Base load power

[strongmanmike (Michael)]

This thread is cool, after finally accepting a price on carbon is now a given and here to stay, we will all start to finally think seriously about what to move on too - hopefully it will be the catalyst we needed for finally making wide scale change and it doesn't get absorbed and forgotten about, time will tell I guess...

Mike

[multiweb (Marc)]

Originally Posted by strongmanmike

after finally accepting a price on carbon is now a given and here to stay

... read 'force fed' and I sure hope it's not going to stay. Another 2 yrs

[strongmanmike (Michael)]

Originally Posted by multiweb

... read 'force fed' and I sure hope it's not going to stay. Another 2 yrs

I know what you mean, and I agree ....but even with a change of government it is here to stay for more than 2 years, so real changes will maybe happen in the energy sector now..?

Mike

[multiweb (Marc)]

Originally Posted by strongmanmike

it is here to stay for more than 2 years, so real changes will maybe happen in the energy sector now..?

Changes are driven by R&D, technology and markets. Not taxes. But as you say the ball's rolling now. Time will tell. Interesting times ahead indeed.

[strongmanmike (Michael)]

Originally Posted by multiweb

Changes are driven by R&D, technology and markets. Not taxes. But as you say the ball's rolling now. Time will tell. Interesting times ahead indeed.

And that's what is being attempted with this approach - a price on carbon to be followed by a trading (market) based sustem, so all is not lost from your perepective Marc . With a hostile Senate the new government will have a hard time changing the legislation (read impossible) so it needs to be in place early to align with this eventuality.

Mike

[multiweb (Marc)]

Originally Posted by strongmanmike

And that's what is being attempted with this approach - a price on carbon to be followed by a trading (market) based sustem, so all is not lost from your perepective Marc . With a hostile Senate the new government will have a hard time changing the legislation (read impossible) so it needs to be in place early to align with this eventuality.

Mike

The major flaw in all this is that we're in a global market and a lot of other countries, with a much higher carbon footprint don't adhere to what we're doing. So it won't make a difference. They don't play by the same rules. Do you know where the money is going? The UN?

[Hagar (Doug)]

With a trading based system the only change will be an ever increasing upward move in the price of carbon. When all is said and done the real cost will be carried by the consumer and not by the companies involved in producing the goods. A trading scheme will only lead to further price manipulation overall.

When the electricity system was privatised the government of the day implemented a hedging system to regulate energy prices until the full implementation of a free trading market. In those days the market price of electricity was capped at $10000 per MWHr and the average price for electricity was around $15 per MWHr. With free trade and price manipulation by all the electricity companies the max price is now capped at $12500 with the average price at around $35. Forward trading on electricity for the summer quarter is running at around $45.
Previous governments implemented a scheme of Renewable energy certificates which is not dissimilar to the Carbon offsets being discussed here. The scheme didn't work, was costly to maintain and oversee and in real terms meant very little to any Electricity provider. Any costs were just passed on to you and me while electricity company profits rose by 40%. Funny that.
The big difference between the REC system and a carbon tax was that the REC's were just held in company and were not administered by Government while a carbon tax will be a Gov based system with taxes and payments going to Government.

Call it what you like it is but another tax we as consumers will have to pay in the end.

You can rest assured China will not pay any more for coal or minerals and any price discrepancy will be absorbed by a local market. They will not slow their growth by imposing a tax such as this and again Australia will be seen as a world leader, market leader in carbon control because we won't be able to afford to produce anything for sale in the world markets.

These third world countries will step over Australia in the rush to be inovative and creative while we ponder the costs of research and development. A small hand out after the tax has been paid by us will never lead to inovation just a trip offshore.

As for a hostile Senate. They come up for election like every other polly in the country and with time for people to understand the costs and lack of benifits of another tax, they probably should enjoy their time in office as it may well be their last. To have minor parties contrlling Government is the biggest mistake we or a sitting Government can have to live up to.

I wish them all luck, they are going to need it. Moderation is the key to good government and a small minority with power is far from moderation.

Enough said. Sorry for rambling on but I have seen it all before. I have a good friend who is an Ex Fed Senator who was as green as they come and he can't believe it either. And yes he was a Labour senator who left the labour party and went independant because the Labour party wasn't green enough for him.

[AdrianF (Adrian)]

Anyone hear about the Solar-Thermal power plant being built in Chinchilla?

Adrian

[Zaps]

Energy consumers are quick to blame energy producers for not sufficiently increasing generating capacity, but energy consumers can be criticized for their steadfast refusal to reduce their energy consumption. IMO.

[renormalised (Carl)]

Originally Posted by Zaps

Energy consumers are quick to blame energy producers for not sufficiently increasing generating capacity, but energy consumers can be criticized for their steadfast refusal to reduce their energy consumption. IMO.

That is also a valid point. It's not just the big companies who are at fault, it's also those that use (or more likely abuse) the energy.

[Peter Ward]

Originally Posted by Kal

Do you have a link to this or is this just personal speculation?

In the government's own report from 2010 they show that coal made up 72% of Australian electricity production in 2007-08 and this is projected to fall to 43% in 2029-30.

Also, the answers you seek are pretty much contained in that pdf. Alot of new capacity will come from natural gas fired plants, with renewables doubling in capacity over the next two decades.

Closure of coal fired plants has been widely reported.... one such example

http://www.theage.com.au/environment...skin=text-only

As for the government's report... I have a healthy distrust of most government sponsored reports and modeling. For example, the NSW RTA cocked-up projected traffic flows along the M5 east by a factor of 17x.
20% may be, even a factor of two you could forgive, but, over an order of magnitude and then some??

If I made a similar error, say in fuel estimates for my job, a LAX-SYD flight would come to an abrupt end just past the LA coast....

[Kal (Andrew)]

Originally Posted by Hagar

You can rest assured China will not pay any more for coal or minerals and any price discrepancy will be absorbed by a local market. They will not slow their growth by imposing a tax such as this and again Australia will be seen as a world leader, market leader in carbon control because we won't be able to afford to produce anything for sale in the world markets.

This is a good point. What good does it do to impose a carbon tax on Australian industries that consume coal/gas etc but the stuff we export, which is greater than what we consume, has no price associated with it?

Australian coal consumption 2008 - 145 million metric tonnes
Australian coal exports 2008 - 398 million metric tonnes

[midnight (Darrin)]

We've just finished bulding a new 2x230MW coal fired plant here in WA.

One needs to remember :
1. Coal fired - fuel can be stockpiled which increases supply security by at least an order of magnitude. You can't do that with gas.
2. Coal fired generation is electrically very stable and provides the Grid with the stability it needs. Most wind turbines need a synchronous generator on the grid to even work.
4. Coal is proven, safe and stable.
3. Wind and solar are inherently noisy from a wattage point of view. There is no strict grid connection requirement for small machines so there is no voltage/frequency biasing to prevent instabilities.

I think the future (20-50yrs) is in reducing coal fired (and still build new coal fired but using supercritical technology and not subcritical at the moment) and the rest made up of distributed renewables concentrating on solar and wind with the technology CSIRO are doing with short term "battery" storage to smooth out the fluctuations generated by wind. This has big potential in providing grid stable renewable generation and then would allow us to concentrate on a fair dinkum long term alternative (reliable and cost effective) to send coal to the museum exhibits after say 2050.

But personally, I believe deforestation is the single biggest short term impact on our climate - not CO2 which is why I think our politicians are barking up the wrong tree. It has a direct and immediate impact on temperature and altering humidity much more harshly than CO2.

Darrin...

[Trixie (Carey)]

Originally Posted by kinetic

Peter,

I believe, for South Australia at least, our two principal base load
coal fired power stations (about 40% of SAs base load) are
possibly going to be converted to gas. At a huge cost of course.
I was dumbfounded to hear the cost actually!
All still subject to feasibility studies etc.
The alternative to doing the changeover is of course to shut them
down, which will overnight make places like Leigh Creek a ghost town
and thousands of job losses at the plants etc.

Steve

Leigh Creek is already pretty much a ghost town.... Back when I was working there half the accommodation was empty. Admittedly that was about ten years ago so things might have changed but it used to only supply the Pt Augusta power station which is purpose built to use the coal (low grade) produced at LC mine. In the case of the Pt Augusta power station I believe it is getting pretty old so we are due for a new power station.

I see gas as an important player, at least until a better, greener baseload alternative becomes possible for Australia. This would especially be the case for places like SA where the low populations make things like new gen nuclear not economically viable.

I am not at all keen on nuclear in any form. I think in Australia there are plenty of better alternatives and hope that the decision to phase out coal power will stimulate some new and exciting ideas for power generation. Of course renewable energy will mean I will be out of a job so I hope it will be cheap

[AndrewJ]

Gday Mike

And that's what is being attempted with this approach - a price on carbon to be followed by a trading (market) based system

Whilst i believe humans are a big part of the overall problem,
i really fear a "trading" system as the means of recovery.
Traders effectively brought down Barings and Lehmans and other banks,
and traders are "probably" behind the current collapse of sovereign countries.
They basically do nothing constructive other than gamble other peoples money and trim fees off as part of the process.
I see a carbon based trading scheme as the next "no docs" loans
system, generated to ensure that when the dust settles
only the traders will be able to afford petrol for their porsches.
Unless population control is brought into the mix
( wonder which party has the guts to do that )
its all irrelevant.

Andrew

All for saving the planet, but not by this method.

[qld]

Originally Posted by AndrewJ

Gday Mike



Whilst i believe humans are a big part of the overall problem,
i really fear a "trading" system as the means of recovery.
Traders effectively brought down Barings and Lehmans and other banks,
and traders are "probably" behind the current collapse of sovereign countries.
They basically do nothing constructive other than gamble other peoples money and trim fees off as part of the process.
I see a carbon based trading scheme as the next "no docs" loans
system, generated to ensure that when the dust settles
only the traders will be able to afford petrol for their porsches.
Unless population control is brought into the mix
( wonder which party has the guts to do that )
its all irrelevant.

Andrew

All for saving the planet, but not by this method.

i hope all the ladies out there who wish to save the planet by getting rid of all that nasty filthy polutting carbon immediately surrender all their diamonds at the Carbon/Diamond exchange center nearest their capitol city or the one im that im setting up in Switzerland ...as John Simonds (Aussie home loans)says " I'll save you "

[Peter Ward]

Looking at the posts thus far, seems there is no viable base load projects being done. "renewables" taking on around half of the national grid sounds like green fairy dust to me.

Thermal solar could be quite attractive, but again work would need to be starting now. It isn't. Begging the question, how will a 24/7 base load renewable power grid operate within a decade when there are so few options based on mature technologies and no major works being started for semi green alternatives? (eg gas )

[multiweb (Marc)]

Originally Posted by midnight

But personally, I believe deforestation is the single biggest short term impact on our climate - not CO2 which is why I think our politicians are barking up the wrong tree. It has a direct and immediate impact on temperature and altering humidity much more harshly than CO2.

I tend to agree with that too. We need to plant a lot more trees and in a clever way. Not too close together because we're prone to fires but making lines of trees in plain open areas would stop the wind from drying everything out and retain some moisture. Everytime I drive to Ilford I can't help thinking that all those open plains up to mudgee should be broken down in smaller units. It looks like a big yellow tundra at the moment.

[Peter Ward]

Seems I am not the only one who is questioning the viability of alternative base load generation. Victoria's Hazelwood plant is being mooted for closure or gas conversion..... With the Melbourne Age reporting:

''If it is a gas-fired power station, there are a number of questions the Gillard government needs to answer, including where will the gas come from, how much it will it cost, what additional infrastructure will need to be built and who will pay for that.''

NSW has just upped the peak kw hour tarrif to around $0.43 .... I suspect we haven't seen anything yet...as that is cheap compared to current renewables.

[Terry B]

Originally Posted by supernova1965

If I knew that I would be a Billionaire, but I suspect it will be a compination of technology to replace it if successive generations had looked to the future we wouldn't be in the spot we are in. I suspect that hot rocks, Solar, Wind are a good bet people say that these except maybe for hot rocks are not capable of providing base load power. But that is not strictly true you can provide base load with renewables like solar and wind because you use these to make Hydrogen and burn this for power generation and for fueling our cars. And the only thing that is released when you burn Hydrogen is water.

Hydrogen has lots of problems as well. It is explosive at any concentration between 10% and 90% in air and burns essentially without a visible flame. As you know it is a tiny molecule and is very difficult to maintain good seals in pipes etc thus leading to the explosion problem mentioned above. The Kj per kg is not as high as other fuels used in cars so more needs to be carried. All these problems can be resolved but are expensive.