South Australia powerless as wind generators don't work.

Some of the price hike here in QLD is not renewables it is the existing infrastructure

.Queensland electricity consumers are often reminded of the so-called “huge” cost of subsidies for rooftop solar and other renewable energy sources.

But the biggest subsidy of all is not one that is visible on the electricity bill. In fact, it represents just one line in the state budget – $561 million to deliver centralised, fossil fuel generation to centres outside the heavily populated south-east corner of the state.

stock-footage-empty-country-road-zoom-out-in-middle-of-passing-lines-revealing-wind-turbines-and-power-lines

The size of the subsidy is not new, but it does warrant highlighting. Because for more than half a billion dollars a year, there is huge potential to tap in and build new technologies, such as solar, wind, battery storage and micro-grids.

The subsidy has various names such as the equalisation, or the Uniform Tariff Policy, of the consumer service obligation. But it effectively delivers a subsidy of around $800 a customer to regional areas.

In some remote parts of the state still attached to the grid, the subsidy may be two or three times the bill paid. And it won’t get smaller, because it is forecast to grow to $573 million, to $629 million and then to $661 million in the next three financial years.

http://reneweconomy.com.au/the-huge-energy-cross-subsidy-queensland-consumers-dont-see-25731/

And being rural and remote I do not begrudge power to these areas but with advancing technology powerlines that stretch from Longreach to Mt Isa Townsville to Tenant creek - should be a thing of the past

And I understand how this infrastructure makes it expensive but WHY AM I SUBSIDIZING THE LNG EXPORts?

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-03-...rices-to-increase-next-financial-year/7270726

 

Funny thing you should mention selling off utilities. There was something about unnecessary infrastructure ok'd by all state governments and then paid for by the customers too. Little lurks like this:

" The most shocking example of this overinvestment was found, unsurprisingly, in NSW. “We discovered a network business that had invested $30 million in a substation in Newcastle. I actually visited the substation. It wasn’t connected to the grid. So you’ve got an investment in a piece of infrastructure – paid for by consumers through their electricity bills – that wasn’t connected to the grid and wasn’t needed,” he says. It was built by Ausgrid, a company that the Australian Energy Market Operator says probably overspent by around a billion dollars. Thistlethwaite says this was no one-off blunder. “There was much evidence before the committee that investments like that were being made throughout Australia.”

Here's a link to the full article in The Monthly Newspaper in 2014 explaining how this very lucrative rort happened:

https://www.themonthly.com.au/issue/2014/july/1404136800/jess-hill/power-corrupts

 

I'm guessing you're not in North Dakota, South Dakota, Iowa or Illinois. Or you are but you don’t use water.

 

Nah. We don't have much coal. We're just the biggest producers and exporters of the ***** in the world. And it's cheap as chips here. Our power prices aren’t down to the price of coal, it's down to privatisation and crony capitalism.

 

Well said, not a word about what happened probably because you know it wasn't a failure in the wind generators, so the sarcasm "when the wind doesn't blow" stuff because it is absolutely incorrect.

http://www.news.com.au/technology/e...t/news-story/92606772798e23e1ceec8c53f4256900

 

ROFL! We wish! Our federal government does everything short of ripping solar panels off roofs and turbines out of the ground. And if you're unlucky enough to live in one of the coal mining states it's the same. They're climate change deniers, not RE advocates. Our Prime Ministers say crazy stuff like "Coal is good for humanity" as they applaud the building of yet another big open cut hole in the ground to wreck the Great Barrier Reef and employ a handful of people.

 

Actually your number five in production well after the US but it's true you export most of your coal to Asia where it's burned as dirty as possible and then you call yourselves green. See any hypocrisy here?

 

Like hell we call ourselves green! What, you think so many of us are so noisy about RE and environmental issues because the war's over and we won? You think we protest because we have nothing to protest? Google Adani-Carmichael coal mine and see how green Australians think their country is. It might be different in the US, but we don't have much control over our governments or capitalism. No. Wait. I just googled DAPL and Americans can't control their governments or capitalism either. That's why Trump was elected, isn’t it? To bring the jobs back and put the government back in its box?

And you're right We're not the biggest producer of the Black Death, just the biggest exporter:

http://www.worldstopexports.com/coal-exports-country

Coal Exports by Country

Below are the 15 countries that exported the highest dollar value worth of coal during 2015:

Australia: US$28.4 billion (36% of total coal exports)
Indonesia: $16.4 billion (20.8%)
Russia: $9.3 billion (11.7%)
United States: $5.7 billion (7.2%)
South Africa: $4.3 billion (5.4%)
Colombia: $4.3 billion (5.4%)
Netherlands: $3 billion (3.8%)
Canada: $2.7 billion (3.4%)
North Korea: $1.1 billion (1.4%)
Poland: $737.2 million (0.9%)
Mongolia: $542.6 million (0.7%)
China: $498.2 million (0.6%)
Czech Republic: $327.9 million (0.4%)
Vietnam: $265.1 million (0.3%)
Belgium: $232.9 million (0.3%)

Frightening that Indonesia is second. I have a sinking feeling it's being ripped out of West Papua, too.

 

Traditional power plants only need about a 20% - 25% overcapacity to allow for maintenance and occasional mechanical outage on a generator NOT a 100% redundant generating system for the regular outages solar and wind face.

 

100% correct,
and that is why our PM, the liar, is now a coal advocate. Telling everyone how much he was into renewables, that shidface.....
Sorry, it must be said,
regards

 

SO???

They are STILL dirtier and nastier than RE. What is required is RE with reliable back up which coal is proving NOT to be,

 

What is needed is energy production that doesn't require a 125% redundant backup which wind and solar require. Natural gas, clean coal, nuclear. Solar and wind have very limited uses and are too expensive once you consider all the factors.

 

Actually they are turning out CHEAPER a LOT cheaper - hence the problems it is no longer viable to maintain some of the older systems

But the grid itself is evolving - and about time because the technology dates back over a century. What we need now is microgrids and back up power systems - which are now evolving.

At the bottom of this is ageing infrastructure

Aging infrastructureEdit
Despite the novel institutional arrangements and network designs of the electrical grid, its power delivery infrastructures suffer aging across the developed world. Contributing factors to the current state of the electric grid and its consequences include:

• Aging equipment – older equipment has higher failure rates, leading to customer interruption rates affecting the economy and society; also, older assets and facilities lead to higher inspection maintenance costs and further repair and restorationcosts.
• Obsolete system layout – older areas require serious additional substation sites and rights-of-way that cannot be obtained in current area and are forced to use existing, insufficient facilities.
• Outdated engineering – traditional tools for power delivery planning and engineering are ineffective in addressing current problems of aged equipment, obsolete system layouts, and modern deregulated loading levels.
• Old cultural value – planning, engineering, operating of system using concepts and procedures that worked in vertically integrated industry exacerbate the problem under a deregulated industry.[11]

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electrical_grid

It you read that article fully you will see the energy companies are starting to worry about mass "grid defection" - especially in the USA where there is a certain degree of desire for complete independence.

Micro grids are the new technology that will be replacing what you have now


https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microgrid

 

Assumes factoids not in evidence!

 

Refute it then.

 

Leaving out the cost of those back up power systems and where you are going to get the capital, the lines that aren't being used but must still be maintained to those "grid defections", the cost of the decentralized power generating versus a centralized, the tax subsidies both to the equipment and the energy itself such as the buy-back just to name a few factors. Those claims of A LOT CHEAPER always seem to shrivel.

 

BZZZT Wrong again!

Onus is entirely on you to substantiate your bogus allegations.

 

Are you denying it or something? If so refute it what do you believe is the over capacity of traditional power generation plants.

 

YOU made this ALLEGATION in post #184 above;

Onus is entirely on YOU to prove your bogus allegation or admit that you were just pulling it from the nether regioins of someone posting on a disinformation site.

 

What do you disagree with? Is it your contention that 100% redundant alternate power sources are built for coal, natural gas and nuclear generating plants? I need to know exactly what you are disagreeing with and where you think I am wrong.

 

I BOLDED the part that you need to substantiate!

Where is your evidence that there must be 100% redundancy for solar and wind as opposed to only 20-25% for "traditional" power plants?

 

Why are you claiming solar and wind can run 24/7 and supply all the demand versus an coal or natural gas which only requires eniugh built in over capacity for routine maintenance or an occasional problem with just a protion of its capacitcy?

Before I put in the time and energy give me a reason to do so, what is your disagreement?

And BTW my statement was not an allegation, it is a reasoned opinion.

 

Well since SA declared the new Gas emergency plant, Malcolm Turnbull has now declared war on the States, Victoria in particular who won't allow fracking because he's on the march for making gas prices affordable. (and believe me I would very much appreciate that because my bill in winter is a chilling (ha ha) $250 a month for gas to warm the house up... just not sure about fracking though.

 

not sure why others do but possibly the same or similar reasons.

Coal and gas are like the steam engine, did a great job kicking off the industrial revolution. However progress as usual could not be stopped, populations increase and the demand for goods etc increases. New technologies are invented, the gasoline and diesel engines. They weren't perfect and fuel was not easy to come by but those that were brave enough eventually succeeded and we all reaped the benefits. People needed to be retrained and employment changed. Old industries eventually died away or adapted but we persevered and it paid off.

Running out of fuel and the greenhouse effect if it happens will not affect me, but I have a grandson, and one day hopefully he himself will have siblings and one day become a grandfather himself. Being a grandfather is about as great as it gets, but to think I would leave him problems that we can foresee now and knowing I did nothing to start the change, to shut the gate BEFORE the horse bolts is to me unconscionable.

It's a bit like being inoculated, a little bit of pain, discomfort and cost now, COULD save a huge urgent problem in the future, maybe even save our planet.

It's like global warming, if the critics are wrong and we do nothing we are in the poo, if the alarmists are wrong and we do something we will be a little out of pocket, a distance down the road to a sustainable future and have a cleaner world. Win win or lose lose, the choice is ours.

 

wow, that's more than our entire energy bill, we use jumpers and blankets though.