Just How Cheap are Wind & Solar?
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- Опубликовано: 29 сен 2024
- Muckraking physicist and data scientist Aidan Morrison has thrown doubt on the oft repeated mantra in Australia that wind and solar are the lowest cost option for a clean energy transition. He discovered that the modelling used to justify these claims leaves out the massive investments in storage and transmission required to balance the system treating them as sunk costs.
See Aidan’s own excellent video deep diving the topic here: • CSIRO's 'sunk cost' in...
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I just finished watching your excellent interview. I helped plan Pacific Gas & Electric Company's power supply back in the 1960s and 1970s. People think we can go all solar and wind because the utilities seem to be able to incorporate the wind and solar that has been installed to date. I think your guest has got his work cut out for him. He is up against the "belivers" and logic is something they do not like or understand. Supplying baseload power reliably is totally different than accepting some unreliable solar or wind power as a supplemental source of energy. The state of California wants the over 2000MW nuclear plant to be shut down now but they cannot figure out how to physically supply the baseload power so they keep putting off the planned shut down date.
AUSTRALIAN ENGINEER HERE: Most of Australia's bad decisions are not based on lies. They are being made by people who ARE NOT engineers making engineering decisions. Australia's biggest problem by far is the number of people who are not engineers grabbing the microphone and just letting noise drown out anything resembling logic.
A perfect example on how to do it right is this channels vid on "The Case for CANDU" which was brilliant.
Perfect example on not quite getting it right is this one. On Aidan, YES he's a physicist with a decent understanding of technology, but he's NOT and engineer and he made some terrible mistakes. Its not the 95% he gets right but the 5% he gets wrong that can cause to a lot of miscomprehension.
He doesn't mention that Australia's real problem is its fleet of ageing power stations that we can't keep running because they are that old. Worse than that is we don't have any plans at all to replace them. AEMO is a clown show run by economists who wont even talk to the engineers.
Aidan gets the transmission costs totally wrong. They aren't 60% they're (on average) 44% and that's significant. But then he's 100% right that just putting up wind turbines does not solve the problem because you have to get the electricity from where its generated to where its used and AEMO's plans there are a joke.
The Snowy 2.0 pumped hydro system is a classic example of how letting NON-engineers make engineering decisions doesn't work. They budgeted the entire project on the tunnels, pumps, dam,... etc. *BUT DID NOT INCLUDE* the power line to connect it to the grid. Because its in an awkward location that power line is the primary reason the project has gone from its original AU$2 Billion to an estimated AU$12 billion and some are claiming it will go as high as AU$15 Billion.
But for a cost comparison the cost per Gigawatt (GW) from Snowy 2.0 is at the top end AU$7.5 Billion/GW.
If Australia was to simply buy the design to the European Power Reactor (EPR). *BASED* on the construction costs of Hinckley Point C nuclear would cost AU$19 Billion/GW.
This is why those channels talk on the CANDU because there was no BS and no misleading points, just an honest discussion on nuclear power.
I DON'T KNOW WHAT KIND OF ENGINEER YOU ARE...BUT THESE GUYS.....DON'T KNOW ANYTHING.......HE SAID ALL KINDS OF DUMB THINGS ABOUT EV CHARGING, BATTERIES, SOLAR ECT.........THIS IS JUST ANOTHER SICK EXAMPLE OF STUPIDITY ON RUclips.........CONFIRMING THAT THE MASSES ARE ASSESS................
Nuclear heaters are not expensive compared to the humongous grid capacity expansion costs.
5TIMES more electricity in the no fossil fueled future.
5TIMES bigger national grid.
This is the same grid transmission increased capacity cost that destroys cheap Renewables electricity economics.
$million × 1million klm ×5 =$TRILLIONS
Be fair dinkum, the extra future electricity from central generation NEEDS EXPANDED NATIONAL ELECTRIC GRID.
Also 3 shifts, 365 days every year, 8,800 hours every year for every shift.
The operation man power will not be monkeys. Annual holiday, public holidays, sick leave, training days, ........... Highly paid and scarce nuclear staff.
Rooftop needs no manpower.
Rooftop needs no extra grid capacity expansion.
Rooftop needs only one EV for every rooftop installation.
Just like community batteries, selfparking V2G EVs can selfplug in like a home robotic vacuum cleaner.
The vehicle will tell the grid its home address and its owners billing details.
Vehicles are parked 23hrs every day.
Nuclear promoters agree more electricity for EVs.
Nuclear promoters agree grids are fragile because they are expensive and never overbuilt.
Snowy 2, $2million budget has exploded to $12billion because of the new grid construction to connect it to its supply and customers.
Australia is the land of drought.
Australia is the sunniest continent on the planet.
My thoughts were that if central generation, nuclear generation, to stop CO2 emissions, then the grid capacity would have to be expanded to 5 times today's capacity.
The grid is incredibly expensive, $/klm.
The grid is incredibly long. Millions klm.
Nuclear heaters are dirt cheap in comparison and eventually extremely profitable for the owners, not the customers.
Rooftop and EVs big batteries are a powerful combination, and if ignored, then customers can go offgrid in the suburbs. And watch the race to the offgrid door by the entire population.
In Australia, governments create laws to protect monopoly owners in PPP ventures.
Pro business political parties.
@@stephenbrickwood1602 Great list of cliches.
shame there's ZERO substance, but that's one of my points. People who just grab the microphone and howl things they have no understanding of and end up wasting everyone's time.
ALL GRIDS are EXPENSIVE and so are FRAGILE.
Expensive grid means distant renewable is not viable economically.
Expensive grids means central generation is not expandable economically.
Dispersed rooftop collection and storage have no additional grid economics.
Rooftop solar PV is cheaper than windows $/m2
Big storage batteries are free with EVs.
Selfparking EV can plug into the grid like the home robotic vacuum cleaner.
Vehicles are parked 23 hours every day. 7kwh daily drive. Ezi pezi top up.
Rapid chargers will be on the main roads and at corner stores.
Rooftop collection is a small roof area.
Fossil fuels are very high density energy, and 5times more electricity is needed to replace them.
Aidan is analytical, but you must include future grid expansion 5 fold increase in a massive expensive thing. Stupendously expensive.
Nuclear submarines look dirt cheap compared to this unspoken matter of grid expansion costs.
They said we could not have more than 10 then 20then 30 then 40%... We will get to about 150% renewables and then go wow energy deflation can work
I put 2.95 KW on my roof in northern Wyoming. It covers my electric use March21-September 21. It’ll pay for itself in about 10 years. I have doubts whether it is really worthwhile. We have loads of cheap natural gas here and soon, hope, a SMR in Kemmerer,Wy. When I hear of using home powerwalls and Teslas connected to the grid for peak power demands, I think of Rube Goldberg. I predict more brownouts in the future. People will be told this is all for saving the climate. All of this solar and wind is going to do just about zero.zero 1 for climate. The average scientifically illiterate citizen has been convinced that CO2 is the primary factor of climate. It’s a hellava lot more complex than that,but it’s expedient for the politicians and UN.
I used to fly airfreight between Sydney, NSW and Taipei among other places. I made several trips to Australia for diving and looking around. Really enjoyed it. But, like California,there are a lot of people that don’t understand what it takes to make a modern society run. Your wealth is based on extraction. Minerals, energy and agriculture. If society doesn’t understand that and protects it, hard times coming. The western societies in general are in serious decline due to far leftist ideas having been indoctrinated into millennial and younger people.
My guess is you use net metering? So everything you send back is discounted full price?
Rube Goldberg was the first thing I thought of when he described their energy scheme. If the goal is degrowth and deindustrialization, it's the perfect plan with lots of room for Politicians to scam money off the system.
"It'll pay for itself in about 10 years."
Because you're using it to steal power service.
It's not leftist ideas, it is ideology without doing the sums.
China, very leftist, is unlikely to run out of energy, because they know how to do sums and act accordingly.
They are rolling out lots of wind and solar but are also adding about 150 nuclear power plants to their energy mix.
It doesn't matter which side you come from, if you are mathematically illiterate you are stuffed.
Back in the 80s Australia had a working protype uranium enrichment plant. We had the technology to value add by making reactor grade nuclear fuel. Bob Hawke was elected, and he shut it all down, threw the technology in the bin. Hawke spent the last 20 years of his life telling everyone that he made a terrible mistake.
In Europe we are already going full wind and solar, and it is working better than we expected, moving faster than we thought it would. There are new challenges because the system will work completely different. I don't understand why this guy thinks for Australia things will be different.
@@hc3657 We will be 100% solar and wind by 2050 under right wing governments who campaign on being anti-woke. It is the free market at work. You better change your view fast or you will look really stupid really fast.
I will believe it when Europe closes down all its coal, wood chip, and gas fired energy consumption not just for electricity production but also for steel, aluminium, glass and ceramics, cement, chemicals, fertilizer, synthetic fuels to replace diesel, heating oil, and
jet fuel amongst other things.
I won't hold my breath, Europe is nowhere near decarbonising.
When it is it will be heavily reliant on French, Scandinavian eastern European and UK nukes to keep things operating.
Working better? Take away the 24/7 baseload generation which has become uneconomic to operate largely due to RE and see how well industry operates. I'll give you a hint, it doesn't.
@@Discoworx Electricity is cheaper than ever before. And in the future, it won't just be free. You'll get paid if you use energy when there is excess wind or solar in the grid.
@@Prometheus4096 what planet are you on?
I do like this discussion, because it is analytical.
I am a retired civil engineer with contractual construction back ground.
I have worked on large coal fired power station construction and gas fired turbine electrical generation stations. And transmission lines construction.
I am free to speak up now.
You see the same practical economic contradictions as I do.
You probably see the issue is that nuclear will be a 100years locked in solution and maybe a stranded asset as technology continues to evolve.
Snowy 2 is a nonsense because of the transmission costs.
And Australia will need as much water storage in the future to consume.
Flood control and water supply is also a conflicting dual demand problem on dams.
Snowy Hydro 2 is expensive, but it is at least 20 times more cost effective than comparable storage based on large chemical batteries. If we are to go renewables, we have little choice but to commission Snowy 2 plus I dare say at least another eight comparable pumped hydro projects. Problem is in Australia there are very few sites to support such projects.
@jimgraham6722
Electric vehicles are the future.
Long drive capacity is essential.
Avg Daily drive never use the entire 'tank'.
10 day refills are normal.
Most work trips have a limit of 40 minutes, including traffic jams and parking.
Beyond that outer limit, people change jobs or move homes.
Std Traffic Engineer stuff.
What type of electricity storage chemistry will be dominant or solid state capacitor time will tell.
My point is that 20 million vehicles mean 2,000gWh in storage daily and ezi pezi to top up the daily draw.
This is an incredible store of dispatchable electricity if needed.
Only an idiot would ignore this asset.
The battery is free with every EV. Hahaha.
@@jimgraham6722
Australia is the land of drought.
Australia is the sunniest continent on the planet.
@@jimgraham6722
Grid costs are killing the Snowy 2.0 budget, new grid capacity.
EV and rooftop PV have no grid costs.
EV battery is free with the vehicle.
Rooftop is saving government massive grid electricity upgrade costs.
@jimgraham6722
EV value to the home owner
1, Transport
2, No imported petroleum costs.
3, Free electricity
4, 100% electric home. No bills
5, Tax free savings.
6, Daytrade electricity for profit.
7, We are in a time of transition, and nuclear promoters are bs to get monopoly PPP with government garrentee and disaster insurance.
Government guarantees cash flows.
Australia has many PPP monopolies.
8, home and building owners can abandon the grid electricity connection.
Go offgrid in the suburbs.
1/3rd means, 2/3rds is grid costs.
66% of electricity is grid costs, so a grid 5 times bigger in an electric future at $2million/klm x 1million klm x 5times =
All these facts come from nuclear promoters and critics of no fossil fuels.
Fossil fuels have very high density energy and are resilient supplies.
Gas is pressurized and in large volumes in the pipelines.
Does anyone use logic, as well as facts. Most facts are right but wrong engineering solutions are because the wrong problem is being solved. Part solutions can not be respected.
Do not remove this post, please your discussion are important.
You do think about our future.
Obviously big EVs have to charge wherever they are parked during the day, using ~free local solar. Anything else is crazy.
All grids are fragile because grids cost 66% of electricity supply.
So over building is not normal.
Yes most people don't realise that transmission and distribution is what they are really paying for more so than the electricity itself
@kaya051285 My concern is that promoters of particular systems are hiding this fact, and politics is being hijacked.
Australia has had 4 different submarine agreements, and only now they have the USA nuclear submarines.
Just to illustrate my point of many wrong projects that fortunately we are free of.
Fortunately, we are past them now.
I think that the USA is the only solution for Australia, just the promise is a deterant.
Energy supply that is big investments with Government disaster insurance and cash flows guarantee and political protection is the driver for others.
So no electric vehicles with big batteries will be used, they will just be parked 23hrs every day and not be topped up at home or the office or at the shops car park.
His point was that the plan REQUIRES these EVs to be parked and available for charge or discharge.
So you (and all your neighbors) have to have a connection at home,
your office (and all the spots in the parking lot) have to have a connection,
your shops (and all the spots in the parking lot) have to have a connection.
First, that is a lot of connections = a lot of money.
Second, who pays? The car owners? The shops/offices/homeowners? The taxpayer (even if they don't own a car)?
Would you get ticket if you failed to plug in at the office (because the grid might need to pull juice from your stationary car)?
In another of your posts you cite:
> 20million buildings connected to the grid. In Australia.
So we have 20-80 million chargers? (1 per home and 7 'on average' per shop?)
> Horse and cart thinking is dangerous, and expensive.
And introducing the automobile without thinking into a horse and cart world is even more dangerous.
@factnotfiction5915 Thank you for your considered response.
My point is the vehicle has the inverter and
only low charge /discharge, say 3kwh.
Most power points can handle this.
20million x 3kWh = 66gWh or 1,600gWh /day
The 100kwh battery if empty, would take 33hours to recharge.
But the Daily drive is 7kwh and so 2hrs to top up.
So low cost and low rates of charge/discharge but 20million.
The grid is UNLOADED.
The grid is protected from excess demand.
All buildings collect their own power with rooftop solar pv.
20million x 33kwh = 660gWh daily collected electricity and sent into the grid or into EV storage.
We know that only a few rooftop solar impacts the grid stability in these early days.
20million vehicles and buildings rooftops.
And no grid expansion is the main idea.
The grid is the killer cost to expansion of electricity except for the dispersed collection and storage design.
Aidan's point was grid costs, but he ignored future expansion if central generation was to increase for future 5fold demand increases.
@@stephenbrickwood1602 how did you come up with 20 million x 33kw for solar rooftop to supply the grid?? Neither of those numbers is realistic.
@Discoworx 20million buildings in Australia, a little less but a simple calculation.
6.6kw rooftop solar PV for 5 hours a day.
6.6 x5 x 20million = 660gWh daily.
10million are homes
Avg roof is 220m2
6.6kW rooftop PV is 33m2
Commercial roofs m2 add.
54 min in: paraphrase: renewables people say (you just haven’t gone through the data deeply enough) that sounds a lot like Amory Lovins and his sophistry.
Excellent excellent interview Dr. Chris ! I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, you young smart folks are going to save the world. Wind and solar, the hunter gatherers of electricity, scuba system of energy delivery, brilliant terms!
Do the Australians have a term for Dunkleflauta?
I wonder if the Australian Navy getting American and British built nuclear powered submarines will help ease people into an Australian Atomic Age ?
53:50
The atomic age was in the 1960s. We were very lucky to avoid it.
@@tigertoo01 So you can enjoy permanent-blackout?
@@aliendroneservices6621 bit extreme with no substance. Are you this alarmed all the time?
Read about CO2 in your High School Chemistry Book or NASA Atmosphere. CO2 is essential for all life. We are conned by the big scam by corrupt and ignorant politicians. We actually probably have too little CO2 in the Atmosphere.@@tigertoo01
Australia's latitudes are the same as Sahara desert latitudes.
We are not a cold latitudes country.
As an Australian I would have to disagree with this guest. We have no ambition from either side of the political spectrum in regards to value adding in Australia. We always take the easy option with the quickest payoff for the least investment. We could become a global exporter of cheap steel with the construction of the iron Boomerang railway. An infrastructure project that's been recommended for decades. But neither party is interested.
We export huge amounts of natural gas yet pay market rates for gas domestically. The country's grid mostly runs on coal, we could transition via natural gas, drastically reduce emissions and provide cheap electricity paired with renewables. But all state governments are ideologically opposed to even looking for gas.
The left of the political Spectrum is ideologically opposed to anything other than Wind and Solar, consequences be damned. The electorates with the biggest support for wind & solar are less likely to pay the price for unreliable expensive electricity. The right is concerned with holding on to inner city electorates which are now left leaning environmentalist seats.
Neither side is being honest with the public about the potential risks of putting all our eggs in the renewables basket. We have an ageing coal backed grid where the risk of blackouts is becoming increasingly likely. Not to mention the huge consequences to our industrial base. We already have some of the highest electricity prices and wages in the world. Throw in unreliability and who would invest in Australian industry.
He stated Australians are highly educated and should be batting above our weight. I couldn't disagree more. The vast majority of University graduates end up working in unrelated Fields, like coffee shops, as he himself stated. Most degrees have no practical value. Yet we have huge skills shortages which we try to fix through immigration. This only puts more pressure on the grid and already sky high housing prices.
But the real problem is a cultural one. These policies are popular. Most Australians support them. The general public pays little attention to these issues other than resiting climate change mantra. We printed half a trillian dollars during covid so people could stay home, yet the average Australian wouldn't join the dots between this and our current inflation. We have high material costs in construction of Housing, yet most people wouldn't see high energy costs as a contributor.
The problem with Australia, is it's full of Australians!
Diffidently a one sided conversation going on here, happy with the status quo, and lacking vision on so many levels its laughable! Moving on!!!!
I remeber the 'good old days' in the 60s when we made everything in Australia. Hight tax, free import, and sell off the country government policy made 'made in australia' a thing of the past.
Great insights, we have similar issues in Canada with the proposed Clean Electricity Regulations. They are powered by magical thinking, unrealistic expectations of the technology options, bad modelling and have been drafted by people who do not understand how the electricity system actually works. Definitely some common threads there, but the CER is even further out to lunch than the Australian situation.
Remember that the grid is an economic killer cost when more is needed.
That was Aidan's observation on free renewable electricity. The grid costs are 66% of electricity bills.
With 5 times more electricity and its grid capacity costs, even nuclear is economically dangerous in the no fossil fueled future.
Cold Canada is different from warn latitudes Australia.
The sunniest continent on the planet.
Sahara desert latitudes without the political turmoil.
To be logical and fail to include all the facts is dangerous.
Aidan is the reason Australia is buying/building USA nuclear submarines.
The French submarines contract for non nuclear submarines was cancelled.
What I am saying about grids is incredibly important. Thanks to Aidan's insights.
Has anyone ever actually tried to plug a car battery into your home. It requires that the house be completely disconnected form the grid at the main switchboard. The cost of the inverter is huge. This just isn't going to happen. Tesla Powerwalls are expensive and do not pay themselves back, so why would people buy them?
Energy shifting is getting cheaper at an exponential rate.
I live in South Australia, I don't mind being the guinea pig per se. If renewables have any chance anywhere to work, it's here. So long as if the renewable directive fails, someone actually learns something from it, and not the typical "we didn't believe in it enough", "we didn't give it a long enough period to work", "we didn't spend enough money/resources on it". I'm hoping when we decide to go nuclear (inevitable imo) you Canadian's will help us out and give us a good deal. But I don't know if you're ready to sell us factory built reactors yet. I'd rather my reactors built and delivered from Canada than from China/Russia. I resent being called a colony of China. The more trade embargos we have with China the better imo. How a-boat a colony of Canadah, aye?
I'm a south Aussie, too. You may not mind but ask them at Pt Pirie, Olympic Dam, Whyalla, medical centres or the cast metals precinct. What about businesses with refrigeration?
ATM we rely on brown coal power from the Eastern states at night. How is that a success?
The real issue is that it won't be a little failure. It takes years to bring proper generation online. And yes, successful countries do end up in the shit just incase you think it can't happen to us.
Very good use of the word " collector" I'd rather you use and include " passive collector" it is circumstantial and as a result it is susceptible to considerable risk.
Many dynasties were destroyed by changes in environment in history and we will be no different. Deliberate Energy extractors are imperative for societal stability.
Oh really ? We just basically invented wifi and had to go to court to get Americans to pay is royalties ... and we can't coalesce?
*_Just How Cheap are Wind & Solar?_*
Wind and solar are infinitely-expensive, on a sustained basis. Next.
How did you do that?
Italic Bold?
@@pdloder Underscore and asterisk at the beginning, and again at the end, of the text you want to be affected. No spaces. The asterisk does the *bold,* and the underscore does the _italic._
@@aliendroneservices6621 cheers
australia does not manufacture complicated products because the population is too small to support it and the cost of labour is too high. These are both important conditions of why the standard of living is high.
AUSTALIAN ENGINEER HERE: You are totally wrong on BOTH points.
*FYI - I have worked in our manufacturing sector.*
What you are doing is reiterating the mantra that Australian economists have been preaching for the past 30 years to hide their mistakes and justify sending jobs overseas. They have *LIED* about our population being too small and labour cost being too high. Its been told so many times its just accepted as fact.
The 3 biggest things, which are 100% the result of ECONOMISTS interfering in areas they had no understanding of, that are against Australian manufacturing are:
1) Raw material cost because we might dig it up but the raw stock materials are produced overseas because it was better to be part of the global supply chain.
2) Energy costs which have spiralled out of control. Manufacturing is energy intensive and ever since we privatised our energy sector those costs have doubled, double again and then gone up more.
3) Skilled labour. You cannot support a manufacturing sector without the tool makers, machinists, electricians,... etc to build stuff and then keep it running. In the 1990s we killed off all the training programs and then made it lucrative with monetary bonuses to high schools to get as many kids as possible to go to university.
To hide these facts economist have been spewing out the same garbage for years.
@@tonywilson4713 That sounds alot like the rust belt where I live. I literally have no chance of getting a job like my dad has. He has no degree but took some electrical engineering classes. They closed the General Electric Locomotive plant and take service repair work for the shoddy work coming from the new plant in South Texas.
@@SubvertTheState I KNOW ABOUT THAT GE Loco plant. It was covered in an Australian news story a number of years ago. Its quite some time ago but I think it was on the ABC program Foreign Correspondent which does these 1/2 hour stories on other parts of the world.
I actually went to college at U. of Illinois (Big 10) so I have a better than average understanding (for a non-American) of the rust belt. What was done to the rust belt should be seen by the American people as a crime.
I actually thought Trump was going to beat Hilary *MONTHS BEFORE* the emails came out. She said she wouldn't campaign in Michigan because they'd vote for her anyway. Its was incredibly arrogant and it totally disrespected what had happened to the rust belt with factories like that GE plant.
That news story explained how people were offered jobs in Texas BUT AT LESS PAY. It also showed how closing that plant crushed the town. It not only cost jobs at the factory but jobs that were linked to the factory. Plus it meant less money coming into the town which affected everything from the schools to the diners, to the supermarkets and gas stations and everything else. On top of that it crushed house values so people couldn't sell up and move to Texas because there was nobody with any money to buy them.
In that environment Hilary Clinton's _"more of the same"_ neoliberal globalised economics was NEVR going to win. She was the first Democrat to lose all 3 of Ohio, Michigan and Pennsylvania since 1988 when Bush 1.0 smacked Dukakis. Both Kerry and Gore won BOTH Michigan and Pennsylvania and Gore almost won Ohio.
That's how SHlTHOUSE Hilary actually was and how badly the Democrats have paid attention to the Rust Belt. It doesn't say much for the GOP either.
But that same story *HAS BEEN* played out time and again across the Western world's manufacturing *AND* the political response has been the same everywhere.
'Roof top solar more expensive....' is wrong. My off-grid solar runs much cheaper than my grid city house because of the huge grid maintenance cost. Solar panels are cheap and batteries are getting there. Grid ~30c KwHr vs off grid at < 10c KwHr. The reliability is another huge factor. The power poles near us are all being replaced over the next ~10 years. Each pole replacement costs us a day without power. The old infrastructure is falling apart.
Rooftop PV, particularly with batteries, is fine for powering detached and semi detached homes and some small businesses.
However, it wont come anywhere near powering a modern industrial society.
Australia's wealth will vanish as a consequence of recycling, as raw commodities, particularly in China, become a smaller component of globally traded goods.
If Australia wants to avoid economic irrelevance and move up the value chain, it will need vastly more energy and energy intensity to do so. Nuclear will have to be an option to play in this game.
When it comes to nuclear Australia needs to focus on low enriched fast neutron nuclear technology based on uranium and thorium as fuels.
This might be achieved with a network of 10-15 SMR nuclear power plants and four or so large nuclear plants such as the Darlington CANDU plant.
I hope you have a good experience.😊
Australia will have nuclear power, and lots of it. The question is how late it comes to the party.
The Finkel report did not indicate Australia should power itself with renewables, he just indicated it could be done, but at huge cost.
This is particularly so when you consider the economic benefit of embodied carbon in the country's exports of coal, minerals and LNG as well as agricultural products.
Finkel calculated that to fully power the Australian economy in a carbon free world (ie. no coal or LNG exports with the difference made up by green hydrogen), would require an on line input of 700GW or more. This would need an input of over 200,000, large (10MW) wind turbines (or equivalent).
So far Australia has installed about 7,000 commercial grade wind turbines (it has also dismantled quite a few). It has plans for about another 20,000. This leaves the country over 80% short of the requirement identified by Finkel.
The huge difference has never been explained. Its seems governments of both complexions hope the problem will simply disappear. It wont!
Also , please investigate SMR technology and bypass a 'Sizewell B' (20-35 B GBP) cost estimates so far ?
Has the USAGE of energy ever been discussed?
Could we be more efficient in how we heat our homes to the way we transport ourselves and the goods we need?
Thank you for uploading and sharing.
There's usage of POWER, ie watts, and there's usage of ENERGY, ie joules. You need both. A small efficiency gain in power usage is not going to help when the power is ZERO.
This has been discussed lots. From memory we have to cut our usage by 80% if we keep on our current trajectory. Show me any smelter, mining operation or other big energy user that can do that?
Make batteries…
Cool stuff! And good to know, especially knowing that photovoltaics in Australia must perform MUCH better than here in Germany!
If you want to talk about the German "Energiewende", I'm happy to discuss my 9 year, 1-h-value model to estimate storage and flexibility requirements!
Your EV cars battery is a consumable and your car devalues in proportion to its degradation. Why would anyone be insane enough to let someone else use their cars battery and run through battery cycles devaluing their car.
He talks a lot. Is his argument that renewable storage is not included in the costs of of renewable energy generation?
Are the ongoing coalmining costs and the cost of coal and infrastructure taken into account of coal power generation?
What about nuclear. Is the cost of uranium mining included the build and infrastructure costs tken into account for nuclear?
Or are you singling out renewable energy for a particular reason?
Curious.
I am pro nuclear power. The Australian 🦘🇦🇺 case is a little different than most. Australia has a huge tourism industry. Like it or not, real or imagined nuclear power has a negative image now. SMRs are glossy brochured schemes for "investors". Australia needs large reactors like CANDU and there's an established coal economy who's attitude towards nuclear power plants has been mixed. Whole communities are currently relying on the coal industry. Nuclear power plants should go to Tasmania first. Reactors could run hot 🔥 keep out of Xe range and pump water 🌊. Water for the reactor, water for hydrogen, ammonia production and steel products with hydrogen instead of coal. Tasmania dams should be nuclear!
While Canada (really Ontario) has Nuclear & still has an auto industry integrated with US it has shedded a lot of manufacturing..given up its leadership in high tech, airline & rapid transit manufacture by selling off nortel, blackberry, bombardier, dehavilland wtc
"Opportunist collectors"
Might be better...
Implies that the 'stuff' isn't just laying around in plentiful quantities. Rather that it's sometimes available, and they collected it ONLY when it's there.
Most engineers employment is connected to government money.
Need more engineers
Both these guys naysayers to solar hate to bring up lmfp batteries 🔋 prices are slated to drop to $55 kWh by the end of this year. We have 🇬🇧 based company that is producing table salt based batteries 🔋 which they testing in India 🇮🇳 at price of $30 kWh
1:11:44 I'm with Aidan right up until this point. I just need to find the data behind this jump in logic to nuclear. I see VRE is going to be more expensive than what is modelled but I don't see where the case has been made for nuclear. I get that is hard and what the energy authorities are meant to be doing, not people from twitter.
So I agree, there needs to be a proper red team against the current "plan".
Here in the uk we are building the next gen Nuclear it will be the most expensive electricity in our mix, its 3 year late & billions of pounds over budget, we have sites with thousands of tons of nuclear waste stacked up in concrete blocks with no plan world wide to deal with it. In the uk even with our energy mix, solar is the cheapest followed by wind . You can balance your grid we do !
I can't watch any more than about 5 minutes at a time. The host asks a question, and the aidan guy just starts wandering down a rabbit hole for 5 minutes in a very low tone of voice, and by the end, you realize you didn't learn anything, he wasted his time, the question wasn't answered, and this whole experiment makes you want to go take a nap.
How expensive is the loss of reasonable and rational understanding well taught historical analyses, of long-term stable Civilisations.
Oz might have been more "complex" couple decades ago & now less than Canada but they managed to increase their GDP per capita more than Canada & higher than now
I categorise them (solar collectors) harvesters.
57:03
Australia have the cheapest cars and solar in the world. V easy to get to 100% evs and 100% solar
I hope the pressure from Oz might persuade Tesla to adopt v to h quickly…
Brilliant podcast Now how can we get Australia's government to comprehend?
Yeah? Well my newborn child was in an incubator for 8 weeks! That's a pretty weird flex right there.
Wind & Solar, I guess it’s highly subsidised as it is everywhere…
All components in a power system are subsidized directly or indirectly all over the world. Nuclear got developed by massive public investments during the 50-70s and it is systematically subsidized in different countries (France through EDF). Fossil fuels get subsidized on the grounds of security of supply. The power grids were built to accommodate for large generation units and were built by public investment. The list goes on.
No where near as subsidised as coal and oil.
excess mort australia 12% excess 2022 .. ..electric society ... will this be a smaller head count .. making switch to sustainable easier
I am glad that Australia is conducting an experiment of a transition to 100% renewable energy. The USA needs to pay attention. Unlike Germany, Australia has an ideal climate for renewables. So advocates for renewable energy are already using Australia as an example for their cause. However, if the low cost of renewables is based on a lie, the 100% renewable program will fail spectacularly.
AUSTRALIAN ENGINEER HERE: Its not based on a lie its based on people who ARE NOT engineers making engineering decisions. Australia's biggest problem by far is the number of people who are not engineers grabbing the microphone and just letting noise drown out anything resembling logic.
I put a longer comment by itself if you want some more details
I don't want to live in an experiment, nor pay for it, and I think it a big risk when we all know better, as Oz Engr explains. We are trying to build massive wind and solar all over productive farmland, inc. my farmland, that is far enough east to have almost reliable rainfall, but far enough west to be out of sight out of mind of the city types. We have a privatised power industry but backed up by Compulsory Acquisition, as if the corporates need an extra leg-up. We are protesting in Sydney 30 Nov 23 Martin Place against Reckless Renewables.
@@grantpiper6358 Unless there's multiple Grant Pipers in Australia who'd be sensitive about farmland and also fly aerobatics then I know you and you know me.
Irrespective.
Most of the farmers in Victoria are gladly having wind on their farms because 1) It doesn't take up much land after installation and 2) They get well paid.
There's actually be farmers complain they got left out.
That doesn't mean there hasn't been issues. As usual there are clowns who think they can roll into town and bully people rather than work with them. Like is happening with the transmission lines.
Plus on the whole transition we are NOT dealing with the stability of the supply issue. Snowy 2.0, despite the ridiculous $$$multi-billion cockup on the transmission line should end up being a boon for NSW, but that project doesn't help Victoria or Queensland and batteries only go so far.
Australian Engineer Simon Michaux has a great line: _"Its not an impossible task but we need a better plan."_ So far the planning has been dominated by clowns and idiots with their own agendas.
THAT HAS TO STOP.
The jobs and industry losses are my biggest concern if it fails. Not to mention the reputational damage of being known as a country with expensive unreliable energy.
My electricity bill went up 40% (suburban Sydney apartment) this year as record wind and solar is installed. Can’t wait for that cheap renewable power to deflate my energy bill… any day now, any day…
It will require massive infrastructure upgrade and voltage increase to the home charging outlet.
In North Queensland where koala and rare species country will be trashed and mountaintops sliced off for 'renewables' the only response is 'Koalas for Nuclear.'
What happens after nuclear ? It’s not a renewable resource.
@@tigertoo01 That could be figured out after a couple of hundred years.
Don't panic.
@@chrisruss9861 so in a few 100 years those people should do renewables ? lol😂and clean up the nuclear mess left behind.
@@tigertoo01 Let's 'renew' the discussion in a few hundred years time. LOL.
So Australia doesn't have enough space for solar? WTF Your country is 99.999% EMPTY. If the most densely populated countries in Europe can do it, then Australia can't do it because it has koala's? Last time I checked, you guys were already driving koala's to extinction, without solar.
"Dutch Disease" is most likely the answer to your question on Australia's loss of Industrial complexity. Same in Norway. Price niveau is too high to be competitive due to steady currency influx from ressource sales.
Neigtbouring east Asia it is even more problematic then for Norway.
Norway is the only country that has avoided it, they are responsible for the production of the best semiconductor chips on the planet
Yes that is why hospitals have gensets
20million buildings connected to the grid. In Australia.
6.6kw rooftop is 660Gwh daily.
Fossil fuels generation is 600Gwh max, but usually 300gWh
Rooftop solar has the structural support in the roof.
Rooftop solar is connected to the grid, minimum transmission needed.
Point of collection is at point of storage and use is the feature.
Grid is UNLOADED, is the feature.
20million vehicles, when EV with big batteries, 100kwh, and parked 23hrs every day as usual. Is 2,000gwh daily.
So if selfparking EV, like home robotic vacuum cleaner plugs into the wall power point then 20million batteries can trade electricity and stability with the grid.
EV daily needs tobe topped up is 7kwh daily.
The battery can be full at the end of every day.
Rapid charging will be on the main roads and at corner stores.
Horse and cart thinking is dangerous, and expensive.
Yes, design and engineering will be needed.
Won’t need 20 million cars soon. Vehicles will be a self driving subscription service within 10 years. Owning a car will be antiquated especially if you live in a city.
@tigertoo01 My main concern is that the rooftop pv and batteries will be universal, and the grid will be UNLOADED, and all within a decade, but the nuclear solution will be locked in for 100years, 10decades.
The nuclear solution needs humongously expensive grid expansion, and military defence budgets will explode because nuclear industries in every country have been a potential danger for 80 years.
@@stephenbrickwood1602 yeah agree 100% nuclear is just lazy people not thinking about the repercussions as you have there. There are too many to list and it does not solve the balance problem. Eventually we have to resort to a renewable grid and perfect recycling. That is the only long term solution imo.
In theory we can now get rid of the grid for homes with roofs if solar and batteries get cheap enough
It would be oversized PV plus a modest battery plus a gasoline (or nat gas) generator
A 10KW array plus 10KWh battery plus a petrol generator would cost about $15,000 (US dollars) and might cover some 80% from solar and 20% from petrol or nat gas. That woupd be pretty 'green' and it would be very resilient in that no forign power can attack your power infrastructure
The above would also apply for any building with reaoanable roof size vs power useage
Edit: In sunny locations
That theory has been tested by the world's 1 million factories. Exactly none of them are running off-grid on their own rooftop solar, so that theory has been falsified.
Electricity use is pretty moveable, eg the PC and lights and fridge I want all the time but the big use of electricity I can do anytime - I weld and bake and charge and dry when the sun shines, ie when electricity is cheap, the same as I buy petrol or a particular fruit when it's cheap.
Weather predictions and batteries in the grid helps the grid stability.
Central generation growth from future demand growth and it's need of grid growth is the full economic problem.
Proliferation of centralised generation and grid capacity to stop CO2 proliferation is at the heart of the real problem
How much is the grid costs per klm ????
How much future electricity demand increase will the capacity requirements ??????
EXTRAORDINARY guest today. Fantastic access to my feeble brain, I GROK (remember "Stranger in a Strange Land" ???). THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU !!!
BTW, I went back, and listened to the video linked here. I have to say, there has been a significant evolution in the message for the better HERE, compared to that video, and thank goodness. I was frankly lost in the discussion of cheese and crackers. Just sayin' The message presented HERE is a WINNER !
France is set with hydro and nuclear to be net zero. Who thought wind and solar was a great idea?
*this is a test to try Bold text*
*bold text* → bold
_italicized text_ →
_italicized _*_bold text_*_ → bold_ →
Australia invented the first Computer Musical Instrument (Fairlight CMI) that introduced the first keyboard ‘sampler’ the first real-time ‘sequencer’ the first 24-track Digital Audio Workstation (DAW), the first CVI (Computer Video Instrument) doing affordable video effects. Today, Fairlight’s DAW is integrated with Blackmagic’s Devinci audio/video workstation that can be downloaded for free at entry level.
Please remove your mustache bro 😇
57:02 57:03 Let's call them what they are: *_mining rigs._*
Wind mining-rigs, and solar mining-rigs.
Exactly right! Coal and oil are free in the same way wind and the sun are free. Mining techniques are different but the concept is the same, well almost the same. Oil and gas miners collect a more energy-dense ore which is much more valuable to society.
I was thinking about this - at the moment, we apparently have a labour shortage in Australia, and we rely on temporary and permanent migration to fill a heap of jobs in multiple sectors. What is life in Australia going to be like if we actually had to manufacture, research, process materials and distribute all the products that we currently use, and just swap with the Chinese and Japanese for Iron ore and other minerals.
A number I would like to see, but may never find out: what is Australias labour consumption? I.E. How many peoples worth of labour does Australia consume, if we were to make everything we consume. Very relevant, as a Labour politician once brought up that to transition Australia to renewables would require something like 500,000 workers, full time, for a decade. I might be misremembering that.
Also, Australia is a country, not a continent. The territory of this country actually is 1.4 continents - the Federation of Australia owns the entire continent of Australia, but also owns the largest piece of Antarctica, as well as the Islands of Tasmania, Christmas Island and some others. So we are a continent ++ country.
Confusing yes
A lot of the 'labour shortage' narrative is a justification to ensure the labour market is oversupplied. Very high immigration is basically to appease corporate Australia in suppressing labour income. Real median household income (for example, look at HILDA) has basically flatlined for more than a decade (and recently fell off a cliff with the very large ramp up in migration when the borders reopened).
Like all these things, there is a grain of truth for certain specialised jobs. But, by and large, the 'skilled' component of the migration program is filled with migrants that only a meet a fairly low 'skilled' bar.
so you would reject "free" solar panels because they need a grid, but then support nuclear? What is the thought process there? Solar can be more distributed and need less grid, than nuclear which would have fewer and larger installations, most likely away from cities. Starting to sound like fossil fuel lobbyists. I get that intermittency is an issue, but isn't all production intermittent. Power stations need maintenance and breakdown. Nuclear, coal and gas run at high temps and pressure, and fail from time to time, with downtime in the region of months and years.
"What is the thought process there?"
Uranium is the cheapest fuel, and wind and solar are the most-expensive fuels (in addition to being only pure-baseload fuels, and thus useless for load-following and peaking). Next.
Staggering! BTW I believe nuclear has a place in future energy mix. But to say uranium is cheaper than sunlight is a bit odd, don't you think. We need clean power now. New nuclear is a 15 year process and very expensive compared to wind and solar. Just google "cost of nuclear vs renewables" @@aliendroneservices6621
@@barriedear5990Both uranium and sunlight are free, unmined and ignoring mining rights. When we take all costs into consideration, wind and solar are infinitely-expensive, on a sustained basis.
@@barriedear5990 > Solar can be more distributed and need less grid
You contradict yourself right there.
Either solar is more distributed, or it needs less grid - which is it?
By definition, a solar collector that is distributed needs more grid.
> nuclear which would have fewer and larger installations, most likely away from cities.
Whether or not the NPP is close or far to the city (I live surrounded by 3 NPPs, each about 60 miles from me; and there are several NPPs right next to large population centers) you need a single transmission line from the NPP to the load center.
The transmission line doesn't need to bifurcate and branch again and again to small collector farms.
And, as you state, there would be FEWER NPPs, thus FEWER direct transmission lines needed.
I should have clarified, I meant rooftop solar. 66% of solar in Europe is rooftop. @@factnotfiction5915
Talk about the volume of future electricity. And grid size needed.
Nuclear promoters have said 80 SMRs, but 5times bigger future demand means 400 SMRs.
And still world CO2 floods the atmosphere and climate 'destabilisation ' if the world does not have the same technology and industries, nuclear industries.
That is my concern.
I have grandchildren.
F
I figured that a one gigawatt solar farm would be approximately 12+ square miles in size. The storage for it would have to be massive. If a solar farm only generates 5hrs a day then to get 1 gigawatt of output every hour of the day then one gigawatt peak would be 5/24s as big as needed. The cost of it would be comparable to a 1gw npp. There's some large solar farms but none of the compare to a typical nuclear power plant.
Why would one single solar plant equal a nuclear power plant? You understand that the grid is a combination of many sources?
You would be wrong. For large solar plants, winter watts is 6 watts per square meter. 12 square miles is 31 million square meters, so we're looking at only 190 winter megawatts in 12 square miles. You would need over 60 square miles of solar to produce an average of 1 terawatt of power over the course of the darkest month of the year.
Are you including the cost on waste nuclear spent fuel in your figures, that needs to be processed and stored for how long under guard, and if it gets damaged by natural events whose going to pay for that clean up??????
@@showme360 "This 'back end' of the fuel cycle, including used fuel storage or disposal in a waste repository, contributes up to 10% of the overall costs per kWh, or less if there is direct disposal of used fuel rather than reprocessing. *_The $26 billion US used fuel programme is funded by a 0.1 ¢/kWh levy."_*
Under good conditions about 25 square kilometers (5*5km) of PV should get you somewhere around a gigawatt.
In reality you would need to spread it out a good deal more for maintenance access etc. A thought also is using space under for various agricultural activities. There are many crops and stock that would thrive with a bit of shade.
As more folks put in solar, grid costs will go up and up. So better off people will buy batteries and go off grid, further rising costs, and making the grid more unstable. This might lead to the government confiscating batteries and ev battery capacity.
1:02:51 The reason people think that "the grid is a big battery" is that they are charged by the kWh. *_Get rid of electricity metering,_* and that problem of perception is solved.
Macarthur wind farm has consistently been one of the worst performing wind farms since its construction in 2012 en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macarthur_Wind_Farm - Love how the media will push that it will power XXX thousand homes based on the wind farm's total power generation capacity but when looking at ANERO those systems are often sub 30% utilized (Macarthur is 18% now and Loy Yang B is running 117% again with majority of Vic wind farms all below 30%). Stockyard Hill wind farm is 13%!