Base load power

[Barrykgerdes]

Originally Posted by multiweb

Gas is the next petrol. There's a lot of it world-wide.

With polititions like ours it will be inexhaustable

Barry

[multiweb (Marc)]

Originally Posted by Barrykgerdes

With polititions like ours it will be inexhaustable

Barry

Untapped resources indeed. Food for thought.

[Jeffkop (Jeff)]

Originally Posted by multiweb

Untapped resources indeed. Food for thought.

Only problem is ... its not renewable fellas

[renormalised (Carl)]

Originally Posted by Jeffkop

Only problem is ... its not renewable fellas

Yes it is, every vote time

[CDKPhil]

I heard of a engineering firm in Adelaide that was working on a natural gas turbine generator for home use. Not sure if it was burning the gas to create steam or if it was burning it direct into a turbine. From what I heard it was very efficient and would be cost effective against solar, it also had the plus of providing base load. A natural gas powered generator for your home. If you put your mind to it it would not be hard to make one for your self.

cheers
Phil

[multiweb (Marc)]

Originally Posted by CDKPhil

I heard of a engineering firm in Adelaide that was working on a natural gas turbine generator for home use. Not sure if it was burning the gas to create steam or if it was burning it direct into a turbine. From what I heard it was very efficient and would be cost effective against solar, it also had the plus of providing base load. A natural gas powered generator for your home. If you put your mind to it it would not be hard to make one for your self.

cheers
Phil

I reckon gas has a big future. Much easier to extract, cleaner to burn. The US have been drilling all over Alaska and Canada in the recent years, getting ready. Drill->Reach->Plug->Next. No more no less. All ready to build a production plant on top when need arises. Do we have much natural gas in Oz?

[renormalised (Carl)]

Originally Posted by CDKPhil

I heard of a engineering firm in Adelaide that was working on a natural gas turbine generator for home use. Not sure if it was burning the gas to create steam or if it was burning it direct into a turbine. From what I heard it was very efficient and would be cost effective against solar, it also had the plus of providing base load. A natural gas powered generator for your home. If you put your mind to it it would not be hard to make one for your self.

cheers
Phil

Jet engine in your backyard...does it come with afterburner??!!!

[renormalised (Carl)]

Originally Posted by multiweb

I reckon gas has a big future. Much easier to extract, cleaner to burn. The US have been drilling all over Alaska and Canada in the recent years, getting ready. Drill->Reach->Plug->Next. No more no less. All ready to build a production plant on top when need arises. Do we have much natural gas in Oz?

Heaps of the stuff...some of the largest gas fields on the planet.

[CDKPhil]

Originally Posted by multiweb

Do we have much natural gas in Oz?

yeah I think we do in South Australia, in the Moomba gas fields. We export it to china for about 5c a litre, or something like that.

Phil

[BPO]

WhisperGen.

The model they are focused upon is the natural gas-powered gen for the European market. The company used to manufacture a DC version for off-grid applications, but I got the feeling they regretted doing so, and in fact are now using the Christchurch earthquake as a pretext for discontinuing that model. Bit of a shame, as I was quite keen to get hold of one or three.

[CDKPhil]

Originally Posted by renormalised

Jet engine in your backyard...does it come with afterburner??!!!

yeah and a muffler

[multiweb (Marc)]

Originally Posted by CDKPhil

yeah I think we do in South Australia, in the Moomba gas fields. We export it to china for about 5c a litre, or something like that.

Phil

Man... we're idiots

[CDKPhil]

Originally Posted by BPO

WhisperGen.

The model they are focused upon is the natural gas-powered gen for the European market. The company used to manufacture a DC version for off-grid applications, but I got the feeling they regretted doing so, and in fact are now using the Christchurch earthquake as a pretext for discontinuing that model. Bit of a shame, as I was quite keen to get hold of one or three.

I would like one too.

[Barrykgerdes]

What do you get when you burn natural gas?
What to you get when you burn coal?
for a given thermal efficiency output. The production of CO2 is not that much different. Not that CO2 is any real problem because it gets recycled into vegetable matter. The hotter and wetter the climate the better it works. It's the other by-products of combustion that are the real problem.

Barry

[Paul Haese]

Nuclear my vote. Here in SA we have probably the biggest wind farms, a progressive solar up take, but this cannot be used as base load. Hot rocks will not be viable for at least 5-10 years according to a report I saw last week.

Two of SA's power stations are being closed down but it was not stated what is replacing them. I agree with Carl on page one where he stated, if you close something down it has to replaced with something immediately. I am not going to be happy with brown outs again, just because some pollie wants to close down a power plant to make a difference instantly to our CO2 output.

Action not words as I have said before.

[tlgerdes (Trevor)]

Originally Posted by BPO

WhisperGen.

The model they are focused upon is the natural gas-powered gen for the European market. The company used to manufacture a DC version for off-grid applications, but I got the feeling they regretted doing so, and in fact are now using the Christchurch earthquake as a pretext for discontinuing that model. Bit of a shame, as I was quite keen to get hold of one or three.

Bluegen is another one. EnergyAustralia/Ausgrid have one installed in their showcase house in Newington NSW

[marki]

Plenty of LNG in the NW of WA too but if you want it to be renewable well thats not too hard. Just feed me beans and I will give you all the gas you can handle .

Mark

[Hagar (Doug)]

I don't know what the answer is or will be for energy generation into the future. Working in this industry I can't honestly see any major moves by any of the current companies to step into anything new which is yet to be proven elsewhere first.
In the last few years there has been a big swing into wind generation but this has it's problems and somehow the technical workings of these turbines is still quite basic without any huge inovations. It does well while the wind is blowing but suffers when the wind dies.
The infrastructure to get the power from these farms is also very lacking, particularly in SA. The population base in most states is very centralised around our major cities and outside this area the transmission network is very basic.
I hate to think of the ramifications of several very hot days in a row in all 4 Eastern states with the shutdown of any of the coal fired stations which are currently in operation.

The thought of a fission based power station of any kind would be howled down by 90% of Australians even if it was some new or improved process. The education required would be the demise of more than one Government I'm sure and would probably see us governed by the some extremist group of some kind.

I don't know what the answer is but just fail to see what shutting down power stations will do other than insight fear in the population on every hot day during our summer. Energy companies will also suffer during these periods, big time.

[stanlite (Grady)]

thorium reactors can be used to produce Hydrogen gas which is probably the only long term viable fuel source for cars (particularly since lithium supplies are predicted to only last another 25 years) can someone please get working on cold fusion please lol

[Jeffkop (Jeff)]

I think we can safely say the country has got con-fusion sorted out !!!!