^^^ The current technology requires more embodied energy to create the systems, that includes the assumed life-span of return of power.

We are currently at the cusp of where technology is being developed so that the energy need to build the systems is equal or less - that requires significant 'sustainable' infrastructure though, which will be a hard sell. I'm looking forward to the next few years (possible decades) of development though.

The energy required to make PV panels or batteries is not related to the long term greenhouse gas issue and nor is it related to the market forces driving change. Renewable energy can be used to produce the panels.

Additionally as sailhack mentioned, solar PV storage is a new technology and is just about to reach parity for life-cycle energy costs.

This is not an argument to stop adopting.

Aluminium production is by far worse than PV panels or battery production but are you calling for us to shut down aluminium smelters?

When it comes to cities being powered by PV Mark, did you know that on a sunny day Adelaide is already 100% PV baseload? They have so much PV capacity they end up exporting power to Victoria on those days. So there's one example already. There are dozens of international examples where entire cities and regions are 100% renewable energy powered. Please, look beyond your front yard before you make broadly uninformed statements.

You say Mark you're not a naysayer, but your contribution is nothing but negative.

As for nuclear, look at the energy and incredible cost required to set up a nuclear power plant, mine and process the uranium ore, manage the waste and connect the plant to the grid. I think you will be VERY shocked. Also there's no nuclear power industry in Australia so the first plant would be extremely expensive and require massive multi-billion dollar government subsidies to get off the ground.

Nuclear would be a regressive, stupid decision for Australia. It's not a viable alternative to renewables, both in cost and in ease of implementation.

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Adriano said..

You say Mark you're not a naysayer, but your contribution is nothing but negative.

A negative contribution is turning up at a fancy dress ball in your grubby hi vis work shirt. This is a "general discussion" forum.

The jist of the discussion is whether coal will be killed on purely economic grounds. (That's all that runs the developed world after all ). If battery-powered economics is so surely going to do it for us you might as well disband the IPCC right now. They're nothing but negative contributors anyway.

That's one interpretation. Part of a general discussion forum is that people are free to say whatever they like so long as forum rules are followed.

My take is that it's not just about economic issues - it's also about reducing pollution, including greenhouse gases and reducing harm to local communities from pollution fallout and environmental damage from mining the dirty rock.

If you'll permit me to say, I think the economics of renewables as well as a desire by consumers to have energy independence will drive change faster than sluggish governments and policymakers driven by the climate issues alone.

In fact the pace of change is so fast that in the very near future, the climate issue will seem like a distraction.

What about Marks suggestion of adopting nuclear instead of solar? I guess that's what he's suggesting by putting the word "nuclear" at the end of his post without any explanation.

Why would you want Nuclear? If the rates of change continue in the solar area we might be able to do a combo of Hydro/wind/ solar etc. I don't really understand why Nuclear is better than the others

If it was better (for Australia), we'd be building nuclear power stations wouldn't we? The economic case is weak.

In the political context, people didn't want a GST until John Howard convinced the slimmest technical majority of us that it was a good thing. Nuclear power is far less popular than a GST ever was.

The environmental case is a joke.

If the economic, environmental and safety issues were overwhelmingly compelling, it would be a "no-brainer".

Maybe I'm onto something?

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log man said..
Why would you want Nuclear? If the rates of change continue in the solar area we might be able to do a combo of Hydro/wind/ solar etc. I don't really understand why Nuclear is better than the others

As an interim, on the way to to fully renewable energy, it's a much better alternative to coal. No greenhouse emissions, smaller holes in the ground, safer. I sail with a coal miner, the OH%S stories are frightening. We know how to build safe nuclear power plants, they are proven performers. Unfortunately they have a stigma that can't be shaken.



r

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Sailhack said..
^^^ 20kw might be right then, my apologies. My estimated use is about 6kw, but that is a small, very energy-efficient office/studio build (>8 stars), so would be well below the average.

The problem is more in the fact that they constantly confuse Watts and Kilowatts with watt.hrs and kilowatt hours.
The two are very different and using one term when they actually mean the other is highly misleading.
I'm disappointed that a program such as Catalyst does that sort of thing.

Watts and kilowatts is the momentary measure of power consumption.
Kilowatt hrs is the amount of energy consumed and it's what your power meter measures and it's what the power company charges you for.

A family home is highly unlikely to draw 20,000 watts, (20Kw) because at 240 volts it would mean a current draw in excess of 80 amps on single phase or 27 amps on all three phases at once. You could do some serious arc welding with that sort of power.

However, 20Kwhrs is not all that much and I think that's what they were referring to when they mentioned the 20,000 watts.

It would equate to an average draw of 1kw for 20 hours in the day. If you run and air con for most of the day you can use this and more just for the air con.
Without air con, you can still run up 10kwhrs per day with a fridge or two, electric oven or stove, tv's, retic pump, pool pump, etc etc.

Less than 5kwhrs per day is now almost third world consumption. Well, not quite, but heading that way.
Having done the last month on standby power (mains off for a month), a 2.5kva gen was less than required for a lot of the day.

How many deaths/watt does renewable energy have? Would it even fill a pixel on the screen?

I bet most of those coal & oil sector deaths are in China and India. Why is that an argument for nuclear in Australia!?

OK. Do a cost analysis of setting up the first nuclear power plant in Australia. Better still, start by reading up on what the experts say.

indaily.com.au/opinion/2015/09/28/the-fantasy-of-cheap-safe-nuclear-energy/
www.ies.unsw.edu.au/our-people/associate-professor-mark-diesendorf

How much taxpayers' money is required to set up nuclear power in Australia when our current capacity is 0W?

Australia is adding over 1 Gigawatt of renewable energy capacity per year. How long would it take to build a fully functioning nuclear power plant - four years?

The largest nuclear plants currently under construction are around 2-3GW. You'd have to build two every three-four years to even compete with renewable take up and then they can't come close on cost of power - not even remotely close, government subsidies and decommissioning and radioactive waste storage costs factored.

Nuclear power in Australia is a fantasy. Meanwhile, renewables are adding more capacity/year to the NEM than coal. If the nuclear case was compelling, roadblocks would be removed. I just don't buy the scare campaign argument.

Even the government's own papers show in 2030 wind and solar will be cheaper than coal with CCS. The Coal Industry admits that without CCS coal power in Australia is finished.

p10: arena.gov.au/files/2014/07/CSIRO-Electricity-market-analysis-for-IGEG.pdf

Well you could forgive the presenter for leaving out the word 'hours'.
Insert it and the 'dumb' statement becomes 'the average Australian home uses 20 kwh per day.
Gosh, really? Never would have guessed.
What does yours use, peanuts?

Measured and charged in peanut hours?

Fair go mate! Macadamia hours!

The issue of renewable energy sources is not just about replacing power generated from dirty fossil fuels but also about meeting the growing demand as cities grow and we all become more energy hungry. The current power generation and distribution does not have the capacity to feed our future projected peak demand. Power companies are now buying generators in buildings in some major cities, Brisbane being one, to feed that building and feed back to the grid if possible at peak times..

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Watson42 said..
Well you could forgive the presenter for leaving out the word 'hours'.
Insert it and the 'dumb' statement becomes 'the average Australian home uses 20 kwh per day.
Gosh, really? Never would have guessed.
What does yours use, peanuts?

It leaves me thinking the whole point of the story was only to shock people. That's why they said 'twenty thousand watts' rather than the far more common 'twenty kilowatt hrs' or 'twenty units' . That's actually not a lot of energy consumption these days so nobody would have been shocked.
But the average family using twenty thousand watts sounds really alarming doesn't it? Twenty thousand of anything sounds like an awful lot, even if it was peanuts.
Well,.. I'm shocked! Not about the energy consumption but by the sensationalist reporting. From the ABC no less.

Oh "How the mighty have fallen! The weapons of honest presentation have perished!"

It might be time to tune to channel 10 and watch ' the biggest loser'. Well,.. maybe not, but it's getting closer.

Show said SA sometimes had a surplus of renewables! If batteries become good every house can generate more than they use during the day. Might not need so many power stations. Every house will be one

That's right. So will every factory, warehouse, car park, shopping centre and farm in Australia. CBD's will catch up later while buying the aforementioned renewable energy.

South Australia was 100% supplied by their renewables on some hot sunny days and exported surplus fossil fuel and renewable power to Victoria. It's a sign of what's to come.

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pweedas said..

Sailhack said..
^^^ 20kw might be right then, my apologies. My estimated use is about 6kw, but that is a small, very energy-efficient office/studio build (>8 stars), so would be well below the average.

The problem is more in the fact that they constantly confuse Watts and Kilowatts with watt.hrs and kilowatt hours.
The two are very different and using one term when they actually mean the other is highly misleading.
I'm disappointed that a program such as Catalyst does that sort of thing.

Watts and kilowatts is the momentary measure of power consumption.
Kilowatt hrs is the amount of energy consumed and it's what your power meter measures and it's what the power company charges you for.

A family home is highly unlikely to draw 20,000 watts, (20Kw) because at 240 volts it would mean a current draw in excess of 80 amps on single phase or 27 amps on all three phases at once. You could do some serious arc welding with that sort of power.

However, 20Kwhrs is not all that much and I think that's what they were referring to when they mentioned the 20,000 watts.

It would equate to an average draw of 1kw for 20 hours in the day. If you run and air con for most of the day you can use this and more just for the air con.
Without air con, you can still run up 10kwhrs per day with a fridge or two, electric oven or stove, tv's, retic pump, pool pump, etc etc.

Less than 5kwhrs per day is now almost third world consumption. Well, not quite, but heading that way.
Having done the last month on standby power (mains off for a month), a 2.5kva gen was less than required for a lot of the day.

Bang on pweed - I should be more accurate with my description - 6-7kw/h is the 'estimated' daily consumption for my new (relatively small) project. 20kw/h (per day) consumption is quite possibly the 'average' usage - especially where heating/cooling is required.

Pardon me being pedantic, but it is kwhrs, not kw/hr.
Kwhrs is the number of kilowatts power draw multiplied by however many hours, whereas kw/hr is an average measure of kilowatts per hour over a set period.
Again, the two are very different and lead to very wrong results if used incorrectly.
Incorrect use allows smooth talking sales people to sell you anything without actually telling you lies.

In the above example, your house or workshop has a daily energy usage of 6 to 7 kwhrs. i.e 6 to 7 units of energy which you will need to generate with your solar panels or buy in from somewhere.

If it is actually 6 to 7 kw/hr then you will need to find 144 kwhrs of energy per day. i.e 144 units of energy. That's a lot.
6 to 7 kwhrs is not much. Only $1.60 even at the present exorbitant prices in WA.

It's good to see at least one other person here is just as dismayed that our National broadcaster on its blue ribbon science program can't get units right. Good on you Pweedas, I knew you'd back me up in outrage. Surely they can afford a science editor to run through the transcript?

But while we're being pedantic average power requirement is expressed in kW. ( a watt is correctly abbreviated as capital W)

kW/hr is how you would express a rate of increase in power. i.e. Perth's power requirement increases at a rate of 7 kW/hr. Which means tomorrow, because Bunnings sells so many air conditioning units each day, we'll need to run the generators at an extra 7kW/hr *24hrs = 168 kW. So the wick on the 3 GW power station will have to be turned up to 3.000168 GW. Note that the hours on the 7*24 calculation cancel out. Units are half of physics, if the units don't check out your equation is wrong.

You've even got to be careful about how you use the phrase "power consumption" vs. "power requirement". Power is an instantaneous concept you can't consume it without it becoming energy which is expressed in joules. A car needs (or requires) more power for safe overtaking, it consumes petrol.

(Hope I've got this right mistakes are easy to overlook when you go down this path, that's why the ABC needs an independent proof reader. I'll be embarrassed if you find a mistake, but it's only sea breeze, the ABC science program should be mortified)

Thanks for clarifying. Shall we shut the ABC down?

So Ian, how many deaths/watt do renewables cause? Using your argument, renewables must be even better than nuclear! No?

Meanwhile have you addressed the real issue?

That centralised energy production using fossil fuels and nuclear fuels has ZERO ROI for a consumer, whereas renewables have a 100% ROI in a relatively short space of time (7-10 years). ROI in this case being hard cash with the added bonus of low emissions, high levels of safety and reliability.

This ROI ratio will improve over time as technologies improve, while the centralised power model will deteriorate as the cartel becomes more desperate to survive. When power prices go up, consumers stuck with centralised power will have to pay, but those with their own power plant and storage have an alternative that pays cash - cash that moves with the cost of centralised power on the NEM!

Add to this salient and undeniable point; the fact that other "clean" energy sources such as nuclear and CCS Coal are far more expensive than renewables right now. CCS or nuclear would take upward of ten years to fully implement in Australia. One is untested properly. AFAIK all CCS test projects in Australia have so far failed. Perhaps that's why the government slashed funding!

Who's going to pay for CCS? The consumer and the taxpayer.

Without CCS, coal is doomed faster than many think - no question. Current projections claim coal will still have around 50% of Australia's NEM in 2050. That's bollocks unless we can afford the more expensive CCS.

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Adriano said..
Thanks for clarifying. Shall we shut the ABC down?

So Ian, how many deaths/watt do renewables cause? Using your argument, renewables must be even better than nuclear! No?

No but Catalyst needs a shake up.

I'm not arguing, just putting up a graph from the internet that is relevant to the thread. We don't know how the data was collected, its absolute accuracy, but as a guideline the coal mining industry is a dangerous line of work.

All jobs have hazards. Sitting at the console of a nuclear power station is dangerous. Sitting down for most of the day stuffs up your insides. Installing solar panels may be a safer job, but that sun on a glaring colorbond roof is dangerous for skin and eyesight. Tradies fall off roofs. Stirring chemicals in the Chinese factory that makes the panels must also have hazards. I won't hazard a comparison.

But at a guess. Deaths per watt in renewables might be up there. But that's not the best way to express it.
The number employees per watt of renewables I'm guessing is very high.

People need jobs, so deaths per man hours worked is a better measure. How many employed by coal vs. nuclear per watt?

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_proposed_power_stations_in_Australia

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pweedas said...
Pardon me being pedantic, but it is kwhrs, not kw/hr.

6 to 7 kwhrs is not much. Only $1.60 even at the present exorbitant prices in WA.

And pardon me for posting after several pale ales...it does impede my ability to make correct statements.

It's obviously not a cost-based decision for me, although the cost to connect means >200m of trenching and cable, plus new connection costs - this would still be <1\2 the cost of solar, but my main drive is that I'm moving toward alternative and sustainable design with my business and an 'off-grid' studio allows me to practice what I preach.

...and I'm able to afford the cost at the moment, but if work winds down in the future (which I hope it does! ) electricity is one less ongoing cost that I have to worry about.

Whenever in doubt go to Wikipedia. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electricity_generation

Solar is still just a blip. Hydro dominates renewables. Nuclear is closing the gap on renewables. Coal is still hanging in there at no.1.


www.world-nuclear.org/information-library/current-and-future-generation/plans-for-new-reactors-worldwide.aspx

" Nuclear power capacity worldwide is increasing steadily, with over 60 reactors under construction in 15 countries. "

Here is another gee whiz article from New Scientist to excite you

www.newscientist.com/article/2076536-first-flight-of-hydrogen-powered-drone-with-water-vapour-exhaust/

These clever people have found a way to use hydrogen without extremely high pressure.

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Ian K said..

Whenever in doubt go to Wikipedia. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electricity_generation

Solar is still just a blip. Hydro dominates renewables. Nuclear is closing the gap on renewables. Coal is still hanging in there at no.1.


www.world-nuclear.org/information-library/current-and-future-generation/plans-for-new-reactors-worldwide.aspx

" Nuclear power capacity worldwide is increasing steadily, with over 60 reactors under construction in 15 countries. "

Remember, Wikipedia is open source and able to be edited by anyone with an account. Accuracy of the information is not checked by anyone, except other people with Wiki accounts. If no one can be bothered checking and editing the original entry it remains. Who generated those graphs?

Now to your points. You're not making sense. There is no "gap" in renewables that nuclear has to "close". Explain this "gap".

The graph you posted above indicates that renewables provide more energy to the world than nuclear. My reading of the graph you cited is that renewables are in fact overtaking nuclear, since the nuclear capacity has remained roughly the same since 2000, while renewables is dramatically increasing. Your point is invalid, or should be reversed to reflect the reality.

Plus, that graph stops at 2011 and we have data to 2015 that indicates an even faster uptake of renewables, mostly biomass, solar PV and wind.

Again, that quote "nuclear capacity is increasing steadily" is at odds with the graph. It is roughly steady since 2000.

As a final point, if you exclude developed countries from that data, the figures would be dramatically different and the uptake of coal and nuclear would not be as pronounced. But, as we are talking about Australia here, let's just bring China and India in to fudge some figures.

Wikipedia is what it is. I'm not arguing one way or the other, just putting up interesting graphs for you to absorb. By " closing the gap " I meant relatively. Nuclear sat at about 20% of renewables (hydro) in 1980 and is now about 40%. From an environmental point of view you'd hope we'd say "enough already" on rivers to dam before we run out of nuclear fuel.

How accurate is the information in Wkipedia? Well you can google it.

http://www.livescience.com/32950-how-accurate-is-wikipedia.html

Not too bad apparently. I'd place more confidence in "open" source on any controversial matters than "closed" source. But this matter is not even controversial.

I think when you have to back up an argument by placing more weight on your own opinion rather than on that of Wikipedia, your argument is on very shaky ground.
You would have to be a very superior intellect before that argument took on much weight.

I think the answer to the negative naysayers is simple.


Solar powered nuclear plant cooled by a hydro wind farm that is completely gluten free .
Simples.

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Ian K said..
Wikipedia is what it is. I'm not arguing one way or the other, just putting up interesting graphs for you to absorb. By " closing the gap " I meant relatively. Nuclear sat at about 20% of renewables (hydro) in 1980 and is now about 40%. From an environmental point of view you'd hope we'd say "enough already" on rivers to dam before we run out of nuclear fuel.

How accurate is the information in Wkipedia? Well you can google it.

http://www.livescience.com/32950-how-accurate-is-wikipedia.html

Not too bad apparently. I'd place more confidence in "open" source on any controversial matters than "closed" source. But this matter is not even controversial.

Let's go through this point by point and I'd appreciate a response to each please. Just a simple answer next to a number. Cheers!

Point 1

Look at your second graph. Nuclear capacity has barely increased since 2000 while renewables have increased about 50%. Do you see it Ian? Now in the past four years renewables dramatically increased. The IEA says in 2014 renewables accounted for 45% of generation increases, while coal and gas filled most of the remainder. Nuclear - barely registers.



Point 2

Forget Wiki accuracy assessments. Just look at Wiki entries or look at the International Energy Agency.

Here's another graph from Wikipedia that's quite different to yours. So which WIKI entry is correct? One has renewables at more than double the difference compared with nuclear shown in your graph.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Renewable_energy




Point 3

"Nuclear capacity is increasing steadily". Where is that shown on your graph? Only renewables and coal is increasing on the graph mate.

Oh dear Ian, the IEA confirms you're wrong too. Renewables will be 26% by 2020. Four years from now. Nuclear is stop gap and can't compete.

www.iea.org/newsroomandevents/pressreleases/2015/october/renewables-to-lead-world-power-market-growth-to-2020.html

www.economist.com/node/18621367?story_id=18621367