Quote:
Originally Posted by KenGee
If coal powered generators are the only viable way to provide "base load", someone should let Tassie, WA know.. As for the rest of the world...
Hydro 20% of total power.
Tidal is being used more and more.
Geothermal is widely used and proven tech.
These power sources simply need investment, may be a 1/10th of the government support that coal gets.
Our national grid means that it is always windy somewhere so the base load can be provided. We just have to do things differently, the only thing stopping us is self interest and greed. That goes for nukes as well, something tells me that those who are pushing wouldn't riase the kids in the shadow of it.
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Pretty easy to throw figures around and come up with false judgements
Lets start with Tassie, Since the connection of Basslink cable to Tassie the flow of power has almost always been towards Tassie.
Tassie is a very wet state barring of course Hobart (Second driest Capitol City) High montain range and a supportive government to build dams and water storages. Unlike the mainland and it's green tree huggers. Try building a new dam on the mainland...
Wind everywhere, No company will spend the money to build wind turbines everywhere for a minimal return for when the wind just happens to blow when it's not blowing somewhere else.
I can assure you the returns are just returns on windfarms in high wind areas. I manage wind farms in a couple of high wind areas in South Australia. They run on quite tight margins and are often all shutdown at the same time due to a lack of wind.
Take your average 40+ degree week in SA, what happens to the wind? It dies. Gas, hydro and coal takes up the slack on these days.
The next big part of scattering wind farms all over the country is providing the infrastructure to carry the load to the load base. In most outback areas it just doesn't exist.
Sounds good just build it. The most costly part of electricity production is the transmission costs and the losses in transporting it over large distances.
One example where wind has trouble with infrastructure is in SA. Hallet wind farm sits atop the hills above Hallet gas turbine station. When the wind farm is at full load the Gas turbines on the MOOMBAh gas pipeline can't run due to overloading the line. This area is one of the few high wind areas in Australia but suffers from huge electrical storms as well. When such a storm moves over the area the wind turbines have to be load constrained because a 132KV line tripwill overload the only remaining line and risk the overall system security of the SA grid.
The average price for electricity generation at the moment is around $30 per MW hour. The cost of transmission is $40 / MW hour.
Privatisation has lifted these costs to more than double what they were when Government owned.
When Australia has high tempratures accross QLD, NSW, Vic and SA the price regularly bounces to $12500 per MW hour sounds good doesn't it. The trouble is there is usually not enough to go round thus the price increase but a distibution company still only charges you the same as they get when supply and generation costs are $30/MWHr.
You don't need to be an ecconomist to work out the figures don't add up to good practice but it is what we have to live with until something better comes along.
Cummins Diesel are manufacturing peak load stations to fill the rare gaps in load and generation but at 250L of diesel / MWhr it is an expensive game to play let alone the cost of having a huge supply of diesel sitting on site in case of.
There is a nice little diesel station at Angaston in the Barrossa Valley in SA, it runs in anger a few times a year but you still only pay your 25C per kilowatt hour even though the price or cost to generate is 10 times the average price.
There will be no change in what we use to generate until it becomes cost effective at least now that the energy sector is privately owned.
Its a hard one to understand but it is all true. Transmission and losses over big distances is costly and I doubt you would like to pay $100 / KW hour and neither would our industrial sector. It would almost have us back in the dark ages cutting down trees for everything which would exaserpate our CO2 emissions.
If a tax was used to invest in infrastructure and development it may well work or go somewhere towards working but I doubt much will be left after mamgement costs of lots of shinny arsed pollies and their staff.
As I stated earlier all the electricity companies are already working on carbon trading and the staffing required because they can see a profit in the deal.