what we create" in both cases the ability to "act" is critical.

Without the ability to stop Chinese aggression in the world the world will submit to Chinese aggression.

I meant to say when "a free substitute" is found.

Fester,
Although renewable energy supply is erratic, it's predictable. We have (and use) the weather forecasting ability to know what's coming.

We've been doing this on a small scale in SA for over fifteen years now. Most of the problems predicted never eventuated, and those that did were easily solved. Wind and solar supply the majority of our electricity (despite last Friday's unusually low figure of 17.4%), The nation's overdue for a massive expansion.

Nuclear power's an expensive option, and our lack of experience with it makes it even more expensive. The French made it much cheaper by inflating away the construction cost, but I doubt there'd be much support for the kind of economic policies to enable us to do that!

Fifteen years ago the price of wind turbines was high. Ten years ago the price of solar panels was high. But they've become cheaper to manufacture, and we've already reached the stage where it's cheaper than coal (even including the cost of battery firming). Unfortunately for electricity users, doing nothing (so the prices rise more) is the most lucrative option for the power generation companies.

But I'd never suggest you blindly defer to experts, and I'm sure you don't want to take my word for it. So you have two options: The first option is to find out why the experts come to the conclusions they do. Examine the validity of their and your assumptions (and reasoning, but mistakes are far moe re likely to be based on faulty assumptions than faulty reasoning). If your conclusion's not what you'd hoped, at least you'll have learned a lot.

Alternatively you can select the ttbn option: assume anyone you disagree with is an ignorant boofmhead with no knowledge, just ideology. You won't learn anything, but seeing you're right all the time might make you feel better about yourself - though you might be a bit miffed that everyone else is opting for a strategy that's self evidently wrong. But if so, you can find solace in a board full of like minded people (plus a few dissenters you can ignore).

Is Mise,
I think you're conflating tidal power with wave power. They're very different things.

___________________________________________________________________________

Canem,
The demand for oil's not going to dry up overnight, and most of the major oil producing countries also have plenty of sunshine.

Thank you Aidan. I hope it does work, but when I look at the graph for power generation by source, I look at the nice even band for coal fired power, then I look at wind and solar and think, "How the hell can we sail on those choppy seas?". On French nuclear power, I have been reading that they have shirked on maintenance for a while and are now striking some problems. Still, a well maintained nuclear reactor could be producing power for more than three times the service life of wind and solar, so I hope the smrs in development prove successful.

Aiden-

Sorry my comment was directed at Armchair Critic's comment-

"Ahh, the 'Prince of Darkness'. I've heard the Neoliberals are now just as bad as the Neoconservatives... I think it's like its own little isolated food chain. Make bombs, Make war and blow people up, Remove them from their land, Build pipelines, Get (oil) - Energy for your society, Sell (oil) Energy for others:
Then use money (profits) and build more bombs...
- Rinse and repeat -"

Aidan,
No confusion, I was talking about tidal power, wave power is indeed different and its peaks and lows are unpredictable.
Fascinating though as the various machines that have been invented to use wave power are unique, especially the ‘kites’.

Is Mise,
Do you have a link for the experimental tidal power generator in Galway Bay? The only info I could find was or a wave powered one.
_____________________________________________________________________________

Fester,
We've long been coping with fluctuating demand, so why should fluctuating supply of solar and and power faze you?

I think you're underestimating the lifespan of solar and wind infrastructure. But FWIW I too hope the SMRs in development prove successful. However I warn you: even if they prove successful, they're unlikely to prove cheap.

And I forgot to mention last time: those electrolysers to produce hydrogen aren't under 20% efficient; they're over 80% efficient.

NUI Galway

"Irish-led tidal energy project receives €3m in EU funding just now Irish-led consortium involving ORPC, Eire Composites, and NUI Galway to develop tidal power generators with blades made from recycled carbon fiber. Read the article at siliconrepublic.com. UK group wants to expand largest tidal energy project"

http://www.afloat.ie/marine-environment/power-from-the-sea/item/53780-tidal-energy-the-theme-of-nui-galway-s-first-global-challenges-project

http://www.tidemillinstitute.org/worlds-most-powerful-tidal-turbine-gears-up-for-operation/

http://www.hydroreview.com/hydro-industry-news/testing-proves-sustainable-marines-tidal-technology-can-operate-for-two-decades/

From memory tidal power has a an orders of magnitude over that of wind power due to the higher viscosity of water over air. Again from memory a four metre windmill generates in the 4 kilowatts range but a 4 metre tidal turbine in the megawatt range.

The ABC has shot itself in the foot in its pandering to extremists who blame coal for the threat to electricity supply. They lined up a pensioner who complained that she couldn't put her heater on, had to go go bed early, yadayada, all because of fossil fuels and not enough renewables.

The problem for authenticity was- this pensioner lives in Tasmania, where power is 100% renewable: 82% hydro and 18% wind at the time she was whining for the camera.

There’s a link to the Rance tidal power station which has been going since 1966.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rance_Tidal_Power_Station

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2016_Tasmanian_energy_crisis

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

Even though 100% of Tasmanian power is renewable if there's a shortage of supply in the Victorian market the price will rise (even if the shortage is an artificial Green induced one). Victoria has a much larger market than Tasmania so will tend to dominate prices. The way that energy is being sold in the US for example in Texas using commodities trading principle similar to those that were popularized by Enron are interesting. In principle they can have benefits but it can leave people vulnerable.

This situation seems to encapsulate the benefits of Localism vs Globalism.

Then there’s this one in South Korea.
https / /en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sihwa_Lake_Tidal_Power_Station

A few night ago I had a look at AEMO's web site and while coal and gas
were carrying the bulk of the load wind was 6% and I divided the
demand at that time by the 6% and it would have required 16 times the
present number of wind mills to avoid blackouts if there was no coal & gas.
You can do this yourself, and it shows just how much money is yet to
be spent to get 100% x 100%