Useful analysis - this is genuinely a live discussion here in WA, with an enormous media, government & general "elite opinion" push to have everyone believe exactly the sort of nonsense you pull apart here. There is a very large take-up of rooftop solar in Perth because of the huge subsidies and the instinctive WA feel that "it's sunny here a lot", so it must be right. Simple, obvious, wrong. The same "feeling" has supported a solar hot water business that's always been problematic, particularly on whole of life costs. And the relatively short life of these systems will start to come home to roost in the next 5-10 years, before all the network problems are solved but after a lot of money has been spent.
Thank you, yes, I often see people saying how wonderfully SA is doing.
My understanding is that SA is highly connected to neighbouring states and so currently can keep its local grid under control by exporting surplus or importing power to compensate for shortfalls.
[Quite similar to California in terms of interconnectivity, but a tiny fraction of CA Demand... from memory SA has a total Demand of around 2 GW.]
The thing is, if all the Aus states 'decarbonise' using Solar and Wind to 'replace' their coal, they'll all start having surpluses at the same time - in the middle of sunny days if current trends continue - and then if it's not windy everyone's lights will go out.
This is why for my analyses of territories I tend to net out power imports/exports.
Lots of numbers Chris but GIGO still prevails. The fact is SWIS has to get rid of coal because Muja and Collie are closing old age) so by 2030 (6y is soon) it'll be gone. Hence the 1GWh of BESS on the way. We did studies on up to 30GWh of PHES - quite doable on several sites. So no great drama to go net zero so after 2030 I'd that was the aim. Of course any transition should first look at energy efficiency across the board. WA imports their liquid fuels, a significant proportion of energy consumption.
The other feature of energy storage in WA is that for much of the year it is full. That gives little potential for arbitrage on power prices - who's going to invest in it?
col#1 col#2 col#3 col#4 col#5 col#6
6 194% 75 75 -9 8
7 227% 53 53 -11 5.8
8 259% 37 37 -11 4.1
10 324% 17 17 -10 1.9
where
col#1 = Solar & Wind multiple
col#2 = average energy surplus over ~year
col#3 = LDES capacity required, GWh
col#4 = LDES start & end stored energy, GWh
col#5 = total Shortfall with LDES, GWh
col#6 = number of Dinorwyg-equivalent PHs @ ~9 GWh = ~9,000 MWh each
Nothing personal, but it really is a huge waste of resources refuting incorrect things that are SAID instead of proposing exactly (or approximately) what should be DONE
I concentrate on what I can do: pick through the data and show what it is saying about how do-able it is to keep the lights on with 'renewables'-only generation.
Every set of data I've looked at has shown it's not do-able without immense long duration energy storage, which currently does not exist at scale.
I *think* that the actual answer is to go gangbusters for Nuclear.
But I'm not an expert in Nuclear, its technology variants, its regulation, nada.
What I *do* see time and time and time again, on LinkedIn and in the media generally, people posting how easy and cheap and 'nearly there' the 'renewables' options are.
Which seems to keep (probably arts- rather than science-background) decision-makers convinced to continue the 'energy transition' via ever more 'renewables'... spending all the money we already don't have on what the data is telling me is a fools' errand.
I see the issue that maybe _your_ comparative advantage is to "just say no," But that still does not sole the collective action problem. Who DOES find the "just enough" of the "just right" policies to solve the problem.
Of course , Someone might make the same complaint about me. It not enough just to advocate for taxation of net CO2 and methane emissions. Who is going to figure out the right trajectory of rates? Who will persuade the politicians, who will persuade the voters? :)
Chris has shown that wind+solar is not going to work. Sure he can suggest solutions but step one has to be to realize that a solution is necessary. The obvious solution is to look for some other source of energy. If fossil fuels are not allowed then pretty much the only choice is nuclear so hopefully WA can build a nuke plant faster than anyone else on the planet. Either that or give up on the net zero soon aspiration
Maybe as a non-Western Australian my perspective is skewed and I'm reacting too much to the generic "wind and solar are not enough to achieve goal X" message.
Clearly it is important to say that the current policy configuration that is resulting in investments that are not working is good and necessary. But the emphasis should be on the policy. If essentially solar-wind policy only is not working, what policy will work?
Hello Thomas, re: "taxation of net CO2 and methane emissions" which I think you've suggested before.
My understanding is that the EU and the UK already have 'carbon taxes'. I don't believe they/we (yet) tax methane or embedded emissions such as in coal-powered products from the PRC.
However, more fundamentally:
Western Governments currently don't seem to recognise that ever more 'renewables' won't keep the lights on.
So what would you expect they would spend 'carbon & methane taxes' on?
I strongly suspect the answer would be: 'lots more Wind and Solar' coz belief.
I understand your frustration but it's pretty obvious that what needs to be 'done' is to stop the headlong rush into withdrawing current fossil sources of energy.
I don't think it's obvious that even a gross oversupply of 'renewables' will fail to prevent the lights going out. It's certainly not obvious to the green lobby but with articles like this maybe the penny will eventually drop.
Useful analysis - this is genuinely a live discussion here in WA, with an enormous media, government & general "elite opinion" push to have everyone believe exactly the sort of nonsense you pull apart here. There is a very large take-up of rooftop solar in Perth because of the huge subsidies and the instinctive WA feel that "it's sunny here a lot", so it must be right. Simple, obvious, wrong. The same "feeling" has supported a solar hot water business that's always been problematic, particularly on whole of life costs. And the relatively short life of these systems will start to come home to roost in the next 5-10 years, before all the network problems are solved but after a lot of money has been spent.
Nice, would be interesting to compare to South Australia which is much further along the RE path (around 70% IIRC).
Thank you, yes, I often see people saying how wonderfully SA is doing.
My understanding is that SA is highly connected to neighbouring states and so currently can keep its local grid under control by exporting surplus or importing power to compensate for shortfalls.
[Quite similar to California in terms of interconnectivity, but a tiny fraction of CA Demand... from memory SA has a total Demand of around 2 GW.]
The thing is, if all the Aus states 'decarbonise' using Solar and Wind to 'replace' their coal, they'll all start having surpluses at the same time - in the middle of sunny days if current trends continue - and then if it's not windy everyone's lights will go out.
This is why for my analyses of territories I tend to net out power imports/exports.
Lots of numbers Chris but GIGO still prevails. The fact is SWIS has to get rid of coal because Muja and Collie are closing old age) so by 2030 (6y is soon) it'll be gone. Hence the 1GWh of BESS on the way. We did studies on up to 30GWh of PHES - quite doable on several sites. So no great drama to go net zero so after 2030 I'd that was the aim. Of course any transition should first look at energy efficiency across the board. WA imports their liquid fuels, a significant proportion of energy consumption.
Mike, thank you for your comments.
Are you allowed to say who "we" are in the context of the studies 'on up to 30GWh of PHES'?
I ran further sets of scenarios as summarised in the table below. col#1 to col#6 headings are listed below the numbers.
To get down to 'only' 3 Dinorwyg PHs requires a Solar and Wind multiple of between 8 and 10.
Considering how Snowy 2 is going, I think 3 pumped hydro schemes in 6 years is optimistic.
[Also considering that the Swiss Nant de Drance PH took about 12 years (and cost US$1.9 billion)
https://www.nant-de-drance.ch/en/the-plant
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nant_de_Drance_Hydropower_Plant ]
The other feature of energy storage in WA is that for much of the year it is full. That gives little potential for arbitrage on power prices - who's going to invest in it?
col#1 col#2 col#3 col#4 col#5 col#6
6 194% 75 75 -9 8
7 227% 53 53 -11 5.8
8 259% 37 37 -11 4.1
10 324% 17 17 -10 1.9
where
col#1 = Solar & Wind multiple
col#2 = average energy surplus over ~year
col#3 = LDES capacity required, GWh
col#4 = LDES start & end stored energy, GWh
col#5 = total Shortfall with LDES, GWh
col#6 = number of Dinorwyg-equivalent PHs @ ~9 GWh = ~9,000 MWh each
No great drama hehehe 🤭
Nothing personal, but it really is a huge waste of resources refuting incorrect things that are SAID instead of proposing exactly (or approximately) what should be DONE
Thank you Thomas, but I disagree completely.
I concentrate on what I can do: pick through the data and show what it is saying about how do-able it is to keep the lights on with 'renewables'-only generation.
Every set of data I've looked at has shown it's not do-able without immense long duration energy storage, which currently does not exist at scale.
I *think* that the actual answer is to go gangbusters for Nuclear.
But I'm not an expert in Nuclear, its technology variants, its regulation, nada.
What I *do* see time and time and time again, on LinkedIn and in the media generally, people posting how easy and cheap and 'nearly there' the 'renewables' options are.
Which seems to keep (probably arts- rather than science-background) decision-makers convinced to continue the 'energy transition' via ever more 'renewables'... spending all the money we already don't have on what the data is telling me is a fools' errand.
So that's why I stick to what I know.
I see the issue that maybe _your_ comparative advantage is to "just say no," But that still does not sole the collective action problem. Who DOES find the "just enough" of the "just right" policies to solve the problem.
Of course , Someone might make the same complaint about me. It not enough just to advocate for taxation of net CO2 and methane emissions. Who is going to figure out the right trajectory of rates? Who will persuade the politicians, who will persuade the voters? :)
Chris has shown that wind+solar is not going to work. Sure he can suggest solutions but step one has to be to realize that a solution is necessary. The obvious solution is to look for some other source of energy. If fossil fuels are not allowed then pretty much the only choice is nuclear so hopefully WA can build a nuke plant faster than anyone else on the planet. Either that or give up on the net zero soon aspiration
Maybe as a non-Western Australian my perspective is skewed and I'm reacting too much to the generic "wind and solar are not enough to achieve goal X" message.
Clearly it is important to say that the current policy configuration that is resulting in investments that are not working is good and necessary. But the emphasis should be on the policy. If essentially solar-wind policy only is not working, what policy will work?
[This is the problem with COP as well. It does not get countries to agree on policies https://thomaslhutcheson.substack.com/p/cop-28-and-counting
There are a lot (not Chris) of smug "won't workers" whose implicit bottom line if is do nothing.
Hello Thomas, re: "taxation of net CO2 and methane emissions" which I think you've suggested before.
My understanding is that the EU and the UK already have 'carbon taxes'. I don't believe they/we (yet) tax methane or embedded emissions such as in coal-powered products from the PRC.
However, more fundamentally:
Western Governments currently don't seem to recognise that ever more 'renewables' won't keep the lights on.
So what would you expect they would spend 'carbon & methane taxes' on?
I strongly suspect the answer would be: 'lots more Wind and Solar' coz belief.
So we still have work to do to get them rightly aligned 😊
I understand your frustration but it's pretty obvious that what needs to be 'done' is to stop the headlong rush into withdrawing current fossil sources of energy.
I don't think it's obvious that even a gross oversupply of 'renewables' will fail to prevent the lights going out. It's certainly not obvious to the green lobby but with articles like this maybe the penny will eventually drop.
It seems to me that there is not penny to be dropped, :)