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Renewable Troubles in Australia

polgara said:
I have been to Brisbane, capitol of Queensland, and also visited many people living on large farms in the area,
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You just outed yourself, you dope smoking hippy. :)
but only during their "Spring" season, which is our early Fall. I have kangaroo and other refrigerator magnets that I got there, and I also bought some beautiful fire opals while there to be made into some gorgeous jewelry for me to wear! :thumbs:

It's a very long trip from NE Ohio, but I intend to go back one day - there's so much that I didn't have time to see - Ayers Rock for one! :yes: One unusual thing was seeing that water circles counter-clockwise when going down the drain, exactly opposite from what it does here! You guys just enjoy being different, right? :lamo
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That water down the drain thingy not quite true. With things like dust devils or cyclones that would hold true most of the time. But drains are subject to variations that could change the direction of the flow.
 
longview said:
I am not saying the Utilities are nice people,(they are not in the US, and I suspect are not in Australia),
but they have real costs, and adding in feed in tariffs to those cost, must be fed back to the customers.
As to what they spend on improving the grid, you have to ask yourself, how often are you willing to go without power,
and for how long?
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You mean in the sense of a threat? If the supply companies are not allowed to overprice and reap massive profits then they will cause failures so you all better just look out?
 
soylentgreen said:
You mean in the sense of a threat? If the supply companies are not allowed to overprice and reap massive profits then they will cause failures so you all better just look out?
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Not at all, the equipment ages, and the population expands.
if they do not keep up with the maintenance and the upgrades, the grid will have outages.
When the electric provider is required by the feed in tariff laws to pay more for electricity than
the normal wholesale rate, to keep profits the same (not increase), they must ether reduce costs, or raise rates.
 
longview said:
Not at all, the equipment ages, and the population expands.
if they do not keep up with the maintenance and the upgrades, the grid will have outages.
When the electric provider is required by the feed in tariff laws to pay more for electricity than
the normal wholesale rate, to keep profits the same (not increase), they must ether reduce costs, or raise rates.
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It's not guess work or just being a tad snippy. There is evidence of collusion between the australian government and business to create profit that is more the problem than renewable energy. There is maintenance costs but that does not explain away the raising in price of electricity.
 
soylentgreen said:
It's not guess work or just being a tad snippy. There is evidence of collusion between the australian government and business to create profit that is more the problem than renewable energy. There is maintenance costs but that does not explain away the raising in price of electricity.
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Nonsense. Supply disruption is the cause of the price rise.
 
soylentgreen said:
You just outed yourself, you dope smoking hippy. :)


That water down the drain thingy not quite true. With things like dust devils or cyclones that would hold true most of the time. But drains are subject to variations that could change the direction of the flow.
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Uh oh! I don't enjoy being the bearer of bad news, but your "never fail" glass scrying bowl needs to get to a repair shop pronto! It's malfunctioning again! :lamo

I watched the water drain in the sink every day I was there, and it always went backwards! Fascinating...
 
soylentgreen said:
It is but one way to go. Ans as i have said, the current thinking is that there is much more to advance in these methods and very few who speculate that all that can be done has been.
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I guess you are happy with making electricity very expensive.
 
polgara said:
Uh oh! I don't enjoy being the bearer of bad news, but your "never fail" glass scrying bowl needs to get to a repair shop pronto! It's malfunctioning again! :lamo

I watched the water drain in the sink every day I was there, and it always went backwards! Fascinating...
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Lucky you. As i said the natural flow can be seen in weather patterns but when looking at a sink even a slight lean in the bowl can reverse the direction. And just how stoned were you that you found water draining down a bowl fascinating?
 
Lord of Planar said:
I guess you are happy with making electricity very expensive.
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Not at all. I just do not see your concern of the expense to be all that convincing. Apart from the fact that there are always alternatives such as solar, hydro or thermal the wind machines are not any more maintenance costing than conventional. Wind and solar are becoming cheaper to run than fossil fuels.

Wind is cheap and solar is getting cheaper | Fortune.com
 
soylentgreen said:
Not at all. I just do not see your concern of the expense to be all that convincing. Apart from the fact that there are always alternatives such as solar, hydro or thermal the wind machines are not any more maintenance costing than conventional. Wind and solar are becoming cheaper to run than fossil fuels.

Wind is cheap and solar is getting cheaper | Fortune.com
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Please notice that your linked article does not mention the future maintenance costs, which get higher and higher as parts near their life needing replacement, and it is this that I am referring to.
 
LCOE does not cover corrective maintenance. From your link:


The report focuses on the overall cost of electricity—from generation, to upfront investment, to the cost of financing—called the "levelised cost electricity," or LCOE.
​

Today's older plants are experiencing maintenance costs that wind power has not yet had to include.

Trust me. I am an expert in such areas of maintenance.
 
soylentgreen said:
It's not guess work or just being a tad snippy. There is evidence of collusion between the australian government and business to create profit that is more the problem than renewable energy. There is maintenance costs but that does not explain away the raising in price of electricity.
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Corruption is one of the worse things that can happen to a society, it costs the economy far more than the surface amount.
That said, What is the new rate in $/Kwh vs the old rate, the feed in tariff rate, and the amount of Kwh that apply to the feed in tariff rate?

From a pure accounting standpoint net metering laws are unsustainable.
A simple one for one, (meter runes backwards during surplus.) forces the utility to buy
Kwh of power at their retail rate. This requires the rates of all the normal users to increase.
As more people take advantage of the unfair rules, fewer and fewer people are left in the "normal pool"
But let's throw some real numbers at the issue and see what falls out!
The feed in tariff rate look like 7 to 10 c per Kwh
https://www.mysolarquotes.co.nz/about-solar-power/residential/solar-power-buy-back-rates-nz/
The wholesale rate looks to be about 13 c per Kwh
https://www1.electricityinfo.co.nz/
and the retail rate is 28.12 c including the GST which I assume is some sort of tax.
In Texas the delta between wholesale and retail before taxes is roughly 10c per Kwh,
which is 13.6 c NZD per Kwh.
The GST looks to add about 4c per kwh.
Wholesale price, 13 c per Kwh
Grid price from other grid normalized to NZD 13.6 C
GST 4 c per Kwh.
total is 30.6c per Kwh
That the retail rate is less than that says they are likely maintaining an efficient grid.
 
The Resistance is growing.

Sign a petition for Australia to pull out of the Paris Agreement


Let’s get Australia out of the pointless Paris Agreement which will cost trillions, hurt the poor, send Australian manufacturing overseas, kill birds, bats, whales, raise electricity prices, and not change global temperatures by any measurable amount. This is a very well reasoned petition written by someone very familiar with the details of IPCC proceedings. It is an official petition, and alas, needs to be limited to Australian signatories. . . .
 
Lord of Planar said:
Please notice that your linked article does not mention the future maintenance costs, which get higher and higher as parts near their life needing replacement, and it is this that I am referring to.
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Same problem in any industry. Considering wind farms are up and running and creating profit then the problem is no more difficult than it is for fossil fuels. You would have a lot more credibility if there were more articles about that talked about peaking in the technology. But instead main stream view is that the technology is getting better and cheaper.
 
longview said:
Corruption is one of the worse things that can happen to a society, it costs the economy far more than the surface amount.
That said, .
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That said! Then the rest was an interesting account of accounts. Which did not take in corruption. And which as you said costs the economy.

As well i would like to point out that it is not the new zealand government but the australian government that has been called corrupt. Nz has a different marketing system of electricity than the australians do. In nz the issue is that the lines companies are failing to upgrade equipment. Where as in australia the same companies are over investing in over priced and falsely taxed equipment. Australia relies more on solar and nz on wind. Nz has one fossil fuel power station, australia has dozens. Nz not so corrupt, australia very corrupt.

Even comparing with texas and nz is difficult. Texas has many coal and gas plants as well as nuclear. NZ has one fossil fuel power plant and many renewables such as geothermal, biothermal, hydro, wind , tide, solar etc.
 
Lord of Planar said:
LCOE does not cover corrective maintenance. From your link:


The report focuses on the overall cost of electricity—from generation, to upfront investment, to the cost of financing—called the "levelised cost electricity," or LCOE.
​

Today's older plants are experiencing maintenance costs that wind power has not yet had to include.

Trust me. I am an expert in such areas of maintenance.
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And those plants now reaching the point of needing replacements have already generated enough electricity to cover the costs.

This really is an argument of either read any of the papers and literature on renewables and see that the agreement is that they are getting better and cheaper. Or on the other hand disregard your obvious appeal to authority fallacy and go with what you say because it is you saying it.
 
soylentgreen said:
Lucky you. As i said the natural flow can be seen in weather patterns but when looking at a sink even a slight lean in the bowl can reverse the direction. And just how stoned were you that you found water draining down a bowl fascinating?
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I was just double checking that it wasn't a "sometimes" thing. It wasn't! :shrug: It's apparently due to the Coriolis Effect, a term defined by a French engineer-mathematician in 1835 to explain differences in direction and speed an object will take since the earth always moves in an Eastward direction.

Edit: I am not a scientist, so I used Google to help me understand why water drains in different directions in various places on Earth. :doh
 
[h=1]Renewable energy cost and reliability claims exposed and debunked[/h]Guest essay by Larry Hamlin A new paper published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) from NOAA’s Earth System Laboratory, Boulder Colorado exposes and debunks the contrived claims of a recent renewable energy study which falsely alleged that low cost and reliable 100% renewable energy electric grids are possible. The new…


 
polgara said:
I was just double checking that it wasn't a "sometimes" thing. It wasn't! :shrug: It's apparently due to the Coriolis Effect, a term defined by a French engineer-mathematician in 1835 to explain differences in direction and speed an object will take since the earth always moves in an Eastward direction.

Edit: I am not a scientist, so I used Google to help me understand why water drains in different directions in various places on Earth. :doh
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True, as far as natural wind or water movements go. A cyclone or a whirlpool will spin the opposite direction, most of the times. However when in an artificial environment such as a bowl then the variables of how the bowl is constructed and placed can effect the direction as well.
 
soylentgreen said:
That said! Then the rest was an interesting account of accounts. Which did not take in corruption. And which as you said costs the economy.

As well i would like to point out that it is not the new zealand government but the australian government that has been called corrupt. Nz has a different marketing system of electricity than the australians do. In nz the issue is that the lines companies are failing to upgrade equipment. Where as in australia the same companies are over investing in over priced and falsely taxed equipment. Australia relies more on solar and nz on wind. Nz has one fossil fuel power station, australia has dozens. Nz not so corrupt, australia very corrupt.

Even comparing with texas and nz is difficult. Texas has many coal and gas plants as well as nuclear. NZ has one fossil fuel power plant and many renewables such as geothermal, biothermal, hydro, wind , tide, solar etc.
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The point was that, if there was corruption, it would show up in the numbers. The excess profits would have to exists between the wholesale price and the retail price.
If the difference between the two prices is similar to other systems, there is unlikely excess profits happening.
 
[h=1]100% renewables claim debunked[/h]Posted on 20 Jun 17 by PAUL MATTHEWS • 19 Comments
In 2015, PNAS published a paper by Jacobson et al claiming that all of the US energy requirements could be provided by renewables (wind, hydro and solar) by 2050, and that this could be done at low cost. Jacobson had published similar claims on previous occasions, and his nonsense been promoted by irresponsible unscientific organisations … Continue reading →
 
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