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John Quiggin 
This is not exactly a new story but a blogger on Naked Capitalism identified the following link/youtube presentation which provides an excellent summary for those interested in just how bad the statistics on ocean destruction are:
Jeremy Jackson: Ocean Apocalypse | Peak Oil News and Message Boards
http://peakoil.com/enviroment/jeremy-jackson-ocean-apocalypse
The talk presented by one of the unknown greats (probably a mate of JQ’s mate Ove) at a Washington Naval forum outlines another one of those 600 lb near invisible environmental Gorilla stories – the death of the oceans at the hands of anthropocentric economics of all shades – which get so little coverage in Australia outside of local barbarities such as Gladstone and the Barrier Reef and WA and the Great Whites.
The scale of dead zones needs to seen to believed even before considering the Pacific garbage patch (doesn’t even rate a mention) and the likely trashing of east Asia and India’s coastal waters. Most telling for the common man who wants to look, and as a response to the likes of the shooters and fishers party, are the happy snaps from Florida showing typical catch sizes declining from 300 lb Groupers in 1956 to 0.5 lb minnows today.
Prof. Quiggin
Do you still believe that full employment (conservatively defined to mean an unemployment rate of 3 per cent) is feasible and desirable?
Kind Regards,
Senexx
Australia’s best female cricket player, Ellyse Perry. Second, daylight. Just saying,
The centenary of the First World War has got the History Warriors and Cultural Warriors of the Right going in the UK and Australia, as I’ve already noted. The irony is that the logic of their position leads inexorably to the view that the left wing of the social democratic parties and labour movements of Germany and the Austro-Hungarian Empire were unambiguously the goodies of the piece, but don’t expect the likes of Michael Gove and Mad Merv Bendle to go there.
Here are Peter Thompson and Martin Kettle in the Grauniad.
It ain’t easy being green. I see power demand in SE Australia is very high this week and wholesale spot electricity prices may hit the cap of $12 per kwh.
http://www.wattclarity.com.au/2014/01/nem-wide-demand-steams-towards-32000mw-and-prices-explode-as-heatwave-hits-victoria-and-south-australia/
Note that is power supplied by big generators not rooftop solar.
Apparently we’re not seeing factory and office workers insisting the air conditioning be turned down consistent with the new green sensibilities.
Yesterday Clive Palmer said that if his party wins government in Qld at the next election he would repeal all laws passed by Newman.
The VLAD laws are very unpopular across the whole spectrum of citizens (outside hard-core News Ltd readers). They were supported by the ALP when Newman passed them – even though the easiest, and most politically astute, thing in the world would have been to oppose them.
If Channel 7 online news can be believed, Newman has now said he will repeal them if he is re-elected in 2016!
So, a win for Palmer as the unelected opposition and for the people’s will over the establishment media’s propaganda.
Here are some quotes regarding anti-association laws (H/T internet and Sunshine Coast Daily):
All true, of course. And in fact quite well put.
That was Jarrod Bliejie from Hansard 25 November 2009 speaking against the ALP’s version of VLAD.
Senexx: do you volunteer to be one of those 3 per cent? Or should some other unfortunate person take your place?
tomorrow, january 15th, is the 95th anniversary of the murder of rosa luxemberg & karl liebknecht. -a.v.
I’ll just mention that it was 45 degrees Celsius here in Adelaide today and a temperature of 46 degrees is predicted for tomorrow. I’ve been told this is a new record.
@Hermit
Australia is probably the best placed country on earth to replace coal and oil with renewable energy, probably mainly solar and wind power.
There is no reason why every north facing new roof and new wall (homes, factories and skyscrapers) in Australia could not be entirely panelled with solar panels or even solar tiles (current technology). There are also now solar windows. This would easily supply all electrical power required in daylight hours including that for air-conditioning.
When the sun does not shine or does not shine adequately, solar convection towers which produce power 24/7 can be utilised. Solar concentrating arrays and molten salt heat storage (for conversion / re-conversion to electrical power can also be utilised). Modern electrical engineering can meet the challenges of load management (matching dispatch, or is it despatch or power to meet demand).
The engineering and all resource requirement challenges could be met for Australia at least.
I know I hold that the earth cannot support 9 billion at middle class standards in the world in 2050 but that is another argument. Where I and those who reject my near limits to growth argument agree is that Australia could convert to fully renewable power even by 2030. Furthermore, it should begin the conversion at once.
@Newtownian
I note that Jeremy Jackson is basically putting the views that I put on this blog (having gleaned my broad facts from scientists like Jackson). These are namely that we are in great trouble ecologically (and limits wise) and that an ocean apocalypse, and by implication a land and atmosphere apocalypse, is impending.
Jackson points out that global warming and sea level rise are trending ahead of worst case IPCC predictions and perhaps implies that the IPCC are conservative and this conservatism is mediated by political pressure; all things I have said and taken flak for on this blog.
Jackson also notes that we probably need a “salutary disaster” (my term not his term) in a large developed world country to galvanise us socially, politically and economically into making necessary changes. He admitted that wishing for this could seem macabre and I would add it could also seem cruel. Yet, I see that such an event is necessary to prevent even greater disaster.
I am encouraged, at the intellectual level, to see that I agree with the best and most knowledgeable scientists in these arenas, albeit I am horrified at the human level that my bleak views are clearly more nearly correct than those of my blog critics. I’ve taken a bit of stick here, harmless as blog stick is, so I just point out occasionally that my views have a better empirical basis are being more continually borne out as events develop.
@Ikonoclast In the “humanity is too stupid” article James Lovelock said that it will take something shocking, like the collapse of the Pine Is Glacier with subsequent and immediate rise in sea level, to get govts to act. After listening to Abbott comments on the wind farms near Lake George and his “when the sun don’t shine and the wind don’t blow the power don’t flow” slogan one can only wonder at how low the level of discussion in the cabinet room can go. As evidence mounts respected persons, eg ex Senator Rae, appear to be losing any influence and it may be that our current leaders will be unable to respond to any emergency.
@Ikonoclast
Some people I know have installed 10 kw of PV, about 40 panels, on the roof of a large house. The result is that some panels do not face north. A kilometre away some other people installed a 10 kw vertical axis wind turbine but it toppled over in strong winds. One issue with solar power of any kind…winter and extended overcast conditions.
Then there’s the empirical evidence. Germany with about half the world’s installed solar PV is building new coal fired power stations and their emissions have increased the last two years. Therefore your claim that solar in various forms can replace coal is questionable.
@Hermit
Let me answer that point by point. I have installed 5.5 kW nameplate capacity solar plus an evacuated tube hot water heater on my roof. I still have enough spare north facing roof and north facing walls to take at least another 5.5kW capacity if I wished it. The wall installation could be on brackets to get the optimum angle. My roof is near the optimum slope. My house is long and thin on an east to west orientation. This works at all levels to reduce afternoon sun on the western wall (bedroom end), to allow plenty of north facing roof and to take best advantage of breezes that cross-flow through the house.
I have calculated that my current installation powers our house and another house that uses 50% more power than we do. This is with the proviso of course that I use the existing power network and stations as an energy store. I feed in power most days and take some back at night. I save coal burning in the day and use some of that coal, an energy store, at night (in effect).
In my area, about 1 in 8 houses now have solar panels and solar hot water. Average nameplate capacity is probably about 3.5 to 4.5 kW. I have noticed no supply problems caused by this level of solar power, at least not at the home or suburb level. So it is easy enough to install enough capacity at least up to the suburban infrastructure’s capacity to cope with it.
With regard to the wind turbine that toppled over. Any standing structure will topple over if not adequately engineered to cope with prevailing conditions including rare but still expected events. One inadequately engineered wind turbine is not an argument against wind turbines though it is an argument against that company, contractor and designer.
Beyond Zero Emissions have advanced a plan for replacing all stationary power generation in Australia. A number of scientists and economists in relevant and related fields have stated that the numbers (physical and economic) add up and the plan is viable.
You have very possibly misinterpreted the empirical evidence from Germany. The evidence as you report it does not preclude the possibilities that;
(a) the world still has so little solar capacity overall, that Germany’s possession of half of that might still be very inadequate for a large industrial power like Germany; and
(b) German growth (and retirement of nuclear power) is not yet being met by solar power growth thus coal fired growth is required to make up the difference.
I am not saying it is easy to convert to renewable power nor am I saying the whole world can do it at current and projected living levels and demand. However, Australia could certainly do it and there are technologies to essentially supply solar power at night (solar convection towers and concentrating thermal with molten salt heat storage).
However, we will sooner or later have to convert our economies to run on 100% renewable power. That is an inescapable fact. The other stuff runs out or totally wrecks our climate or environment (whichever disaster comes first). So forget your bias against renewable and face the facts. It’s a renewables modern(ish) economy at a sustainable level or renewables hunter-gathering or extinction. Those are the ONLY options.
@rog
Eventually, the “reality gap” will become too great and too obvious for deniers like Abbott to maintain political traction. When it becomes obvious, via some form of “salutary disaster” that fossil-fuelled BAU will kill us all, literally, then the popular demand for real change, not Obama’s fake change, will become enormous. Those who still oppose it will be swept into political and maybe even existential oblivion if that revolution goes right. Possibly, a final reaction could set in and corporate capital could retain power by force until the bitter end; a Margaret Attwood “Crake and Oryx” type dystopian future.
@Hermit The German experience has been worthwhile. Solar and wind have been unpredictable and disruptive to the established network and have yet to fill the void left by the abandonment of nuclear. The evidence from Fukushima appears to be that the fears have not eventuated and the losses to life are minimal if at all. Time to take stock – by stopping all nuclear Germany has increased not decreased nett pollution.
The famous song about the Irish Diaspora, “Kilkelly, Ireland”, is somewhat comic if analysed from a certain angle. The song is a poetic rendering of a series of letters from an Irish father to his son who has gone to the USA to find work in the mid-late C19, and the basic narrative consists of the father beginning by congratulating the son on finding work, getting married and having children, then going on to report that back in Ireland the weather is dreadful, the crops have all failed, the potatoes are all blighted, there is no fuel to light fires with, everybody is broke, and the only thing keeping the father out of the workhouse is his son’s remittances, then ending with the father asking the son “Why aren’t you coming home?”.
I must admit to their credit Germany is not hiding away from their energy problems, allowing Der Spiegel and other media outlets to get the boot in. I believe their electricity mix is still some 13% nuclear which makes the phaseout by 2022 seem unlikely. Meanwhile here in Oz we’ll have to adapt better as we can’t go on like this year after year with bushfire dramas.
rog and Hermit,
Renewable energy provided 25% of all power production in Germany during the year 2013.
It is the case that during 2012, ghg emissions increased by 1.6%, after having fallen by 2.4% during the preceding year. I do not as yet know the result for 2013.
It is acknowledged that the change in the time profile o the plan to decommission nuclear plants (more rapidly than originally planned) resulted in the increase of coal fired power stations. However, it should not be surprising and therefore newsworthy, that as a result of the modified plan there is an increase in ghg emissions. It merely means that the time profile of the ‘ghg emission performance’ of the original plan is different from that of the modified plan. This again should not be surprising because, contrary to the assumption of fungible ‘capital’, physical capital is not fungible – it takes time to change production plans and it takes time to implement the adjustments.
By focusing on 1 year, 2012, which happened to involve a very cold and long winter, you are doing something akin to those who believe they can draw firm conclusions about average global warming by observing the temperature in one location at one point in time or during a short period of time.
I have come across an interesting portfolio (in physical assets) management problem. The success of the renewable energy program in Germany, in terms of declining production costs, may require the payment of subsidies for coal fired electricity production units during some stages of the technological change process. Similar to nuclear power production, coal power production is also operationally ‘inflexible’; the process can’t be ‘turned on’ or ‘turned off’ like gas or hydro. Until such time when no coal power production is required to ensure continuous supply of electricity, these power plants have to be run at levels and with costs that are not profitable, given the renewable energy prices. Suppose this time never comes. This is also not a problem because the aim is not to ‘fight coal’ (ie to aim to close all coal fired power stations) but to reduce ghg emissions to a scientifically determined ‘sustainable level’. Surely management by reason is more important than management by the ‘strong belief that a strong belief matters’. [1].
Source: official statistics and reports in the Sueddeutsche Zeitung.
[1] I acknowledge my intellectual debt to ChrisB whose phrase, in an earlier thread, about someone having the strong belief that a strong belief matters, I have borrowed, hopefully without destroying its insightful punch.
It’s heating up here in Adelaide but fortunately we are unlikely to experience rolling blackouts as we did in the 2009 heatwave, for although temperatues will get even higher, our abillity to meet peak demand is much better than it was thanks largely to the considerable amount of rooftop solar that has been installed here over the last five years. While it’s always possible that a fossil fuel plant will suffer a fire or a breakdown or be closed for “maintenance”, barring that, our electricity supply should be uninterrupted and our position will become more secure as solar capacity expands in the future.
@Ernestine Gross
There’s an old saying one good deed deserves another so perhaps one subsidy deserves another. That will happen if ‘capacity payments’ are introduced. Where intermittent sources get preferential treatment on the grid dispatchable generators may have to be paid to remain on standby. It will all get rather expensive. As you allude most thermal plant needs to maintain steam pressure. That’s why I agree with the UK view that the primary objective should be the shrinking CO2 cap not a prescribed percentage x% of Technology Y. Hopefully the market will then decide the dynamic least cost combination. That will take into account leads and lags in various forms of generation as well as ‘dead’ fixed costs in duplicated assets.
Germany seems to be showing us that ~20% of the electricity mix seems to be the sweet spot for mandated wind and solar. This could all change if a cheap way is found for storing gigawatt-hours of electricity in arbitrary locations.
@Ernestine Gross
On the German situation, my personal view is that they’re phasing out the wrong energy source first (i.e. they should go for removing coal/fossil fuel first, then worry about nuclear later).
But I’m constantly surprised at the silliness of some of the arguments put forward by Hermit, et al, against the effectiveness of renewable energy. I mean “not everyone has north-facing roof space, and someone had a wind turbine that fell over” is supposed to be an argument against renewable energy? Give me a break!
@Ikonoclast
Ikon, I’m not sure if you have any west-facing roof space, but my understanding is that if you put panels on the west side as well as the north, you get a better match for demand (as it tends to peak late in the day). I’m planning on expanding my own solar system but I have a large tree that shades the west side of my house, so mine will go on the remaining north-facing roof space as well. I like the tree.
Rather than looking at leather pants wearning European countries, an example of what can easily be done in Australia can be provided by looking at Australia. Specifically South Australia. The State’s electricity went from being all fossil fuel powered to being about one third wind and solar, with most of it being done in seven years with power reliability improving as a result. With the now much lower cost of wind and solar capacity it will obviously be very easy for other mainland states to do the same. There’s no technological problem, there’s no money problem, and there’s no reliability problem. Just sometimes people are a bit slack.
But anyway, South Australia’s largest wind farm is under construction at Snowtown and we’re well underway to getting 50% of our electricity from renewables. Tasmania can of course go all renewable at a drop of a hat and has plans to by 2020.
Interesting argument put by the President of the Maldives on climate denialism.
http://www.conservativehome.com/platform/2014/01/from-mohamednasheed-real-conservatives-dont-burn-coal.html
He argues that he is finding being a conservative and an environmentalist harder and harder to reconcile.
@Tim Macknay
I don’t have any west facing roof though maybe a small bit of north-west facing roof. This is due to the long, thin design and east-west axis of my house. Demand matching is not really important if one can feed or draw from the grid at anytime of the day or night and if one gets a parity price or better than parity for feeding in power.
There is an argument that people who get better than parity (subsidies) for solar power fed in to the grid actually deserve that price. Solar power improves the grid’s ability to respond to hot, sunny daytime peaks related to air-conditioner use. This reduces the need and cost of installing network transmission capacity to meet such peaks. It appears that no extra local, sub-station / transformer costs, or other suburban costs to the network are incurred, at least up to an installed capacity of about 25% of daylight requirements.
Ronald Brak’s statements about South Australia’s wind power and grid bear this out. South Australia’s move to wind power and rooftop solar is an unmitigated success so far. They have taken clever advantage of a set of advantageous factors. South Australia is very sunny, it’s southern coast is very windy, it has gas power stations to meet peaks (easily powered up and down) and it is well connected to the Victorian and Eastern grids to sell or buy power at need.
@Hermit
Viable ways exist to store energy and reconvert it to electric power. Viable ways also exist to generate electric power at night from electric sources. Let me enumerate some of the ways. Whether these ways are conventionally cheap yet I do not know but I am certain they are cheaper than destroying the climate and thus our whole civilization and economy. Note, I use “conventionally cheap” to mean “cheap while negative externalities are not costed”.
A. Storing Energy
1. PSH or Pumped Storage Hydro. PSH energy efficiency varies in practice between 70% to 75%. In a grid with some hydro power, water can pumped back to the uphill reservoir when hydro power is not required and when the rest of the grid is producing power surplus to demand. The uphill reservoir is an energy store (potential energy).
2. Molten salt storage tanks can store energy as heat. This can be re-converted to electrical energy at night via steam or heated gas turbines. This is viable, scalable and can be built anywhere a small industrial tank can be built safely. That is they can built in any industrial or light industrial estate.
3. The solar hot water systems on many a roof are currently a viable energy store. In total, the solar hot water tanks of all houses and commercial premises with same in a city constitute a significant energy store reducing the need for night time water heating via transmitted electricity.
4. Solution 3 can be extended to domestic and commercial space heating by storing winter daytime sunlight as heated water to assist heating premises at night. This solution would be very viable in Australian cities and towns with sunny winter days.
Look up Grid Energy Storage and Load Levelling Storage on Wikipedia.
B. Producing Renewable Power at Night
1. Wind turbines and wave and tide power systems can all produce power at night when the wind is blowing or the waves and tides are running.
2. Geothermal power and hot rocks power can be produced 24/7. (Maybe not strictly renewable.)
3. Solar convection towers can produce power 24/7. I keep telling you this Hermit. You keep ignoring it.
C. Network Sharing
1. Finally, a large distributed network (over half of a continent for example) can share power and load smooth across the network. The effective day is a few hours longer and winds are often blowing somewhere.
D. Energy efficiency and Passive Design.
Many gains can be made in this arena also.
Correction:”Viable ways also exist to generate electric power at night from
electricrenewable sources.”I saw something today from “eco-news” about solar in California.
Here’s the first few pars:
According to ‘energex’, South East Queensland is currently using 2837 MW – that is around ‘moderate’ demand.
No reason we couldn’t be massively (as in the hackneyed ‘war-footing’ sense) upgrading renewables and energy conservation to try approaching ‘sustainability’ and stop digging up and burning FFs – unless you include as ‘reasons’ the hugely powerful forces lined up against us doing anything of the sort (ie: all the money which runs our economy and politicians)!
@Fran Barlow
The next large event that (permanently) destroys New Orleans or Miami and southern Florida may well be the “salutary disaster” needed to create a sea-change (pun intended) in AGW politics. According to Jeremy Jackson that event is likely relatively soon. I think even if I only live another 20 years (i.e. to 80) I can expect to see it on the news.
A rapid, catastrophic collapse of the Greenland ice cap (an event Jeremy Jackson clearly thinks should not be entirely ruled out in this century) would go far beyond a mere salutary disaster. Deaths and refugee displacements combined would run into a few billions.
@Megan
You are absolutely right. Large solar convection power has arrived. It is viable and it is 24/7 power. The temperature differential between the base and top of the solar “chimney”, actually increases at night. It is this temperature differential and resulting air flow which drives the wind turbines around the base (which turbines can be switched out sequentially for maintenance so the tower runs not just 24/7 but 24/365).
There is absolutely no reason why Australia could not go on a “war-footing” (the War Against Climate Change) and build our entire stationary power requirement in 10 to 20 years. Currently, the War Against Our Own Extinction is the only war we should be fighting. Coincidently, what preserves us would also strongly tend to preserve what’s left of the highly varied Holocene natural environment (a value in itself) so it would be a win-win.
take or leave it. here’s audio-video of david suzuki at a symposium on water ecology in october last year speaking about the fukushima plant. recorded on cell phone by a student who attended, posted by him on his site because he thought it was important and picked up by huffington post.
in other news that october day radiation from the fukushima site was determined to have reached alaska and the north american west coast.
Re SA’s ‘success’ with wind and solar a couple of stark facts need pointing out. One is that today raises the prospect of rolling blackouts in Adelaide to due to high air conditioning demand. I guess wind and solar aren’t enough sometimes. I notice Premier Weatherill insists on wearing dark suits in 40C+ heat thereby not setting an example of energy conservation.
The other sobering issue is vulnerability to the price of natural gas. From the AEMO website download 2014 South Australian Fuel and Technology Report. On Figure 2-1 you see that gas fired electricity is a neat 50% of the pie chart. Since that gas can be sold for double the price to the Gladstone LNG plants SA will have to match that price. Ergo when Holden skip town I don”t see other large manufacturers moving in and paying full electricity prices. SA can have all the wind and solar it wants just not enough to cope with heatwaves or entice new business.
Reading through the “Goodbye, Again” thread on Larvatus Prodeo after the announcement of its second death on New Years Day, I was disturbed to read a comment by “Val” on whether this blogsite would be a good place for LP refugees. Briefly, “Val” is Valerie Kay, a university-based environmentalist with website: fairgreenplanet.blogspot.com. Here’s what she said:
I form an image in my mind of a bunch of middle -aged white guys (and a few women) sitting around arguing about money.
I’m relatively new here, so I’m asking if “Val”s comments are valid. Prof. Q? anyone?
@Ronald Brak
Yeah, it is toasty: 33.3C in my apartment at 4:45am this morning—positively chilly compared to the daytime temps.
On another topic, when did the Aus Navy think that firing a gun into the air is better than using a sea horn to hail a boat full of asylum seekers? If it was intended as a warning shot, that is only credible to the boat’s occupants if they truly believe that the navy is willing to escalate. Why fire a shot in the air if there is no intention of escalation should the warning shot be ignored? Seems to me to be a serious tactical error, one with diplomatic implications. Honestly, I hope this news story is in error on the gun firing thing.
Will Steffen et al have examined the historical temperature data for Australia, concluding that there is clear evidence of an increase in the number of hot days, and records broken, compared to the cold days, and cold records broken. There are a number of ways of getting a fix on how the extreme weather events are changing (eg increased hot days above 35C, measures of the time taken to break a record high temperature again, number of heat records broken compared to the number of cold records broken, etc), some more sophisticated than others, but they tell the basic story: we are getting more hot weather, trending as expected for an overall increase in underlying long term climate temperature averages—eg, global temperature trend.
I think the biggest difficulty in conveying to people what is going on is that in Australia, we have all lived through significant heat wave events in the past, as have our parents and grandparents (assuming they lived in Australia, of course). Our brains are hopeless at determining if there are changes to the overall pattern though. The best way to cut through that is to present good graphical illustrations of the data. Simple things like Eli Rabett’s coloured record hot/record cold histogram overlaying a map of the USA really makes it clear what is happening. Following up with the ratio of record hot to record cold days and how it is increasing as time goes on, makes the point even clearer. Better graphical representations should be part of what is incorporated into news stories these days.
@Hermit
Four words; BUILD SOLAR CONVECTION TOWERS.
These produce power 24/7.
What else do you suggest? It seems no solution would satisfy your requirement for a perfectly powered and totally problem-free existence. I don’t see any of the problems you raise as reasons against renewable power as such but just as examples that life will never be perfect even if we avoid the very worst of global warming by employing renewables.
Every generating and transmission system will sometimes suffer capacity problems at the high end. It becomes prohibitively expensive to build so much excess capacity that no foreseeable event will ever cause any load shedding. Also, every fuelled system is vulnerable to high prices. Can you name any non-renewable fuel that is not vulnerable to potential price rises at any time in the future? Growing scarcity in itself presages rising prices let alone other factors.
It simply not true that S.A. could not have all the power it wants within reason. Build solar convection towers. Nine-tenths of your state is a giant desert solar field which is better than any oil field.
@JKUU
Was it Val who stated or strongly implied that if you didn’t support Julia Gillard (over Rudd or whoever back when it mattered) it proved you were, ipso facto, a sexist?
I rejected that reasoning and stated I could never support Julia Gillard who conspired with right wing union bosses and mining capitalists to sink the resource rent tax on miners. That made me a sexist apparently equal to Alan Jones in Val’s book. Val needs to discern that sexism is not the ONLY issue in political economy.
@JKUU
There may be a bit of truth in the “middle-aged white people” part, but “arguing about money” I would say is to miss the breadth of topics discussed.
In any case, that isn’t how I interpret the passage you quote. I distill it as “the JQ site is sexist and non-economists don’t get to join in discussions.”
There must be some other JQ site out there because that just doesn’t stand up.
@JKUU
In my opinion while there are professional economists who sometimes comments here, this blog has more scientists, environmentalists and commenters with substantial knowledge in technology than trained economists. There are a few notable lay persons in economics who also makes informed opinions.
With regards to sexism, I would recommend you to observe yourself while you’re here.
Hermit, if Adelaide doesn’t suffer rolling blackouts today, will you write a comment here saying you were wrong when you wrote, “I guess wind and solar aren’t enough sometimes.”
@Hermit
Hermit, presumably you are aware that the increased risk of blackouts during heatwaves has nothing to do with renewable energy – it’s caused by transformers failing because of the increased load and insufficient cooling. The problem would be just as bad if SA ran on 100% coal. Rooftop PV actually mitigates this problem by reducing the load on grid infrastructure.
Again, another pointless side-issue masquerading as an argument against renewable energy. I just don’t get it.
@JKUU
JKUU, I certainly don’t think that non-economists are excluded from discussions on this blog. As a non-economist, I’ve been participating in discussions here for many years. It’s true that occasionally, Prof Q will post on a relatively technical economic topic, but the vast majority of the posts are highly accessible to non-economists. The blog regularly covers a wide range of topics related to politics and the environment, as well as economics.
And as for this blog being a suitable site for LP “refugees”, I’ve been a reader of this blog and LP since 2006 or thereabouts, and it’s always seemed to me that there’s been a significant crossover between the readership of both blogs.
Val herself is a relative newcomer to this blog and LP, and her concerns about sexism (AFAICT) appear to be mainly related to discussions around Julia Gillard and the Labor Party’s internal convulsions of the last couple of years. The discussion of that issue became quite heated both here and over at LP, and accusations of sexism, as well as rebuttals to the accusations, were part of the mix. Val’s perspective is one, but there are others.
Others may differ, but Julia Gillard aside, personally I’ve never seen any indication of significant sexism on this blog in the 7-odd years I’ve been coming here.
@Tim Macknay
Two points
1) evidently household solar does not fully erase the strain on the grid
2) ABC reckons Adelaide was 35C at 1 am. Did solar power air conditioners at that time?
For good measure I might throw in the fact that a US solar thermal plant with nighttime energy storage will now be daytime PV with no battery bank I’m aware of. Dare I suggest they are chasing subsidies rather than seriously replacing emissions?
I’m not anti renewables. I’ve had PV since 2005, drive a biodiesel fuelled car, cook on a wood stove and help on a microhydro project. It’s just I can clearly see they will never replace fossil fuels. Perhaps I need counselling.
@Hermit
Yes, clearly solar PV only mitigates the problem a little bit. But my point was that renewable energy has nothing to do with the problem of blackouts, and to the extent that renewable energy has any impact at all, it tends towards mitigating the problem. My point stands.
And on your second point, so what? Renewable energy still has nothing to do with the risk of blackouts. Presumably you’re alluding to the fact that PV solar energy does not generate power at night. This is indeed a significant limitation of solar PV (although as Ikon points out, there are technically proven solar technologies that are capable of operating at night, so looking forward, that limitation is capable of being overcome).
The drop in the cost of PV over the last few years has been bad news for the development of solar thermal technology, certainly. To that extent, it’s been a double-edged sword. I think that, subsidies aside, electricity producers in California are in a competitive market and clearly solar PV currently delivers power at a better price than solar thermal at present. I think your suggestion only really holds water if you think solar PV-delivered daytime power is useless at reducing emissions. Not as good as 24/7 renewable energy? Sure. But it still reduces emissions.
I’ve never denied that renewable energy, particularly in its current state, has significant limitations, nor would I in any way criticise your considerable personal efforts to reduce your own environmental impact.
But your habit of using silly talking points to criticise renewable energy (e.g. blackouts, lack of north-facing roof space, someone’s personal turbine fell over) does suggest to me that your belief that renewables can never replace fossil fuels is not quite as objective and rationally founded as you may think it is.
Oops – I redundantly included “currently” and “at present” in the same sentence. Composition fail.
Hermit, you wrote, “1) evidently household solar does not fully erase the strain on the grid”
Actually solar power greatly eases the strain on the grid. Let me explain it to you. You see, we use the most electricity during the day. This is when our peak demand is and it is this peak demand that our grid has trouble meeting either because the generating capacity can’t meet demand or because the transmission infrastructure can’t handle that much power. But rooftop solar power produces electricity during the day when our peak demand is and it produces it exactly where it is needed and doesn’t require the use of potentially overloaded transmission wires or substations. Do you understand?
You also wrote, “2) ABC reckons Adelaide was 35C at 1 am. Did solar power air conditioners at that time?”
The answer to that question is, no it didn’t, because solar power doesn’t produce electicity at night. I think I’ve mentioned this fact to you before. Other generating capacity powered any air conditioners operating at that time. But the good news is that was not the peak demand time at which the grid was under strain. Peak demand was in the daytime when rooftop solar did help ease the strain on the grid. While here in Adelaide it probably only provided a few percent of total electricity use when demand was at its peak, that few percent was very important as it did not put any strain on the transmission infrastructure at all and the amount rooftop solar supplies during these peak periods will increase as more rooftop solar capacity is installed.
@JKUU
I don’t see any sexism here that needs calling out but then I’m not as good as some people are at seeing these things.
it must have been me.
Well, it’s just past 6:00 pm here in Adelaide and the peak is over with no blackouts. The sun is still blazing away in the sky and will continue to do so for another two hours. We didn’t even come close to having a problem meeting demand with electricity spot prices only hitting a about $25 a megawatt-hour for five minutes which is less than a fifth of the capped maximum price. In fact, today is notable for how low prices have been in the National Electricity Market during heatwave conditions. Hermit, will you write a comment saying that you were wrong?