Thread: ABC Four Corners on Renewable Energy.

Originally Posted by DoubleChevron

I simply cannot understand solar and wind. No matter how reliable and efficient it is ... It can't provide power 24x7, so why invest such staggering sums of $$$ into it .... Storage ?? You must be kidding... We'd need a battery the size of the moon to charge for the hours without daylight.

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seeya,
Shane L.

So the Apple example it is not enough for you?
I guess that your position is based in ideology by finishing your posts, quote: It's just not economically feasable, no matter how much the greenies jump around saying how evil it is.

Originally Posted by Rurover

Shane,
<snip>
We should also consider much wider use of another renewable source...biomass. In Europe, many communities generate base load power using tree thinnings, forest waste, agricultural straw, dried livestock dung and combustible components from domestic and commercial waste streams.
We could and should be doing the same thing.

Alan

For those who don't fully understand, biomass is growing trees, chipping them and then burning them.

While the growing of trees absorbs CO2 the trimming, felling, chipping, transporting and burning releases more CO2 than was absorbed.

The other source of biomass is waste products from places like furnature manufacture and timber mills. If we still had any of those, the burning still releases CO2.

So while it is a renewable energy it is not carbon neutral.

Originally Posted by DoubleChevron

Our power bill is so bloody expensive because we are paying for all the poeple that installed solar and heavily subsidize them. It's us poor suckers now paying tremendous amounts for power so the people with panels on there roofs with excellent "feed in" tariffs can get "there power for free".

The 4 Corners report refuted that. The report stated prices have risen significantly to pay for the infrastructure, i.e., poles and wires, to transport what was expected to be an increase in electricity demand, where, in fact, demand has fallen.

Originally Posted by DoubleChevron

I simply cannot understand solar and wind. No matter how reliable and efficient it is ... It can't provide power 24x7, so why invest such staggering sums of $$$ into it .... Storage ?? You must be kidding... We'd need a battery the size of the moon to charge for the hours without daylight.<snip>

I never knew that the wind only blew during the daytime?

When talking about solar, the comment about batteries is true for photovoltaic generation, but demonstrably untrue about solar-thermal which stores excess heat in molten salt during the day and the retained heat used to create steam to turn the turbines for power generation at night.

Originally Posted by DoubleChevron

<snip> Our power bill is so bloody expensive because we are paying for all the poeple that installed solar and heavily subsidize them. It's us poor suckers now paying tremendous amounts for power so the people with panels on there roofs with excellent "feed in" tariffs can get "there power for free"....<snip>

Only a small percentage of the households with solar panels get "excellent feed in tarrifs" most people only get a reduction in their kW usage by the kW they feed in.

Originally Posted by DoubleChevron

<snip> We have lots of wind turbines near us.... Sure there pretty and all, but they generate crazy little power given the cost of installing the infrastructure.... and if the wind stops they need a 100% capacity backup.

Get it ?? Why invest staggering amounts of money into something that requires 100% capacity from alternate power sources. ...<snip>

It is unlikely that there will be an absence of wind simultaneously with an absence of sun (during daytime peak consumption periods) across the entire electricity grid, so while there needs to be an excess of wind/solar capacity to cope with demand, the 100% backup is a furphy.

Originally Posted by DoubleChevron

<snip>
Geothermal is the only way ahead from what I can see (or possibly wave generators ... just look at Australia population.... the majority of it is within a couple of hundred km of the beach ). It would have to be a very distributed power industy with many small generators though.

I can't see australia moving away from coal power for many decades. It's just not economically feasable, no matter how much the greenies jump around saying how evil it is.

seeya,
Shane L.

Agree with this last statements, but you have neglected to include tidal and wave power generation. Tidal flow will occur every day the Moon exists and continues to orbit the Earth.

Originally Posted by Chucaro

So the Apple example it is not enough for you?
I guess that your position is based in ideology by finishing your posts, quote: It's just not economically feasable, no matter how much the greenies jump around saying how evil it is.

I'm serious. Say tomorrow they invented the perfect polllution free power plant. How many decades would it take to roll them out (regardless of cost).

That waubra wind farm just near us ... it's taken a lot of years to build and claimed maximum is 192MegaWatts if the wind is blowing hard enough. (I have no idea if it ever generates this).

Those Loy Yang power stations generate 3250Mwatts alone .... How on earth can we replace that sort of capacity for any sort of affordable amount, no matter what type of power station it is...

So to generate that sort of power from those 1.5Mwatt wind turbines ... You would need 2167 wind turbines to generate that .... that's if the wind is blowing...(so you would still need a 100% capacity alternate power supply)

However I just looked at the wind watch org website, the real life figure are those windmills are only 15 -> 30% efficient. So lets derate to the maximum efficiency... so 0.45MW from the 1.5MWatt turbines ... so you would need 7222 windmills to match the capacity of Loy Yang ...... as long as the wind doesn't stop blowing ......

Get the idea of where I'm coming from ?? The capacity of those old dinosaurs is HUGE.

How could the australian economy afford replacing them with any sort of "greeny" type infrastructure in any sort of time frame that isn't decades away

We can work towards something, but I personally think it should be something like geothermal or tidal... It's something that needs to be "always on", not weather/season depedant.

seeya,
Shane L.

We already have systems designed to allow storage and release of energy, designs that could be used for solar. Look at what they do at Kangaroo Valley and Bendeela power stations. The stations have the ability to pump water up using excess energy and then generate power when loads are high. A design that could be used as power storage also.

Originally Posted by DoubleChevron

It's something that needs to be "always on", not weather/season depedant.

seeya,
Shane L.

I disagree. We need to take advantage of the benefits, even if its not perfect. We also cant keen consuming dirty energy the way we are.

Originally Posted by p38arover

...
The last time I discussed solar with was about 15-20 years ago and he was of the opinion (then) that solar, if I recall correctly, didn't give a lot of power for the area occupied by panels.

Obviously, a lot has changed in the intervening years.

Yes, a lot... (click on link to see map with red squares)

The red squares represent the area that would be enough for solar power plants to produce a quantity of electricity consumed by the world today, in Europe (EU-25) and Germany (De). (Data provided by the German Aerospace Centre (DLR), 2005)

Theoretical space needed for solar power plants to generate sufficient electric power in order to meet the electricity demand of the World, Europe (EU-25) and Germany (De) respectively. (Data by the German Center of Aerospace (DLR), 2005)

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