Getting a better Energy deal - WHAT A JOKE!

[woodPixel]

Pebble Bed Nukes are another option. Just feed them with water and they generate steam, when it runs out they don't turn into a neighbourhood Chernobyl/Fukushima: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pebble-bed_reactor

FF's thread is quite timely, the rate of headline articles this week is huge: Base load power: The dinosaur in the energy debate

Maybe some of our experts here can comment on the ABC, they are seeking expert opinions. Some of the stuff Ive read here is very good indeed.

[ian]

The issue with batteries at this stage is cost, until the cost of lithium comes down significantly the uptake will be quite small. Plus then there's the hippies out there who will claim that batteries are not environmentally friendly. Plus I'd like to see the folks with three phase try and run their equipment off a battery.

running three phase off a battery would be easy -- provided yo had a big enough battery.

The bigger issue I see relates to lithium itself and the other rareish metals used in batteries. Is there enough easily accessible lithium in the world to even build a battery big enough to provide 5.5 GWh of power? 5.5 GWh is roughly equivalent to the Eastern States average total electricity consumption across 24 hours? If it is to cover a 24 hour summer "peak" the battery might need to be 1.5 times that size. If I have the maths right, 5.5 GWh is over 100 times the size of the battery that Tesla is building for the SA Government.
And if we are fair dinkum, every grid in the world will need a proportionally sized battery.

[Dibbers]

running three phase off a battery would be easy -- provided yo had a big enough battery.

The bigger issue I see relates to lithium itself and the other rareish metals used in batteries. Is there enough easily accessible lithium in the world to even build a battery big enough to provide 5.5 GWh of power? 5.5 GWh is roughly equivalent to the Eastern States average total electricity consumption across 24 hours? If it is to cover a 24 hour summer "peak" the battery might need to be 1.5 times that size. If I have the maths right, 5.5 GWh is over 100 times the size of the battery that Tesla is building for the SA Government.
And if we are fair dinkum, every grid in the world will need a proportionally sized battery.

I don't know if you'd need to go that far.

I think a solution to reduce the reliance on the "dirty" generation methods until a viable solution is developed would go a long way.

As i said in a previous post, requiring all new builds to have a tesla-esque solar & battery set up would be a start (similar to the rain water tanks) would go a long way to reducing the reliance on traditional generators. It'll also boost the revenue of those companies to pump into further R&D.

Personally (and this might seem like it'd be better placed under the red flag of communism) if we had a dedicated renewables research centre, you could make an arrangement where the general public purchased all solar and batteries through them, ensuring the average joe wouldn't be buying inferior products, and all profits go into research.

You'd have a manufacturing and installation/maintenance crew, creating jobs in Oz, and it would be a not-for-profit organisation so no bonuses to CEOs or Shareholders... naturally though in the current political climate, this would probably be privatised to turn a quick buck...

[FenceFurniture]

the rate of headline articles this week is huge: Base load power: The dinosaur in the energy debate.

Pffft. That's old news man - posted here at 10.33 this morning

[FenceFurniture]

5.5 GWh is over 100 times the size of the battery that Tesla is building for the SA Government.

I make it 55x Ian. They are building 100MWh, so 0.1GWh. 5.5/0.1 = 55

[FenceFurniture]

Batteries won't be just restricted to Lithium though. There are all sorts of things going on with battery developments. There are going to major changes in the next few years I believe. Here is one development based on Aluminium Ion (although aimed at mobile phone batteries, you get the idea:
New aluminium battery for smartphones can be charged in one minute: US scientists - ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)

Here is a short thread where we had a brief discussion about that:
https://www.woodworkforums.com/f13/al...r-tools-194036

[FenceFurniture]

Some other articles:

This one looks interesting (haven'y read it yet)
Future batteries, coming soon: Charge in seconds, last months and power over the air - Pocket-lint

[ian]

I don't know if you'd need to go that far.

I think a solution to reduce the reliance on the "dirty" generation methods until a viable solution is developed would go a long way.

you and I may have different definitions of "dirty". If the intent of a renewable strategy is to de-carbonise elecvtricity production, I'm including any CO2 producing power source -- brown coal, black coal, gas, oil -- as "dirty"

As i said in a previous post, requiring all new builds to have a tesla-esque solar & battery set up would be a start (similar to the rain water tanks) would go a long way to reducing the reliance on traditional generators. It'll also boost the revenue of those companies to pump into further R&D.

the short term answer (0-5 years) might be to require all existing and new solar and wind generators to purchase a back-up block of "base load" power. Yes this would throw a huge spanner into solar and wind's "money for nothing" business models, but it would also ease the cost pressure on the existing coal stations while the country developed pumped hydro as the nation's back-up "battery".
In the 2 to 10 year period the back-up power could be provided by scaling up existing fly wheel based UPS systems. As I mentioned in Post #184, Wikipedia reports that existing commercial flywheel systems are good for 5 MWh, which coincidentally is approximately 2 hours generation from the typical 2.3 MW wind turbine. You read it here first, require all new wind turbines to fit a 5 MWh fly wheel storage in the base of the tower.

Doing some rough maths, if the 20 MW Royalla Solar Farm installed 8 of the 5 MWh units, it would still be powering the grid 2 hours after sunset.

[ian]

Batteries won't be just restricted to Lithium though. There are all sorts of things going on with battery developments. There are going to major changes in the next few years I believe. Here is one development based on Aluminium Ion (although aimed at mobile phone batteries, you get the idea:
New aluminium battery for smartphones can be charged in one minute: US scientists - ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)

Here is a short thread where we had a brief discussion about that:
https://www.woodworkforums.com/f13/al...r-tools-194036

you may well be right.

But once you move beyond mobile devices (power tools, mobile phones, lap tops) the size of the battery and the required environmental conditioning starts to get a bit out of hand. When you consider that the starting current for the 3 ph motor that drives just one of the lifts in a high rise office tower can be above 100 A per phase, your typical side of a house battery is very sadly lacking.

[FenceFurniture]

Yes of course, and the same will apply to the power required for Tomago, BHP etc. They will always need some kind of large generation going on, I would think. Solar & Batteries are only part of the solution - a big part, but still just a part. However, we do need to get cracking on them (or something). NOW!

It would be easier to get a feel for it if we knew a rough breakdown of consumption over big industry/small industry & business/residential.

fletty?

[tonzeyd]

Unfortunately large generation will be apart of Australia as long as industries exist in Australia.

Unfortunately small scale electricity production ie roof top solar isn't a solution its a contributor. There are too many variables, such as clouds, haze etc will cause chaos to most modern day electronics.

As mentioned earlier the gap between residential and commercial electricity consumption is huge, to give you a feel of the gap here are some stats of for WA. Synergy sells around 14,000 GWh of electricity annually of which approx 40% to the residential sector. So not even half despite the 1 million plus residential houses compared to the 300-400k businesses that exist in WA.

To portray a slightly more bleak outlook, Synergy has a market share of around 40%, which means there are significantly more commercial businesses buying their electricity elsewhere.

[Bushmiller]

Anyone have any other ideas?

Well.......

Firstly, I think it is just about inconceivable that any single source of power will be able to supply the needs of a country. Each source has it's flaws and it's strengths. I am not sure about some of the times quoted in the article

Base load power: The dinosaur in the energy debate - Science News - ABC News.

Coal fired stations are slower to respond than other types of generator, but they are more reliable or cheaper. If asked I would have said that a "base load" station contributes to the normal minimum demand because they are the cheapest: No other reason. If a Gas Turbine station was the cheapest form of power it would become one of the "base load" stations. But they are not. A former colleague had worked at a gas powered station before he joined us. He told us that the station had only run twice in the year before he came to us.

Remember the ad campaign that "Oils ain't oils?" Well even among similar type power plants there are huge differences. i can think of two apparently similar coal fired stations where one can react to demand quickly and the other not nearly so. They are also both about the most efficient in Australia. Some Gas stations are efficient being those with an HRSG (Heat Recovery Steam generator) tacked on to their exhaust while the once through types are really expensive to run. We must be a little careful with our generalisations.

Hydro is undoubtedly the fast response generator currently available, but conceivably stored battery power could play a part in the future if and when it becomes economic, but it is not often that demand comes in a rush. For a start demand is forecast at great length. It is not always accurate, but it is normally close. If 40degs C is predicted tomorrow everybody is geared up. When we talk about the peaking plants (generally Gas Turbine, but not exclusively) they are the top up not the whole lot. The anomaly perhaps is that whatever price they come in at, everybody in that state enjoys. If you bid $70/MWH and a Gas plant enters at $150, you also now get $150. This may only last for five minutes. Hey, this is what the government wanted. Take the good with the bad.

The important price in the end is the average. Also remember the contracts. Not all power is bought on the spot market. I don't have inside information on that, but it would be, I think, in the 50% range.

On the alternatives, Ian slightly beat me to it with the development of Thorium reactors. Nuclear power is so problematical in terms of potential catastrophes as well as disposal of the waste, but thorium may warrant more attention. I am sure it has some hurdles too. See this:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thoriu..._nuclear_power

However, you will still need a mix of power. Nuclear response time would be more on a par with thermal coal fired than hydro.

Regards
Paul

[FenceFurniture]

I really meant other ideas for the short term - say the next 5 years.

If things start going pear shaped from this summer (say in Vic with no Hazelwood), then surely there will have to be some pretty immediate action. As I pointed out earlier, if the 18/19 summer is a power disaster then the following election around September 2019 will undoubtedly be fought/won/lost on power.

[woodPixel]

Nuclear response time would be more on a par with thermal coal fired than hydro.

I think they are capable of almost instantaneous delivery of power....

As an aside, we seem to have quite a bit of Thorium! Time to build some of those neato reactors! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thoriu...ces_of_thorium

[Bushmiller]

WP

You are spot on for picking up on the Aussie Thorium reserves. I had actually in my mind that Australia had the second largest reserves, but Wiki seems to be saying we are top of the list. Problem is that we have humungus reserves of cheap, cheap coal too.

I have no specific information on how a nuke is able to respond to demand, but they are still heating water to produce steam energy. This link may give some insight as to what they refer to as flexibility: In other words, their ability to respond to demand.

http://www.templar.co.uk/downloads/0...et_Nuttall.pdf

Regards
Paul