IS MISE - so you'd rather pay 2 to 6 times as much for your electricity when wind solar and off-river PHES could do the same job?
BAZZ - we don't need the life of you. We just need you to spend a few hours reading Bakers. Then read it again!

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/am/pii/S0301421517306900
"So far as I have been able to ascertain there has been no study to determine how many wind and solar farms will be needed and where they must be located."

OR just watch this. I've keyframed it to the right bit. http://youtu.be/fsnkPLkf1ao?t=356

Bazz - I've been looking for the same sort of study for years. Most of the studies I've read have great horrible glaring holes in their assumptions. They make crazy assumptions about energy efficiency, or most of us dropping cars for trams and trains. (Which I'm in favour of but don't want to be used as a way of massaging renewables energy figures.)

I was even critical of this paper above when it came out back in 2017. It wasn't that wind and solar and off-river PHES (Pumped Hydro Electricity Storage) are unimaginable technically - it was they seemed unimaginable economically. How much was all this going to flipping COST? Then the price of wind and solar kept coming down, and WILL CONTINUE to come down another 70% over the next ten years!

FESTER - great question!
The answer is that the 5 to 6 times is to replace OIL as well as electricity - and because EV's are 4 times more efficient with each unit of power than OIL - we're going to be saving heaps of money after we switch to EV.

Even with nukes you would have to replace all the fossil fuel electricity generation on maybe a 1 to 1 basis (where solar is like a 1 to 3 basis), and then build a whole bunch more nukes to generate the TRANSPORT electricity replacing oil as well. Also, there are many other grid costs.

From the link below: "In an expanded electricity system in which all energy required for land transport, buildings, manufacturing and mining comes from solar and wind electricity then the amount of electricity required is doubled and total Australian emissions decline by 80%."

BAZZ - I forgot to mention this Blakers article below that I just shared with Fester has a graphic of where renewable energy zones would be and the HVDC lines to build - all costed.
http://reneweconomy.com.au/for-100-billion-australia-could-have-a-low-cost-and-reliable-zero-emissions-grid/

One area I'd love to see some work on is how we're going to fuel our military in a post-oil world? Is it going to be synfuels generated somehow? Like, battery electric vehicles are great for our personal vehicle needs - but I don't see them driving a tank! (Winks)
Supplying fuel in the battle arena is a tricky logistical exercise that costs lives in warfare! Just look at how Ukrainians are trying to target Russian trains supplying the front. This paper looks at nuclear-powered aircraft carriers out in the arena manufacturing jet-fuel on site - from seawater and carbon dioxide in the seawater!
http://bravenewclimate.com/2013/01/16/zero-emission-synfuel-from-seawater/

Max,
“IS MISE - so you'd rather pay 2 to 6 times as much for your electricity when wind solar and off-river PHES could do the same job?”
That’s an assumption and an invalid one at that.

Is Mise,
"No it isn't. It's a valid assumption!"

See how bland assertion works as an argument technique? It's great isn't it - because you don't have to DO any work. You just assert the negative. Like, "No it isn't." Which of course reminds us of Monty Python's argument skit...

"An argument is a connected series of statements intended to establish a proposition... Argument is an intellectual process. Contradiction is just the automatic gainsaying of anything the other person says."

http://montycasinos.com/montypython/scripts/argument.php.html

So what I will do now is offer an argument towards a proposition. My proposition is that it is NOT just my assumption that wind and solar with PHES are vastly cheaper than tidal streams.

It's that my opinion is based on peer-reviewed studies by both tidal experts and "100% WWS" studies (Wind, Water, Solar - with water being PHES.) As I submitted to you in the links above.

Which you then tried to refute with bland contradiction. Winning much hey Is Mise? (winks)

After the post above I was having lunch and watching the ABC news and nearly spat my lunch out. I was JUST typing to Is Mise about PHES. And here it is - the micro-version!
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-11-01/renewable-energy-fix-walpole-power-problems/100579700

Summary: Walpole is a little country Aussie farming and tourism town down the end of a LONG transmission line. That means fires and storms and gum trees coming down cause frequent power outages.

How to fix that? A farmer is getting some money having 2 dams built to PHES specs. It will be unobtrusive - it's his property. And dams are things farmers tend to have anyway.

It's small. They've broken ground, and it's going to be finished by the end of 2023. When finished, if a tree comes down and severs the line, the little town of Walpole will have 2 days of power to get them through until that line can be repaired.

And who knows? There's enough free country there for Walpole to one day get ideas about generating their own solar and wind and maybe building another pumped hydro dam. Will the Shire of Walpole take them off grid into their own little micro-grid? Will they go into some sort of local worker's co-op? Community owned power rather than Corporation owned power? Awesome! This youtube piece is from Western Power - who may have unwittingly set the groundwork for Walpole to leave their grid one day. But hey, kick back and enjoy the footage. Walpole looks like many coastal Aussie towns, and I feel like I need a holiday watching this!
http://youtu.be/vGqdYhVfYwM

Here are the specks. It's a tiny cute little thing! Only a 90 metre head!
http://www.westernpower.com.au/media/6094/wp_walpole_minipumpedhydro_brochure_apr22.pdf

BUT on the other end of the scale here's a report on Queenslands HUGE $62 billion pumped hydro & renewable energy hubs!
http://youtu.be/aXWroHuh_mY

If batteries are going to get cheaper Max, please explain why my battery for my remote control planes cost $5.00 in 2017 & costs $26.00 today.

The cost of Lithium is up 500% over the same period. Do try to talk some sense Max.