At the very least though, to install and benefit from PV and the associated subsidies, one generally has to have sufficient wealth to own (or be paying off) one's own home, and it has to be a home with a roof.

The current housing market is such that one-income households mostly can't afford to get a mortgage on a free-standing property, if they don't have one already.

One of the reasons solar power penetration is higher in regional towns may well be that buying property in these areas is in fact cheaper, and that these properties are unlikely to be units embedded in a block somewhere.

With the feed-in tariffs, an investment in PV quickly pays for itself. Consequently, I cannot help but feel that solar PV subsidies are entrenching the gap between those wealthy enough to get on the property ladder, and those who are not.

I haven't commented on The Conversation much. But I don't believe I'm spouting nonsense, or fatuous arguments, or making up facts. If, as a reader, you disagree with me, please make a counter-argument, rather than just hit the 'minus' button.

Or is simply making a counterpoint tantamount to being 'unconstructive'?

As a one income single mum of two with a mortgage, I can assure you that my decision to put PV panels on years ago was not based on just financial benefit but a lot on what the right thing to do then for the next 25 years plus was. To become much more aware, self-sufficient and responsible in energy use and forgo a holiday or upgrade to the car for this reason. PV panels aren't really expensive - even back then when they cost double what they do now, but most people find it easier to allocate that kind of funding to other causes that are much less lasting than a decision that benefits the future and not the now. For those who have no roof of their own, there are other ways to invest in solar/wind farms and still take responsibility.
I'm also not aware of a human right to electricity - if there was such a thing we (Australia) seem to have more rights than others in other countries to this and abdicate responsibility to funding our addiction to a government (and business for profit of course). We actually need very little electricity for survival - most of it is for entertainment, industry and affluence use - so what little we really need, we can supply - if someone needs more, they can take responsibility for their excess with these means. The problem with this is that there will be no economic incentive for a business to invest as they depend on constant growth, more use, more customers at the cost of the environment, the climate, other species...... Yes, we are the problem... and the solution too.

OK, I'll bite... My wife and I don't work, by choice. "Working" is unsustainable. At age 50, we had accumulated enough wealth to buy a couple of acres for 49K$, and I built a state of the art energy efficient (10 star!) house on said land for another 125K$. Which included the 400th grid connected PV array installed in Australia (currently 1.5 million!), and a solar water heater. That was 10 years ago.

We did this instead of buying a flash SUV or going on overseas holidays. The house has only one bathroom and one toilet.... and it's under 150 m2.

We currently live on under 20K$, easy. We even pay off our very modest mortgage on that!! I believe this is considered below the poverty line...? We are self sufficient in power, water, and food.

Today we make ~$300 a quarter profit from our panels. If WE can do it.... ANYBODY can!

It's really good that you were able to accomplish this! It does sound like you have found a fine balance.

I must point out though that you did this with $150k of accumulated capital, which is simply unavailable to a significant proportion of people.

Ms Gneist

It is wonderful to see someone finally agreeing with me. You are right, we are the problem.... and the solution too.

Friends recently installed a 1.5KW solar system on their roof. They are not wealthy and they were very proud to be playing their part in reducing fossil fueled electricity consumption. Not only that, they have installed low energy lighting and only use an average 7.5KWhr per day. On some summer days they produce a surplus of power, but overall generate about 3 to 4 KWhr of energy a day.

Wonderful, just wonderful.

Except that is not all of the story. They also installed a new, energy efficient ducted heating system with a 20KWHr burner. In Melbourne it runs about 120 days a year for 18 hours a day, duty cycle 50% whic

But then, the friend took his family for 2 holiday, one on the beach on the east coast, one in Perth.

The amount of energy in the fossil JetA1 Fuel burnt his family burnt on those holidays will take his solar system 27 years to recoup. Now adding the enormous amount of gas energy to heat his whole home, means the solar system will never come close to regenerating the power used. It is battling to produce over 1% of total his energy use.

I agree with you, we are the problem... and the solution too. It is just I am a little more cautious about how to work out the solution, especially when Jumbo Jets suck so much energy to transport us to Europe for holidays.

Thanks

Gerard Dean

Pretty soon you will see a comment by Mr Hansen saying that I keep repeating the JetA1 fuel story on every blog about sustainability. He will say that JetA1 fuel only constitutes about 2% of total energy used.

I counter by saying that over 50% of JetA1 fuel is burnt on totally discretionary holidays and academic conferences.

Furthermore, if we believe The Conversation's claim that about 75% of Australians are concerned about climate change and think we should reduce fossil fuel usage and live more sustainably, then 75% of 50% means that 37.5% of Australias JetA1 fuel is burnt by environmental hypocrites.

That is 2.59 billion litres of high grade, irreplaceable, non renewable hydrocarbon fuel is burnt by people who say we should reduce fossil fuel usage, then burn it on a holiday.

Sad isn't it.

Gerard Dean

Solutions Gerard, are not created by those who sit and moan about the behavior of others, they are created by engineers, scientists, planners, and rarely yes, politicians who develop fuel efficient solutions such as aircraft That use 20% less of your precious JetA1.

Solutions Gerard, are what other people are discussing. You don't discuss, just diss.

There is hope.

Professor Sandiford is the Director of the Melbourne Energy Institute. His institute sponsers the Zero Carbon Australia Energy Reports.

Next month, Zero Carbon Australia have said they are releasing their ZCA2013 Transport Energy Plan in which they claim that Australia can replace all fossil fueled transport with electrified rail, battery, electric vehicles and bio fuel within 10 years.

I want you to think about that; every car you see on the road now - gone; every truck you see- gone; every freight locomotive you see - gone. All gone in 10 years.

I believe they have left JetA1 fuel out of the report. I wonder why?

As you say, we are the problem - we are the solution.

Gerard Dean

Pretty soon you'll see the first flight where non-renewable fossil JetA1 is cut with renewable biofuel - the first non-experimental commercial trials are underway. Greater fuel efficiency of new aircraft is a further step, reducing fuel consumption by up to 20%.

What's your contribution?

Here is a challenge for you Gerard.

You have been trolling here for months, rubbishing authors and commenters alike on any article even tangentially related to climate change or renewable energy.

How about you put forward your solution to climate change. When asked, you claim that you are not a climate science denier. So let us take you at your word.

It is easy (and in fact intellectually cowardly) to always be the naysayer - and infantile to always be demanding "look at moi, look at moi".

Well here is your big chance. You are centre stage. Tell us how you would deal with climate change.

A solution is at hand. It's called economic collapse...!

In your dreams. Biofuels are already under attack because of the climate change induced droughts in the northern hemisphere... In any case, you can't grow these crops without copious amounts of fossil fuels to fertilise, omnicide, irrigate, harvest, and process them.

The party's over.

Mike

There is no solution. I was going to say there is no final solution, but thought better of it.

Humans, including me, will keep sucking the Old Mother Earth for all she has got until she can give no more. And yes, the place will be a shit hole, but that is the way we like it.

Last night I went for a ride on my push bike. I switched on my battery LED light and rode off, it dawned on me that when I was a kid, we had a dynamo on our bike to power the lights. Now, we use batteries and power from the grid.

As I rode, I looked over the newly mown grass on Gardiners Creek bikepath - the place looked great. Then it dawned me that earlier that day, a big Toro tractor with a set of hydraulic mowers burnt hundreds of litres of diesel to mow the grass so it would look nice for the walkers and riders.

Why do we do that? Why do we burn fossil fuel to mow our lawns, my wife does and our house looks good. The neighbours mow their nature strips and they look good. If someone doesn't mow their nature strip, we all get annoyed and shake our head and ring the council.

I don't know the answer. But some thing in us drives us to change the world around us to be 'nicer' and we use fossil fuel to do it. The world looks nicer to us, but not to the other animals or old mother earth herself.

Who knows. I don't know. I don't know if anybody else knows either.

Gerard Dean

There is a solution to climate change but it is not going to come from climate science deniers like yourself Gerard.

What we do know is that people who deny the problem are irrelevant to the discussion on how to fix it.

Your criticism applies truly enough to biofuel from maize, but it's much less valid as applied to sugar cane, jatropha or palm oil which are all tropical plants that grow quite well with minimal resource inputs. In addition to using such oil, starch and sugar crops to produce liquid fuel by the biochemical means popular today, it is also possible to synthesize liquid fuels thermochemically using methane or coal (already big business in Malaysia, Qatar and South Africa), and such technologies are also adaptable to using biomass (eg. wood or chaff) feedstock and ultimately also to converting renewable or nuclear electricity to fuels.

http://www.rtbot.net/Gas_to%E2%80%90Liquids

http://oilprice.com/Energy/Energy-General/A-New-Liquid-Fuel-Alternative-To-Gasoline-Developed-From-Coal.html

http://www.dotyenergy.com/PDFs/Doty-CARMA-ACS-2012.pdf

Hundreds of litres of diesel, to mow the sward of a 10-hectare strip of park which is mostly creek, bushes and path? A tractor mower will burn about a half litre of diesel per hour, mowing the whole thing might take five hours tops.

Biofuels!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!Give me a break Mr Maddox

Biofuels power a tiny fraction of the world's transport and industrial industry. The subsidised growing of corn in the US to make methanol to add 10% to petrol is joke. Unfortunately, the butt of the joke are the world's poor who have to pay higher food prices.

Australia burns 49.5 billion fossil liquid fuels every year. Based on a rediculously optimistic 100% net energy return, we would have to pull up every wheat, sugar, cotton, oat, maize, rapeseed (canola), barley, hop, soybean and sunflower crop out of the ground and plant corn. THEN, we would have to clear another 7 million hectares of marginal soil to grow the rest.

That doesn't include losses required to manipulate and crack the corn methanol into a petrol, diesel and heaven help us, a JetA1 equivalent.

You mention jatropha and palm oils. Yes, they provide more oil than corn, but Mr Maddox, you cannot get out more than you put in. If we grow those plants on our marginal, thin topsoils we would have to absolutely ram in tonnes more fertilisers, minerals, gene modified seeds and chemical herbicides to make up the extra nutrition taken by the plants. And then do it again the next year, then the next, then the next.

As for making liquid fuels from coal. Sadly, you cannot get something for nothing because it takes at least 2.5 units of coal energy to make 1 unit of JetA1 fuel equivalent. Only the desperate make fuel that way, like Hitlers armies during WWII. It is frighteningly expensive and creates a massive carbon footprint.

As for biomass, wood waste, cooking oil waste and vegetable peelings. One Airbus 380 uses more energy flying to London than the total amount of energy in wood waste, cooking oil and vegetable peelings we make every day.

Your last idea is excellent. Some type of hydrogen fuel extracted from water using electricity from renewable or nuclear electricity is feasible. So in the end, we agree, so I take that break back Mr Maddox!!!!!!!!

Thanks

Gerard Dean

Mr Stasse

I agree with you about the lunacy of biofuels and your concluding statement.

The partie's over.

But just before it is, I am going to fill the tank of my 7 litre Holden with Optimax and blow some Audi's off at the lights.

And I am sure you agree, that can only be a good thing for Australia

Gerard Dean

And now the Red Tickers will come out of the cracks in the floor and smugly click RED. And then they will pop on over to the Jetstar site to book their flight to Fiji for Christmas holidays.

What was that: Red Tickers believe in man made climate change and tell piously tell others to stop burning fossil fuel, then CHOOSE to burn JetA1 fuel to fly overseas.

Think about it before you Red Tick.

That post begs for a point-by-point rebuttal.

Over 10% of human energy use already is from bioenergy, or one eighth of total global fossil fuel consumption. That's not to be sneezed at. Of total liquid fuels, 2.5% is liquid biofuels. Much of that is somewhat counterproductive subsidised US whiskey-for-cars but most of the rest is tropical crops. Tropical countries will almost certainly produce much more liquid biofuel than they do today -- not that I think this is a good thing due to the environmental impact, but it is unquestionably economical.

There is no way we'd use corn in Australia for this purpose if we decided to increase our domestic biofuel production. It makes no economic sense. We'd use sugarcane and oil palm in the tropical north. It's true that you don't get more out than you put in -- but the main input is sunlight. Neither needs much in the way of fertilisers or pesticides compared with cereal crops.

Nobody anywhere is proposing that crops be used to replace 100% of present liquid fuel use. As liquid fuel prices rise, total consumption of liquid fuels will fall with more efficient cars, fewer discretionary flights and less car-dependent lifestyles. Fuel consumption is far more price-elastic now than economists have often assumed in the past. Demand will meet supply, rather than supply somehow failing to meet demand.

Making liquid fuels from coal does indeed lose energy, but this is not a valid criticism of the process : no use or conversion of energy is 100% efficient. For instance Victorian brown-coal electricity generators lose some 75% of the embodied energy in their fuel, straight up the cooling towers and chimneys, and even the very latest black-coal burners in China and Germany lose 55%. Combined-cycle generators (mostly gas-fired) are better, maybe reaching 66% efficiency. Internal combustion engines are at best 40% energy-efficient, but most ICE vehicles are worse than 20% efficient in fuel-to-motion terms because of idling and braking losses. Chinese and South African producers of liquid fuels from coals find the process profitable right now. The carbon footprint is indeed a concern, but not more so than that from any other use of coal. As you say, you can't get something for nothing.

Gas-to-liquids may be far more lucrative. There are huge recent investments in this industry in Sarawak (Malaysia), Qatar and (probably) Louisiana.

http://www.consumerenergyreport.com/2010/11/14/inside-shells-bintulu-gtl-plant/
http://www.shell.com/home/content/aboutshell/our_strategy/major_projects_2/pearl/overview/
http://www.sasolgtl.com/

As for wood waste, I think you are mistaken. A flight from Melbourne to London via Singapore in an A380 will consume about 220 kL of jet fuel, energy content circa 7 TJ or 2000 MWh to send 450 passengers halfway round the world. Forestry and crop waste burners in Australia *today* have an installed capacity well over 500MW, some of which runs all year (aggregate capacity factor is over 50%, but an exact figure is hard to find) -- enough, in energy terms, to send about one such flight every seven hours or so. This is a small fraction of the energy *potential* of crop and forestry wastes in Australia -- the majority of it is from sugarcane bagasse burning alone, where it makes good economic sense to generate electricity at the sugar mill. Of course, we already generate rather more power from wind and solar than we do from biomass.

http://www.eepe.murdoch.edu.au/resources/info/Res/biomass/index.html

I rather like this last concept too! Wind power is cheap and plentiful (somewhat higher capital costs per unit of energy generated than new coal or nuclear power stations, but much lower ongoing operating costs than either) but somewhat intermittent. Intermittency is awkward for 20th-century consumption habits, but this problem is mostly eliminated if we add a large dispatchable load that can buy effectively unlimited off-peak excess power at a reasonable price, which the WindFuels concept is intended to do.

The Doty Energy guys really do seem to be proposing replacement of fossil liquid fuel energy with renewable liquid fuels in comparable magnitude to contemporary production -- with wind power, no less, though it seems they intend to begin with a modified GTL process due to low current gas prices in the USA. There's no reason not to use solar power as well -- it isn't very much cheaper than wind anymore.

While I think they won't need to produce liquid fuels in sufficient quantity to match oil production, because others are trying to achieve similar goals using battery-electric cars and the like, and because there are other good reasons beside the price of oil to rely less on having one big car per adult to take us everywhere we might like to go, I do wish them every success.

Mr Maddox

Thank you for such a detailed response. Although I don't agree with all of your points, many are well made and correct - sort of.

I agree that we don't have to make all of the 49.5 billion litres of liquid fuel Australia uses, however even half might stretch the poor soils of Australia. I only use corn for comparison reasons because it is by far the main fuel crop grown worldwide. It does, however give an idea of the acreage we need to crop to get the energy we need.

The argument over the capacity to grown fuels will wax and wane in the coming years. A sticking point for me is your comment, "The carbon footprint is indeed a concern.", not because I don't agree with you, rather because it highlights the naivety of many people who 'dream' that there are 'wonder' fuels out there. that don't have any negatives. Nothing comes for free.

We are at one on the liquid fuels from electricity, however we will part on the wind energy, not because wind energy cannot provide useable power, rather because most commentators have fully committed wind energy to replace conventional electrical generation. Hitting the grid and wind generators with an additional load to make 50% of our liquid fuel energy would kill it dead. I therefore think that nuclear is more feasible in the medium term - 50 years, perhaps wind can take some more load, but it will be working hard running peoples aircconditioners.

My main contention on this subject is that people do not take notice of the amount of power and fuel that is being burnt right around them at all times - on the road, at school, at uni, in factories, at the night footy, in planes, in shops, on farms. It is gargantuan. To replace this amount of energy with sustainably grown energy will really hammer Australia's soil hard - I don't think it can firstly do it, or secondly, take it.

Now, no doubt we will cross swords again, however, that will be good. I am not sure if you know that this article's writer is one, the good Professor Sandiford. He is the director of the Melbourne Energy Institute, a part of my son's school, the University of Melbourne.

The Melbourne Energy Institute sponsers several 'groups', most noteable, Zero Carbon Australia and Beyond Zero Emissions. In 2010 they released a report, the ZCA 2020 Stationary Energy Report, in which they claimed that Australia could replace all of it's fossil fuel electricity generators by 2020. Unfortunately, the report is woeful, full of errors, underestimations and gross overestimations. Not one of the report's recommendations has been taken up by government or business. Next month, the same group are releasing their next plan, the ZCA 2023 Transport Plan. Sadly, it looks like being another fantasy piece, in which they claim that Australia can replace virtually all of it's fossil fuel transport by electrified rail, electric vehicles and bio fuel by 2023.

I do recommend that you firstly take a look at the Zero Carbon Australia website and down load their ZCA 2020 Stationary Energy Report PDF and check it out. Then you will be primed for their next effort.

I am sure that you will agree with their views more than I do, HOWEVER, just looking at your analysis above tells me that if you find a problem with their report, IT WILL BE A PROBLEM. A problem not even Mr Hansen or Dr Harrigan can wish away.

Must away now. Finally putting the pistons and conrods onto the crankshaft of a little 150cc DOHC V12 engine I designed and made in my back shed. It has two home made carbies and burns good old petrol.

Hope to have it running about the same time Professor Sandiford's merry men release their report. If I do, it will be two christmas's and a rock and roll dance all at once.

Gerard Dean

"With the feed-in tariffs, an investment in PV quickly pays for itself."

No, obviously it does not pay for itself - all the other electricity consumers, and/or the government and taxpayers, are paying for it, via the inflated feed-in tariff!

If the electricity was actually sold at normal market prices then it would "pay for itself". Eventually. Maybe.

Agree deep cycle batteries is one of the strategies that can be incorporated into a multi-option storage model. there are also high efficiency flywheel storage devices that can be used. these units can be deployed at a micro level and further reduce dependance on the utility providers.

NB there are high investment style opportunities like:
- wave power that are a 24/7 power source and
- other storage opportunities like Sydney for example has been using a small lake above Woolongong to store power by pumping water up into the lake and then using a hydro plant to generate back into the system as required.
- and there is the Spanish solar/thermal plant http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5hsZoWXE_LuZGKQA6V7xWlZZPZPCw

death spiral is for the outdated coal technology or the mother of death spirals ie fukashima which is something that has not been resolved as yet.

Batteries!!!!!!! Multi options!!!!

Have any of you had to handle big, dirty, poisonous batteries.

One of my many jobs as a 5 year old was to check the specific gravity of our bank of batteries that hung on the Ronaldson & Tippett Generator set and windmill back in the Wimmera. We had to add distilled water or acid or a combination of both. Then the old man cranked the handle and the lights glowed and we had tea and listened to the ABC and read a book in the yellow 32 volt light.

Every day, then the next, then the next, then the next.....And then one day the SEC connected the grid and my little brother and I played Tanks with the abandoned cable reels.

City dreamers should try and live with windmills and generators and batteries and low voltage lights and kerosine fridges and no power tools and inductive motors to power air conditioners for a time. Then they might think more carefully before floating these ideas up as realistic options to power our energy hungry 4 million sized cities like Sydney and Melbourne (Sorry, forgot, that should be Melbourne and Sydney.)

Batteries!!! Imagine half a tonne of lead acid batteries in every home in your street. And that amount wouldn't keep your split system running for more than 20 minutes on a summer day.

Madness, sheer madness, sheer absolute madness.

Gerard dean

"Batteries!!! Imagine half a tonne of lead acid batteries in every home in your street. And that amount wouldn't keep your split system running for more than 20 minutes on a summer day."

Again with the strawtroll!

Lead acid batteries? You live in your past Mr Dean. Meanwhile the rest of the world is moving on to flow batteries, liquid metal batteries, sodium-sulfur batteries, vanadium redox batteries and other new storage forms.

I think you just don't like innovation at all Mr Dean.

"Batteries!!! Imagine half a tonne of lead acid batteries in every home in your street. And that amount wouldn't keep your split system running for more than 20 minutes on a summer day."

Batteries are unnecessary for running aircon. You can run the aircon from sunrise to sunset using excess power from solar cells. Once the sun sets, the thermal inertia inside houses maintains the temperature until the next day, as long as the houses are reasonably insulated.

Half a ton of batteries would keep our efficient house going for ten days, EVEN if the sun didn't come out at all!! Twenty minutes? What planet do you live on?

I think lead-acid batteries are a fair representative battery chemistry to be mentioned, as a commonly available, cheap, and high-energy-density example.

A vanadium redox battery is the same thing as a flow battery. Well, more correctly, a vanadium redox battery is one member of the set of flow batteries.

Look at the energy density. Vanadium is inferior to Pb-acid.

A vanadium redox battery has a specific energy density of 10-20 Wh/kg, and a volumetric energy density of 15-25 Wh/L.

Lead-acid: 30-40 Wh/kg, and 60-75 Wh/L.
Sodium-sulfur: 150 Wh/kg. I can't find a figure for volumetric density.

Sodium-sulfur batteries offer energy densities that are a little bit higher, but the battery is full of molten metallic sodium at 300-350 degrees C.

Do you want big kegs of 300C sodium and sulfur in every home?

When we talk about the use of liquid sodium in nuclear thermal hydraulics we never bloody hear the end of it. As usual a complete double standard seems to exist when judging the technological practicality, safety, economics etc. of can-do-no-wrong "renewables".

Let's say you want, I dunno, 1 kW of power for 10 hours from the battery. 10 kWh of storage. So that's 67 kg of 300C sodium and sulfur in your home. And it would cost about $50,000.

Lead-acid batteries have amongst the highest energy density of any safe, scalable, commercially available battery technology on the market today. Densities better than vanadium cells.

If you need to build a (extremely expensive) off-grid baseload fossil-fuel free remote area photovoltaic power system for a house today that's what you use - a shed full of lead-acids. That's the best energy density and scalability you can get. You can't get anything better on the market.

Would you rather have a shed full of dilute sulfuric acid and lead or a shed full of (less mass but volume is probably about the same) 300C liquid sodium and sulfur?

Or 3-4 sheds full of sulfuric acid and vanadium solution, I suppose?

10kWh of storage is very generous for the typical off-grid home, being more than average daily household power usage. The battery only needs to cover your power requirements for the hours of darkness, and it is usually cheaper to swap an appliance for a more efficient one than to increase your battery storage to cover an inefficient one. Off-grid homes will not be using battery power at night for space heating or hot water.

People manage quite well with much less storage; I believe 3.5kWh is typical nowadays but people do live cheerful modern off-grid lives with 1kWh of storage for night-time, or less. Of course you'll need more storage than that if you want to use hairdryers and vacuum cleaners outside daylight hours. Since solar panels are now significantly cheaper than off-grid power batteries, it makes more sense to oversize the PV system (so you can still fully charge your batteries even on a cloudy winter's day) than to oversize the batteries in an attempt to last through a cloudy period.

Some off-grid enthusiasts prefer nickel-iron batteries over lead-acid. Because they're produced only in small volumes the cost is higher than lead-acid, but the materials are cheap in principle, and long-term reliability is excellent so over the long term the costs are lower (there are 70-year-old NiFe batteries still in daily use). Energy density is slightly lower than lead-acid but the weight ratio is better. Not sure why you say lead-acid is "amongst the highest energy density of any safe, scalable, commercially available battery technology on the market" -- lithium-ion qualifies and has five times the energy density. Lead-acid is preferred for most stationary applications for cost reasons alone.

But this whole thread is a slightly weird diversion because the subject isn't off-grid systems, it's the price effects of grid-connected solar PV on the rest of the grid. Storage on the grid quite obviously doesn't have to be scaled for households or considered safe for use as a household appliance -- existing large-scale grid storage is pumped hydro; all the funky new battery chemistries are valid candidates for grid storage (indeed many are already being used for this purpose at some scale) and thermal storage offers scalability better than hydro in the long term.

As for the safety of Zebra batteries versus using liquid sodium as a heat exchange mechanism in a nuclear reactor, there are two differences which are highly significant. One is the presence of water in close proximity to hot sodium; the other is the presence of radioactive fission products in proximity to both.

What should REALLY be done is build houses that need no heating or cooling. Like ours. http://damnthematrix.wordpress.com/2011/09/04/the-power-of-energy-efficiency/

You can't tell everyone that they must throw away their existing car and buy a new whizz-bang highly fuel efficient car, or that they must renovate or demolish their existing home and build a new highly efficiently designed, extremely well insulated home. Where are people supposed to get all the money from?

Replacing base load generation with anything other than what we have now will simply accelerate the death spiral. Isn't it that simple, or am I wrong?

Only if you're a captive to thinking that our future energy system needs to be based on 100 year old design (poles'n'wires with centralised generation).

True.

And what's on the horizon for the next 50 years with respect to the poles and wires, for example? I honestly have no idea except that I could speculate wireless power transmission of some sort. Nice. Possibly a very good thing. A question is who is going to make those investments? Perhaps they can be made a community level and I already acknowledged the advent and consequences of community grids in some of my comments.

I think we are actually acknowledging the change - otherwise the issue of death spiral would not be discussed. The article is about the impact of the transition is it not? And that impact is poorly understood, which is the debate in these comments.

Mr Zvyozdochka

The first power systems were completely decentralised. Each building had it's own steam engine, then electrical generator. Then each small town installed a diesel or steam plant. The voltages were different, 32, 110, 230, 240 or AC or DC. The voltages fluctuated and if a generator went down, the whole town stopped.

Along came centralised power stations that improved generator efficiency immensely as well as cutting air pollution from the hundreds of small steam and diesel plants. The grid acted as a buffer, if a generator went down, others on the grid took up the slack and industry and trains and hospital operating theatres and schools went on doing good.

Anybody reading Zvyozdochka's ideas should invest in a $300 petrol generator and try living off grid for a few days and see how good it is. That is how we lived on the Wimmera wheat farm back in the '60s and let me tell you, my mother cried with happiness when the SEC connected us to the grid.

Gerard Dean

The article is talking about revenues, not so much about peak demand. The graphs show that PV reduces demand mostly around midday, tapering off later in the afternoon.

In QLD, the graph shows demand peaking after 6pm - not much solar output then. It isn't reducing peak demand by much.

The article explicitly says "With solar PV biting into the daytime demand but barely shaving peak demand,.."

The whole article says the opposite of what you said. Rather than making the demand curve flatter, PV eats out a chunk from the middle of the day and afternoon, leaving a big later afternoon/early evening peak still present. The article is saying that PV makes the demand curve worse, makes it harder for baseload generators, and this will drive up the cost of electricity, because the same infrastructure will be needed to service the peak, but there is a smaller window in the evening for grid operators to make money - they need to charge more for each kWh to maintain revenue.

"Where do the higher cost come from?"

This is explained in Mike Sandiford's article above:

1. Same infrastructure required (to meet the peak) but less kWh consumed over the grid = higher cost per kWh from the grid
2. While it might not reduce the peak by much, PV is certainly having a big impact on prices. The revenue per hour generated in the wholesale market in the afternoon is much lower now than it was in 2008, as Mike showed in the graphs above. If the energy market is generating less revenue, then prices might need to go up to compensate. If prices go up, people might reduce consumption or install more PV, leading to the aforementioned death spiral.

Prices will go up not just if new infrastructure is built, but if it is harder to generate revenue on existing infrastructure.

Energy prices going up is "a big deal".

The other silver lining is that is unlikely that anyone is going to invest in a new coal fired power station given the falling demand.

All those people predicting higher prices should consider the politics where pricing is still semi-regulated. Tony Abbott has been blaming price rises on the carbon tax (all this PV rollout occurred pre carbon tax). What is the likelihood of Abbott and his state collegues approving price rises to prop up coal fired power stations given that he is promising that electricity prices will fall once he repeals the carbon tax!! I am not sure he wants to be known as "one term Tony".

Add to that the fact that the Libs are nominally committed to the same renewable energy target - 20% by 2020 and the same carbon mitigation targets.

Coal is "dead man walking"

It is obvious that no one here ,including the author has any power system experience. We have three choices to keep the lights on - coal.gas or nuclear. Solar or wind without storage is basically a waste of time and an incredibly expensive sop to green ideology. The only possibility of any coal "death spiral" will come when economic storage is designed. What should happen in the meantime is that people should pay the real cost of "free green energy" and all government subsidies should be recovered from the generators and tacked on to the bills of the gullible who think all this is a great idea as long as the costs are hidden. In manufacturing we used activity based costing to get a true cost of a product so managers know what things contribute to the final cost and can make proper informed decisions. Mike Hansen is right on one point when he says that no one will build a new coal power station with the current stupid government policies and when the lights go out the proverbial will hit the fan. Given the long lead times on real base-load stations the problem will not easily be solved .

Ahhh Mr Hansen,

You said, "The other silver lining is that is unlikely that anyone is going to invest in a new coal fired power station given the falling demand."

- Germany is building over 20 new black coal fired power stations to replace the nuclear power stations they are closing. Germany has one of the highest levels of solar panel installatons.
- China is building a new coal powered station every month until 2030
- India plans to build hundreds of coal powered stations buring Australian coal by 2030
- Every international energy agency says that coal fired electricity will increase for decades to come.

Mr Hansen, the world intends to build HUNDREDS of coal fired electrical power stations by 2030.

Your statement is wrong. Totally and absolutely wrong.

Gerard Dean

And to all of those Red Tickers, why don't you prove me wrong.

Go and find a reputable energy agency that says that steaming coal use for electrical generation is going to fall in the next decade.

One day we will run out of coal, but it is not today. Coal is no more a dead man walking than JetA1 fuel is a good looking girl skipping.

Gerard Dean

Context Gerard. You lack it. The conversation was clearly about Australian investment in coal power stations.

"We have three choices to keep the lights on"

Almost by definition, electric lights when they are really needed cannot be powered directly by solar energy (unless you get it from another time zone). Fortunately, electric lights will become even more efficient than fluoros.

Here is economic storage.

http://www.nrel.gov/news/features/feature_detail.cfm/feature_id=1788

http://www.isentropic.co.uk/news/46/66/UK-Government-backed-body-invests-in-Isentropic-s-revolutionary-low-cost-energy-storage-system

You forgot water. Hydro electric generation is feasible and logical. Base power at a low cost, easily turned off and on as demand rises and falls.
Why do our Australian minds get stuck on a drought-stricken scenario, when there are hundreds of permanent streams, tropical storms and monsoonal rains - all waiting to be utilized. We even have a Future Fund to finance such work; better than investing in cigarette companies!.

Mr Hay

It would be harder for me to get my old Harley Softail to beat a Kawasaki 500 off the line than it would be to build a new dam in Australia.

Remember the Franklin. Good old Bobby Hawke stopped that one, and like a lot he did, I agreed with him.

I am afraid that despite the fact that our hydro dams make the vast bulk of Australia's renewable power, what you see, is all you will get.

The only thing going for them at the moment is that we have had so many Flannerys, sorry, Inches of rain, the dams are full.

Hey didn't that bloke, you know, the Australian of the year, the paleontologist, the bloke who bought the houses on the water front, the bloke who burns JetA1 fuel to push his book sales, the bloke who is paid by a huge Japanese multinational, the bloke who lectures me to stop using JetA1 fuel, yeah that that bloke. He said it was never going to rain again, and even if it did, it would be so hot, the dams would never fill.

Melbourne Dam Levels 76%. Cost of Desalination Plant - 5 thousand schools or over 100 high technology hospitals or 10 new hospitals, 100 new schools and a fast train to Sydney or 500 Abrams tanks....

And what does a Desalination plant do. BURN BROWN COAL TO MAKE WATER.

If it wasn't true, you wouldn't believe it!

Gerard Dean

"the dams are full"

"Melbourne Dam Levels 76%."

"Full" equals "76%". You learn something every day.

Gerard. I see that now that you have outed yourself and no longer need to pretend that you are not a climate science denier, you are revealing the source of your inspiration. Can we expect to see the remainder of Andrew Bolt's arguments repeated here over the next few months?

On Flannery - when Stewart Franks repeated that claim in an article here, he was forced to withdraw it (most embarrassing) because he was unable to substantiate the claim with an actual quote. It seems that the shock jocks had verballed Flannery.

On the desal plant. Again for a "master of facts", is it not amazing how often you are wrong? AGL won the contract to supply the power and were required to construct a wind farm to offset all the energy requirements.
http://www.agl.com.au/about/ASXReleases/Pages/RenewableenergyfromAGLtopower.aspx
As to whether the plant was a good idea, the Bracks govt were in favor and the Greens opposed it believing that there were better options.

Your argument, repeated here ad nauseum, is basically "if you are an enviromentalist and do not wear a hair shirt and live in a hole in the ground surviving on gravel and water then you are a hypocrite" is classic Andrew Bolt. He has made a lucrative career for himself with that argument appealing to the bigots and small minds in our society.

I always wondered about the feeble-minded people that Bolt appeals to.

I guess some people just don't like facts.

My thoughts are (1) that there is a transition period in which the death spiral is real, (2) if you actually plan to have a distribution network which has "less than" peak capacity then you place the whole supply at risk, because (3) solar PV will deteriorate faster than people think and the current base will fall in efficiency and new investments will have to be made far ahead of the time people have in mind. In that scenario the grid can no longer supply as it's been scaled down and electricity reliability in is the hands of the will and ability of private owners in the "Western suburbs" to renew their PV installations. To restore stability will require even more taxpayer funds as subsidies.

Small minds at work huh! I think if you read my comments you'll see that I'm no fan of the current electricity industry, and the fact that I say that the ramifications of personal solar have not been thought through and openly debated does not mean that I am not a fan of solar. I thought that was also apparent from my posts. If you are a fan of knee-jerk government pork-barreling then good for you. I'm not, on this or any other issue. I'm speaking here as a lay observer with an interest in the issue and a little, perhaps dangerous, knowledge of solar trends.

"solar PV will deteriorate faster than people think"

What do people think? Do you have some insights that you would like to share?
And why would that be - I have not heard stories about mass expiry of flat screen TVs - why solar PV?
You say you are in favour of Solar PV - but you seem keen on coming up with some fairly specious arguments as to why it is all going to end in tears.

People generally have an expectation of 10 - 15 years of power output at the initial level quoted when the system was installed. You must be aware that is not going to happen, especially with all the cheap rubbish installed on roofs by the mass marketeers.

I have not said that solar will end in tears for individual owners, I have said that the whole structural transformation including the consequences of the death spiral will cause "the people", the industry and governments to shed an ocean of tears.

If you'd like to quote my specious arguments I'll respond where I can clarify.

I'm sure that you know more about the industry than I do, so do you believe that private solar has no adverse consequences on the structure of the electricity industry? That's what the article is about.

"cheap rubbish installed on roofs by the mass marketeers."

Do you have some evidence that this is going on?

To be eligible for government incentives such as RECs, solar credits and feed-in tariffs the installer must be accredited by the Clean Energy Council and the panel and inverters must meet Australian standards.

Why do I get the feeling that you are just making this stuff up?

I talk to people who work on the roofs, and I read the CEC audits, and I extrapolate. In 5 years time we'll have factual insight into which of our views is more correct.

Sorry I didn't spell it out for you, I somehow thought you might find that demeaning. So I'll give you a challenge. Google "walter adamson". You'll find my wide social presence, all open, not one private. Scan all those Google pages and you will surely find that I do have an association with a firm in the industry. Then post the name and business of that firm back here. I'll be delighted if you do, but somehow I don't think you will as it will undermine your small minded accusations. Knock yourself out!

So Mr Veerman

You said, "And maybe now we can close those polluting coal-fired plants, then?"

Professor Sandifords says solar panels provide 1.5% of average power usage.
The federal government body, ABARE, "Energy in Australia Report" states coal provides 76.7% of Australia's electricity.

I wonder how an immediate cut of 75% of electrical power would affect the population of Australia's health?

For starters there would be mass unemployment, mass social dislocation, skyrocketing death rates due to failing hospitals, schools, transportation, food production, equipment failures, safety system failures, traffic light failures, lift failures, lighting failures, communication breakdowns, no media, no internet, no The Conversation etc etc etc etc etc etc

You know, I bet there is a PHd for a Senior Reseach Fellow at the School of Population Health into the ramifications on the health of Australia's population if it suddenly lost 75% of it's electrical power because some idiot said to shut down the coal power stations and use solar panel electricity instead.

Do your research, Mr Veerman, or do the PHd. Either way, you might learn something.

Gerard Dean

"I wonder how an immediate cut of 75% of electrical power would affect the population of Australia's health?"

A mean less statement since no one in this post, Orin the original article has suggested this. Everyone acknowledges the status quo cannot be rapidly changed. Most disagreement however surrounds the direction and extent of change rather than the need to do so.

Stick with it Walter

When Mr Hansen gets going, I will come in on your side with a few facts. That generally quietens him down.

Gerard Dean

" I will come in on your side with a few facts."

That will be a pleasant change from your usual trolling.

Yep, 10 years, pity you didn't say that in the first place.

Let me tell you. It will take 30 years to decommission all Australian coal plants and replace them with ????. In that time China and India plan to build at least 2000 new ones. Something just doesn't add up, does it.

Here is something for your upcoming PHd on the effects of power poverty on population health.
Are you ready-Reasonably priced power improves populations health.

You pull the power, you kill millions. Go to Zimbabwe to see the best 'Zero Carbon Zimbabwe" experiment. 25% loss in population, mass death, unemployment, social dislocation and chaos.

You are already half way to your PHd at Melbourne Uni.

Seriously, it will take 40 years to transform our power system. Remember that is only 1972 which, looking back, is not too far. Since then the power system has virtually remained unchanged. Solar panels are good, but I don't think they will supply more than a reasonable % of our power. Hopefully I will be wrong.

Hey, that Zero Carbon Zimbabwe experiment is not a bad line. I will use it again. And get into that PHd, I think the Zimbabwe idea is a great one. It has everything you are interested in, power, population and health.

Good luck
Gerard Dean

NASA has 50 year old PVs that still work. They produce less energy than when they were new, obviously, but then if over the next 50 years we redesign our living arrangements to be far more energy efficient, they will still be very handy.

The real Achilles heel in all of this are inverters. They don't last anywhere near as long as the panels...

NASA-style PVs are extremely expensive, well engineered PVs that are designed to work with the highest reliability and efficiency for a very long time under demanding conditions, eg. the thermal-cycling and radiation environment of space, because these expensive space-rated PVs are not a tremendously large part of the overall cost of space engineering and launching.

They are very, very different from these household rooftop polycrystalline silicon PVs which are designed and manufactured to bring the price down to the absolute minimum possible.

You are completely clueless. SA gets 30% of its electricity from renewables. Did I miss the bit about how they deindustrialised.

It is clear from your argument that you did not even read the article, you pompous fool. The article was specifically about the economic impact of solar panels reducing demand and thus effecting the bottom line of the existing generators.

Did you not read "Across the National Electricity Market, 2011-12 revenues were down 35%, or some $3.3 billion, on the annual $9.6 billion for the two years prior to mid-2009."

"Attentive reader" - that is a joke - you are so desperate to get your trolling started, you cannot even parse a simple article.

South Australia, Industrialised. Give me a break Hansen

Stop the presses, pause the internet!

Gerard Dean, climate science denier states that renewables will not work and we should burn more coal.

That surprise announcement will be followed by one from Sir Boring Pomposity of big tobacco explaining why plain packaging will not work and then Mr Weasel Words from Clubs Australia on why mandatory pre-commitment will not stop problem gambling.

There will be a short break before commencing an on-line debate between Captain Bleeding Obvious and Mr Plainasthenoseonyourface on the subject of “Is the pope a Catholic?”

Hey Mike

Try reading 'Leaders to Laggards' It will make you cry.

Your old, and adoring fan,

Gerard Dean

PS. How the hell did you find my comment?

I was actually hoping that good old Prof Sandiland might honour me with a response or two, but alas, I type away and nobody takes any notice of me.

Honestly, I don't know what rocks they find these researchers under, but that Leaders to Laggards report is just so sad.

Gerard Dean

Good spot! How the heck did you find that?!

Thanks - but it was just the magic of Google. Speaking of which, maybe the utilities should start a side-line in data centres: they'd chew up all that unused supply. In fact, if yesterday's New York Times story about Microsoft is true, they'll even run enormous heaters outdoors for days just to burn up unused kWh:
Data Barns in a Farm Town, Gobbling Power and Flexing Muscle http://nyti.ms/PPmI8g