BOM: Sydney in summer 2016-17: Warmest summer on record

[drylander (Peter)]

Renewables are the answer just ask SA lol If not for hazelwood we would be in the dark and no industry...almost at that point. Last week in the windmill belt very little power was produced in the hottest part of the day...no wind.
I have a gen set hooked into the power board and had to use it due to no power and when hazelwood goes out of commission who know how it will be.
Pete

[casstony]

I wonder if the vitriol heaped on Tim Flannery says more about him or his accusers? It seems he made a bad (and very expensive) call with the desal plants, but other criticism seems to stem from disinformation inspired by Andrew Bolt.

In any case, whether the house is at sea level or part way up a cliff is a far more important topic of debate than climate change and what to do about it.

[xelasnave]

Originally Posted by casstony

I wonder if the vitriol heaped on Tim Flannery says more about him or his accusers? It seems he made a bad (and very expensive) call with the desal plants, but other criticism seems to stem from disinformation inspired by Andrew Bolt.

In any case, whether the house is at sea level or part way up a cliff is a far more important topic of debate than climate change and what to do about it.

I agree.

What can be done?

My view is nothing at all, but I am happy to suggest some things.
Change humans so they wont be greedy.
Build cars for transport rather than being used as toys.
Ban all forms of "petrol" racing.
Cease production of luxury items so as to save the energy.
Reduce air travel for holidays.
Remove refrigerators from office buildings.
Dont hold sporting events that cause thousands to travel there and back.
Paint everything white.
But most of all tax carbon and build multiple nuclear power plants.
Alex

[casstony]

Originally Posted by xelasnave

What can be done?

Install rooftop solar, vote for politicians who promote battery storage added to rooftop solar, over the next few decades replace cars with electric vehicles charged at home (or at work with power from the grid supplied by solar).

If we get to the point where we can't supply all our needs perhaps replace the remaining coal fired stations with failsafe nuclear (cores that can't melt down).

There are headwinds from vested interests but the silver lining is that a bit of time is needed anyway for the products to become economic to install.

[clive milne]

Originally Posted by xelasnave

What can be done?

Teaching people to grow their own food would be high on the list.
Agriculture, transport & fertilisers are one of the biggest contributors of GHG's.

Also... teaching people how to build their own modest dwelling wouldn't be a bad idea either.

Neither would buy us more than 5 to 10 years though.

[xelasnave]

Originally Posted by casstony

Install rooftop solar, vote for politicians who promote battery storage added to rooftop solar, over the next few decades replace cars with electric vehicles charged at home (or at work with power from the grid supplied by solar).

If we get to the point where we can't supply all our needs perhaps replace the remaining coal fired stations with failsafe nuclear (cores that can't melt down).

There are headwinds from vested interests but the silver lining is that a bit of time is needed anyway for the products to become economic to install.

I agree. There is no better way to teach folk about energy consumption than to run off a battery bank... It is a bank, savings bank, where you must deposit before you withdraw.

Thorium seemed like a good idea but it does not produce weapons grade stuff..... so its a little better than useless.

After the next nuclear war we will be ok as there will be less people and a dust shroud to blot out the Sun... I am very positive we can get by.
Alex

[AussieTrooper (Ben)]

Originally Posted by drylander

Renewables are the answer just ask SA lol If not for hazelwood we would be in the dark and no industry...almost at that point. Last week in the windmill belt very little power was produced in the hottest part of the day...no wind.
I have a gen set hooked into the power board and had to use it due to no power and when hazelwood goes out of commission who know how it will be.
Pete

The SA blackout was NOT caused by renewables. The AEMO report is publicly available and does not pin it on wind power.
However much the Greens are trying to take credit for it, Hazelwood is closing because it has reached end of life, not because of Green lobbying. The boilers are stuffed, and the required maintenance and safety upgrades have made continued operation economically unviable.

[AussieTrooper (Ben)]

Originally Posted by casstony

I wonder if the vitriol heaped on Tim Flannery says more about him or his accusers? It seems he made a bad (and very expensive) call with the desal plants, but other criticism seems to stem from disinformation inspired by Andrew Bolt.

In any case, whether the house is at sea level or part way up a cliff is a far more important topic of debate than climate change and what to do about it.

The Desal issue remains to be seen. If we have another long drought, people will be singing it's praises. It's an insurance policy, not a first choice for water supply.
My house is about 20m above sea level, and a bit of global warming would leave me with waterfront property and a Qld climate.

[casstony]

Originally Posted by AussieTrooper

, Hazelwood is closing because it has reached end of life, not because of Green lobbying. The boilers are stuffed, and the required maintenance and safety upgrades have made continued operation economically unviable.

I think the primary reason for Hazelwood's closure is the owner's global philosophy of moving away from coal and toward solar.

AFAIK, Hazelwood was still profitable and has been continually upgraded over the years; all coal fired power stations need continual maintenance and periodic upgrades due to the harsh processes which the equipment is subjected to.

It would have been better for the electricity supply and kinder to the local community to shut the station down in stages over several years, which was the original plan. There was no consultation with employees prior to the shutdown announcement so employees had no chance to plan for their financial future - not good corporate behavior. The decision to shutdown the plant was certainly made some months prior to the announcement but the bosses kept it quiet instead of giving the workers more time to plan.

[Orionskies (Julian)]

I think the time for acting against dangerous climate change through prevention has probably passed or very close to, particularly with a Trump White House.

Perhaps we should be changing our focus/debate a little and starting to 'innovate' in the technologies of carbon dioxide removal directly out of the atmosphere.

...just don't mention the words 'carbon tax ' when we try to figure out how to pay for it.

Cheers Julian.

[AussieTrooper (Ben)]

Originally Posted by casstony

I think the primary reason for Hazelwood's closure is the owner's global philosophy of moving away from coal and toward solar.

AFAIK, Hazelwood was still profitable and has been continually upgraded over the years; all coal fired power stations need continual maintenance and periodic upgrades due to the harsh processes which the equipment is subjected to.

It would have been better for the electricity supply and kinder to the local community to shut the station down in stages over several years, which was the original plan. There was no consultation with employees prior to the shutdown announcement so employees had no chance to plan for their financial future - not good corporate behavior. The decision to shutdown the plant was certainly made some months prior to the announcement but the bosses kept it quiet instead of giving the workers more time to plan.

Boilers have a set life span, that is directed by the number of cooling and warming cycles. At the end of life, this accelerates. They already have part of the station effectively off line (if not actually decommissioned).
It wouldn't matter what the company's drivers were, when it is not able to be adequately maintained any more, it's time to close.
Sounds pretty crappy about the employees though. Losing your job is a pretty harsh thing to go through. You tend to get this with foreign owned companies. They don't have the same sense of community engagement that the SEC did.

[casstony]

Ben, the boilers can and have been completely rebuilt. The turbines can and have been rebuilt as well. I worked at Hazelwood for a number of years and still know people who work there.
I'm all for transitioning away from coal, but in a progressive and responsible manner.

On a side note, I'm also unhappy with the decisions to stop car manufacturing in Australia; I'm sure an agreement could have been reached to keep it going and keep the jobs until our currency weakened. Our governments perform very poorly.

[The_bluester (Paul)]

The whispers I heard about Hazelwood were that the required maintenance was stacking up to a degree that made the place unviable through the future.

I think it says more that there is no apparent appetite among generators to build new coal fired capacity and that there is apparently little to no appetite in the finance industry to finance one than that a very old and obsolete power station is being retired instead of "Caught up" maintenance wise.

Who would invest in new coal power in the current environment (Both physical and regulatory) when you are talking about financing a 50 year asset?

Personally I think the days are numbered when it comes to "relocating" rivers to get at more coal.

Originally Posted by xelasnave

I agree. There is no better way to teach folk about energy consumption than to run off a battery bank... It is a bank, savings bank, where you must deposit before you withdraw.

I reckon another good way is for people to see and truly understand the size of the holes in the ground we have made in the name of "Cheap electricity"

[AstralTraveller (David)]

Originally Posted by The_bluester

I reckon another good way is for people to see and truly understand the size of the holes in the ground we have made in the name of "Cheap electricity"

Don't knock those holes in the ground. Where else will we put all that copious waste we generate with our rampant consumerism and planned obsolescence . In fact some holes generate more wealth for the owners from being filled by rubbish than they did from being excavated . And you can just imaging how that 'enriches' the local groundwater .

[The_bluester (Paul)]

The "Power holes" next to the Princes Freeway at Morwell boggle the mind. Imagining them filled with rubbish would be just as boggling!

In the current context of our parliaments, maybe they are handy. A snappy one liner from Wendy Harmer many years ago in some TV debate comes to mind. Compere (Or perhaps it was another panel member) asks "What is an ex politician good for" and quick as a flash Harmer shouted out "Landfill John, Landfill"

Perhaps we should not wait until some of the current crop retire (State or federal, take your pick)