pmccarthy

I was surprised to learn that Ireland is such a wind energy resource.

Same thing happened to me a decade earlier with a mainframe and the Melbourne cup.

A genealogist looks up the family tree. A gynecologist looks up the family bush.

Robert Redford?

If the Aeronca was a person it would be dyslexic too.

I have had balls dragging in the mud and I didn’t invent anything.

igonre the title. This is a really good explanation of how wind turbines work.

Great story Onetrack, thanks for brightening my morning.

Same thing happened to my wife. It took a lot of undoing.

Decommissioning a mine takes years to decades. There are hundreds of mines in Australia. A nuclear plant would be no different in the time required.

I agree nuclear will be only part of the mix (say 30% eventually). Then say 50% renewable (in 30-50 years from now) and 20% gas.

Keeping the nuclear power debate alive... 33 other countries have nuclear power Snowy 2.0 will take at least as long as a nuclear plant from inception to become operational Renewable energy is being subsidised through renewable energy certificates at about $3 billion a year Energy minister Chris Bowen says Labor's target will require 40 large wind type turbines every month and 22,000 solar panels every day for eight years plus 28,000 kilometres of new transmission lines The cost of the transmission lines alone will be $80 billion According to Labor at about $3 M each the wind turbines will cost about $12 billion The 4 million new 9 kW home solar systems will cost about $32 billion at $8000 each Together that's $44 billion to provide 54,000 megawatts of installed power which due to intermittency is only about 1/3 of that at any one time say 18,000 megawatts A Net Zero Australia study involving three universities says that the cost of going to renewables without nuclear is about $1.5 trillion by 2030 The cost of nuclear power looks quite good in comparison

I sent in for a free Julian Assange but didn't get one.

Thou darest to question that word?

I grew up in Broken Hill, where the town of 32,000 people and the mines were run entirely on diesel generators in three power stations. We could hear them humming at night. Trains full of diesel seemed to arrive every day. The town was not connected to the grid until 1986. Now it has a 53 MW solar farm.

I looked up the Yackandandah story. If the battery itself cost $200,000 as reported, then the installed cost would be around $300,000. It is a 274 kWH battery. It would keep ten houses going for a day, or 20 houses going for 12 hours. Yackandandah has 1800 people, say 450 houses, so a 12-hour supply would require 22.5 of those batteries at a cost of $6.75M. I guess it can be done but a diesel generator would keep going as long as you kept the fuel up to it.

Grid batteries last minutes not hours or half a day. They are for smoothing.

In Vic there are protest against power lines and offshore wind in particular, which have stalled development. I believe this is true in farming zones generally and hobby farms particularly and probably in the green part of Australia generally. To get anywhere near the renewable uptake needed to meet demand they will need to bring in draconian laws.

I generally agree with Octave. But the risk of not achieving solar+ wind as replacement for coal seems much greater than the risks associated with nuclear. If only because nuclear is the established technology used by most advanced countries, whereas what Australia Is trying to do for base load is a giant experiment. We can all have a view on its chance of success. I put it at about 5%. And Australia has more uranium than any other country, by a long shot.

I have been reading up on nuclear power. It is close to impossible to come up with a defensible argument about nuclear cost in Australia. The CSIRO report itself says “there may be no meaningful comparison that can be made between overseas nuclear electricity prices and the costs that Australia could be presented with in building new nuclear”. The time to build would be dominated by the delays in permitting and public protests, which could add a decade to any carefully estimated design and construction schedule. However, similar delays are likely to apply increasingly to the building of renewable grids and generating sites. In response to Octave’s earlier question, Dutton proposes seven nuclear plants. He says SA and WA will have small modular reactors only, with the other five getting either small reactors or larger-scale plants, depending on what is deemed to be "the best option". So, let’s assume four small-scale plants and three big ones. Small modular reactors are operating in China and Russia, though many western designs exist. They are typically 300 MW per unit, though of course several units can operate at a site. Large reactors are typically three times that size, say 1200 MW. So, Dutton’s plan might give us 4800 MW of capacity. Australia’s 273,106 GWH per year converts to a continuous average of 31,176 MWH. So, Dutton’s nuclear proposal would provide 15% of Australian electricity. However, as wind and solar may have less than 50% availability, the installed instantaneous capacity of these would need to be about 10,000 MW to replace the nuclear option. And even then, they would not provide base load which would have to come from coal and gas. The Federal government’s current target is to have 82% renewables by 2030. In 2022 this was estimated to require forty 7 MW wind turbines every month and 22,000 500W solar panels every day until 2030. As we are now well behind this build schedule and renewables are currently at 35% (2023) this is clearly not going to happen. The above is my own research and estimates. I hope you folks accept that it is fact-based and unbiased.

That’s what I was doing, high zinc. But my engine was fully rebuilt only a couple of thousand miles ago, so the synthetic is OK.

I just changed the engine and gearbox oils in my 1949 classic to fully synthetic. The engine now on 5-50 gets pressure up much quicker and has a much more stable pressure when driving. I did a lot of research before making the change. The gearbox should change smoother on synthetic but I haven't noticed any difference.

As a start I have looked at what our needs are. Next step after this will be to look at possible contributions from nuclear or other sources. A starting point is to look at current electrical energy consumption. Quoting from AEMO (Australian Energy Statistics, Table O Electricity generation by fuel type 2022-23 and 2023 | energy.gov.au ) Total electricity generation in Australia remained steady in 2023 with an estimated 273,106 gigawatt hours (GWh) generated. Renewable sources contributed an estimated 95,963 GWh, making up 35% of Australia’s total electricity generation, up 3 percentage points on the share in 2022. The largest source of renewable generation was solar (16% of total generation) followed by wind (12%) and hydro (6%). Fossil fuel sources contributed 177,142 GWh (65 per cent) of total electricity generation in 2023, down 3 percentage points on 2022. Coal accounted for the largest share of electricity generation, at 46% of total generation in 2023, down from 47% in 2022. These statistics cover all electricity generation in Australia, including by power plants and by businesses and households for their own use. So if the aim is to replace fossil fuel we need to replace 177,142 GWh or 65% of current production with something. But remember we are also replacing fossil transport fuel, switching from diesel and petrol to more electric. The ABS says ( Survey of Motor Vehicle Use, Australia, 12 Months ended 30 June 2020 | Australian Bureau of Statistics (abs.gov.au)) In total 33,019 megalitres of fuel were consumed, 49.0% petrol and 49.1% diesel, the relative usage of diesel has increased to be equal with petrol for the first time. 33,019 megalitres of fuel is only 3,900 GWH of electricity after considering thermal efficiency, so only about 2% of total energy needs. Perhaps we can ignore vehicle fuel in further discussion.

That is because Canada runs on hydro power. They don't call it electricity, they call it hydro. As in "our house is connected to the hydro," which just means the grid.

And by the way, how is Australia placed for supply?