How stupid are our Pollies and so called experts

Gundog · Guru

How stupid are our Pollies and so called experts

Whenarewethere · Guru

We have wind turbines on boats which we look at, don't have any issues.

deverall11 · Guru

Graham which part of nuclear power NO do you not understand?????????

Unless you have a magic way of dealing with a nuclear disaster, nuclear is

a NO GO ZONE.

I fully understand the generation capabilities of a nuclear reactor BUT

a nuclear disaster CANNOT be controlled. This is not an oil or gas fire you

extinguish or let burn.

Do your home work and get your facts right, then proceed.

Gundog · Guru

deverall11 wrote:
Graham which part of nuclear power NO do you not understand?????????
Unless you have a magic way of dealing with a nuclear disaster, nuclear is
a NO GO ZONE.
I fully understand the generation capabilities of a nuclear reactor BUT
a nuclear disaster CANNOT be controlled. This is not an oil or gas fire you
extinguish or let burn.
Do your home work and get your facts right, then proceed.

So what's the difference between nuclear subs parked near Australian cities, and a small scale modular providing power, so what the difference.

There is 400 nuclear power stations around and more being built, when was the last nuclear power that failed?

Izabarack · Guru

I always wonder at the inability of people to think ahead. For example https://thebulletin.org/2023/02/one-year-later-new-dangers-threaten-ukraines-embattled-zaporizhzhia-nuclear-plant/#:~:text=Zaporizhzhia%20nuclear%20power%20plant%20sits,remains%20in%20a%20precarious%20state.

A Bad Actor taking control of a Wind Farm or a field full of Solar Panels could maybe shut down a large portion of a local grid. A Bad Actor taking control of a Nuclear Power Station may visit unpredictable and hard-to-imagine grief on a very large portion of the local Hemisphere. Arguments offered in a Pollyanna perspective list of the good things about Nuclear based power generation always fail because they only offer the Pros side of the Pros/Cons decision matrix.

Australia does not have the product of 1960s thinking now, Australia would be plain stupid to start 70 years behind latest technology. Would be a bit like equipping the Army with a new production run of the .303s issued during WWII.

BarneyBDB · Senior Member

.303 is still lethal regardless of when it was made.

Izabarack · Guru

BarneyBDB wrote:
.303 is still lethal regardless of when it was made.

Sure. But why would you use something superseded buy better technology and much better suited to the current wants and needs of the country? Early versions of Lead Acid batteries did a good enough job back in the day, too.

deverall11 · Guru

Izabarack wrote:
BarneyBDB wrote:
.303 is still lethal regardless of when it was made.
Sure. But why would you use something superseded buy better technology and much better suited to the current wants and needs of the country? Early versions of Lead Acid batteries did a good enough job back in the day, too.

Back to the same issue: A lead acid battery spill can be cleaned up with no on-going issues. A nuclear spill does not

clean up the same way, new technology or not. The only thing new technology does is increase the mitigation

not the outcome of a spill.

smwhiskey · Senior Member

Gundog wrote:
just think about it at the moment governments (Federal, State and Local) are pouring money into Wind and Solar Farms.
If the Feds stopped turned off the tap to those projects and then introduced laws that required every house in Australia that is connected to the grid must have solar panels on the roofs. Currently 3.3 million homes have solar which can produce 20 GW's.
Between the Feds, State and retail power company they would pay for solar panels and installation, whats the advantage you may ask, when the sun hits those houses on the east coast they start producing as sun rises more houses come online likewise as the moves west increased and decreasing production until the sun sets, thus offering a greater number of available panels working for a larger surface area.
Eventually all house could have almost zero cost electricty or a nominal amount IE. $10 a week, every house would have a smart controller that reduce the feed in if the grid becomes over loaded, at this very moment small solar is generating 8000 MW of power, imagine with every house that could be 24000 MW out of a 29000 MW required now, and that 4000MW could be picked up with existing wind, hydro and large solar farms. The firming power could come form Hydro and Gas, untill nuclear was built Coal could fill the gap.
When the small scale nuclear reached the required we could blow up all eyesore wind turbine towers.

Because realistically its just not as simple as that. Why?

In the move towards high density living its simply not physically feasible or practical to put enough solar panels on the roof to provide enough power for all the residents.
Unless you're going to include large capacity batteries in the scheme of things (which then introduces its own waste issues), the power you generate during the day is unavailable at night.
The grid is already stressed and needs a massive redesign to handle what you're suggesting and thats going to cost mega dollars.
Theres no such thing as "zero-cost". Someone, somewhere will have to pay for it and simply saying "The Government should pay for it" is simply saying "The Australian Taxpayers should pay for it". And we all know who thats going to be. The used and abused middle class.
Its 10am (so should be in peak power generation window for my panels) and I'm generating less than 1/3 of my total capacity thanks to the overcast conditions. Multiple that by large numbers and you have a significant deficit on maximum capacity which would need to be allowed for.
There is more solar generation capacity on Aussie roofs now than ever before and yet electricity prices are higher than ever before.

I've been saying for some years now that unless the technology significantly changes for the better, going pure solar is not a viable answer to our energy shortfalls. And there is nothing I've seen recently that has changed my opinion. At best, its a short term band aid.

So what is the final solution? I don't know but what I do know is that its going to have to involve reducing our energy usage.

Simon

Gundog · Guru

As usual the snipers prevail, what about the main content re every home to have solar panels.

The current system of home solar is only moves the dollars saved by few is part of the reason why power priced are continually going north. the renter or verticle living owners/renters have no ability to participate hence they wear the brunt of the the increased power prices.

Investors in Solar & Wind Farms only do it because of the subsidy by government and guaranteed returns, a wind farm will generally give a ROI at 8% and last 20-25 years with the right maintaince program, where a solar farm takes 3-6years to pay for its self, with a life of 25-30 years, with investors looking at an ROI of 30 years.

So the notion is that solar panels have efficiency of 15-20% some panels can get to 47%, wind turbines 20-40% effective in converting wind energy to power, its going to to be forever until power prices subside.

Right now the grid excluding WA is providing by wind 3000mw, solar farms 3875mw and small solar 4100mw, Coal and Gas 16000mw of the total generation of 28400mw, approximatly 700mw from Hydro etc to fill the gap.

The on the consumption side we have 375mw being used for battery charging and pumping water uphill for hydro. I wonder how much they a billed for the power usage.

woolman · Guru

To follow up on no nuclear we had better lobby to close all our hospitals. Lot of nuclear saving lives.

Neil

Are We Lost · Guru

Following on from Simon's comments ....

In most cases large scale is cheaper than multiple individual units. In this case, power production. So if the government (funded by us) is going to spend a lot of money in either building infrastucture or providing incentives to do it individually, the cost to install, and then per unit of consumption should be cheaper if centralised.

But whatever happens, we are a long way from being able to maintain a supply of reliable power if we try to fulfill that with renewable sources. Imagine 2-3 days of heavy rain and overcast conditions over one or more of our large cities. If this is also mid winter, the demand for heating will be much greater. How does the power to run these cities get stored?

So far nobody has mentioned the impact electric vehicles will have on the infrastructure and power needs. With a city full of vehicles charging overnight on top of current demand, where does this power come from on those stormy days and nights?

As noted by Simon, in the case of multi storey unit blocks, there is not enough roof space to install all the solar that would be needed, nor the space for the batteries. This is before adding the demand for EV charging which would mostly be required overnight.

Coal is dirty, renewables are expensive to set up and problematic for storage, while nuclear is clean but disastrous if things go wrong and problematic for the storage of waste.

We have been fed hogwash on how renewables will make our power cheaper, yet we are seeing huge increases in prices and this is just the beginning. I think we just need to accept that it's going to cost a lot more.

There should be more focus on reducing energy needs ... from home and office design, reducing travel distances and reducing waste in energy. Lights don't cost a lot to run, but look at the city skyline at night and there is a lot of room for reduction.

Gundog · Guru

smwhiskey wrote:
Thank for your response simon
Because realistically its just not as simple as that. Why?
In the move towards high density living its simply not physically feasible or practical to put enough solar panels on the roof to provide enough power for all the residents. Our Youngest son lives in a high density living building with 200 units set across 4 towers, there is plenty of roof space that could have solar panel installed.
Unless you're going to include large capacity batteries in the scheme of things (which then introduces its own waste issues), the power you generate during the day is unavailable at night. My view is batteries are not a viable option.
The grid is already stressed and needs a massive redesign to handle what you're suggesting and thats going to cost mega dollars.
Theres no such thing as "zero-cost". Someone, somewhere will have to pay for it and simply saying "The Government should pay for it" is simply saying "The Australian Taxpayers should pay for it". And we all know who thats going to be. The used and abused middle class. Consider the billions of dollars be used by governments to get investors to build wind and solar farms, even home solar get a sweetner
Its 10am (so should be in peak power generation window for my panels) and I'm generating less than 1/3 of my total capacity thanks to the overcast conditions. Multiple that by large numbers and you have a significant deficit on maximum capacity which would need to be allowed for. Thats the beauty of 7 million additional homes providing for the grid
There is more solar generation capacity on Aussie roofs now than ever before and yet electricity prices are higher than ever before.
I've been saying for some years now that unless the technology significantly changes for the better, going pure solar is not a viable answer to our energy shortfalls. And there is nothing I've seen recently that has changed my opinion. At best, its a short term band aid.
So what is the final solution? I don't know but what I do know is that its going to have to involve reducing our energy usage.
Simon

Solar, wind and batteries will never power Australia, my previous post showed 28000mw being consumed then and less than 50% is provided by renewables, but we still need Coal and Gas during the day wind and hydro alone cannot power Australia at night, sometimes renewables are down to 7% of energy required.

Final thought, Queensland rarely requires power from the interconnector, NSW depends on the interconnectors almost all day every day, Vic on rare occasionally needs pwer from the interconnectors, SA depends on the interconnector at night, during the day it has excess power and Tas its the reverse of SA need power from the interconnector during the day but can send plenty north at night.

Gundog · Guru

Here is our current generation as at 1200hrs

Battery 5 MW

Black Coal 8600MW

Brown Coal 4477MW

Gas 881MW

Hydro 666MW

Solar 3657 MW

Wind 2765 MW

You may wonder why solar is so low it because AEMO cannot see what small solar is producing because it feed directly into the grid, and thats about 6200MW, only the power company has that data, now the power companies have an advantage because the feed in tarrifs vary so much depending when you signed up, however AEMO can have a pretty good idea based on meter data.

The total consumption minus the known generation, leaves the small solar amount.

BAZZA44 · Senior Member

Nuclear in Australia would be a disaster waiting to happen. There is a need for continual water supply with nuclear and we live in the driest continent on earth. So for that one reason alone nuclear is out.

Barry

Gundog · Guru

I fail to understand the fear of Nuclear power, We have had a reactor operating in suburbs of Sydney since 1957, we have many American warships that are nuclear powered visiting US, occassionally we have US bombers landing in Australia that may or maynot have nuclear weapons onboard.

Barry sure we are the driest continent on earth but we are surrounded by water and the majority of the population live closer to the coastline.

Remember small modular nuclear powered generators are what we should be considering no the old technology monsters, in the not too distant future these SMR's will power cruising ships, trains etc.

Whenarewethere · Guru

The Lucas Heights reactor is built on an earthquake fault line. We don't get many earthquakes in Australia but they do happen. Newcastle deaths & the Kurri Kurri smelter lost power for hours.

We could built reactors anywhere at 2% power loss per 1000km. We could build it in Perth at 8% power loss. Personally I can't see any issues.

On the other hand we could simply feed in power from New Zealand, Christmas Island & Singapore for less expense. Also avoiding the 1/4 of a billion year trivial side issues.

msg · Guru

Does this make sense to you? It's the answer I got when I googled "why is Australia's electricity so expensive?"

Why is Australia electricity so expensive?
Australia's energy system relies too heavily on expensive fossil fuels. While we are adding renewable forms of electricity, like solar and wind power, at record rates the majority of Australia's electricity still comes from coal- and gas-fired power stations.23 Nov 2022

Hmmm. Don't we have the raw resources? Transportation unlike a lot of other countries should be quite cheap.

BarneyBDB · Senior Member

Gas and coal are so expensive in Australia because of the long term contracts signed with China at give away prices.

dogbox · Guru

anybody have any idea how much power will a nuclear power plant, as will be fitted to our new subs produce and how many houses/factories ect could it be expected to supply power for and how much would one cost?

Bow · Veteran Member

BarneyBDB wrote:
Gas and coal are so expensive in Australia because of the long term contracts signed with China at give away prices.

Its expensive because the governmenr sold of the power generation and mines to private enterprise.

Whenarewethere · Guru

BAZZA44 wrote:
Nuclear in Australia would be a disaster waiting to happen. There is a need for continual water supply with nuclear and we live in the driest continent on earth. So for that one reason alone nuclear is out.

In France a decade or so ago due to heatwave nuclear plants had to shut down. 20,000 people died due to heat stress.

I have been in France a number of times. I did make a comment to other half, it's the last time I will complain about Sydney heat. We had a week of 43°C in southern France.

Whenarewethere · Guru

BAZZA44 wrote:
Nuclear in Australia would be a disaster waiting to happen. There is a need for continual water supply with nuclear and we live in the driest continent on earth. So for that one reason alone nuclear is out.

All thermal fossil or nuclear power generation needs a steam turbine. The average family is actually using about 500 litres of water a week lost in steam.

Aussie1 · Guru

"How stupid are our Pollies and so called experts"
Answer, very stupid on many issues and as for "so called experts" well, who decides who is an expert.
Unfortunately we get the government we deserve and the so called experts are usually a term used by our "so called media". Not forgetting all my "expert" fellow members on this forum of course

My 2 bobs worth, it is my view that nuclear is the way of the future.

Hendo · Guru

How long before this is closed, not long me thinks.

BAZZA44 · Senior Member

Seawater can be used as a last resort for cooling the rods in an emergency. It can be done once and then reactor can not be used again because of corrosion. Purified water must be used.

With a small reactor a desalination plant can be used apparently.

Then where do the used rods get stored, next to your place ? I don't think so. Too many issues with nuclear.

Barry

Gundog · Guru

It's now 3am EST Victoria is providing Power to Qld, NSW, SA and Tas, our old mate Blackout has not said a word about AEMO approving an up to 25% increase in power rates come July 1st.

The great ponzi scheme get house owners to have solar panels so they can provide power to the grid, said home owners eventually pay bugger all for their power, their good fortune is transfered to non home owner and the rest of society.

Is that not a bit like Communism/Socialism where the party members live high on the hog and the rest take it up the you know where.

If you follow the AEMO power generation information, it clearly shows that the 2 smallest states that have predominatly renewable require top up support from interstate at sometime every day. But they do also put some back into the Grid daily, on the other hand NSW needs power needs power from interstate almost all day every day.

Do these self entertainers (WA anchors) not see the problem, stop the subsidies your making rich investors richer, ie give 2 billion to Twiggy for the most expensive form of Hydrogen, GREEN HYDROGEN which is the most expensive process, a bit like those plants that turn sea water into fresh which are mostly sitting idle.

Whenarewethere · Guru

Network needs to be as extensive as possible to put power in from anywhere.

I have no issues with 30% price increase as it will push fossils out the door.

Whenarewethere · Guru

If one has an issue with entity making money, buy shares in said company.

Whenarewethere · Guru

WA (all of it) & NT should be part of the network for input from the largest possible footprint.

Cocus Islands to Christmas Island to WA to over east network, easy stuff for increased network footprint.