My spies tell me Jabiru has been sold

[LoonyBob]

3 hours ago, BrendAn said:

so they don't need thousands of meters of copper wiring .

Most elevated distribution cables use aluminium, which is widely available in mud...

[LoonyBob]

11 hours ago, BrendAn said:

of course there would no science involved in building 60 reactors would there.

there are thousands of stupid people involved in these projects.  

😂 Politicians decide where the public funding goes. Please name all Aussie federal politicians since Federation (barry Jones) to hold a science degree? (Barry jones).

 

Of course the challenges involved in designing and building a functional and "as safe sa practicable" reactor attract some of the best and brightest. That does not mean that they question the fundamental presumptions; they are modelling in atheir own respective closed systems. How long before the known negatives of asbestos, found by science, were accepted by Politicians? And how much longer, by James Hardy?

 

Were the people responsible for the Manhattan Project stupid, or poor scientists? I think not; yet was their achievement an unmixed blessing? Ask the Downwinders...

 

 

 

Simplistic logical fallacies do not help the debate.  Argumentum ad Populum is a logicasl fallacy.

[kasper]

So given the topic is lost in the distance of comment I feel ok with a lunchtime rant

1. if you have an electrical grid the issues of the copper etc in it are immaterially different regardless of what source is throwing electricity into the system - stop bagging non-traditional power sources on the materials in the grid itself - it will exist anyway.  It MAY be reduced if you reduce the singular grid to mini-grids but that's a completely different issue

2. The need for electrical storage to allow time displacement of generation and consumption has always existed as an issue.  Historic management has avoided battery and been through a mix of generator types that can be ramped up/down as reasonably possible depending on the generator type.  The grid management 'fun' has traditionally been matching capacity and generation to have a relatively stable current reducing/removing brown and black outs

3. The only instant access storage systems currently available are batteries and capacitors.  All others have ramp up times be it minutes or hours they are not instantly available.  Capacitors have their own issues separate from batteries but people will keep looking and that may emerge ... just not tomorrow.

4. for grid linked battery there is a real concern on the risk/cost/hazard of the systems and the embedded resources that they contain.  There are possible battery storage systems that are moving out of design/development into operational use on scale that address many of these concerns eg Redflow – Sustainable Energy Storage

And here is my 2c worth on nucelar and Australia and where I think we will go:

1. nuclear is not publicly acceptable so until and unless that changes all the issues (real and imagined/exaggerated) will stop it starting

2. Australia has a real capacity in terms of geography to access solar and wind - play to your resource strength maybe?

3. even if it were socially acceptable it is not timescale viable in the short to medium term as a solution - coal and gas will be ended before anything substantial could come in nuclear so its not the short/medium term solution and we are not going to sit in the dark twiddling thumbs waiting for electricity become a thing again

4. short and medium term will be solar and wind, how that is stored to spread over time is the biggy

5. a distributed grid with solar/battery on buildings with a grid draw facility will become a part of the solution for generation time displacing - a way for ramping up 'battery' capacity without a single huge battery as the building owners pay for effectively a minim grid of their own that can be accessed to store and draw from other generations.

 

[facthunter]

Local area batteries can be done by private Enterprise or a cooperative. We could triple our soar PV without seeing them everywhere.  Nev

[turboplanner]

18 minutes ago, facthunter said:

Local area batteries can be done by private Enterprise or a cooperative. We could triple our soar PV without seeing them everywhere.  Nev

You don't have to triple the output for our CURRENT, you have to increase their output over a Hundredfold, if coal-fired becomes fnancially non-viable.

[kasper]

4 minutes ago, turboplanner said:

You don't have to triple the output for our CURRENT, you have to increase their output over a Hundredfold, if coal-fired becomes fnancially non-viable.

Probably a factor like that is required.

However, its not a single solution or a simple replace 'A' electric generation with 'A' from a different source 

 

The cheapest electricity is electricity you do not use.

'green' electric changes includes power saving measures and changes to how we use electric and how we design and build the buildings themselves.

Our home is NOT ideal, it is a weatherboard and tin roofed cottage built in the early 1950's ... it was build without indoor plumbing and no elelctric just a tap on the wall in the kitchen over the sink straight from the tank.  Both of electric and plumbing were added later.

When we rebuilt it from the frame out 8 years ago we spent our money on the core fabric to get it as good as we could on the cash we had and we spent under $50k total ... all the finishes and fittings are the cheapest because we needed something that minimally impacting on my wallet to run ... I am a skin flint.

We have double glazing, full insulation all around and a passive heat recovery/exclusion system with solar/battery/grid link electric.

Granted it's a small house and there are only the two of us but we run everything from the water pressure system to the clothes dryer and deep freeze without thought of 'managing' electric like I did 30 years ago in a solar house ... but we NEVER use more than 15.2kwh a day to run it no matter what we do.  Our 6.6kw battery linked solar runs it and we pump about half the standing charge in feed in electric back to the grid constantly.

 

Lots of small impacts on demand, lots of improved coverage of generation and storage all linked through the grid is viable ... but there is need for scale and speed.

 

 

[BrendAn]

7 minutes ago, kasper said:

Probably a factor like that is required.

However, its not a single solution or a simple replace 'A' electric generation with 'A' from a different source 

 

The cheapest electricity is electricity you do not use.

'green' electric changes includes power saving measures and changes to how we use electric and how we design and build the buildings themselves.

Our home is NOT ideal, it is a weatherboard and tin roofed cottage built in the early 1950's ... it was build without indoor plumbing and no elelctric just a tap on the wall in the kitchen over the sink straight from the tank.  Both of electric and plumbing were added later.

When we rebuilt it from the frame out 8 years ago we spent our money on the core fabric to get it as good as we could on the cash we had and we spent under $50k total ... all the finishes and fittings are the cheapest because we needed something that minimally impacting on my wallet to run ... I am a skin flint.

We have double glazing, full insulation all around and a passive heat recovery/exclusion system with solar/battery/grid link electric.

Granted it's a small house and there are only the two of us but we run everything from the water pressure system to the clothes dryer and deep freeze without thought of 'managing' electric like I did 30 years ago in a solar house ... but we NEVER use more than 15.2kwh a day to run it no matter what we do.  Our 6.6kw battery linked solar runs it and we pump about half the standing charge in feed in electric back to the grid constantly.

 

Lots of small impacts on demand, lots of improved coverage of generation and storage all linked through the grid is viable ... but there is need for scale and speed.

 

 

i think the smallest house you can be comfortable in is the way to go. large houses are a waste of energy and real estate. double glazing is a great energy saver too.

[kasper]

9 minutes ago, BrendAn said:

i think the smallest house you can be comfortable in is the way to go. large houses are a waste of energy and real estate. double glazing is a great energy saver too.

I agree but I'll get political ...

tell the baby boomers to downsize

or the Gen Xers living in very large houses or Mc Mansions covering the maximum m^2 allowed

that its not reasonable to live in an energy inefficient way and see what happens

 

Me, I will transition to retirement into a small flat in a town where I need no car to live and aim to arrive at death with just enough cash to dispose of the corpse and leave as little adverse impact on the world as I can achieve.  I have almost completed the conversion of my ancient Sapphire from KFM to electric power and will have to scrounge a few more recycled solar panels to build the charger for that so I can continue flying without burning dinosaurs.  I'm far from perfect but I am trying.

Edited December 6, 2023 by kasper

[Carbon Canary]

Not much commentary about vehicle to home (bi-directional) charging so far - it’s coming. The average EV can supply electricity to a home for a couple of days if needed.  I guess this could be called a microgrid if you have a bunch of panels on the roof and use an EV battery as your storage device.

[kasper]

Just now, Carbon Canary said:

Not much commentary about vehicle to home (bi-directional) charging so far - it’s coming. The average EV can supply electricity to a home for a couple of days if needed.  I guess this could be called a microgrid if you have a bunch of panels on the roof and use an EV battery as your storage device.

Yep, that's possible and exists in some makes/models and countries.

 

Difficulty is that its not a perfect solution - if you work and commute your car is ususally a long way from your panels so unless you have a grid link to allow you to push elelctric in at home and draw it out elsewhere it is a battery that is not generally available when solar pv is generating the elecltric that needs to be stored ... unless every parking space is wired to the grid ... 

[kgwilson]

My average daily usage is 7.5kW. I installed a grid connected solar system 11 years ago. It is 2kW. Tiny now but average at the time. My EV has 64kWh of storage and has V2L. The cars inverter is capable of delivering 32 amps. The induction cooker is the most power hungry appliance followed by the electric jug, toaster and aircon. The 520/175 litre fridge/freezer and upright 305 litre freezer operate 24/7. Hot water is from a heat pump that only runs from 9am to 4pm, consumes 450 watts, 95% of which is from the solar supply. Theoretically my cars battery with appropriate management could supply all of my power needs for 8.5 days. There are 2 of us in a 200 sq metre modern insulated house but with single glazing in a sub tropical climate on the coast 30 deg South.

 

I still give about 40% of the solar energy back to the grid & get 5 cents/kWH for it. I have looked at a battery but there is no cost benefit & now that I have a mobile one it is no longer a consideration.

[facthunter]

I Heard those on the 60+ cents will end soon. I DID have that option but thought it was ripping others off which it IS. I'm surprised it lasted so long. Think I get about 7..  Nev

[turboplanner]

1 hour ago, kasper said:

Probably a factor like that is required.

However, its not a single solution or a simple replace 'A' electric generation with 'A' from a different source 

 

The cheapest electricity is electricity you do not use.

'green' electric changes includes power saving measures and changes to how we use electric and how we design and build the buildings themselves.

Our home is NOT ideal, it is a weatherboard and tin roofed cottage built in the early 1950's ... it was build without indoor plumbing and no elelctric just a tap on the wall in the kitchen over the sink straight from the tank.  Both of electric and plumbing were added later.

When we rebuilt it from the frame out 8 years ago we spent our money on the core fabric to get it as good as we could on the cash we had and we spent under $50k total ... all the finishes and fittings are the cheapest because we needed something that minimally impacting on my wallet to run ... I am a skin flint.

We have double glazing, full insulation all around and a passive heat recovery/exclusion system with solar/battery/grid link electric.

Granted it's a small house and there are only the two of us but we run everything from the water pressure system to the clothes dryer and deep freeze without thought of 'managing' electric like I did 30 years ago in a solar house ... but we NEVER use more than 15.2kwh a day to run it no matter what we do.  Our 6.6kw battery linked solar runs it and we pump about half the standing charge in feed in electric back to the grid constantly.

 

Lots of small impacts on demand, lots of improved coverage of generation and storage all linked through the grid is viable ... but there is need for scale and speed.

 

 

All food for thought.

 

Just looking at your NEVER use more than 15.2 kWh for 2 people.

About half an hour ago on an unremarkable afternoon the east coast population of Australia (=26m less WA and NT) were demanding 54.42 kWh per person (including the kids).

 

I lived in a house with about your use of power out in the country growing up, but in those years we used redgum to fire the copper to boil the water for washing the clothes, and wood chips to heat the water for a shower or bath, wood stove, kerosene refrigerator, hot water for washing dishes, so we didn't need much electric power.

 

Today though people want a higher living standard, so you are up against an unrelenting pressure if you start dreaming of downsizing homes and taking out the aircon. So not much point talking about it.

 

Getting back to our 54.42 kWh demand per person this afternoon, in addition to our homes, that's to supply street lights, sewerage pumps, water supply pumps, trains, traffic lights, hospitals, shops and the factories people on this site have said we should never lose, and in fact get back our manufacturing base. In Victoria the aluminium smelter near Portland draws most of our generated power.

 

EV is a big threat to the Eastern Grid. Labor's policy a couple of elections ago to have 50% of all new cars EV, required a second grid of equal size plus rebuilding all substations to three phase if very street was to have full capacity for EV.  This alone was a good reason for Lebor to drop the policy.

 

So you can have an ideal, but you have to look at how practical that is, given that most of that 54.42 kWh being generated right now is going to places like the aluminium spemlter and industries where you can't put some solar panels on the roof and generate enough power to work it. Even in homes, I've found the crossover where it gets hard is running 0.5 hp + motors.

 

This afternoon was a mild one generally where Solar and Wind could undersell Coal, bringing the coal percentage of supply down thereby pushing the renewables percentage up.

 

Even with the mild afternoon South Australia was only generating about three quarters of its demand, so probably the State at most risk this summer.

 

Outputs in Megawatts were:

              

                     MW             % of Total

Battery         12                0

Biomass       49                0

Black Coal    8353           40 

Brown Coal   3283           16

Gas                707              3

Hydro             549             3

Liquid Fuel     0                  0

Other              0                  0

Solar               5618            27

Wind               2370            11

[kgwilson]

43 minutes ago, facthunter said:

I Heard those on the 60+ cents will end soon. I DID have that option but thought it was ripping others off which it IS. I'm surprised it lasted so long. Think I get about 7..  Nev

The 60 cent deal disappeared some years ago in NSW. This started the rooftop PVA revolution and nearly sent the Labour government broke in 2010. In NSW you got a subsidised rooftop PVA system. Then a 1kW system cost around $10,000.00 installed & used all Australian panels & inverters. Early adopters were paid 65 cents/kWh for all power they produced including what they used themselves. This was at a time when peak power prices were less than 30c/kWH and most ended up with huge credits and eventually a cheque would arrive in the mail. Crazy but true.

[Litespeed]

10 hours ago, kgwilson said:

25 million panels & 3000 wind turbines on 15,000 sq km is able to produce more than the current output from everything we have now.

Which would be easy.

 

We have more available roof space than that would need. 5million homes could cover the panels plus industrial roofs, carpark awnings etc.

 

Space is not a issue, imagination and proper planning can do it.

[Litespeed]

4 hours ago, turboplanner said:

You don't have to triple the output for our CURRENT, you have to increase their output over a Hundredfold, if coal-fired becomes fnancially non-viable.

Absolute flaming bullshit.

 

Unless your talking about your brain cells

 

You strawmen seem to have Pinocchio's nose.

Edited December 6, 2023 by Litespeed

[facthunter]

Even The best new design COAL  is too expensive apart from putting more CO2 into the atmosphere than any other option. It also can't be ramped up and down without losing efficiency. Carbon Capture an storage hasn't gone anywhere and makes it more costly. The ashes cause major pollution of Lakes. and the power stations FAIL suddenly, as well as taking years to build. Who wants to live near one?.. Nev

[Litespeed]

Not to mention the huge air pollution of just mining and transportation of coal.

 

I get coal dust in the air from the hunter mines, float  on the air to my boat a huge distance away.

 

Want black lung for your children, go live near a coal mine.

 

Edited December 6, 2023 by Litespeed

[turboplanner]

15 minutes ago, Litespeed said:

Absolute flaming bullshit.

 

Unless your talking about your brain cells

 

You strawmen seem to have Pinocchio's nose.

Sorry, fact which is a bit telling given your story about being a man of science.

[Litespeed]

Here is a article on nuclear and a cautionary tale.

 

It really demonstrates the legacy issues and safety problems. 

 

Plus videos.

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&opi=89978449&url=https://amp.theguardian.com/business/2023/dec/05/dirty-30-dangerous-sellafield-nuclear-site-ponds-safety-fears&ved=2ahUKEwjp3eXkqvqCAxVvwzgGHXvMC0QQ0PADKAB6BAhPEAE&usg=AOvVaw1FGI68DRkCU7b0es8EZZzs

 

 

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&opi=89978449&url=https://amp.theguardian.com/business/2023/dec/04/sellafield-nuclear-site-hacked-groups-russia-china&ved=2ahUKEwjp3eXkqvqCAxVvwzgGHXvMC0QQ0PADKAB6BAg5EAE&usg=AOvVaw0dW6BBqVrXQM7xJPZkNZ7_

 

[facthunter]

Black lung is still occurring there. You  can see the dust Pall from Taree  There's a mine up there that's been on fire for Near a hundred Years. It likely it will never be put out. Hamilton in Newcastle was originally Named PIT TOWN. The whole area is undermined by old coal mines. Continual subsidence everywhere. Some of them went miles out under the sea. Newcastle is the biggest Coal exporting port in the World. ADD our exports of NATURAL GAS Nice green name that, WE are right up there with the Saudis. India under Modi says they will be using COAL for the forseeable future. In Delhi some days you can't see anything and it's not healthy to venture outside. There's 1.4 BILLION of them also and they've just ordered 700 Jet Planes..Nev

[facthunter]

My grandfather worked in a mine at Newcastle that went out under the sea and died fairly young of silicosis. He died when I was about 4 about 18 Months before the Japan war ended. Nev

[Litespeed]

Now,  for those will a bad intent, that Sellarfield site is the easiest way for a terrorist or state actor to turn a whole part of England radioactive ☢️.

 

Those waste ponds and storage are incredibly vulnerable and completely unprotected against any determined group.

 

The world's largest dirty bomb just waiting for a evil mind.

 

That is how we deal with nuclear waste.

 

It's a mad world.

[turboplanner]

33 minutes ago, facthunter said:

Even The best new design COAL  is too expensive apart from putting more CO2 into the atmosphere than any other option. It also can't be ramped up and down without losing efficiency. 

The earlier figures I posted for Eastern Grid power generation today were at 15:30

 We're looking to see whether coal can ramp up or down.

 

At 18:57 with perhaps Air Conditioners turned on in some states, people home from work etc the outputs changed

 

Black coal generation ramped up 47% to 12,300 MW

Solar generation dropped 37.9% to 2130 MW

Wind ramped up 9.4% to 2593 MW

 

 

 

[facthunter]

What I said is still correct, Turbo.  Nev