Thread: Big storm and no power in SA

We are swimming in gas. There isn't a shortage. We just have to be prepared either to quarantine enough for domestic uses or to pay world prices, which are set by movements in the price of oil.

AGL proposes to shut down its Liddell Coal power station in 2022 and replace it with a range of solutions including renewables, storage, synchronous condensers and gas peakers.

AGL announces plans for Liddell Power Station | AGL

Other coal plants will be retired too when suitable replacement power supplies have been built. N.B. South Australia (the subject of this thread) didn't have any major outages due to shortage of supply or catastrophic storm damage in the last year, so the loss of its sole coal plant isn't a big deal.

Why is it that nuclear power seems to be a dirty word in this thread when we have an abundance of uranium and the remote locations to put the power plants.
Yes renewables are great But they are Not a completely reliable source of electricity, Nuclear power IS a reliable source of power and it is Far Far cleaner than coal or even gas fired power stations.

Originally Posted by trout1105

Why is it that nuclear power seems to be a dirty word in this thread when we have an abundance of uranium and the remote locations to put the power plants.
Yes renewables are great But they are Not a completely reliable source of electricity, Nuclear power IS a reliable source of power and it is Far Far cleaner than coal or even gas fired power stations.

Nuclear is a possibility once it gets over the cost disadvantage of new build plants. Currently it's simply too expensive for a market like Australia's. That may change if someone works out how to mass produce cheap and safe modular plants. They may even be ship based and cruise around the planet to fill seasonal shortages. As far as reliability is concerned, they still have outages due to maintenance and accessory break downs, certainly not 100% reliable.

Meanwhile, this country won't run out of land suited to put solar and wind farms on, unlike densely populated countries to our north. Storage and electricity-to-synthetic-fuel options are endless. Exporting hydrolysed hydrogen is just one plan in the pipeline.

Oh and nuclear power (or the lack of it) didn't cause the outage that is the subject of this thread.

Wind power overtakes nuclear for first time in UK across a quarter

Wind power overtakes nuclear for first time in UK across a quarter | Environment | The Guardian

Originally Posted by bee utey

Good thing that there are competent people running the grid, so that when a supply unit craps itself there's usually enough reserve supply to replace it.

just not on the 28 September 2016

Originally Posted by Eevo

just not on the 28 September 2016

I think it was a little bit difficult to get the power down the line with towers on the ground due to the storm.

Originally Posted by trout1105

I think it was a little bit difficult to get the power down the line with towers on the ground due to the storm.

sure, and anything north of the mid north should of lost power, nothing soouth of the mid north as thats where all the lines were fine and all the non wind plants were fine.


the grid should not have collapsed that night, but thanks to wind power and its immaturity, it did collapse.