And here we have a greta example of how the energy companies play the game
AGL Energy has earmarked a site midway between Sydney and Adelaide to provide nearly 20 per cent of renewables it needs to complete its energy transition, marking its biggest move in green energy since billionaire Mike Cannon-Brookes became its largest shareholder.
The venture is expected to consist of a 1.2GW wind farm, 300MW solar farm, and a 500MW/2000MW hour battery energy storage system. The development is located within the NSW government’s South West renewable energy zone.
At around 2GW, Pottinger would be 20 per cent of the 12GW AGL said it would need to develop by 2036 to replace its coal fleet, a decarbonisation plan which will reshape Australia’s largest polluter and aid the country’s net zero by 2050 ambitions.
If I were a shareholder I'd sue. A 1.2 GW wind farm might produce 400 MW on average, and a 300 MW solar farm will produce about 120 MW on average, for 8 hours per day (when admittedly demand is highest), or 50W over 24 hours. So, how does 450-520 MW of renewables, on average, replace 20% of 12 GW of 24/7 coal, ie 2400 MW?
We are, as is now routine, being lied to.
Cheers
Greg Locock
New here? Try reading these, they might help FAQ731-376
Here's my scrappy estimate of the cost to replace 12 GW of coal with this system. It still only has 4 hours of reserve. AGL is roughly 1/3 of the grid, so the cost in hardware alone for the entire grid is $B210, which will need to be replaced every 20 years, call it $B10 per year, shared among 10 million households, that's $1000 per household per year.
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Greg Locock
New here? Try reading these, they might help FAQ731-376
If there are no other associated costs then that is pretty good. My USA electric bill is something around $1800 per year. That's with all gas appliances and vehicles.
That's an additional cost. You've still got to pay for all the rest. NY's latest auction for offshore wind came in at 15 cents per kWh. No backup. That's about 10c/kWh more than you'd probably expect.
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Greg Locock
New here? Try reading these, they might help FAQ731-376
And Europe decides fossil fuels are worth investing in.
About 72 gigawatts-worth of new gas-fired power stations are planned across the Continent, according to a report from pressure group Beyond Fossil Fuels.
Gas power capacity across the Continent is on track to rise by 27pc under current proposals, despite a promise among G7 nations to decarbonise electricity grids by 2035.
Britain is planning or building more gas-fired power stations than almost any other European country, the analysis found.
Rishi Sunak announced plans to build new gas power stations earlier this month, saying Britain cannot risk blackouts on the way to net zero by 2050.
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Greg Locock
New here? Try reading these, they might help FAQ731-376
It is entirely reliant on the development and installation of 30-50 GW Dispatchable Emissions-Free Resource by 2040. Gosh, they are just going to mandate it into existence.
Of course DEFR exists, it is called nuclear power. The UK designed, built, and activated the first ever civilian nuclear power station in 4 years. So, undoubtedly NY could hit 2040 with 30-50 GW of extra nukes. They claim nuclear isn't dispatchable to get rid of that bogeyman, and have come up with the following
Oh good. Burning green hydrogen.
How much green hydrogen is currently available? The total pipeline capacity for green hydrogen reached 174 mtpa by the end of Q3 2023.
The calorific value of 1 tonne of H2 is 33 MWh, and burning it I suppose you might get 50% efficiency so, at the moment the global supply is 174*10^6*.5*33*10^6/365/24/3600/10^9 GW=0.09 GW. (worth checking that seems comically low)
Lucky old NY gets 33300% of the current global supply. Better get legislating, lads.
Just to put 30-50 GW of DEFR generation into perspective, that's about the 100-200% of Australia's current grid. All from unicorn dust.
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Greg Locock
New here? Try reading these, they might help FAQ731-376
Australia faces similar problems. We are currently subsidising people to fit solar, which makes the price of electricity very variable and wrecks the economics of baseload providers, who we then subsidise to stay in business, because they are needed to provide reliable power, and then the states subsidise the domestic customers because there is a cost of living crisis partly caused by high power bills, and our industries close down because of those same bills.
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Greg Locock
New here? Try reading these, they might help FAQ731-376
Exactly. That also drives the solar installation rate in Australia. Of course you are in trouble if you can't afford solar, or are a renter, or live in a people storage facility.
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Greg Locock
New here? Try reading these, they might help FAQ731-376
Somebody pointed out that you can tell when a policy or target has been announced without any serious analysis, as the date for its completion will end in a 0 or a 5.
2030 2035 2050, may all ring bells.
Cheers
Greg Locock
New here? Try reading these, they might help FAQ731-376
And this is fun, ex climate chief says Net Zero is a toxic phrase.
The concept of “net zero” has become a political slogan used to start a “dangerous” culture war over the climate, and may be better dropped, the outgoing head of the UK’s climate watchdog has warned.
Chris Stark, the chief executive of the Climate Change Committee (CCC), said sensible improvements to the economy and people’s lives were being blocked by a populist response to the net zero label, and he would be “intensely relaxed” about losing the term.
“Net zero has definitely become a slogan that I feel occasionally is now unhelpful, because it’s so associated with the campaigns against it,” he said. “That wasn’t something I expected.
...The real fight was to make the UK’s economy competitive with other countries that were investing heavily in renewable energy, electric vehicles and other green technologies that were the focus of innovation and investment around the world, he said...”
No the real fight is with China's coal powered manufacturing industries.
And then there is this gem “It’s very strange that some see heat pumps as an enemy of the people,” he said, in an interview with the Guardian before leaving his post this Friday. “This is a remarkably sensible technology that we’ve known about for a long time, a straightforward technology to put in your house to keep it warm, or to keep it cool in the summer. But in this country, they’ve taken on a totally different totemic role, as a technology that is being somehow forced upon the populace. I think that’s very dangerous.”
And we find, yes, they are being forced on the people New gas boilers will be banned for most households from 2035, as the UK switches to heat pumps to help cut greenhouse gas emissions.
They estimate the spend is 9 trillion dollar by 2050 (p12), most of which will go to China no doubt.
That is to say 5 GDPs in 37 years, so 13% of GDP. Every year.We struggle to finance the armed forces, 2.4%, and NDIS 3%
Hilariously they are recommending carbon capture storage, which does not work anywhere at scale anywhere in the world, and against nuclear, which is used in 19 of the G20 countries and is being implemented rapidly by many countries.
Cheers
Greg Locock
New here? Try reading these, they might help FAQ731-376
Even The Guardian admits that the cost of renewables is problematical
the most damaging porky of all might be that the transition to renewable energy will be easy.
Government messaging has propagated this myth, vacillating between the torpid technocracy of targets, acronyms and megawatt hours and the sunny spin that promises “a cheaper, cleaner energy future!”.
Both gloss over the hard truth that fundamentally changing the way Australia produces, shares and uses energy is hugely disruptive, particularly in the regions where new infrastructure is earmarked for land and sea.
That information won't go down well in the leafy green streets of the nice suburbs, where ladies who lunch are fully supportive of wind and solar and transmission lines and exploding batteries being built in the not so leafy bits where the poor people live. We are also currently seeing an interesting Cabinet level fight between the solar/wind loon and the Minister for Environment on Water, who to date has killed the prospects of an offshore wind assembly facility set in wetlands, and a windfarm built on pristine rainforest.
Cheers
Greg Locock
New here? Try reading these, they might help FAQ731-376
Net zero in Antarctica. At the moment the research stations are diesel powered, with the landed cost of diesel at $40 per gallon. So they've played around with the numbers and if we ignore unicorn Long Duration Energy Storage, which as they say is probably aqueous based, a tad inconvenient for Antarctica, and discovered that just like every other study I've seen all around the world, with the exception of special cases like Iceland and Norway, the most cost effective non nuclear solutions were a mix of fossil fuel peaker, battery, solar and wind. That's all described in table 6 and figure 7. The expected usage profile, based on one year of weather (danger alert, one year of weather is not enough) is in Figure 6
