Today’s Fin has a leader arguing that we should be laying the ground for a move to nuclear power. It’s commendably realistic about the long time lags involved, and argues we should get started on preparations now. My view is that it would be better to wait and see if the US makes progress on its (currently faltering) attempts to revive the industry there. But the thing that really got me going was the repetition of the claim that alternative energy sources are problematic because they can’t meet “baseload power demand”.
I’ve said before that this claim is wrong, but I think it’s time to sharpen my position, and state two claims:
*There is no relevant sense in which baseload power demand is a meaningful concept in our current electricity supply system.
*Any electricity supply system likely to exist in the next 40 years and capable of meeting peak power demand will have no problems meeting baseload demand.
The first point may seem paradoxical, but the reasoning is quite straightforward. Our current electricity system is based primarily on coal-fired power stations which cannot be turned on and off at short notice. So, generating power during times of peak demand (daytime) entails generating power during off-peak times, even if there is no demand for that power at a price that covers average costs. That is, we have a baseload supply, which easily exceeds the demand for off-peak power at average cost, and sometimes even at fuel cost. The result, as we observe, is that off-peak power must be heavily discounted, and even so, demand is barely enough to keep the turbines turning.
To consider any meaningful notion of baseload demand, we could do a bottom-up analysis, and consider how much of electricity demand corresponds to the notion of a continuous, stable 24/7 demand. In the average household, for example, this would include the fridge and those ‘vampire’ appliances that are left on standby all the time. In addition, of course, lots of households have off-peak hot water, but this is only because of the price incentives designed to get rid of the excess baseload supply. The same points apply to offices and a most industrial uses (including some that operate at night to take advantage of cheap power, even though other costs are higher). There are only a few continuous processes like aluminium smelting that really constitute baseload demand in the strict sense. Of course, there are off-peak demands that don’t constitute baseload in the strict sense, like people watching TV at 3am, but there’s no reason to think that such demands are large.
To get a quantitative handle, we can use the following analysis: currently off peak prices are about half of daytime prices, and offpeak demand is about half of daytime demand (illustrative numbers only, will fix). If we didn’t discount offpeak electricity, it seems likely that offpeak demand would be around a quarter of daytime demand.
So, as long as 25 per cent of supply is generated by baseload suppliers like coal, oil, geothermal and nuclear, our main problem will be one of excess baseload supply, as at present. We’re unlikely to reach that point for some decades. But even then, the offpeak demand could be met by reliable sources that are independent of time of day, most obviously gas and hydro. In that case, standard principles of marginal cost pricing would suggest that there should be no off-peak discount. In such a system, the baseload sources would be used optimally, rather than generating excess low-value electricity as at present.
A baseload demand problem would only emerge in a system reliant almost entirely (more than 75 per cent) on solar electricity. And, even if such a problem emerged, it could be dealt with exactly as we deal with our current problem of excess baseload supply, by changing relative prices.
I haven’t dealt with the separate problem of supply variability from solar and wind (hint: the answer has to do with prices, as before). But, in our current circumstances, and as regards marginal increments to the system, the far bigger problem is that of supply invariability. It is a positive disadvantage for nuclear that it generates power 24 hours a day rather than solely during the daytime. Much of that power, and the fuel used to generate it, is effectively wasted.
John Quiggin 
Baseload demand may be somewhat mythical but claiming a need for most power sources to be either continuous in output (like coal) or else controllable in output (like hydro) seems reasonably sound. Whilst some demand can be readily defered from day to night or vise versa it isn’t so straight forward to defer demand from less windy weeks to more windy weeks.
If the future electricity sources are going to be more variable it seems odd that the federal government is subsidising a move away from electric water heaters. The controllable nature of these loads seems like an ideal away to help manage demand.
Geothermal energy (eg that proposed being trialed by Geodynamics in the Cooper Basin) would provide baseload style supply. And it certainly seems that this would be a heck of a lot cheaper than photovoltaics.
As I point out in the article, controllable is good. Continuous (which implies uncontrollable) is not so good.
Solar power produced by concantrating the heat to drive turbines can produce electicity well into the night.
See:
http://www.desertec-australia.org/content/concentratingsolarpower.html
The trick is to store the heat in isolated containers and draw on it during the night.
I can’t judge the claims of the proponents of the scheme, but they claim it is economically feasible.
Greetings
Surely the claim that “baseload power demand” is a myth is, in fact, a hypothesis that needs to be proved?
Ditto “Our current electricity system is based primarily on coal-fired power stations which cannot be turned on and off at short notice.”
It is the turbines that generate the power and the source can be coal or gas or nuclear or whatever you like.
The problem with solar etc is that they cant “meet the demand”, the demand will have to light candles or whatever until the clouds disperse.
I’m a fan of the solar convection tower concept myself. However, I’ve posted on that topic in the past.
If only we would adopt a simple carbon tax whilst at the same time phasing out all fuel and power generation subsidies. The resultant undistorted market would give us a sustainable energy mix. But, oops I’ve posted on that too.
The corporates will ignore us and burn all the coal anyway. Oops, said that too.
You might also conseder john, more load-sensitive technologies such as pumped storage (ben cruachan in Scotland for example) which can bridge the power slews in a modenr power supply system.
A useful and detailed discussion of the issues you raise is to be found here (in a UK context)
http://www.withouthotair.com
Fran
@Ikonoclast
Personally, I believe a cap and trade system offers more than a tax provided the structures are right, though I could certainly live with a tax as an interim measure if the structures were right and it didn;t underprice carbon emissions. The trouble is that a tax in practice is simply a soft option, since politically taxes are less defencible than assets such as carbon certificates.
Let’s face it, once carbon emission becomes securitised, business will be wedged on policy, whereas with taxes, everyone can be seen as against them.
“Baseload” and “baseload demand” are somewhat different concepts. Baseload is the minimum continuous amount of power required in a serviced region over a typical 24 hour period. On any given day, it’s a trivial fact that baseload equals baseload demand. However, for the long haul, “baseload demand” is a more elastic concept.
I’m sure that JQ was not saying baseload power (per se) is a myth but rather that baseload DEMAND as it exists under our current system is not an immutable fact but an artefact, to some extent, of pricing systems created to suit coal-fired generation. The baseload requirement is an empirical fact but it is an outcome of a complex system. In practice it is partly determined by “intrinsic demand” and partly determined or modified by pricing decisions meant to “smooth” demand to some extent. Other factors will play their roles also.
I think JQ was saying the current baseload DEMAND argument used as a justification for large baseload plants (coal, nuclear etc) is a myth. A baseload standard that is at least partially an artefact of the current system (generation methods and pricing methods to suit those generation methods) is being held up as a fundamental precondition which all systems must meet.
To reply to Fran Barlow on “cap and trade”. A cap and trade system for carbon dioxide emissions is (in one sense) merely a tax at one remove. Instead of taxing directly, the government requires producers to pay a licencing fee for permits to pollute. It then allows these permits to be traded creating an artificial trade in a negative externality that affects a commons.
Of course, trade in negative externalities is possible (and economically logical) when a negative externality (the trash on my property for example) directly affects private amenity and the proprieter is prepared to pay to have the trash removed. But trade in negative externalities which affect a commons makes no sense at all.
There is no economically “rational” way to price such a trade so it is still priced by legislation, corporate lobbying, corporate swindling (I say that advisedly), sweet heart deals, political patronage etc etc. However, it is then “put out to market” in a kind of financial “laundering” fashion so that it comes out whiter than white and can strut around in its fraudulent free market frills.
The “cap” in cap and trade is clarly a TOTAL LIE and I can back that claim if you wish. Read the relevant government papers and note the numerous “get-out” clauses for national government and corporations. The cap is totally illusory, all smoke and mirrors. Cap and trade equals business as usual.
The above is an iron-clad case to anyone who applies the correct amounts of logic and justified wordly cyncism. It is simpler and more honest to price CO2 emissions by taxation using a sliding formula (continually amended by feedback of actual system outcomes) to reach zero net emissions by say 2050. I have not found anyone who can effectively refute my arguments on this issue.
With respect, what you have forgotten in this analysis is that even baseload plants, which are designed to run 24/7, must be taken down for maintenance sometime. This is usually done in the seasonal off peak periods. The implication of courese is the need for baseload capacity higher than the 25% figure.
I suggest you may want to speak to a utility engineer with experience in running a power system.
I note that estimates of energy savings from smart meters range from 2-20% suggesting that households are not as flexible in their electricity demand as we think. When it has rained for a week you may have no option but to use the tumble dryer. Strictly speaking baseload capacity should be a lower limit which is always needed, say 40% of peak. A bugbear of wind and solar is the need for standby fossil fuelled (usually gas) plant to make up for lulls in output. Systems which oblige electricity retailers to purchase available renewables may force some coal plant into less optimal part load.
A heralded advantage of 4th generation nuclear is variable output as well as lower capital cost and minimal waste. Note that wind and solar may both perform poorly when it is calm and cloudy. Baseload doesn’t need backing up with a large ‘shadow’ capacity. A recent UK report concluded that overbuilding of wind capacity and building extra transmission line could be twice as expensive as equivalent output nuclear. Sure wind is quicker to build but I’m not sure in Australia the current build rate is a high as in the later Howard years. In my opinion Australia should aim for some 20 gigawatts of base or intermediate load nuclear power as soon as possible. A number of decrepit or highly polluting coal fired power stations should be demolished never to be replaced.
I’m totally with you JQ. I’m a bit tired of seeing people use the expression ‘baseload’ in debates on the merits of renewable energy, when they clearly haven’t an understanding of what it means.
Our energy system needs multiple kinds of generation: baseload to provide 24/7 loads at lowest cost, peak load, to respond to rapid changes in demand and keep everything balanced, and ‘green load’, to reduce the emissions intensity of the grid overall.
An idea Ive seen for replacement of off-peak hot water: electric vehicle battery recharging.
DDelay: seems like you are mixing the idea of reserve capacity in with the idea of baseload, in a confounding sort of way.
With the projected electrification of our transport, there could be much more demand for baseload power such as for charging batteries off peak. A future smart system utilizing the storage capacity of millions of vehicles could see the difference between peak and off peak reduced.
Everything I could find on the LFTR suggests it can be quickly started and stopped, meaning this type of nuclear power will be much more flexible anyway than what we currently know as base load. If Australia is going to go nuclear it should go directly to this type of 4th gen reactor IMHO.
Interesting post.
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The idea that the shape of the load curve is a function of price makes sense. And so does the idea that the price of off-peak electricity depends on the technology used to generate it.
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But I’m curious about the claim that “If we didn’t discount offpeak electricity, it seems likely that offpeak demand would be around a quarter of daytime demand”.
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I don’t know much about the electricity business, but I’ve seen load curves for Ontario (see link below) and the difference between day and night doesn’t seem that great. While residential demand varies a great deal by time of day, industrial and commercial demand seems to vary less. I’d be interested to see data for Australian cities. As I say, I don’t really know a lot about this.
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I’m not sure how much changes in off-peak price would affect the load curves for the non-residential sectors. And I’m not sure what proportion they consume relative to the residential sector.
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Click to access 1959_OPA_Report_FactorAnalysis_Final.pdf
Pumped storage schemes already in Australia:
Bendeela (1977), 80 MW
Kangaroo Valley (1977), 160 MW
Poatina & Tods Corner (1964), 312 & 1.6 MW.
Tumut Three (1973), 1,500 MW
Wivenhoe Power Station, 510 MW
BTW, as that article points out:
citing http://www.solarnavigator.net/alternative_energy.htm and http://www.inference.phy.cam.ac.uk/sustainable/refs/tide/WindPumpedStor.pdf
Interest discussion. A few points, nuclear power-stations can only be underwritten and funded by governments due to their huge liabilities. In this climate of PPP’s funding infrastructure a nuclear power plant is out of the question. I remember reading that the carbon emissions from the amount of concrete required in a nuclear power plant would also be considerable. In the Australian context discussing nuclear seems to be a fantasy.
As far as baseload power goes, I believe that the potential to reduce electricity consumption or oil consumption has been underestimated (smart meter trails not withstanding). I know this from personal experience after buying some panel heaters. Before my electricity bills shot up I wasn’t particularly aware or interested in how much electricity I was using. After some low cost modifications to the house and some low impact changes in lifestyle my electricity consumption was more than halved. The number of people lumbering around trying to park ridiculously large SUV’s is a testament to peoples lack of awareness of energy consumption.
What would be the economic effects of phasing in a switch from a GST to Carbon tax that was essentially revenue neutral?
Maybe it’s just me, but I don’t get JQ’s final point:
“It is a positive disadvantage for nuclear that it generates power 24 hours a day rather than solely during the daytime. Much of that power, and the fuel used to generate it, is effectively wasted.”
Why does it matter if energy is wasted if it produces next to nil CO2 in the process? And in any event, as someone else has said, for electric cars to be the future of transport, there’s going to be a lot of overnight re-charging going on a decade or so. The “wasteful” new nuclear power plants that could do that will only just be coming on line by then anyway.
If your only tool is a hammer everything looks like a nail. If you are a nuclear physicist then every solution is a nuclear reactor.
Great piece!
As a wind turbine engineer, let me add this:
As a rule of thumb, up to 20% or so wind energy grid penetration presents no problem. I think of it this way: there is always variation in demand; wind energy just adds a varying negative demand. Total variation in demand with wind is not much larger than without it, so you do not need extra capacity. The notion can be made more precise with simulations.
Then there’s lots of things you could do with pricing. How about getting 10% discount on your electricity bill if you accept you COULD be switched off 2 times a year in case of power shortage?
As regards nuclear:
– AFAIK, at current uranium use (for 16% of world electricity) there is only uranium left for 50 years or so (there’s more ore, but below the energy recovery limit). Suppose you step up nuclear, that time span would go down further. If we have to switch to wind and solar anyway, why postpone it?
– Plant construction (as well as removal) and ore refining produce CO2. There are wildly varying estimates for this, from “nearly zero” to “so large the industry will never be able to pay back the existing energy debt”.
P.S. How about not discussing radioactive pollution and terrorist threats, but stick to managing demand/production and CO2-consequences?
“Then there’s lots of things you could do with pricing. How about getting 10% discount on your electricity bill if you accept you COULD be switched off 2 times a year in case of power shortage?”
Nice attempt to apply the notion of ‘state contingent commodity’. A few cavets, please:
1) A power shortage is entirely due to ‘states of nature’. (No moral hazard on the supply side)
2) The wealth (income) distribution is sufficiently similar such that personal purchasing power is not a binding constraint on accepting discounted prices for unreliable power supply.
3) Purchasing contracts of state contingent power supply are contingent on other prespecified conditions (eg climatic conditions relative to ‘averages’, personal health not under the control of the person; no moral hazard on the demand side).
4) The resource costs of monitoring (physical and monetary accounting) and dispute resolution (legal) are also state contingent contracts, the prices of which are to be included in the initial decision making.
Sounds easy and non-bureaucratic?
An alternative is to charge a surcharge for non-essential power usage. What is non-essential is a socio-culturally determined parameter.
I simply cant see why we cant harness more solar in this country…..why pink bats when it could have been solar panels?. Why couldnt the govt start its own solar panel manufacturing (create jobs at the same time as get economies of scale)? Solar Australia – Fed Government initiative. Double stimulus when it installs them, a boost to GDP and a boost back to the budget. Positive externalities and clean power – reduced costs for those less able to afford power could lead to lower welfare costs. When I was in Hawaii early this year I saw miles and miles of solar panels on rooves of houses. I cant see why not here. Its a pretty sunny country.
There is no econo-physical reason why we cannot harness more solar in this country. The reasons we do not are corporate-political. The political power nexus comprised by Corporate Fossils and our Two Party / One Ideology System remains committed to business-as-usual. The correct description of our system would be ‘Two Party Corporate State with soft pretentions to democracy’. The ‘soft pretensions’ phrase is John Ralston Saul’s.
Until this econo-political system is transformed politically or is severely disrupted by natural calamities we will get no substantial progress in greenhouse gas abatement nor in renewable energy use. Politically the system appears very stable in Australia so I expect no real change to be initiated on that front. Current stability does not in itself indicate a good prognosis. A well-trimmed ship in a smart breeze is stable but if that ship is headed straight for a reef the future chances of passengers and crew are not good.
If real change is not likely to be initiated on the econo-political front then we must await the natural calamities to drive home the need for change. These will be calamities exogenous to the (neoclassical view of) the political economy. Climate change, sea level rise and resource depletion will drive these calamities. This outcome can now be predicted with close to 100% certainty.
Nothing like being proactive Ikono (JR Saul – how good is that econo historian?).
I find myself agreeing a lot with Ikonclast. Especially with comment #5 and #9. Although I would not call a market with a carbon tax an “undistorted market”.
An example of waste of electricity is suburban street lighting. As every dog walker knows, there are very few people walking the suburban streets after 9 pm, and the other users of the streets (motor vehicles) have their own lights! Turning off the lights in suburban streets from 11 pm to 6 am would save a reasonable amount of energy.
But it will not happen, because of the outrage from people who never go out at night because they are afraid of the dark.
I think it is helpful to think of nuclear waste as the ‘greenhouse gas’ of nuclear power – “it’s not a problem, later generations will be able to deal with it, etc”. But of course it is our problem. And we have been working on the problem slightly longer than we have been trying to ‘tame fusion’, which is a bit of a worry.
I like the preview screen.
There would be crime and personal safety implications. You could fit the street lights with motion detectors but I suspect street lights that turn on and off as people walk past might be quite annoying to adjacent households.
But Terje, there’s no-one on the streets! And personal safety! carry a flashlight! Should the taxpayer be subsidising personal safety?
If we are going to have taxpayers then personal safety from violent assault should be at the top of the list of things they subsidise. I’m not rejecting your suggestion and I’ve previously arrived at the same thought independently however it isn’t without implications. The introduction of public street lighting does stem from an era when personal lighting was a lot less convienent or effective so perhaps it is something that is in need of review.
If the technical smarts were affordable you could have street lights that talk to eachother and which slowly dim to an off state if nobody has been walking in the area for the last five minutes and which then slowly turn the light back up again as pedestrian approach is detected.
Turn off the street lights has other benefits. We could see more stars. And we would save money on electricity.
Street lighting was a huge thing when it was introduced in the nineteenth century, when it became a marker for civilisation. The major issue at the time was the danger and inconvenience caused by horsedrawn transport at night, which carried no lighting. Pedestrians stepping into piles of horse poo were the least of it. The nights were all the darker at the time due to the burning of coal in domestic hearths. None of these issues remain. I like Terje’s theatre lighting proposal – if every car made these days can have slowly dimming interior lights, I’d be confident it wouldn’t be too difficult for street lights.
JQ – the only power source I can think of that is ‘controllable’ in an on-off sense is gas-fired power generation. Geothermal, Wind, Solar, Coal, Nuclear are all uncontrollable in that sense. They will work continuously, or not at all during night (and low wind if placed poorly). Only gas can be quickly turned on and off in response to demand. Or diesel-fired generation I guess, but who wants that on a large scale?
Large-scale geothermal would be good, becasue who cares about ‘waste’ when the energy input is free and the generation process does not produce CO2? Pebble-bed nuclear is almost as good. The inputs aren’t free but they last a long time and generate energy in a similarly self-contained, carbon-free process. Either of those would be good as major energy providers, with gas for peaking, and why not solar thermal for daytime too? Solar PV and wind for small-scale and remote needs. Sorted.
Also suburban street lights are for drivers, not pedestrians. Try driving down an unlit street at night and see if you enjoy the experience, especially on those hill corners. Seeing the ‘man lurking in the bushes’ is a secondary benefit to the road safety gains.
brisbanedav, I’d say the unpleasantness of driving on unlit streets is because we are not used to it. Driving on unlit roads in the country is not unpleasant.
On the crime/personal safety issues, with the money saved you could improve safety at ‘hotspots’.
Terje and Hal9000, thanks for your comments.
On the nuclear issue, I find it interesting that the technophiles are very often enamoured of large scale ‘solutions’ such as 4G nuclear power stations, but have very little faith in local solutions, such as generating hydrogen by electrolysis using PV that got a mention at http://www.theoildrum.com a while ago.
On the street light issue, Time magazine a few weeks ago ran a story that began:
Every night at 11 p.m. the village of Dörentrup in central Germany is thrown into total darkness. For the past few years, the village’s cash-strapped local council has been switching off all the streetlights in the village each evening until 6 a.m. the following morning. In most places, a nightly blackout would provoke outrage as residents find themselves fumbling and stumbling their way home through the dark. But in Dörentrup, they have seen the light, with a new scheme that allows residents to turn on streetlights on demand — anytime, anywhere — using just their cell phones.
http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1907182,00.html
I always like to see the stars more clearly when there is a blackout, so a scheme that might substantially reduce light pollution (as well as save energy) appeals to me.
A couple of quick points Ikon@9
1. Tax based systems suffer from all the objections you raise to cap and trade and a couple you haven’t mentioned.
2. It certainly is possible to calculate the value of neagtive externalities by deriving them from pro-rata harm/restitution, or perhaps the costs of removing the offending emission from the air etc. Without such a basis you can’t impose a tax without it being seen or presented as arbitrary. It’s said that CC&S will be competitive at a price of $100per tonne of CO2. That would do for a start. Industry could say no way and propose abandoning it, or accept it, or more likely fall about squabbling amongst themselves. I’d like that.
3. The “protect local industry from ruinous uncompetitive taxes” claim is going to make for a very weak price and possibly swingeing tariffs.
4. Giving industry tradeable certiificates takes the issue out of the political arena and wedges business, since those who buy and sell certificates will have an interest in opposing anything that would undermine their value. If they think, as many claim, that the price will rise much more quickly than inflation, they have an interest in buying them as a hedge and opposing sweetheart deals with parts of industry who traditionally get them. They also have an interest in trading them off-shore and pressing for jurisdictional reconciliation of these securities.
Divide and conquer!
4. Giv
The idea of turning off street lights and having start up motion-sensitive is a good one. I understand that councils on the NSW north coast are progressively phasing in HPS lights which are far more long lived than the present ones — up to 30 years — which reduces maintenance costs — and use a fraction of the energy per lumen.
@steven from brisbane
Steve not a bad idea to turn the streetlights off but Id rather have a flashlight than have to use my cell phone to light my way – imagine trying to find the phone at the bottom of your bag in pitch darkness. Its hard enough in daylight and I object it costing me money even if only for a phonecall.
I once walked home from a dinner in a blackout because no taxi came. That was interesting and it was much easier in bare feet than in high heels.
The pollies with current approval ratings like Rudd, Swan and Brown are all anti-nuke. The public seems untroubled by the lack of progress of wavepower, carbon capture or dry rock geothermal. Therefore I think it will take some galvanizing event like a bad El Nino for coal’s prominence to be aggressively questioned.
I think there will be a huge rush to gas within five years. Gas fired generation has half the CO2 emissions of coal and it creates more than enough backup for showpiece wind farms, described by Lovelock as a ‘gesture’. Since gas demand will be world wide LNG exports will perhaps quadruple. According to Wikipedia natural gas derived nitrogen fertiliser enables the survival of a third of the world’s population. Meanwhile countries like Argentina, Iran and Pakistan are are switching their vehicle fleets to compressed natural gas. Therefore someone will undoubtedly say let’s not use so much gas for electrical generation. If solar and wind can’t displace coal then what?
I suspect you may be right about gas, hermit. It’s kind of a soft option, though IIRC the emissions per BTU are about 70% of anthracite.
Seriously though, the key to getting intermittents to produce despatchable power to meet slews is the creation of a big enough buffer — effective storage. The most attractive and scaleable of these IMO is pumped storage, retrofitted to places where there is hydro where possible, and built for purpose otherwise.
You can make pumped storage “dual personality” alternating with desal as needed and you can of course store power from any source — intermittent renewables, coal, nuclear etc … meaning that one need not build pumped storage on the basis of a commitment to renewables. Pumped storage can reduce the need for redundancy even in an utterly conventional grid, reducing emissions intensity. That wasted coalfired capacity JQ mentioned could be reduced sharply and we could put the spinning reserve largely aside as well, saving even more.
Of course, with substantial pumped storage, intermittents can operate in place of traditional thermal sources, especially if one does demand management, smart metering etc.
Of course,
I like pumped storage but it’s very geographically and climatically constrained. Compressed air and thermal like molten salt certainly have potential but it’s not about whether technologies can store energy it’s whether we can consider the shift to low emissions optional according to price. I don’t consider it optional at all.
Much as I believe we are well able to service our energy requirements from renewables and should I don’t doubt nuclear will be back on the table – I think that climate change is serious enough that it must be – however, Oz is not going there any time soon and not before new Gen nuclear begins proving itself elsewhere. I do know that if we have to have it, it should be the best of nuclear. Whether it’s IFR running off existing spent uranium, Thorium or pebble-bed it will only come after politics in our country truly takes climate change seriously and bipartisan policy bypasses the Greens.
Meanwhile, as we speak coal exploration and approval of new mines goes on. Growing coal production being locked in from the world’s no.1 exporter (and some people still think what we do is small time). That is indicative of where policy currently is really at. The ETS wouldn’t be cutting one thirtieth of the increases from our coal exports!
I have some hope that mainstream Australia will accept the new climate change reality as presented by CSIRO, BoM etc over what I think of as 3D’ers – Doubt, Deny, Delay… (a lot like ID’ers only with a poorer grasp of science): The Australian will get a new editorial slant that doesn’t include climate denial: Conservative politics will see climate change as the real threat to our prosperity and security it actually is and face it square on. Oh, and Labour will come to see climate change as the threat it actually is and face it square on! Until then it’s greenwash from all. I’m doubtful it will happen soon enough.
A lot of rural folk don’t take kindly to talk of anthropogenic global warming, or climate change more broadly. I think the Carter Crew have rather sadly contributed to locking down rural people’s beliefs concerning AGW, namely that it is some sort of confidence trick being played on us suckers. Luckily there are other rural people, who for whatever reason, have spent time looking into the issues surrounding AGW and have accepted that the scientific case is strong enough to commit to necessary changes.
It is good to see here on this blog that people are able to come up with plenty of technologies capable of servicing a sizable fraction of our energy demands while meeting the goal of GHG reduction. One other thing that may reduce “baseload demand” or perhaps changes the definition of it, is the fact that smaller communities may choose to set up there own power production making them effectively “off-grid” for all intents and purposes. Where I live there is ample sunlight and a reasonable wind profile along the hills nearby. Couple household level power generation with community-based power generation and a small (but hopefully significant) fraction of Australia wouldn’t need to be coalfired power customers.
And before anyone beats me to it, yes, I am using off-peak power right now. But I’ll change my ways, surely I will!
Whilst nuclear is on the radar this technology looks like it is worth a look:-
http://blog.libertarian.org.au/2009/07/24/integral-fast-reactor-ifr/
@Donald Oats
In this context Donald, did you hear this on PM yesterday?
http://www.abc.net.au/pm/content/2008/s2634757.htm
Fran
The article above speaks of the advantages both of energy efficiency, co-gen and local generation. I wasn’t aware that transmission losses over 250km were as high as indicated — a regularly quoted figure is about 10% for 1000km, but this suggests there’s a lot of low hanging fruit both in generating power locally and in HVDC lines to lower losses moving power over distance.
And in terms of managing slews V2G is worth a look. This too was on PM yesterday:
http://www.abc.net.au/pm/content/2008/s2634755.htm
It sounds very attractive.
Energy transmission and distribution losses.
http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/ene_ele_pow_tra_and_dis_los_mil_kwh-transmission-distribution-losses-million-kwh
click on ‘per capita’ for another perspective.
According to wiki, US and UK losses were 7.2% and 7.4%. From that I would have to say that improving efficiency at the power station will be far more effective in the short term.
Fran, you have hit the nail wright on the head for the biggest problem facing the renewable energy sector (ie wind-power) are costs associated with ‘distance’ rather than ‘markets’ for until a solution is found clean coal technology will be more efficient and cheaper.
@Michael of Summer Hill
“Clean coal” (an oxymoron if ever there was one) cannot in the foreseeable future, ever meet reasonable feasibility tests as well as almost any other source of power. EROEIs are very poor, capacity for secure storage limited, timelines to commercial construction far too long, incidental emissions still high, and coal mining is at least as harmful to health as smoking heavily. The transport of coal is itself a major burden on infrastructure. Apparently in the US, 40% of rail freight by weight is coal. CC&S would increase that a lot, whereas reducing it would free up capacity for other goods.
Fran
@Salient Green
Interesting. I’d like to see it expressed and ranked as a proportion of power delivered, or expressed as a function of extra installed capacity needed to cover the losses.
Fran
Fran, until more money is poured into the renewable energy sector Australia has no alternative.
@Michael of Summer Hill
The money poured into CC&S will certainly be at the expense of the renewable energy sector despite the latter’s far greater feasibility