Future of the Australian Electricity Market

[ian]

Curiously I was interested in ethanol/methanol production. Turns out Manildra here is one of the very biggest. A casual chat with them revealed they are more than able and capable of producing as much ethanol as needed at an energy price point BELOW fossil fuels right now.

Not sure about the lifecycle CO2 reduction "efficiency" of ethanol produced by fermenting wheat, but in the US ethanol is mainly produced from corn and this video America Was Wrong About Ethanol - Study Shows - YouTube suggests that, in the US at least, the CO2 emmissions from corn based ethanol production is no better than those from gasoline, and potentially 24% more than those from using gasoline

[woodPixel]

It would be interesting to know how much wheat would be needed to replace Austraiia's petrol using ethanol.
My understanding is that on world wide scale to replace liquid fossil fuels fossil fuels the limit is the amount of water and space required to grow the crops and leave enough left over the grow crops for food.
Crops like corn use huge amounts of water.

I was also amused by Mandrila's clim "GMO-free wheat as feedstock", does it really matter?

I believe the input of non-gmo is due to a fair chunk of the ethanol being used for grog or sanitiser.

As for water, it would be VERY interesting. Wheat is just the plant of choice. I'm aware of HEMP crops being used too.

Hemp is amazing. It grows so fast it's a weed plus it grows many crops a year.

Its bet the only reason Manildra use wheat is due to being primarily a flour producer.

Yes on Manildra being evil. Reading the Michael West media site covering Dark Companies, its clear this country has a cosy political relationship with kleptocrats.

As for other comments on sustainability.... Maybe we will have no choice. Climate change is getting a bit too real.

[GraemeCook]

... Curiously I was interested in ethanol/methanol production. Turns out Manildra here is one of the very biggest. A casual chat with them revealed they are more than able and capable of producing as much ethanol as needed at an energy price point BELOW fossil fuels right now. ...

Now ethanol has three different names in popular usage:

• ethanol,
• ethyl alcohol, and
• vodka.

It seems such a waste putting it in a car!

[ian]

Now ethanol has three different names in popular usage:

• ethanol,
• ethyl alcohol, and
• vodka.

It seems such a waste putting it in a car!

I believe ethanol is also known as grain alcohol


but look on the bright side Graeme
If you put ethanol into a car you only pay fuel excise of 22(?) cents per litre (the temporarily reduced rate) -- the excise used to be 44 c/l
If you drink vodka -- which I though was made from fermenting potatoes -- you will be paying something like $20 per litre tax

and if you use it in the tractor, the tax is NIL.
.
.
.
BTW
I thought ethyl alcohol was the highly purified version of ethanol that didn't attarct any tax because it's a laboratory chemical

[AlexS]

During WW II ethanol was produced from sugar cane at Sarina in Qld.

[Bushmiller]

Described as the holy grail of electricity generation (probably owing to the similar mythical or unobtainable prospects of the ecclesiastical garment) nuclear fusion has been a carrot dangling on a line for fifty years of more and like BobL's finite oil reserves always twenty years away. So this is the latest from Oxford university:

Nuclear fusion is achieved through new projectile fusion technique (msn.com)

Interesting, but don't expect a 2000MW facility to come online anytime soon. They still have not reached the point where there is more output than input. That is not a reason to stop looking. I sometimes quote a line from a Thom Gunn poem:

"At worse, one is in motion; and at best,
Reaching no absolute, in which to rest,
One is always nearer by not keeping still."

Regards
Paul

[GraemeCook]

During WW II ethanol was produced from sugar cane at Sarina in Qld.

Doesn't CSR still produce ethanol from molasses at Sarina?

I remember visiting Sarina in the 1970's; it is on the banks of a little river which was in quite disgusting condition because of the discharge of effluent from the distillery.

[GraemeCook]

Fusion (Nuclear)

Described as the holy grail of electricity generation (probably owing to the similar mythical or unobtainable prospects of the ecclesiastical garment) nuclear fusion has been a carrot dangling on a line for fifty years of more ...

And their predecessors, back in the 1950's, were saying that nuclear fission was absolutely safe and that there would be plants evrywhere "in twenty years" producing electricity so cheaply that it would not be worth the costs of metering.

Note: fission is the reverse of fusion.

[AlexS]

Doesn't CSR still produce ethanol from molasses at Sarina?

I remember visiting Sarina in the 1970's; it is on the banks of a little river which was in quite disgusting condition because of the discharge of effluent from the distillery.

Not sure if they still do, but the plant was certainly in existence in 1970 - not sure if it was working or not then.

[Bushmiller]

I came across a few statistics in diagram form that I thought may be of interest: Basically the largest power installations around the world for various categories. Firstly, the largest power stations overall.

Largest Power Plants in the world.jpg

It should be noted that while the Three Gorges Dam has the potential to produce thee most power, in practice the Itaipu Dam in Brazil produces more MWs per year.

Hydro, Natural Gas, Wind and Nukes:


Largest Power Plants by type 1.jpg

River Hydro, Pumped hydro, Solar and Biomass:

Largest Power Plants by type 2.jpg

Shale Oil (yuk), Geothermal and Peat:

Largest Power Plants by type 3.jpg

Australia, not unsurprisingly, does not feature anywhere in these stats, although if Hazelwood Power Station was still open, it could have been included under the Peat category (actually it burnt brown coal, which is not too dissimilar: It may be the same) and at 1600MW (8 x 200MW units) would have been the largest in the world. If there had been a "dirtiest category," it would have topped that list also.

Regards
Paul

[havabeer69]

whats a real eye opener is that the largest coal plant in china is probably chewing around 80,000 tons of coal a day if its running flat out, that's more then some coal ships can even supply.

[Bushmiller]

whats a real eye opener is that the largest coal plant in china is probably chewing around 80,000 tons of coal a day if its running flat out, that's more then some coal ships can even supply.

Agreed

Regards
Paul

[Bushmiller]

I heard a radio broadcast a few days ago, which I thought was mainly accurate (there were a few things I might contend, although not enough to go to war over), but I could not remember the title or who the presenter was so it took me a while to track it down. Matt Bevan is the presenter and early on in the podcast he quotes a man by the name of Professor John Bokris. Back in 1973 this man highlighted the issues the third rock from the sun was going to have in forty to fifty years regarding Carbon Dioxide: Fifty years ago makes that right now!

AUSTRALIA | S06 E8 - The 49-year-old energy prophecy that is finally coming true - Australia, If You’re Listening - ABC Radio

I don't know about Bokris being a professor. He may have been a prophet. The podcast moves on from there and the Bokriss mention is only a brief reference pointing out the relative timeframes for awareness of problem caused by CO2. Other people are also asked when they first became "aware."

I think it is well worth a listen.

Regards
Paul

[russ57]

Hazelwood Power Station was still open, it could have been included under the Peat category (actually it burnt brown coal, which is not too dissimilar: It may be the same) and at 1600MW (8 x 200MW units) would have been the largest in the world.
Although the well known authority Wikipedia advises peat is the origin of brown coal aka lignite, brown coal is a much higher grade fuel (still not very good though. ) Hazelwood was not a peat burning plant. Loy yang, also a brown coal plant, has 3.4MW capacity, but there are 2 lignite stations in Germany of higher capacity.
Russ

[GraemeCook]

... I don't know about Bokris being a professor. He may have been a prophet. ...

You may be prone to understatement, Paul! An extremely brief summary:

• Born in South Africa, 1923,
• Educated, Brighton technical School, Johannesburg,
• PhD, Imperial College, London, at age 22,
• DSc, Imperial College, London, at age 29.

On faculty of:

• Imperial College, London,
• University of Pennsylvania,
• Flinders University, South Australia,
• Texas A&M University.

Authored 700+ journal articles and 24 books.

Bernhardt Patrick John O’Mara Bockris (5 January 1923 – 7 July 2013)
John Bockris - Wikipedia

He apparently did some brilliant science earning a Faraday Medal (1981) and attracted controversy earning an IgNobel prize (1997)!