PISS AND WIND

 

KENNY

 

Associate Editor (National Affairs)
Sydney

@chriskkenny

 

By plunging itself into darkness and flailing itself with prohibitive, self-imposed electricity costs, South Australia provides the nation with a critical warning about energy policy. It also demonstrates how our political and media debate has been complicit in this damaging delusion.

The chaos of last week’s statewide blackout took most of the nation by surprise but anyone who has been paying attention has known about the state’s rapidly diminishing energy security.

Experts have been on to this for more than a decade but the closure of two coal-fired generators at Port Augusta escalated the situation in May.

A price spike and supply crisis when the interconnector to Victoria was closed for maintenance in July was the sharpest recent warning. So, more than two months ago, in Adelaide’s Sunday Mail, my column warned about the absurd pretence that South Australia’s renewables push was “saving the planet with ridiculously expensive and unreliable energy” and that “when the wind doesn’t blow or the interconnector is broken

 we’re stuck”.

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/opinion/columnists/chris-kenny/sa-blackout-shows-need-for-energy-security-instead-of-windmills/news-story/30eef2dcbd43d6388f0ea394b75f3962

 

Maybe we should study other countries experience . Germany. Went to far with renewables and found their electricity prices and security of power supplies comprised and all building huge modern coal fired power plants

 

. The U.K. Is aiming to be self sufficient in Gas . You have to have continuity of base load power at peak load demand . Currently this can only be achieved with nuclear or fossil fuels .

 

Australia pays one of the higest prices in the world for energy especially in places like South Australiawhere so much renewables is available

Yet when you have a look at how much Carboen emission we produce

Yes somewhere around 1% so even if we had all renewable enegy it would not make much difference to the pollution of the world ... all we are doing is further destructioon to the bird and wildlife habitat.

It is just another of the trendy things the Politicians are pushing which gullible people listen to.

Further the renewable energy utelizes a lot of minerals which needs to be dug up and hence the wildlife habitat is being destroyed.

 

"A study commissioned by the Renewable Energy Foundation has found that the economic life of onshore wind turbines could be far less than that predicted by the industry.

The “groundbreaking” research was carried out by academics at Edinburgh University and saw them look at years of windfarm performance data from the UK and Denmark.

The results appear to show that the output from windfarms allowing for variations in wind speed and site characteristics declines substantially as they get older.

By 10 years of age, the report found that the contribution of an average UK windfarm towards meeting electricity demand had declined by a third.

That reduction in performance leads the study team to believe that it will be uneconomic to operate windfarms for more than 12 to 15 years at odds with industry predictions of a 20- to 25-year lifespan."

LETTERS

 Consumers are paying for green-power madnessThe Australian12:00AM October 8, 2016SaveShare on FacebookShare on TwitterShare on emailShare more...

Any rational look at the “virtues” of renewable energy will conclude that it has been a failure and an economic disaster for South Australia, and it will be so for the rest of the country if promises by other governments ever materialise (“State of insanity has infected energy policy”, 7/10).

As the talkfests continue and as the SA government continues to spin stories about the reasons for the blackout and bombard us with their “green energy” propaganda, Rome continues to burn.

As the renewable energy industry lines up to seek funding to build solar-thermal plants and more useless wind farms, the ultimate funders of this madness, the consumers of electricity and taxpayers in general, should be asking for some accurate and impartial cost-benefit analysis so they can see what a sham it is.

David Bidstrup, Plympton Park, SA

The recent blackout in SA throws into doubt the wisdom of overplaying the importance of renewables in contrast to providing a strong grid with adequate backup of conventional power generators. Considering that Australia’s contribution to global emissions is very small and that electricity generation only accounts for about half of it, one wonders why our politicians attach quite so much importance to renewables.

It would be better if Australia’s skills in science, engineering and innovation were brought to bear on new sources of power generation such as thorium-fuelled nuclear reactors. This area is gaining attention in a number of countries and is attractive because its waste products have half-lives measured in hundreds of years as opposed to tens of thousands of years for uranium reactors.

Ian Napier, St Peters, SA

It beggars belief that various Australian governments are spending so much time agonising over the relatively tiny contribution Australia makes to carbon dioxide emissions — in 2011, about 400 million tonnes, while the top five global emitters contributed 19 trillion tonnes.

The majority of politicians believe (and perhaps rightly so) that a majority of citizens have been swayed by groups that promote the proposition that the planet is warming dangerously as a result of our carbon dioxide emissions, and who then conflate this with the argument that our per capita output is high.

On what is this proposition based? The answer is, it’s a theory that can’t be physically tested but can be mathematically modelled to project what might occur if the guessed numbers fed into the models bear any resemblance to reality.

G.P. Gillman, Townsville, Qld

The blackout debacle in SA has flushed out alarmist Chris Roylance (Letters, 7/10) trying to defend the indefensible. Even the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change can find no trend of increasing storms, floods, droughts and hurricanes.

As Judith Sloan points out (7/10), renewable energy fails on all counts of cost, reliability and stability, and it is time to show the Labor Party, Greens and many academics that carbon dioxide is not evil and our planet should not be decarbonised.

There is simply no scientific evidence that shows increasing carbon dioxide emissions mean high temperatures. Ice-core studies show that carbon dioxide content follows temperature rise; there is no predicted atmospheric greenhouse hotspot; and the recent 18-year pause in global temperature, while emissions rose to 400 parts per million, is proof that carbon dioxide and dangerous warming are not related. The sooner politicians grasp this and scale back renewable energy targets, the better will be our economic future.

G. M. Derrick, Sherwood, Qld

Would SA still require a percentage of Western Australia’s GST receipts if it wasn’t building the world’s biggest windmill farm? Greg Sheridan intimates that Adelaide should be renamed Athens, but this mendicant state should more rightly be called Tasmania North. A state that requires power backup and tax subsidies from its neighbours is independent in name only. Capital flight and unemployment are unavoidable following the closure of SA’s last coal-powered generator and the government is unable to guarantee reliable and affordable electricity.

Greg Jones, Kogarah, NSW

renewables ­energy target has been undercut by Queensland’s largest government-owned power generator, which has warned Australia is moving from being one of the lowest-cost electricity nations to one of the highest. 

In a submission to a landmark review into electricity security, the Queensland ­government-owned Stanwell Corporation said renewable ­energy policies had “emphasised ‘energy’, while neglecting to value other electricity market services which are ­required to maintain a secure and reliable electricity ­supply”.

“This has led to the weak system and instability problems in South Australia,” Stanwell said, while also ringing the alarm about energy affordability. “It is disappointing that Australia has moved from one of the lowest-cost electricity nations to one of the highest cost, to the detriment of Australian industry and economic growth.”

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/mining-energy/highcost-hit-from-renewables-warns-generator/news-story/3011b094706894b498858ad74e477e7e

 

 

Green subsidies to push UK energy bills higher than planned

National Audit Office says household bills will be £17 higher annually than planned by 2020 due to the installation rate of windfarms and solar panels

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/oct/18/green-subsidies-to-push-uk-energy-bills-higher-than-expected-nao