Energy & Electricity, Production & Source discussion

From the exciting sustainable developments thread.

It is actually quite interesting and I'd love to see it happen

It isn't that gas is cleaner than coal, it is that power production can easily be ramped up for "peaking demand", from 0-100% in seconds (coal power is for "base load" power and can't easily ramp up or down, and when demand drops the coal is still burning/wasted).

Who remembers the SEC (state electricity commission of Victoria), way back when services were provided by the state for the people ?
Most services once state owned have long since been sold off for shareholder profits
Would be good to hear from those in SA, electricity is still state owned isn't it ?

Many in Melb suburbs would remember having routine summer blackouts 10+ years ago, the coal powerstations couldn't vary the supply fast enough to meet (air conditioner) demand
The gas fired powerstation at Laverton was actually built to rectify this

There is currently a gas pipe network connection covering most of Australia.
It is frustrating that we still burn coal while most of the gas we produce is exported for far less than what we pay for it domestically

It'd be nice to see an expansion of the Snowy Hydro Scheme, it is 100% government owned, but don't think it's all GREEN (below, taken from their site)
"We have combined the power of the Snowy Scheme with gas and diesel-fired peaking generators. In total, we have 16 power stations and have more than 5,500MW of generating capacity across New South Wales, Victoria and South Australia. We have also recently expanded our renewable portfolio to include contracted energy with 10 wind and solar projects."

We export far too many non renewable raw products and import too many manufactured goods (iron ore, coal, gas, lithium), we return mostly empty shipping containers, we need to start manufacturing again and focus on some of these new energy technologies.

Looking forward to peoples thoughts (I may regret this )

Gas isn't the answer, but it's far better than coal (and a step in the right direction)

 

The idea of building a gas generator these days is a little like building rental accommodation in a mining camp using a 30 year mortgage when the life of the mine is only 5 years.

AGL proposed a solution when it first mooted the closure of Liddel power station which the COALition has consistently rubbished for purely political purposes. As far as I know AGL are proceeding with their plan and this latest effort by Scomo is either about deflection or to fight back against the idea of a "green recovery".

 

The problem is - building as gas fired station seems to be the only solution the government is looking at (asides from Snowy 2.0). As pointed out in the Sustainable thread, there are multiple options being swiftly developed, right here in Australia ... that overseas countries are picking up ... yet our leaders seem to be stuck on fossils.

Even BP has stated that fossil fuels will be obsolete in around 20 years. There is a reason the major fossil suppliers are getting out of fossils - because there is no future. To spend billions building a new gas plant, is ridiculous and will end up as a stranded asset. Just as stoopid as the proposal to build a gas pipeline from WA to NSW.

A perfect example is these bricks, developed right her at Newcastle Uni - fast, simple, affordable - but travelling all the way to Europe for a demonstration energy plant ... why isn't this plant being build in NSW so we can showcase to the world?

Thermal blocks could convert coal-fired power stations to run fossil-fuel free

Hubby is currently applying for a job with the CSIRO to develop hydrogen production using molten steel as the catalyst ... so I've been reading up a lot lately on their concentrated solar and hydrogen projects ... moving ahead in leaps and bounds and very exciting yet getting very little government support (funding is coming from private industry)

Molten metal enables climate-friendly hydrogen production

The frustrating part is the government KNEW the power station closures were coming for the past decade (or more) and have done nothing. These above technologies are proven and ready to go ... and could be up and running by 2022-23

 

Thanks for the thread. l'd love to see the whole country starting threads like this it's just way way past time people started caring and talking , and stopped rolling over for gov's.
Unfortunately though it's like this right here, only a few replies and it'll fade away. Why don't Aussies giva fk, yaknow, l just don't get it. This gas idea is ridiculous ,just goes to show, morrison chose a time like this to just blow it out there plant the seed while the whole countries over come with rona stresses and going through a once in a lifetime thing like this. Atm he could just go right ahead and the country, the world, are too distracted to bother him. Whata tactic.
And fancy wanting to blow billions on it right now when they've taken the hit they have with rona, what they wanna blow more money, think they're getting addicted to spending now. When as lizzie said even our power companies have huge things in the pipeline, and what could be huge alternatives. There's nothing bloody renewable about gas, nothing clean about it if you see what they do to get it and what they do to the country and earth to pipe it, lt's just digging more crap out of the planet and making more of a mess, no better than bloody coal. l suppose if the lines are in place thats something, but if you saw what they've done to sth west vic to build a gs fired station here, my God. Doubt many could even imagine what's running through the earth and farms and private properties , through beautiful hill country , ugly pipe, valves, monster wheel taps contraptions just sticking up out of the ground all over the place and the piping it took to get to them. Monster ugly bloody power poles they've ran across the country , around towns, past peoples backyards , the ocean rigs they've put out our windows on the ocean of the Great Ocean road, even out form the Twelve Apostles, nothing nice about gas , believe me.

Tbh , l try to be like the rest of the country, bury my head in the sand and not care. Because l know what we could be doing in our country lizzies talked about a lot of it. NZ's done it, living it right now, yet we have ***** gov's trying to do this stuff, denying to the world like trump and embarrassing us , walking away from world targets in front of the world .
And what ridiculous targets are our pollies trying to set, 20 bloody 50, what the hell is that. This thing needs to be happening now, Global warming pace is like technology it's moving faster and faster, way beyond what they've thought, of course it is. You know , many countries are there now, now, even the UK are saying they probably will not turn their plants back on after rona. Even China has huge things on the go. We can't even recycle a bit of bloody rubbish.
l dunno , it all just feels hopeless in this country, just like our land clearing record , our animal extinction record that's still just climbing away and once again no one cares less except a handful of sanctuaries and carers, our disgusting Aboriginal record and the way we treat new arrivals and refugees. Australia's known world wide now for our attitudes and what we just let happen to our country, we're talked about. But wth can we do , soulless job economy Governments, conservative people that couldn't care less or stand for anything, they just want their bloody air con working , complain bc there's a power laps for 2mins, their new cars and 600k mortgage , l dunno. We could be should be the envy of the world, admired , respected, NZ is , only 5mil people yet they're known and respected talked about world wide these days, our own family .
We've got abundance of wind,sun,ocean, some brilliant people with the ideas and things on the go.

 

A shame a number politicians don't or cannot drop down to the Parliamentary Library and have a quiet read.

This is only some of the submission to Parliament and other publications.

https://www.aph.gov.au/Help/Federated_Search_Results?q=CSIRO renewable energy

 

I read recently about someone questioning the validity of vehicle stop/start technology, if it was actually worth the power used to restart, the extra wear and tear on the starter all to save a few drops of fuel.........
It isn't about the fuel savings, its about reducing emissions

Coal is easy, scoop it up and throw it into a fire to run a steam turbine, easy and cheap
But the emissions are huge

Sure gas isn't the answer, but it's a bucket load cleaner than coal

Nice links @Lizzie not saying these can't work, the current trouble with most developing idea's is the energy loss in production (like solar panels cost X energy to make/recycle and will they return more than that in their lifecycle?).

Hey @random I hate seeing overhead power lines and roads (roads contribute massively to global warming, not only durring manufacture but also in absorbing uv) but people see what they want.
Even wind turbines dot the landscape, maintenance is not easy and continual.
I will look into NZ, thanks for the tip.
No one said BILLIONS for gas station
Laverton Vic gas fired power station cost $150M for 320MW, takes up a block and is part of the Snowy Hydro Scheme (I'd replace coal with gas tomorrow ).
https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&sou...FjAKegQIChAC&usg=AOvVaw1ZfI7eoZrTMerCg9hV7_Hh

 

Gosh - and to think the newest of these is 13 years old (oldest on first page was 20 years) ... what we could've achieved in those years if only governments had been listening

 

I did read this, their proposal is in several parts (below)
Bayswater is a coal fired power station, they plan to replace the current turbine's to "improve efficiency" (so it's still coal, but ....)
Gas "peakers" (aka, gas fire power stations)
Renewables, solar provided by third parties (could just be buying solar from my roof).
Battery storage (I wonder how the mega battery in SA is going?).

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&sou...FjABegQIDBAI&usg=AOvVaw1Pv6ipvy5em27n3lvPjYbe

So, largely still coal supplemented by gas with probably 5% renewables to tick that box....

We are getting there with solar (Aldi are near zero offset).
But each night the street lights come on, the supermarket is like a lighthouse beacon and we still turn on the tv

 

Yup. A number have been updated. If you have time and the inclination check out The Conversation and search on the subject matter (or Google.) Numerous articles and links to various research can be found.

 

I don't mind the streetlight thing so much ... but I seriously don't understand why city buildings need to be lit like Christmas trees every night

Just like we've had to rethink water use - I think we also need to rethink electricity use. There is so much wastage.

 

Lot of reading - just as well it's a rainy day ...

The Conversation

 

You know , on one of the ABC specials , they'd worked out Australians , put out more crap per person , taking everything into account, than l'm sure they said any other country , in the world !
Feel free to google or whatever you like that one, l'd love to be wrong on this.

 

Stop using the internet you wastrels.

5G will increase energy demands of data centers, study claims

 

Just as well I got my panels working overtime

 

By 6:11pm (in nsw, this afternoon) all your panels must be facing west ( and you've turned the fridge off then ).....

 

Sadly not in our halfway house while building next home ... panels only ... but previous home had battery. Neighbour would txt on occasion, to all if the power was out ... not once did we notice

 

Yeah the waste in things like that is just maddening. To top it off our street lights like most come on an hour before dark and still on an hour after daylight , get a calculator on to that one which probably happens country wide. Thing is, the don't even need power they could easily cut them down to 30 or 40% of what they string along each street that alone is way overkill , andddd just use big versions of solar garden lights. Those things are amazing, brilliant . If you can buy those for 2dollars each then they could easily build a top quality long living street light for 100 - 200 bucks which they probably pay per light with stuff they use now.
Office lights , way overkill , for a start they could turn off 2 out of 3 , downgrade wattage , l mean most of them are empty, everyone's gone home, it's just show. They could be ran from roof solar panels, Same with schools, massive roof areas, ever seen a schools power bill, yet they surely wouldn't actually need all that much power at all , mainly just lights and computers. They shouldn't even be on the grid , and it'd be fantastic education and foundation for the kids , like a lot doing gardens now the kids love it and it's about nature as well , so lost in todays world.

 

So have you all seen the govs latest. Knew he was planting the seed the other day.
They have a plan , press conference today and they claim to be already well ahead of emissions targets and ahead of most countries, dunno about that one. But hey , l'd be happy to be wrong.
Anyway , one disappointment after another. They basically don't believe in renewables they wanna use gas , big surprise , and clean coal , another big surprise, and capture and bury carbon technology. Great , just bloody great. So basically we'll just keep digging and stinking the planet up we'll just tone it down and bury the rest , brilliant.
And yeah they were talking billions on that NSW gas powered plant , 1.5 l think , or was it 3, but whatever it was a lotta mooler .
They say they're sending letters with details and targets to the Paris protocol and to all the other major countries .
Just do a search if you wanna go right into the scary specifics.

 

Yes, there was talk about spending $3 billion, but that was for a new coal fired plant
https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&sou...gQIAhAB&usg=AOvVaw1B4s6WrIodnKWgaAmGboPJ&cf=1
I haven't found any costing estimates for a gas plant, this in itself means it was likely a PR Stunt....

 

But that's just great then, more coal plants.
Doesn't matter what the costing is who cares it was just a brain fart plant the seed out there stunt as you say anyway point is , coal , gas , neither are even remotely renewables or clean even cleaned up, and just taking the country into the completely wrong direction.
Meanwhile 20yrs time the rest of the world will have been running on clean renewable for years and forever and we'll still be in the stone age using all the very things the whole world is moving away from.
One of the reporters said but that's not really renewable energy or forever energy and it's not really the clean that the world needs , and what happens when supplies dry up in 30 or 50yrs time.
The minister's umm, ahhhh and then blurted out some dribble.