Future of the Australian Electricity Market

[woodPixel]

This is something I've bene looking forward to for a long time.

Trucks that drive themselves on the long hauls. Humans do the fiddly bits at the front and end of the trip... but who WANTS to drive 1300km from Sydney to Melbourne every day?

Gah!

Autonomous trucks hit the highways, with Australian tech helping drive the revolution - ABC News


This is so excellent. These things can bumble along at a slow safe predictable speed and do it at 3am.... bothering nobody.

[woodPixel]

China turns on world’s first giant hydropower turbines | South China Morning Post

First two are on. They are 1 Gw generators EACH.

Nice.

[Bushmiller]

I saw the following come in as a news item and looked into the statement:

‘Dramatic turnaround’: Electricity prices skyrocket in perfect storm of problems


Electricity prices: 'Dramatic turnaround' as perfect storm jacks up prices (thenewdaily.com.au)

There were some things I took from the article. Firstly, prices did go up. The average for the June quarter was $95/MWh in QLD ( similar in NSW, but slightly lower). This was well up on the previous quarter, but it should also be recognised that quarter was much lower than had been the case. This was not mentioned in the article. $95/MWh relates to the wholesale price and is the same as 9.5c/KWhr. In the short term it will make no difference to retail prices as they are usually on a fixed contract. If those prices persisted however, it would impact long term retail prices.

Why did this increase occur? The main impact was because of the crisis at Callide, which took out four generators. Two generators returned to service relatively quickly. The third generator only returned this weekend (unit 3) and Unit 4 won't be back for twelve months. In addition, gas prices have seen significant increase and that too has influenced the price. It is a rather sobering demonstration of what would happen if only a small proportion of fossil-fired plants were withdrawn from service without adequate supply to replace the lost generation.

Regards
Paul

[Bushmiller]

China turns on world’s first giant hydropower turbines | South China Morning Post

First two are on. They are 1 Gw generators EACH.

Nice.

WP

I should have commented on this before, but somehow it slipped my mind. That is truly a remarkable project. It is not the largest hydro installation, but the individual units are the largest. 1000MW for one turbine is bigger than the whole station at which I work!.

Without wishing to be negative, I should reiterate something I have stated many times and it is that every power source has a flaw today. Hydro is no exception. Once touted as being the perfect supplier of power, hydro has some issues. Firstly, it can run out of water. This happened in Tasmania in the recent past, although partially caused by a combination of greed, bad management and circumstances. Secondly, it is not possible to dam a river and not have some impact on the ecology downstream. Thirdly, there is the issue ofwhat happens in the space now occupied by the storage dam? In the case of Chinese dams historically, very large numbers of people have been displaced. There is a humanitarian issue in such countries.

As an engineering feat it is magnificent.

Regards
Paul

[woodPixel]

Every tech has some compromise.

One cannot have nukes without the odd Chernobyl/Fukushima... nor coal without catastrophic global warming.

This one today was interesting: How to win big for the climate: rein in the ‘super polluters’ : Research Highlights essentially "Just 5% of the world’s power plants account for almost three-quarters of carbon emissions from electricity generation."

This article on an iron-oxide storage battery was intriguing. Iron air battery promises storage at fraction of cost | RenewEconomy

The things, while big and heavy can store colossal charges, are super cheap and seem to last 100 years. Another interesting development in an area undergoing violent change.

A couple of fat batteries in the basement of every building, or each suburb has an underground array of them (just like Roman cisterns for water were).

Interesting!

[Bushmiller]

Just in case any think I am barracking for the fossil fuel industry, have a read of this by Alan Kohler:

Climate change: What we can learn from our reaction to AstraZeneca (thenewdaily.com.au)

My objective with this thread has been to present the harsh realities of electricity production, without agenda and at the same time desperately trying for a reasoned approach to both alternatives and the phasing out of fossil fuels.

Regards
Paul

[woodPixel]

I just love all the tech


I watch and read a few things from within China. There isnt a lot of news that isnt... directed.... but there is one YT chanel that is still fairly decent (until YouTube shuts it down, for reasons).

These two videos are particularly alarming if you join the dots....

66 Reservoirs Discharging; Cities Severe Flooding | Many Dams Burst - YouTube
Worst flood in Zhengzhou history | People Trapped in Subway |Dam In Crisis | Apocalypse in China - YouTube


You THINK getting a bandsaw is hard NOW, wait until the Yangtse system floods WuHan, Shang Hai, Nanjing and WuXi. We can kiss our collective patooties good bye!

There will be no new toys for anyone for years.


I personally think its too late. Ocean acidification by CO2 has already kicked over the limit, the lower level krill and phyto/zooplankton shells are already thin and weak. A small push and they are gone. If that happens, well, its adios for us all.

[Pete57]

I thought this was interesting:

Watching Catalyst Series 22 The Grid: Powering the Future in iview
Catalyst : ABC iview

[havabeer69]

I thought this was interesting:

Watching Catalyst Series 22 The Grid: Powering the Future in iview
Catalyst : ABC iview

i watched most of that the night it was on. As someone in the industry it didn't really say anything new that most people don't already know.

It also glanced over the costs of things
it talked about things like generating power in QLD for use in TAS but never addressed the constraints and costs of actually getting the power there.
All the battery figures where highly talked up and only briefly mentioned things like the tesla battery only lasting 2 hours.
the tassie island said they where 100% renewable, then later said its normally only about 50% renewable, never mentioned the total cost of the project, who's paying for it and the fact the diesel gen must still get run if its only 50%

bit of a fluff piece over all in my opinion.

[Optimark]

i watched most of that the night it was on. As someone in the industry it didn't really say anything new that most people don't already know.

It also glanced over the costs of things
it talked about things like generating power in QLD for use in TAS but never addressed the constraints and costs of actually getting the power there.
All the battery figures where highly talked up and only briefly mentioned things like the tesla battery only lasting 2 hours.
the tassie island said they where 100% renewable, then later said its normally only about 50% renewable, never mentioned the total cost of the project, who's paying for it and the fact the diesel gen must still get run if its only 50%

bit of a fluff piece over all in my opinion.

Within reason you are right, but most of those kinds programs have to gloss over many things, otherwise the general public don't even think of looking at them. I watched this with my other half, both of us agreed there were quite a few things in the program that we didn't know about, and we consider ourselves reasonably with it, with regard to the electricity system in Australia. I just wish they would either cut the music out completely, or at the very least, reduce the volume of the background music so one can hear the words being spoken.

Some of the things mentioned about the island situation were interesting, especially the fuel usage. It was mentioned that the diesel consumption was 1.1 million litres annually. Now if there was a 50% reduction of time the generators were on, then the assumption is 500,000 litres less fuel, at a minimum, would be used.

I have no idea of what the actual cost of fuel is on the island, but it wouldn't be that cheap. Even assuming diesel was priced at $1.00 per litre without taxes, that is half a million dollars saved in one year. That half a million dollars per annum savings must surely be beneficial, and one assumes it would only get better with more solar and possibly wind generation being added bit by bit.

Wind farms are another technology that is powering ahead, pun intended. We did a tour of a wind generator in Germany, it was a decommissioned tower of about the fourth generation of wind turbine systems in Germany. To say it was massive would be an understatement, the one shown in the program is smaller and lighter, yet produces higher power as the technology has matured. Wind turbines seem to last around 25 years before they are pulled down and replaced, if you check out Engineering with Rosie on you tube, you will find one she has on this very subject and why it is done, which is something I never knew happened; Rosie is Australian and an engineer.

Mick.

[woodPixel]

World'''s biggest wind turbine shows the disproportionate power of scale

The MySE 16.0-242 is a 16-megawatt, 242-meter-tall behemoth capable of powering 20,000 homes per unit over a 25-year service life.

The stats on these renewable-energy colossi are getting pretty crazy.

When MingYang's new turbine first spins up in prototype form next year, its three 118-m (387-ft) blades will sweep a 46,000-sq-m (495,140-sq-ft) area bigger than six soccer fields.

Every year, each one expected to generate 80 GWh of electricity.

[havabeer69]

World'''s biggest wind turbine shows the disproportionate power of scale

but a coal fired station will do 7000Gwh for a poofteenth of the footprint?

Eraring power station did 15,000Gwh back in 2018. thats 187 of those wind turbines, no small feat putting up 187 of those huge things

[woodPixel]

Not exactly to do with the Oz electric market - but is tangentially.

This is a new electric motor... the YASA:

Its torque and Kw outputs are beyond belief.... 200kw and 790 NM..... crazy..... these are 30cm round and 8cm thick !!!!!!!!

Imagine this on the cars... or windmills.... or dams... or anything.

750R_2_small_reflect.png

it would certainly be useful for mini-turbines on dams like I saw in South Amercia... (let me find the link).

edit- here! This produces 15Kw for a small community in Chile.

[ajw]

That looks absolutely amazing. It sounds like an enormous breakthrough.

ajw

[BobL]

but a coal fired station will do 7000Gwh for a poofteenth of the footprint?

Whats this called then?
australia-china-germany-at-high-environmental-risk-due-to-reliance-on-coal-report.jpg