Perhaps we should straighten out the inputs to a tonne of steel.

Carbon or CO2 or metallurgical coal per ton of structural steel.

starting from what grade ore , and counting the carbon in the limestone ?

Grendelus, I agree that the choices must be made on overall environmental costs & benefots.

But windmills, as presently designed, are very inefficient extractors of what was originally solar input. So despite their making electricity, sporadically, going to the source via local solar & efficient storage provides far superior system.

Today and in the near future, EVs will provide local storage as well. So an all-local, all-electric environment for much of our lives' needs will be more reasonable thatn de3ploying distant, resource-intensive, lossy, high-maintenance & low predictability systems, like wind 'farms'.

Alan, yes there are different ways of making steel and concrete, though in steady state, we;d have to assume recycled steel will not be what goes into much of new windmill deployments, and we can't assume the CO2-entrapping Magnesium/Calcium- based cements will be deployed for ew concrete.

But why bother using all those resources per MW peak? Why consume aspects of land usability at the rate of 2 acres per MW peak? Why force transmission construction, rights of way costs and losses for miles?

In other words, there's far more solar falling on existing structures than we need, peak, even at present 20%-efficient, $1/Watt technology. That will double in efficiency and half in price this decade, further outrunning wind. Solar PV has lots of room to grow in yield per sq meter, using no land. So why wind?

If you're on a remote site or island, fine. Otherwise?

MathewP, as a stockholder, I can vouch that GE is in the business of making money, not clean energy.

The figures in the link you list do not cover all of wind's costs and inefficiencies.

Present, local solar, is both more efficient per sq meter and consumes no land, nor does it waste transmission power, as wind 'farms' necessarily must.

Even the present design of windmills -- horizontal axis prop -generators, is far less efficient a design than vertical mills.

And, with a high construction footprint for emissions, wind makes no sense at all. It has survived via misrepresentation to us environmentalists and fibbing about actual costs and subsidies.

Jonathan, I guess our Caltech folks should have called you first before they published their facts about vertical windmills...

http://cleantechnica.com/2011/07/14/caltech-vertical-axis-wind-turbines-boost-wind-farm-power-efficiency-10x/
http://media.caltech.edu/press_releases/13430
www.flickr.com/photos/carbonfreeenergy/3957479225/

;]

Jonathan, it's interesting how we're so easily duiistratced by today's equivalents of 1950s Popular Mechanics or Popular Science bits on energy, like aerial generators.

Remember the flying car -- a Crosley with foldable wigs?

IT shares a reason for impracticality with the various amazing flying machines that might deliver some juice to ground -- aispace corruption.

Our drivers are just so good at mastering 2 dimensions, so certainly flying casrs in 3 dimensions should work, eh?

To extract 1GWe from some source requires a few tens of acres for nuclear, about 10,000 acres of roofs, plus storage, for local solar, or double that for windmills.

So why would we view thousands of tethered 'kit/wing generators a practical, efficient way to achieve evenb the same low efficiency as wid? Why would we put such a source of power, to be relied upon by hospitals, law-enforcement, transportation, etc. into the paths of storms, aircraft, each other...?

Why would we add to the transmission losses. maintenance & failure modes we already see in ground-based wind?

Why not do better by requiring all exercise clubs & facilities to use generator loads in their Exercycles, instead af friction loads?

Well, we know why not -- we don't exercise anywhere near enough. Our present energy use is equivalent to 116 trillion Olympic athletes pumping generators at full sweat 24/7.

Our problem is that we don't grasp the absurdity of our present energy demand and fail to realize what burning the equivalent of 3 cubic miles of oil per year means.

We don't generally understand what even 1 millionth of a full power station's output -- 1kW driving 1 home all day -- physically means. Yes, it;s about 3 Olympic athletes turning generators as hard as they can, fo as long as they can, before 3 new ones step up. How long can a strong human generate 1/3kW? Under a hour. So one home's basic electric needs in US, etc. could only be met by more than 60 of the best human athletes doing their best.

The scale of what inefficient sources like wind have to meet is astoundingly misunderstood, especially so by some very 'green' folks & groups. We don't have time to waste in remaining ignorant of reality.

Here are some refs...
"A Cubic Mile of Oil" -- Crane, Kinderman & Malhotra
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cubic_mile_of_oil

"The Nuclear Imperative" -- Eerkins
http://www.springer.com/engineering/energy+technology/book/978-90-481-8666-2

>"Construction of a nuclear power plant has huge concrete, steel, roads, transmission lines,"

Wind farms require about ten times as much steel and concrete and far more roads and transmission than nuclear (per unit of electricity supplied).

You clearly have no idea what you are talking about, or are being intentionally misleading.

This whole comment is compete and utter nonsense - ideological drivel. I am amazed at how many people are so gullible - simply believing what they want to believe.

>"Very few wind turbines are being built far away form point of use."

What nonsense. The wind energy advocates argue that the "wind is always blowing somewhere" so if we distribute the wind farms widely enough we'd have a more reliable power supply from wind (even if we connected the whole world with a grid w'ed still need a very large capacity overbuild).

Clearly you are driven by you ideology, not objective analysis.

>"Peter, I apologise. I was replying to Alex Cannara and his argument about the poor power density of wind, and confused the two of you. Part of Alex's argument did rely on covering the earth with wind turbines."

I accept your apology and I also apologise for the times I have confused what you have said with what others have said.

It does seem that you think the world can be powered by renewable energy and eventually will. That belief is quote ridiculous as has been shown repeatedly. Here is a short video (8 min) by David MacKay, Chief Scientific adviser to the UK Department of Energy and Climate Change which gives some graphic insights http://www.ted.com/talks/david_mackay_a_reality_check_on_renewables.html

Actually, Jonathan, there are a few who naively do propose "covering the earth" at least to the extent of millions of windmills.

We have one such fellow nearby at Stanford. No reason seems to support his works, except desire to publish and move to Full Professor.

We can't afford anything but honest appraisal of all our tools for solving energy demands and environmental threats together.

We passed the Carbon-Cycle 'tipping point' some decades ago and we've ignoired the solutions eaised even by Nobel wilnners.

So, boosterism for any particular technology despite its flaews, is a disservice to those we now have left a challenging future world.

You may not want to admit that wind power is inefficient and resource hungry, but it's undeniable. You may not want to admit the results of the Harvard study I supplied, but it's not alone and it's factual.

Nuclear power gives us thousands of years of emissions free energy at >20MW/acre. Local solar (DG) even gives us today several kW per roof -- no land at all.. The use of a single windmill for a farm is fine, but use of millions, yielding under under 0.01MW/acre and requiring ~700 tons of fossil-fuel processed raw materials per peak MW, is ludicrous.

Science & engineering facts expose the wind biz as the scam it is, and was here in Calif. in the '80s.

Jonathan, reading your volume above, it's good to see that you admit wind generation presently has more safety issues than western nuclear power -- we lost 2 wind workers in one 'farm' just last year in the county. In all Calif. we've lost 0 workers in nuclear over all the decades it's been running here.

There's a difference in responsible regulation, as well as a vast difference in the resource demands.per MWHr.

The bottom line for wind as a major power source is: simply why bother?

And I wonder if you complained about Silane used to make your personal electronics, your car's controls, your hospital's instruments, or the windmill controllers you seem to forget?

The rare-earth materials used in present windmill systems are mined & refined in poisonous, radioactive environments -- a problem?

This is why all factors must be included in any evaluation of 'renewable' power. Wind has gotten a pass because of hype that's now being exposed.

Continuing to wear blinders on wind reality will not serve you, as others move into the world of true renewables, like local solar, nuclear, etc.
.

The point is, Jonathan, that you seem to have little understanding of power sources.

Jonathan Maddox,

I don’t intend to respond to all your points because I’ve responded to them many times in the past on this and other threads. But since you are an engineer, I hold out some hope that a rational debate is possible. So I’ll address some of what I see are the more important points.

>” \The first two [links], your own study on the cost of 100% renewable power for Australia, erects and demolishes a straw man by attempting to cost the thought experiment assembled by Elliston, Diesendorf and MacGill. This was a proof of concept which answers only the first of the arguments you deny above. Yes, renewable energy *can* provide all our electricity supply. By denying it after using the thought-experiment proof as your main reference, you shoot your own arguments in the foot. Deriving costs from this thought experiment is quite as silly as those who advocate building it post-haste in the real world just as described.”

It’s not a strawman, and not silly, IMO. To argue that estimating the cost of a proposal is silly, itself is silly. BZE costed their plan and said it was achievable by 2020. Their plan is ridiculous and their cost estimate is ridiculously low but still the report is widely promoted by the authors and many renewable energy advocates.

Estimating the costs for the Elliston et. al. study is not a strawman either. Nor does that study show that it is possible to power Australia with renewable energy (as the critique shows: no reserve capacity, grossly overstated hydro and biomass capacity, ridiculous transmission assumptions, etc). And it is perfectly reasonable to estimate the costs for the “scenario” they published. In fact, they should have done it themselves. They did optimise to some extent to minimise biofuel use which is in reality a pseudo cost optimisation. There are many factors that could be further optimised and Elliston has been doing some of that in completing his PhD. However, he is a computer engineer and knows little about electricity engineering. [BTW, The cost of an 100% renewable energy system is likely to be higher, not lower, than my estimate of their system.}

Furthermore, his supervisor, Dr. Diesendorf, has been making statements that renewable energy is economically viable now, cheaper than nuclear, etc etc for over 20 years. He has been shown to be wrong more times than we could count, but that doesn’t stop him continually repeating these assertions. To publish the paper and promote it and deny the obvious rebuttals demonstrates a lack of professional and academic integrity. It is perfectly reasonable for me to estimate the costs of this proposal and show how ridiculously costly it would be and also to show that it cannot meet supply requirements. If it is not economic it is not viable. So I reject that my argument is a strawman.

>”There are indeed many cheaper ways of reducing greenhouse gas emissions than adding intermittent renewable generation to the electric grid. These include … fuel switching”

The others you mention are minor players. They are a diversion. To cut global emissions by a large percentage we have to get off fossil fuels.

>Reducing emissions from electric systems can be done cheaply by improving building efficiency (passive solar design, better insulation, better ventilation, daylighting) and improving efficiency of end-use electrical appliances.”

This is a distraction. These are small bit players. The world’s energy demand will continue to increase. We need to get off fossil fuels if we want to cut global GHG emissions. All this other talk is a distraction from what is important (we’ve been distracted by just these arguments for more than the past 20 years). Policies to address these would have only a small effect. Most that are claimed to be economic are not (the pink bats home insulation fiasco is a classic example; it was promoted as the lowest of the low hanging fruit, but turned out to be a high cast debacle. Most such government policy interventions end up the same way. We’ve been trying these sorts of government initiated interventions on and off for decades. Do you remember the Energy Research and Development Corporation from the Keating era?).

>” Reducing emissions comes at a cost, this is accepted.”

It doesn’t have to. It could be done at no cost. There will be virtually no progress in cutting global emissions unless it can be done at no cost or, even better, at short term net benefit. That can be done. All we have to do is to allow the impediments to low cost nuclear to be removed. It’s up to people like you to lead the way.

>” Incremental additions of renewable generation to an existing grid, however, most certainly *are* cheaper than replacing existing generation wholesale with nuclear power.”

What I am saying is that (once nuclear is allowed to be cheaper than fossil fuels), nuclear will be selected for new power plants rather than fossil fuel plants. So as new plants are required to meet growing demand and replace our existing plants as they reach the end of their lives, they would be replaced by nuclear. Nearly all existing plants will be replaced by 2050 in the normal course of events. What do you want them to be replaced with? Coal, gas or nuclear? Those are your realistic choices because it will not be wind or solar.

>” With gross annual electric energy demand from the grid in Australia declining,”

That’s a temporary effect of the GFC.

> “I have never argued that renewables are safer than nuclear power, nor repeated or linked to the arguments of those who do.”

OK. I accept that. I apologise for grouping you in with most renewable energy advocates.

Almost certainly the mass evacuations from the vicinities of Chernobyl and Fukushima have saved lives,”

Almost certainly the opposite is true. Nearly all the deaths are from the trauma of being moved and disrupted. The fatalities would have been far less (short term and long term) if most areas had not been evacuated. The mass evacuation response is irrational. It is due to the irrational fear of all things nuclear. These fears are out of proportion to the effects of chemical pollution which is everywhere and cannot be easily detected.

Enough of this irrational, anti-nuclear nonsense.

>” What were you saying about my character?”

Much the same as I seem to recall you have often said about mine (e.g. “strawman”

Jonathan Maddox,

>"Nobody claims that renewable energy is lower-cost in the short term than sticking with fossil fuels. Reducing emissions comes at a cost, this is accepted."

The point is that nuclear is far cheaper than wind for CO2 abatement even in Australia at current estimated costs for nuclear. You're an engineer, so you should be able to follow the simple calculation below and then do it yourself.

<b>CO2 abatement cost with gas, or wind & gas, or nuclear</b>

CO2 abatement with wind power is high cost; nearly twice as much as with gas and nearly three times as much as with nuclear power.

Wind power cannot provide reliable electricity supply alone. It needs backup generators for when the wind doesn’t blow. The quick calculation below compares the CO2 abatement cost for wind with gas back-up versus gas only versus nuclear. The calculation is for the abatement cost of replacing existing baseload black coal power stations with either wind plus gas back-up, or gas only or nuclear only.

<b>Calculate cost per tonne CO2 abated for new wind and gas in NEM.</b>

The cost of electricity and the emissions intensities for new wind, gas and nuclear technologies, for Australia, is sourced from BREE AETA Report (2012).

The following rough average figures a re assumed for the existing black coal power stations:
CO2 emissions intensity (existing black coal) (approx) = 1.0 t/MWh
Average wholesale electricity cost (approx) = $30/MWh

<b>Gas only (CCGT):</b>
CO2 emissions intensity (t/MWh) = 0.368
Cost of electricity ($/MWh) = 89
CO2 abatement cost ($/t CO2) = (89-30) / (1.0-0.368) = 59 / 0.632 = 93

<b>30% Wind + 35% CCGT + 35% OCGT:</b>
CO2 emissions intensity (t/MWh) = 0.3 x 0 + 0.35 x 0.4 + 0.35 x 0.7
Cost of electricity (wind) ($/MWh) = $116
Cost of electricity (CCGT) ($/MWh) = $89
Cost of electricity (OCGT) ($/MWh) = $196 (@ 10% CF)

CO2 abatement cost ($/t CO2) = 178

<b>Nuclear (CCGT):</b>
CO2 emissions intensity (t/MWh) = 0
Cost of electricity ($/MWh) = 96
CO2 abatement cost ($/t CO2) = (96-30) / (1.0-0) = 66 / 1.0 = 66

<b> CO2 abatement cost Summary</b>
Gas only = $93/t CO2
Wind + gas back up = = $178/t CO2
Nuclear = $66/t CO2

Therefore, wind costs nearly twice as much as gas and three times as much as nuclear to abate CO2.

There are many simplifications in this calculation (some would decrease and some would increase this cost). But changing them with in reasonable bounds does not change the conclusion. Wind is a very expensive way to reduce emissions.

Some that would increase the calculated abatement cost are adding the increased grid costs (up to $45/MW/h) and allowing for the ineffectiveness of wind abatement (wind was just 53% effective at avoiding emissions in Ireland in 2011 (17% wind energy penetration). We don't know in Australia because we have no way of estimating the emissions avoided accurately enough and at the time scale required).

Thank you for replying. I understand you have a life outside blogging.

>"I think this means you're enjoying the discussion :-)"

Yes, I appreciate discussions with engineers and people who are rational. I've now recognised that you are not one of the trolls. Sorry for previously considering you as one of the trolls and responding to you in the same way as I was doing to the real trolls.

>"There indeed are a number of points of agreement above, but not so many as you hope or assume."

Great. That's good progress. When you do get time to reply, could I urge you to say where we agree for starters and then say where we disagree so we can focus on just the areas on which we disagree. Then we can make make progress and avoid a lot of misunderstandings, frustration and spinning wheels.

Ok, Peter, sounds like a good place.

So do people like James Hansen who uses tricks and deceipt, or didn't you know that?

>"I know for a fact that renewables don't have to be as expensive as the models you've costed."

No you don't. You have a belief. You cannot justify your belief. You don't address the issues. You just write long screeds of unsubstantiated, baseless about your belief.

>"I find this place more congenial ... "It's valuable to reach an audience of people who are intelligent and interested but not already mired in name-calling and figure-fiddling.?"

LOL. You must have a great filter. I adopted the culture of the site because I was fed up with the continual trolling, snide remarks and abuse by the many trolls that inhabit this site. This site is dominated by them, but they are not participating on this thread at the moment.

Lastly, it's impossible to have a rational discussion if you can't focus on what's most important first and deal with the facts.

Doug,

>"Peter, you are creating straw-man arguments to attack."

What sort of junk comment is that. You make an allegation but don't even say what the strawman is. It's just trash talk.

>My concern with human frailty covers every human endeavour where death, or damage, may result from poor judgement, inadequate knowledge, or incorrect action."

You haven't shown much concern for the millions of fatalities per year that the global carbon pricing schemes you advocate would cause. Nor for the reduced rate of growth of global GDP and the consequences of that: more people remain in poverty longer, more conflicts, higher population growth rate, shorter life expectancy, lower education especially for women in poor countries. You guys never look at that when you propose your ideologically base thought bubbles.

>"I don't have any more concern about nuclear accidents than I do about any other field of human activity where long-term death and destruction could result."

Clearly you do because you don't treat risk of fatalities from nuclear accidents equivalently to other accidents. If you did, you'd demand everyone is evacuated permanently from all cities and from within hundreds or thousands on km radius from many industries by now.

>"sites like www.skepticalscience.com where the science of climate change is examined."

You don;t realise that Skeptical Sciences is CAGW activists site. It is a propaganda site for the loony Left (of which you are one). It is run by trained propaganda specialists (they call them selves :communication professional"). You don't realise it because it appeals to your ideological beliefs. You wouldn't know it because you don't venture outside your comfort area. You don't know what else is going on. You are basically ignorant of the politics behind all the CAGW religion. You go to your church and trust what the preachers tell you and repel any other thoughts.

Strawman:
>"Your inaccurate assumption that anyone who disagrees with you is from the Left"

>"What is it about reasonable debate and discussion that alarms you so?"

It doesn't. It's the ideologically driven drivel you claim is reasonable debate that I respond to by pointing it out. I know you can't see it, but re-read your comments and it should be clear to anyone who is not blinded by ideological glasses.

Why do you say AGW is dangerous and you have no idea about the damage function? Why do you obfuscate and avoid it whenever it comes up?

Why do you avoid answering questions about how much difference the proposed policies like carbon pricing will make to the climate?

You can't answer these questions. You dodge them. But you argue for high cost mitigation policies. That's irrational. That's why I respond in the way I do to people who hold irrational beliefs and advocate irrational policies.

Doug Hutcheson,

>"(Cue Peter Lang throwing in a question about the damage function ... sigh!)"

There is no point trying to avoid the issue of the damage function by smart-alec comments like this. Do you think the issue can be dispensed with like that?

If you don't know the damage function, how can you argue that AGW is dangerous? You can't, at least not rationally!

"The price of life: the IPCC's first forgotten controversy"
http://www.bishop-hill.net/blog/2013/2/26/the-price-of-life-the-ipccs-first-and-forgotten-controversy.html

Jonathan Maddox,

>"You are assuming that the objective of the costing exercise is not to reduce CO2 emissions with intermittent renewables at least cost, but to fully replace existing dispatchable generation with new dispatchable generation of the same capacity (and only then derive a cost for emissions abated)."

I got to to this paragraph and my eyes rolled, again. I have no idea which paper or comment you are referring to. At this point, I've completely lost what you are arguing. Are we still trying to clarify what we agree and do not agree on the ten points I summarised? IMO they are all correct, so you need to explain why you disagree. You need to show explicitly what is wrong with them. Start from the first point and we'll take it one point at a time. There is no point me going any further on this comment until we understand what we are debating.

WRT to the paragraph quoted above, please re-read the two posts: http://bravenewclimate.com/2012/02/09/100-renewable-electricity-for-australia-the-cost/ and http://oznucforum.customer.netspace.net.au/TP4PLang.pdf and the comment where I did the simple calculation of the CO2 abatement cost with three options replacing existing black coal power stations. The three options in this comment are gas only, wind + gas back up, and nuclear. The two posts use the data from the DRET (2011); the comment uses data from AETA (2012).

When you have read and understood them, then please ask questions for clarification rather than making strawman assertions.

You can also download the Excel spreadsheet from the first link above and run sensitivity analyses yourself to check the effects of the assumptions you want to change.

I suggest you read the pdf from the fists article rather than the online version because much of the info you will need is in the appendices and footnotes.

I don't know what premise yoU ARE REFERRING TO

>"Actually Peter, it is your premise which is wrong"

I don't know what premise you say I have. I explained yours.

>"you who have never once conceded a single point in our many months of conversations."

So far you haven't persuaded me you've made any points I should concede. It seems everything you've been saying has been based on misunderstandings.

You'r latest long comment is a classic example. You haven't recognised when an analysis based on an end state, is for capital costs, capex, cost of electricity, CO2 abatement cost, or CO2 emissions abated.

You seem to be confusing the transition with end states.

You seem to think that transition up to 3% penetration can work as we approach higher of penetration.

You don't seem to realise that any amount of renewable energy is high cost. The costs are buried and others carry them at low penetration. Looking at the end state or at significant intermediate milestones, reveals these costs.

You don't seem to have understood any of this. You haven't ever pointed out to me with an error in the calculations. You write lots of verbiage based on your beliefs but haven't once provided a cost estimate for what you believe is achievable at either an intermediate milestone or an end state, let alone a time phased transition plan.

So you've provided absolutely nothing where I can concede you have made a valid a point. So far almost everything you've said is wrong. But there is no point in me trying to explain it to you. You don't follow through. You just run off somewhere else, like your latest diversion into transitions to 3% penetration - but without providing any figures for the capital cost, capex, cost of electricity, CO2 abatement cost or CO2 abated.

This smacks of religious belief. It is painfully obvious. And that is what is damaging your cause.

Have a look at this thread on Bishop Hill: "The price of life: IPCC's first controversy http://www.bishop-hill.net/blog/2013/2/26/the-price-of-life-the-ipccs-first-and-forgotten-controversy.html

Also read the comments by Richard Tol, Aubrey Meyer, BernieL and a few others.

Having personally exchanged emails with Monckton, I can't say he'd survive well in the acidic, or H2S environment, but his does emit stinky stuff!
;]

Coal gas is a mix of CH4 & CO2, with CH4 being 25-100x as bad a GHG as CO2.

The variation reflects how long CH4 remains in the air before oxidizing to CO2 and H2O.

In the US, gas extraction from fracking leakages depends strongly on regulations and operator skills. It's about 4% of the methane releases overall, with 40% due to meat production.

Coal seam gas seems to have snuck in here.

Alastair, fugitive emissions assertions, despite the many, many google hits, can pretty much all be traced back to a single source - an academic paper that gave an assumed range of fugitive emissions, not a measurement of fugitive emissions (and the alarmist articles only reported the top number of the assumed range). Not saying it can't be a problem, but needs to be measured, not assumed.

Alex, coal gas is entirely different, and not relevant. Methane/CH4 is indeed worse than CO2 as a GHG, but, of course, the vast majority is actually burnt and so no longer is methane. Same comments about your 4%.

Felix, I can't see that Alastair has actually given any actual evidence, just his opinion...

The CSIRO is on the case. http://www.csiro.au/en/Outcomes/Energy/Fugitive-Greenhouse-Gas-Emissions-from-Coal-Seam-Gas-Production-in-Australia.aspx

Very interesting. A Carbon tax is indeed one source of rationalization of costs to allow energy comparisons.

It's revealing that Siemens is exiting the solar market, but remaining in wind, because they can still make $ & marks on it.

Someone with the nerve to raise our fundamental issue. Thx.

@Mike Hansen. Mike, global population growth is THE fundamental issue. What we do in Australia in regards to pop growth, CO2 etc matters not a jot on a global scale. What China and India do, however is key to the use and distribution of resources. This isn't about immigration to this country at all - it is about global carrying capacity.

Blair Donaldson,

All wind farms on the National grid can be becalmed at the same time. Many examples of this but one I am familiar with lasted 6 days in May 2010. That is, all wind farms in an area 1200 km east-west by 800 km north-south.
Select the chart for May 2010 here: http://windfarmperformance.info/

By the way, during that period there were 65-5minute periods when the wind farms drew more power than they generated - i.e. negative power output.

Blair Donaldson,

You are missing the point, Any amount of renewable energy is very expensive. It needs to be almost fully backed up by fossil fuel capacity, so more than double (probably three to five times) the capital cost of the fossil fuel capacity alone. It avoids much less CO2 emissions than claimed (just 53% effective in Ireland at 17% wind energy penetration).

There is a fare better option (and safer too!). The question is, why won't you consider it?

Blair Donaldson,

"South Australia demonstrates your claims are nonsense and that renewables are not necessarily very expensive. But I know you are not interested in inconveniences."

Do you mean the South Australia with the third highest electricity prices in the developed world (behind only Denmark and Germany the other two countries that have high wind penetration)?

And that is the case when the full price is not factored in yet (as explained in the lead article).

But I know you are not interested in inconveniences. :)

Good info. Again, wind has very low efficiency, very low power density (the environmental key) and huge demands for resources at the rate of hundreds of tons per peak MW.

The CO2 emissions offset by wind are less than nuclear and and disappear as more wind is installed.

On top oof all this is that wind 'farms' are like 16th Century battle groups -- staged in one place, and dependent on that place's environment. The Chinese have already begun experiencing the negative effect of climate change on some of their western wind installations...
http://spectrum.ieee.org/green-tech/wind/a-less-mighty-wind
www.nytimes.com/2011/01/21/us/21tttransmission.html?_r=1&hpw

Local solar (DG) and nuclear don't have these issues and have higher power densities as well.

This is an economic problem of differential costs among the higher-emission generators in Ireland and has nothing to do with the technical efficacy of wind power.

I don't see why it's a problem for Ireland that they choose for their wind generation to displace expensive imported gas rather than lower-cost coal and domestic peat generation, and to export power to Britain when possible rather than turning off as much of their domestic capacity as they can. For the Irish grid operators it's as much about the national balance of payments as it is about emissions reductions. Some of the fossil generation displaced by Irish wind is in Britain. Some of the backup power for Irish peak demand and/or wind generation troughs is also in Britain.

There's a tricky situation in Ireland (also Finland and Canada) whereby carbon dioxide emissions from burning peat (which are higher than from burning coal, as it is not an energy-dense fuel) are credited to the emissions from the electricity sector, but sequestration of atmospheric carbon due to peat growth is accounted to forestry or agriculture. Therefore the modest generation from peat contributes disproportionately to the electricity sector emissions numbers, while on a national and EU emissions-market level it's effectively considered to be carbon-neutral.

If the Irish grid operator were instructed to minimise CO2 emissions instead of costs, or if the EU carbon price was enough to offset the difference in fuel costs between peat and gas, the derived "displacement effectiveness" number in Wheatley's study would be *above* 100%, not below.

@ Jonathon Maddox - you claim "intermittent renewable energy *is* cutting emissions in many places around the world"

But you don't substantiate this.

I am sympathetic to support for renewables - but not for assertions made without evidence. And especially not for assertions for which the available evidence is the opposite.

If this were true - why are emission climbing?

I think you are confusing "cut" with "avoid an increase" and even that is speculative assertion.

York, Richard. 2012. “Do Alternative Energy Sources Displace Fossil Fuels?” Nature Climate Change 2(6): 441-443.
http://www.nature.com/nclimate/journal/v2/n6/full/nclimate1451.html
" each unit of electricity generated by non-fossil-fuel sources displaced less than one-tenth of a unit of fossil-fuel-generated electricity."

You see - it's a little more complex than your somewhat simplistic assertion. I remind you that for all the "displacement" you claim - emissions have continued to climb - faster and faster.

You might need to open your mind to the one available technology that fossil fuel generators fear the most - one that really COULD displace them - no ifs, no buts, no intermittency or complicated grids etc. - but only if it was focused on.

To date we have failed to make a dent in the problem precisely because we are only willing to embrace "solutions" that lack the power to truly displace the big fossil fuel meitters rapidly

I suggest any rational view means that without it being part of the mix - we will NOT see renewables solve the emissions problem alone.

http://www.nature.com/climate/2008/0810/full/climate.2008.99.html

Leon, the word "thermal" should be a warning to anyone.

As soon as heat is used, from any source, we are into the harsh world of thermodynamics.

The solar thermal plants here in Calif. actually suffer the same transmission losses as wind, plus they suffer basic thermal inefficiencies on the order of 50% loss to waste heat.

"Thermal" means this math: (1 - Tcold/Thot) = efficiency.

In space, a radiator sees ~0 fot Tcold, so efficiency can approach 1. On earth, it's about 300K. Plumbing in the solar heating tank & generator can handle maybe 800-900C, so efficiency at best is (1 - 300/273+900)) = ~75% in an ideal heat engine/turbine.

Our desert solar plants also have a cute trick -- they burn gas to keep their salt tank hot at night, so they're strong emitters.

By the time generation and transmission efficiencies are added in, these plants run no better than a good combustion plant, with Combined Cycle turbine generation.

So they save a little bit in emissions, add great expense in distant transmission and maintenance, and provide single points of failure!

They aren't the future.

Eric Ireland,

"I can't see how it makes sense to be investing in gas fired power stations."

Intermittent, unreliable energy sources, like wind and solar, require back up generators. So gas generation is essential. We need almost the full generating capacity of gas to back up for wind and solar. So we must duplicate the generating capacity at more than double the capital cost. Plus we need much more transmission capacity and more costly frequency control. It all costs a lot of money.

"Apparently when you have enough renewable energy connected intermittency becomes less of a problem."

True in theory (like the modelling exercise you referred to) but in the real world it does not overcome the problem.

Link below compares the capital cost, cost of electricity and CO2 abatement cost for five scenarios:

1. wind, solar thermal, solar PV, biofueled gas turbines with 'copperplate' transmission system

2. wind, solar thermal, solar PV, natural gas turbines with 'copperplate' transmission system

3. wind, solar thermal, solar PV, natural gas turbines with more realistic transmission system

4. wind, solar thermal, solar PV, natural gas turbines with 'copperplate' transmission system but with transmission capacity from wind farms and between capital cities arbitrarily halved

5. Nuclear, natural gas and already committed capacity of wind and solar PV.

Results are summarised in Figure 6. Transmission costs are summarised in Figure 7.
http://oznucforum.customer.netspace.net.au/TP4PLang.pdf

Gary Murphy repeats the same misleading statement over and over again and each time it is pointed out to him. Undaunted, he does it again. This is the sort of thing that detracts from credibility and trust, not only in the actual poster, but also in those who share his views.

Here are the Australian figures from the Bureau of Resource and Energy Economics (BREE)
http://bree.gov.au/documents/publications/aeta/Australian_Energy_Technology_Assessment.pdf

nuclear = $96/MWh
wind = $116/MWh
solar PV = $224/MWh
solar thermal = $304/MWh

The renewable figures do not include the costs of backup and the additional transmission costs. Capital cost for transmission lines are roughly $1,500/MW.km in Australia. You can see the effect on a system of renewable energy generators in Figure 7 here: http://oznucforum.customer.netspace.net.au/TP4PLang.pdf

"It would cost $20 - 25 Billion to finish backing up the NEM with gas. (~$1000 / kW)"

$30 - $35 billion capital cost for gas back up would be closer (Reserve capacity margin is required)

Add around $500 billion for the renewable energy generators and about $70 billion for the additional transmission.

And compare with about $150 billion for a mostly nuclear and gas system to do the same job and with lower emissions.

See Figure 6 here: http://oznucforum.customer.netspace.net.au/TP4PLang.pdf

Correction, make that $350 billion, not $500 billion for the renewable energy generators. Total cost = ~$450 billion

Gary Murphy,

“How is what I posted misleading?”

Your post that you keep posting time and time again shows LCOE for renewables and baseload technologies and implies this is a fair comparison without including the costs of the backup generations or energy storage required for renewables or higher transmissions costs. It’s also wrong to use USA figures when the authoritative Australian government figures are available. I’ve told you this repeatedly, but you keep reposting it. Given this, it seems you are intentionally trying to mislead the readers.

“The renewables scenario you have costed is 60% solar thermal which is still quite expensive.”

The solar thermal with 15 hours storage is essential. The storage is essential. The system cannot run without energy storage. If you read the critique you’ll notice the the authors grossly overestimated the amount of hydro storage capacity. So in fact, far more solar thermal, or far more backup generation is required.

“Also the generation in that scenario is a very long way from the demand centres which increases transmission costs.”

Yes. The solar thermal has to be widely distributed to minimise the effects of widespread overcast conditions. And they have to be located in high insolation areas (inland and deserts preferable. So yes, solar thermal has high transmission system costs, as does wind to make it widely distributed. These are the some of the costs of renewable energy.

“Also all of the wind in that scenario is on the South coast.”

No, it’s not just on the south coast. Do you think Canberra and Bathurst are on the south coast? Anyway, the sites are at the locations where the capacity factor is the highest. As you move away from the best sites, the capacity factor decreases, you need more wind farms to get the same output and that causes even higher costs.

“That scenario was created simply to demonstrate that a 100% renewables system could fulfil the NEM requirements. There has been no attempt to cost optimise it.”

That is correct, but they did do optimising to minimise the amount of biofuel required. They also used very optimistic assumptions as I’ve explained in the critique. Optimising will improve the costs a bit. I looked at four scenarios to reduce the cost. Proper optimising would improve the costs somewhat, but not much when the optimistic assumptions are removed. Certainly not enough to make the cost anywhere near the same cost as the mostly renewable scenario to do the same job.

“Also it is misleading to just compare the capital costs of nuclear versus the capital costs of renewables. Nuclear energy has significant operating costs - renewables don't."

This comment and others show you haven’t read or haven’t understood the critiques:
http://bravenewclimate.com/2012/02/09/100-renewable-electricity-for-australia-the-cost/
http://oznucforum.customer.netspace.net.au/TP4PLang.pdf

I find it astonishing that people are arguing over the cost of building additional gas-fired backup when intermittent penetration is still so very low. Countries with high penetration of intermittent generators such as Germany, Spain and Denmark are indeed experiencing some difficulties but they tend not to be because additional backup is required, but more about reinforcing inter-regional transmission backbones.

Existing fossil-fuelled generators provide backup for intermittency just as they provide backup for variations in demand. Recent experience in Victoria shows very clearly that in spite of decades of propaganda to the contrary, even the oldest brown coal "base load" generators are entirely capable of reducing fuel consumption when demand for their power is low -- the only reason not to do so in the past was that it reduced revenue to the incumbent generators.

As the penetration and diversity (in technology and in geographical location) of intermittent generators increases, the capacity credit earned by the intermittent portfolio as a whole and the amount of backup capacity required is reduced. The ultimate demand for dispatchable "backup" as a proportion of total electric energy demand is falling as intermittent penetration increases. And it's all already built. After all, when we had no wind and no solar power on the grid to speak of we needed 100% fossil fuel backup, all the time!

@Peter

"It’s also wrong to use USA figures when the authoritative Australian government figures are available."

Well I think the US figures are more accurate (relatively) since they are based on more projects all built in the same country. The Australian figures you quote are sourced from Worsley Parsons but I don't see how accurate they could be for Australia since we don't have any nuclear or solar thermal projects and only a few larger scale PV systems in very remote locations.

I don't see why they think renewables would be more expensive in Australia than the US but nuclear would be cheaper in Australia than in the US.

re storage:

All you need to store energy is a (relatively) small amount of battery storage to even out shorter term fluctuations and pumped hydro to store longer term excess supply.

500MW battery storage ~ $1 Billion

Gary Murphy<

"Well I think the US figures are more accurate (relatively) since they are based on more projects all built in the same country. The Australian figures you quote are sourced from Worsley Parsons "

Sorry, Gary, but you have not the slightest clue what you are talking about. With such a limited knowledge of the subject and a clear reluctance to listen, there is not point wasting the time it would take to get you up to speed. here are two references. But no point skimming them. You really need to study them very carefully. There is a lot to this estimating game.
www.aemo.com.au/planning/419-0035.pdf
http://www.ret.gov.au/energy/Documents/AEGTC%202010.pdf

@ Gary - I think Mr Lang has a valid point. Looking at pages xxii and xxiii of the http://www.ret.gov.au/energy/Documents/AEGTC%202010.pdf link he provided shows the sources of information are a LOT wider with a much greater skill depth than Worsley & Parsons (not in any way to downplay their expertise either)

The AEMO report from ACIL Tasman is fairly comprehensive too.

I think 100% renewables adocates need to address the back up and transmission costs questions fairly and directly. Not attempt to handwave them out of existence. because reality will ensure they must be addressed

@Peter, Mark

re tech. costs. I'd still rather be comparing real project costs than estimates.

re 'hand-waving'. I have clearly stated these extra costs and have costed the gas backup requirements. The transmission line requirements are far harder to quantify / cost and far more variable across different renewable scenarios.

re storage. Are there any reasons the stabilising battery storage with pumped hydro cannot work?

Gary Murphy,

I repeat, you don't have a clue what you are talking about. You making baseless assertions. The estimates are based on the same real projects, but there is a lot involved in converting from US $ and US economy to Australian (e.g. labour rates and productivity to name just two, there is much more than that). Making up rubbish is your way of defending your irrational beliefs. Instead of spreading FUD why don't you take the time to read and understand the three reports I've given you plus several others I didn't. Do you really think you know better about how to estimate than the people involved in preparing the AETA report? (not that I agree with all they've done - for example they've been very PC and used aggressive learning rates for renewables but none for nuclear; yet . nuclear has far greater ability to reduce costs than renewables).

Mark,

Since I'm not actually a member of the 100% renewables group and don't advocate either their specific publication or the strawman misrepresentation of it so carefully costed by Mr Lang, I can't speak in their favour.

However I do speak for my own advocacy of renewables : We are not starting from scratch with the choice of nuclear or renewables. We are starting with an electricity system that is dominated by coal and gas, which already has tremendous geographical extent, and which has modest portions of hydroelectric power and intermittent renewables already installed.

Additional penetration of intermittent renewables requires the addition of no new backing supply until/unless peak demand increases beyond the ability of both existing fossil and hydro generators *and* whatever availability the intermittent portfolio has to meet it. With grid demand peaks currently *falling* as consumers discover insulation, efficient appliances, demand-shifting and on-site PV, this is quite some time away.

Additional transmission for new generation in the context of the existing vast grid is also relatively modest, providing that new generation can be located near existing capacity. Much of it can be. Some additional transmission investments are worthwhile in their own right for the sake of reliability, as well as for the sake of the renewable generation they enable.

Some of the proposals of the 100% Renewable publication are rather ambitious and/or costly, such as grand-scale, near-term adoption of solar thermal heat storage coupled with dispatchable generation from that storage, burning thousands of tonnes of wheat chaff for a few days each year in co-firing burners on the sites of the solar thermal stations when it's been overcast for a while, and complete electrification of an expanded inland freight rail network.

These proposals are (at best) worthy but can without loss of credibility be deferred while we approach first 50%, then 80%, 90%, and 95% renewable energy using whatever energy collection and excess-energy-storage methods are most cost-effective at the time.

I'm very happy to advocate some expedited build-out of solar thermal power before it is "cost-effective" just for first-move reasons. I see this as a worthy pump-priming subsidy for a nascent industry at an opportune time, more than as a cheap way to reduce greenhouse emissions in the near term.

Just an FYI, the only really 'renewable' is solar, which, of course inefficiently drives wind & hydro.

Geothermal and nuclear are equally 'renewable', since both are nuclear -- yes, geothermal energy comes from decay of radioactive isotopes in Earth's core & mantle -- Thorium, Uranium, Potassium (the same as that in our bodies, which irradiates us from inside at the rate of ~4400 gamma & beta emissions per second for life).

So the key to choosing the best 'renewables' is to honestly study their power density, efficiency and emissions (not just of CO2...).

For example, like combustion, geothermal emits more radiation than any nuclear plant is allowed. We've already mentioned wind's high emissions & low land efficiency compared to nuclear & others.
.

As I mentioned elsewhere, there's an excellent analysis by a Dartmouth Prof. of wind's realities starting on p132 here...
http://tinyurl.com/cxplxx3

This talk & book by Dieter. Helms covers the common sense that's rarely been applied -- and why Euro emissions have failed to meet real targets, even as the Germans deploy more coal burning, like 2GWe of lignite-fuelled generation...

www.dotyenergy.com/Economics/Econ_Stabilizing_RenewableGrid.htm
www.policyexchange.org.uk/modevents/item/fixing-climate-policy-with-professor-dieter-helm-cbe

Good to see your contributions Mark. And better to see you continuing to point out the obvious, despite being taken to task elsewhere in TC for doing so.

Good to see your contributions Mark. And better to see you continuing to point out the obvious, despite being taken to task elsewhere in TC for doing so.

I see no justification for the numbers claimed, but an actual analysis of wind power supply loads would be more helpful than so much speculation. http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2012/07/15/516179/wind-turbines-waste-much-less-energy-than-fossil-fuels/

Gator's back! There are many evaluations of wind 'farms' true costs and efficiency. I gave one elsewhere here, but feel free to peruse a couple more...
p132 here: http://tinyurl.com/cxplxx3
http://bravenewclimate.com/2009/11/03/wws-2030-critique/
www.dailymail.co.uk/home/moslive/article-1350811/In-China-true-cost-Britains-clean-green-wind-power-experiment-Pollution-disastrous-scale.html
"The Wind Farm Scam" -- Etherington
Forced subsidies...
www.renewableenergyworld.com/rea/news/article/2012/09/idaho-utility-and-wind-power-generators-still-battling-over-wind-energy-curtailment?cmpid=WNL-Wednesday-October3-2012

Most any engineer can explain why wind power is a poor choice for mass generation.

Very good analysis, Luke, and Gator misses the point that even with present, water-U235 reactors, there is no need for mining or enrichment to meet the US's power needs for decades via re-processing of existing 'spent' fuel stocks, as the French have long done for themselves and for other European countries, and for Japan.

And, the spent, as well as depleted Uranium stockpiles, offer alternative fuel at low cost and basic chemical processing, with Gen-IV reactor designs, such as IFR, FHR & MSR -- the last having been operated for several years in the US in the '60s. That is what China is moving ahead with now.

Indeed, using the rare Uranium235 isotope has long been viewed as a problem to be avoided, which is why Pres. Kennedy started a new design path: http://tinyurl.com/6xgpkfa

That path would have eliminated combustion power by 2000 and eliminated present reactors and U235 dependence soon after.

We're getting back on that path after Nixon derailed us in the '70s: http://tinyurl.com/73p7ler

In the next nuclear era, no new mining will be needed, very little waste will be created, and far less material will be needed to build systems. So nuclear's advantage over wind will be even greater.

And, part of the solution will be local solar.

AligatorHardt,

The CO2-e emissions from wind power are a little higher than from nuclear on a LCA basis. However, it is on irrelevant argument because they are both very low compared with coal and gas (around 5% of new coal and 2.5% of new combined cycle gas turbines; the emissions from nuclear will drop further by orders of magnitude, but from wind not much). Forget about the emissions from wind and nuclear, they are near enough to zero to be called zero emission technologies. EXCEPT THAT, wind and solar need gas back up - lots of it. See the comparison of cost of electricity and CO2 abatement cost for a low emissions NEM in Figure 6 here:
http://oznucforum.customer.netspace.net.au/TP4PLang.pdf

"Wind turbines have an average life span of 25 years, but the foundations remain for use of many turbine replacements, so foundation investment is not repeated every time a turbine is replaced. "
WRONG! each time they rebuild a wind farm the technology has changed and new foundations are required for the new designs - e.g. ever increasing size of turbines needs new foundations. Clearly you are all BSA and haven't the slightest clue what you are talking about.

Aligatorhardt,

You make a pile of totally unsubstantiated allegations, many of which are just plain wrong; e.g
"Wind provides the lowest cost power and the lowest emissions of all the choices, " - Nonsense!
"Coal power has no real advantages, and it would ideally be phased out." - Nonsense!
"Saving a few dollars on electricity cannot make up for all the losses due to pollution from the so called cheap power sources." That's a dishonest misrepresentation - we're talking about at least a factor of three in electricity cost compared with the far superior alternative - nuclear power.
"Talking about CO2 as if it is the only greenhouse gas,"
Wrong! we some times talk about CO2, and sometimes about CO2-e which is the 24 Kyoto gasses. The compliance cost that would ultimately be required would be ridiculously costly. So carbon pricing will never be implemented in the real world to the level that would be required.
"For daytime peak loads, solar power fits the bill." Nonsense!

I'd suggest you have a lot of research to do. You could start by researching the links I've provided in comments on this thread and the references within the links. At the moment you are believing and accepting without properly challenging what the renewable energy advocates are telling you.

Unfortunately, John, solar thermal is not 'baseload' power and if turned into such, via burning gas (as we do in some Calif. sites), it's no longer 'green'.

Add to those features mediocre thermal efficiency and transmission losses , and solar thermal makes sense only to those not caring for much but subsidies to their investments.

John Davidson,

It's great to talk with another retired engineer. Engineers understand costing, but most scientist don't.

There are several issues with solar thermal with storage.
1. cost (see my previous comments on this thread
2. low availability compared with fossil fuels and nuclear, so cannot reliable complement wind power
3. Much lower CO2 abatement than assumed (see my previous comments on this thread)
4. Transmission line lengths (high capital and maintenance costs) and high capacities for low total energy transmitted (high capital costs).
5. Much lower emissions abatement than the proponents claim by 6. High capital cost, cost of electricity and CO2 abatement cost.

Here are three references that you may find of interest.

1. Critique of "Zero Carbon Emissions - Stationary Energy Plan"
http://bravenewclimate.com/2010/08/12/zca2020-critique/

2. Zero Carbon Options (this compares the cost of the proposed solar thermal plant for SA with a Canadian nuclear plant instead.
http://www.zerocarbonoptions.com/

3. Cost comparison for an all renewable energy, a mostly renewable energy or a mostly nuclear NEM. The capital cost, cost of electricity, CO2 emisisons avoided and CO2 abatement cost are compared for four renewable energy options and one nuclear option.
http://oznucforum.customer.netspace.net.au/TP4PLang.pdf

John Davidson,

"Peter Lang: The solar thermal plants proposed in the BZE stationary energy plan include molten salt energy storage and a back-up molten salt heater that uses bio-waste as fuel. The steam turbine was selected for variable demand operation. All this means that the proposed solar thermal plants would be a very reliable source of clean electricity that could be used for applications ranging from base power to peaking power".

Clearly, you didn't read the critique or the other links before you posted this reply. did you.

Your reply is completely wrong. Read this:
http://bravenewclimate.com/2012/02/09/100-renewable-electricity-for-australia-the-cost/
Download the pdf version because it includes the appendices.

Gary Murphy,

Yes, I have seen the transmissions cost estimates and the rest of the assumptions. What is the point of your question? Have you done anything with them? Have you made an estimate (even very rough) the total cost of transmission for a 100% renewable energy system, or any component of it where the transmission costs are properly attributed to the generators?

This is interesting:

"Grid-level system costs are the costs above plant-level to supply electricity to the grid. Broadly these comprise costs for additional investments to extend and reinforce transport and distribution grids, as well as to connect new capacity; and the costs for short-term balancing and the maintenance of long-term secure electricity supplies.

The study considers six technologies in detail: nuclear, coal, gas, onshore wind, offshore wind and solar. It finds that the so-called dispatchable technologies - coal, gas and nuclear - have system costs of less than $3 per MWh, while the system costs for renewables can reach up to $40 per MWh for onshore wind, $45 per MWh for offshore wind and $80 per MWh for solar. The costs for renewables vary depending on the country, technology and penetration levels, with higher system costs for greater penetration of renewables.

Currently, the report notes, these costs tend to be unacknowledged and are absorbed by consumers through high network charges and by the producers of dispatchable energy through reduced margins and lower load factors. Failing to account for system costs is, NEA says, "adding implicit subsidies to already sizeable explicit subsidies for variable renewables." Moreover, as long as this situation continues, the agency says, dispatchable capacity will not tend to be replaced at the end of its operating life and security of supply will thereby be weakened further."

Therefore, we should add in the order of (up to) $40/MWh to the already high cost of wind power and up to $80/MWh for solar power.

Gary Murphy,

Your comment provides no basis of estimate and no basis for discussion. Anyone can just make up numbers, as you have done, without providing any basis of estimate. It's a waste of time trying to discuss your assertions if that's how you present your basis of estimate. I've given you a link to my estimate and the basis of estimate. Why don't you say what you dispute in that basis of estimate. But not in dribs and drabs. Provide all the figures you disagree with and explain why.

http://bravenewclimate.files.wordpress.com/2012/02/lang_renewable_energy_australia_cost.pdf (see appendix 2)

Gary Murphy,

"I am just estimating a ball park figure. To refine it further would require decisions about generator siting and trunk line routes."

No, you're not doing a ball park estimate at all. You're just pulling your transmission line lengths and capacity numbers out of thin air. They are based on nothing. They don't make any sense at all. They don't hang togehter.

The power stations sites and capacities are specified in the EDM study. If you haven't got a better analysis for your basis of estimate, then use those locations. At least the work has been done on that. And I've estimated the line capacities and transmissions line lengths. That is a starting point. If you just make up numbers, as you have done, any estimate you do is meaningless.

Once you've got the line lengths and transmission line capacities, then there is whole lot more work to do to define the numbers and size of transformers, switch bays etc. If you want to base your estimates on the DCCEE-AEMO "100 PER CENT RENEWABLES STUDY – ELECTRICITY TRANSMISSION COST ASSUMPTIONS".

Jonathon Maddox,

I disagree with the trust of your argument for several reasons.

First. “Peter your own numbers for the cost of a renewable energy transition are no better than those given by Gary.”

I don’t agree with this statement. Mine are based on the line lengths for the locations given in the Elliston, Deiesndorf and MacGill simulation. It is true that different sites would be used in reality, and this would be a refinement, but it would be as likely to increase the cost as decrease it. The solar plants have to be widely separated to minimise the effect of widespread cloud cover and they have to be in high insolation areas. While some of my estimates may be overestimates, there are costs I have not included and other problems with 100% renewable energy that are not addressed. I suspect the 100% renewables is not practicable for many engineering reasons and would be horrendously expensive. Not even a high proportion of renewables is practicable. The effects of low spinning inertia in the system, due to high proportion of wind and solar PV, adds to the transmission system cost. We haven’t addressed that. We haven’ estimated the cost of the augmentations needed at each end of the lines. And we haven’t addressed how power could be dumped when there is a failure, for example on the 16 GW Adelaide-Sydney line. From memory (without checking) the SKM analysis for the Adelaide-Sydney interconnector limited the power of this line to 2000 MW in part because that was the maximum that could be dumped at the Adelaide end without bringing the South Australian system down in the case of a failure. I am not a transmissions engineer, But I am getting input from experts who say the whole idea is impracticable. So, in answer to your first comment, I believe my estimate is much more realistic than Gary Murphy’s. At least I based the line lengths and capacities on a simulation – Elliston, Diesendorf and MacGill. Gary Murphy has just pulled numbers of out thin air with no substantiation whatsoever.

By the way John, did you actually read Appendix 2 in the link I gave you, before you made your comment? I suspect you didn’t.

Second. “For starters, they are based on the suggestions in BZE publications”

That statement is just plain wrong. It reveals you haven’t even read the basis of estimate you are criticizing. My estimate is based on the Elliston et. al. simulation and costs from the AEMO Adelaide-Sydney Interconnector Study. The fact you didn’t know that means you’ve written your comment without even having read what you are criticising.

Third: “Realistic investments pursue profitable options,”

True. This is the point I’ve been making all along. We have plenty of evidence to show that renewable energy is horrendously expensive. No commercial enterprise would not be investing in it at all if not for the government support - which amounts to trying to pick winners based on beliefs, rather than rational analysis. The support is in the form or mandatory RET, REC’s, FiT, other subsidies and favouritism.

In contrast to the mostly renewable energy option, the mostly nuclear option would deliver 90% reduction in CO2 emissions (same as for the mostly renewable energy option) with secure supply of reliable electricity for about 1/3 the capital cost, ½ the cost of electricity, 1/3, the CO2 abatement cost. Given this, why would any rational person advocate renewable energy? The facts are clear. I suggest it is just ideology blocking progress.

Fourth: “Nobody can give accurate costs for major systems built using emerging technology with labour and commodities sourced from volatile markets.”

True. But when the costs of a proven technology (nuclear) are a factor of three less than the unproven and probably impracticable technology (renewable energy), there is no rational reason to pursue the unproven, impracticable technology. Especially given that the proven technology also is more environmentally benign than the unproven, probably impracticable technology. Jonathon, there is no rational justification to waste any more time and money advocating renewable energy. It has gone virtually nowhere so far (100 years solar thermal engines and 50 years of solar PV and now, after all this time, it is producing just 0.2% of world electricity). Only a person who doesn’t know these facts, or is irrational, would be pushing renewable energy.

Fifth: “With your experience you may be better placed than most to make realistic estimates, but that's not enough,”

I am no expert at this. My estimates are very simple. There are far more qualified people than me. They know the idea of renewable energy is impracticable and very costly even for small amounts. However, they also realise that it is driven by ideology, not rational analysis. So most of them just keep quiet (some do speak out but it is simply scorned and rejected by ideologues, usually along with a whole host of pejorative comments and name calling, such “deniers” etc). There is no point in arguing with ideology. For example, you and Gary can see the facts, but you either don’t accept them or for some other reason you continue to argue for renewable energy. I don’t know why. I can’t understand why you and others do so.

Regarding your comment “it’s not enough”, I disagree. Some estimate is better than no estimate. If the estimate shows the costs to be three times higher for an unproven, probably impracticable solution, than a proven solution, then the answer is obvious to any rational person. You should put most of your resources into the proven, better cheaper solution. There is simply no justification to be wasting any more time on pushing renewables.

Sixth: “it's worse than useless when you deliberately select unrepresentative scenarios for your modelling.”

I don’t agree with your suggestion I selected an unrepresentative scenario. Why do you say the scenarios are unrepresentative? Do you have a better plan” Why do you believe it is more representative? Is it published? Has it been costed? I’ve done cost estimates on two published simulations that claim they could provide 100% renewable electricity for Australia (BZE) and for the NEM (Elliston et al). Both have been given extensive promotion and publicity and are strongly supported by the renewable energy advocates. But BZE’s cost estimates were massive underestimates, and Elliston et. al. did not provide an estimate. So I estimated the cost for the scenario they simulated. If you know of a plan that you feel is better, and has published the information necessary to allow the cost to be estimated, please provide a link to it. If you can’t, I’d ask you to retract that last comment.

My estimates (two) were done on studies advocated and supported by the renewable energy advocates. Therefore, I suggest your comment they are “unrepresentative scenarios” is should be directed to the authors of those studies, not to my estimate of the cost of them. You comment that estimating them “is worse than useless” is unhelpful unless you have something better.

Would you prefer Australia continue to waste massive amounts of money on solutions that have low probability of delivering the desired results, or should we bite the bullet, recognise the reality as soon as possible, admit the mistakes we’ve made in pushing wrong solutions, and move on to supporting policies that can deliver the desired results?

Gary Murphy,

"I guess it all depends how much you think clean energy is worth. I think it is worth an extra 5c per kWh."

You seem to not recognise that nuclear power IS clean energy. And an extra 5 c/kWh will not give you a renewable energy system. The details are in previous comments. I know you know it, but it doesn't suit you ideological beliefs to acknowledge it.

I see you are back to silly, one liner comments. And chose to avoid the subject of the transmissions costs, where you are clearly out of your depth, making up stuff but, like most doomsayers, don't have the integrity to acknowledge when you are clearly wrong. And, once again ignoring the fact that renewable energy is very high cost, avoids little GHG emissions, impracticable for more than a small component of electricity supply, caused more fatalities per unit of electricity delivered than nuclear power, and uses much more materials than nuclear per unit of energy supplied.

Peter,

In my earlier post I failed to complete a sentence. Where the comma trails off I had intended to mention subsidies, as you did. After all, the long history of wind and solar electric power technology has been one of constant competition with fossil fuel; a competition which intermittent generators were never going to win without help, and which nuclear power has only won in countries with no domestic fossil fuel resource to speak of. I'm sure everyone here will acknowledge that without some form of subsidy, no non-fossil electric generation technology will compete with convenient and inexpensive coal and gas in Australia. However in the same breath we must acknowledge that the biggest fossil burners themselves benefit from significant subsidies arising out of their long incumbency (to say nothing of amortisation) and out of the promotion of fossil fuels as an export industry.

Figures from the USA and Europe indicate that the basic unsubsidised cost of wind power is now comparable to that of new coal build (on the basis of watt-hours per annum) and *below* that of new nuclear build. Alex's repeated assertions here that wind involves more resource extraction than nuclear power, while not exactly false, don't speak directly to price. In a few countries with extensive nuclear experience and limited wind resources, the equations may be the other way around. Whether nuclear power could, in a favourable regulatory environment, be developed more cheaply in Australia than wind and solar energy, is an open question, but I'd be extremely surprised if it were ever achieved at the very low prices promised by advocates such as yourself and Alex Cannara. I regard the US and European nuclear experience to be a better guide to Australian economic realities than the rosy picture often painted of the industry in Korea.

I don't regard investment in renewables in Australia to date to have been wasteful in a significant sense. Some of the subsidies to domestic rooftop solar PV alone were excessive (and I was ever so slightly appalled when this then-costly technology was credited with five times its actual production in renewable energy certificates, creating a disproportionate bias against lower-cost wind), but those subsidies together with complementary ones abroad have created a nontrivial solar installation industry which is now viable without subsidy (I regard the remaining incentives much more as an optional form of mortgage-belt pork-barrelling akin to the baby bonus than a subsidy to the renewable energy industry as a whole). The subsidy provided to wind power in the form of renewable energy targets is quite modest by comparison and I'm certain nuclear power wouldn't be viable in this country without at least a comparably large subsidy in some form or another.

The different 100% renewable proposals of the BZE group and of the Elliston, Diesendorf and MacGill publication are very similar in the essentials (they must certainly share inspiration from a common source) and I apologise for conflating them and misattributing the source of the model covered by your cost estimate, which I *did* read closely some months ago when you first linked to it on these pages. I do consider both to be unrealistic in two particulars : first, both propose the concurrent rapid development of an extensive network of peaking-only (aka backup) generators based on biomass, which I regard as mostly unnecessary; and second, both centre on major investments in the nascent (thus expensive, but not entirely "unproven") technology of thermal storage for round-the-clock dispatchable generation from concentrated solar heat. While I'd be very pleased to see heavier investment in that technology in this country, I would not expect it to become profitable until such time as the costs are brought much lower than have been experienced to date -- as has already happened with wind and solar photovoltaic technologies as other countries have invested heavily in those technologies.

My understanding is that Australia is very far from suffering a shortage of generation capacity, and that almost all of its existing capacity is capable of load-following. This means that no new "backup" need be built in order to achieve very high penetrations of intermittent renewable generation. Recent experience in wind-dominated regional grids in Europe shows that practical requirements for spinning reserve when intermittent generators are providing a majority of the power on the grid are much more modest than conservative network planners traditionally allow.

It is my further understanding that relatively recent developments in power electronics, such as HVDC circuit breakers (allowing the development of switchable HVDC transmission grids in addition to point-to-point connections as at present) and high-capacity inverters, mean that the very notion of spinning reserve will soon be a practical anachronism. What I'm getting at is that the *existing* generation is all the backup that's needed, and if we build enough intermittent generation that it can (on occasion or, if overbuilt, often) supply all demand, we can in fact turn off the fossil-fuelled generators altogether until intermittent generation is no longer adequate.

Overbuild of intermittent generation might be considered wasteful if it led, as it sometimes does in transmission-constrained regions of the USA, to negative prices or curtailment. In the longer term I'm quite hopeful, as are the Germans, that nascent thermal and electrochemical power storage techniques (heat pumps, compressed and/or liquefied air, and fuel synthesis), which are not location-specific like solar thermal storage, will become sufficiently inexpensive that they can fulfil much of the backup role, improve capacity factors for transmission lines, and guarantee a floor-price for power whenever it can be produced. In this vision, a gradual approaching to 100% renewable power is viable without duplicate or wasteful investment.

Jonathon Maddox,

Your comment is largely about your beliefs, but they are just beliefs. I’ve refuted all the points in your previous comment. There is nothing of substance and you have not addressed the big issues first. So there is not much point in talking about unsubstantiated persona beliefs. If the discussion is to be of any use, I suggest you first of all address the important issues already raised. Either state what you accept of what I’ve already said in previous comments or provide well substantiated rebuttals.

The subsidies for renewables are huge compared with all other technologies on a properly comparable basis; that is on the basis of subsidies per amount of electricity supplied.

Any way you look at it renewables are high cost, unreliable and despite decades of wishing, hoping, unfounded confidence and belief, and huge funding for research, development, demonstration and production they remain totally uneconomic. Those are the facts. I’ve provided the substantiation in numerous comments on this thread. I urge you to either face up to the facts and acknowledge them, or remain in you’re a state of wishful thinking incapable of thinking rationally and logically? The consequence of the latter is that you like most ‘Progressives’ will continue to block progress to cut GHG emissions.

Of course I am serious. Your comment is based on silly ideological beliefs. You have not managed to come to grips with the basic facts. No point in trying to discuss your ideological beliefs. If you think the public sector is more capable of providing safe technologies and improving the design, why aren't you arguing that the design of passenger aircraft must be approved by a government agency the equivalent of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission? After all, aircraft crashes cause more fatalities each year than nuclear power has caused in 57 years. Your lack of consistency show you are totally irrational and just an ideologue?

Gary Murphy,

This is an improvement on your previous estimates, but a long way to go yet.

First, we are not talking about the USA, we are talking about Australia. We have estimates for Australia based on the latest figures that would apply here. Why do you continually avoid using them? They are provided by the Australian Government and are favourable to renewable energy (i.e. optimistic for renewables) and unfavourable (pessimistic) for nuclear. Therefore, if you want to avoid bias (which you frequently accuse me of), I’d suggest you should use the Australian figures. It is also important to insure you are using figures that have been prepared on the same basis and fit for the purpose you want to use them for (for example, what is included in ‘overnight cost’ is consistent for all technologies). The Australian Energy Technology Assessment (2012) report does this. I am therefore, more comfortable using the Australian figures since they meet the requirements and I understand the background of how we got to the point of providing these figures. I trust them as the best an most authoritative figures currently available for what they are, although the projections of future costs are a bit dicey (not consistent between technologies).

Now to critique your estimate:

You said: “60GW Wind (@$2500/kW = $150B) + 20GW Gas (@$1000/kW = $20B) + Transmission lines ($30B) + 5GW Storage (@$2000/kW = $10B) = Total capital expenditure of $210 Billion.”

What storage (GW and GWh capacity) do you expect to get for $10 billion? I’ll assume 10 GW gas reserve capacity margin for $10 billion, so came capital cost.

If you want the wind to be utilised at 30% capacity factor on average, the power has to be able to be delivered to anywhere on the NEM. In that case you need transmission lines to get it everywhere. However, if you want to use it mostly within each state, perhaps an average length of 500 km per wind farm may be appropriate. However, the capacity factor will be lower, so you need more wind power capacity. In fact the concept is probably impracticable. But let’s do the calculations anyway:

Transmission: 60 GW x 500 km x $1000/ MW.km = $30 billion as you estimated, but average capacity factor of wind thsat could be used would be lower (say 20% instead of 30%), so we’d need more wind power capacity and/or more gas generation (which means more CO2 emissions).

Say 60 GW x 3/2 = 90 GW @ 2,5/00/kW = $225 billion (wind) + $30 billion (gas) + $30 billion transmission = $285 billion (c.f. your estimate of $210 billion). But wind plants have a life of about 20 years and nuclear plants about 60 years so you need the $280 billion wind plants three times to produce the same amount of electricity as the nuclear plant.

It’s difficult to estimate how much gas generation would be required for your scenario. I’d guess it doesn’t matter how much wind capacity we build we’d still need a large component of gas generation. That is why the EDM and BZE studies are dependent on a large amount of solar thermal with a lot of energy storage (15 h storage per plant). The wind power cannot do much on its own. I suspect the 25 GW of gas would have to run at near 50% capacity factor for the situation analysed above.

You say: “22 GW Nuclear (@5000/kW = $110B).”
22 GW capacity meets the 20 GW baseload requirement reliably and for 60 years (wind for about 20 years, so need to construct it three times – that is $840 billion at current prices to be equivalent to the nuclear plant. You forgot that bit.). I’d also point out that the $5,000/kW figure you used for nuclear is not comparable with the $2,500/kW for wind farms. The nuclear figure you have used is for first-of-a-kind (FOAK) plants. The estimated settled down costs for the currently available, US nuclear power plant in Australia is $3,470/kW (c.f. wind $2,530). Nuclear has a three times longer life and three times higher capacity factor and no backup required to meet the baseload requirement So just comparing capital costs, the wind option is about three times more expensive than the nuclear option.

I could do the LCOE calculations, but what is the point given I’ve already done it more thoroughly, and on the basis of a much better simulation than your guesses, here: http://bravenewclimate.com/2012/02/09/100-renewable-electricity-for-australia-the-cost/ You can also download the spreadsheet and insert your own figures. Here are the LCOE figures from the AETA report:

Nuclear = $96/MWh
Wind = $116/MWh plus
Gas = $230/MWh when operating in back up mode

Any way you look at it, the renewable energy option is very expensive, unreliable, and makes the transmission system problems very difficult to insurmountable at high wind penetration (unless there is an enormous amount of energy storage; and that would cost a motsa!).

Can I urge you again to read and digest this: http://oznucforum.customer.netspace.net.au/TP4PLang.pdf You’ll learn a lot about the various issues and it will save you a hell of a lot of time.

You might also find this valuable regarding the cost of the whole system, but especially the part about the issues with solar thermal.
http://bravenewclimate.com/2010/01/09/emission-cuts-realities/

Gary Murphy,

Correction to my previous comment, if wind power capacity was 60 GW or 90 GW, the average capacity factor of wind power would be way below what I said, perhaps just 5% to 15%. This is because most of it would have to be spilled. As I said, wind cannot contribute much without energy storage (hugely expensive) or back up. A lot of back up is required. At 17% wind energy penetration wind generation is only 53% effective at reducing emissions in the Irish grid. It becomes less as wind energy penetration increases. I provided the link to substantiate this in an earlier comment. (Google Joe Wheatley, Quantifying CO2 savings from wind: Ireland)

Gary Murphy,

This insurance argument is a furphy. It’s continually repeated by the anti-nuclear lobby, but it is just silly. Nuclear is the safest way to generate electricity. The real damages, such as fatalities and illnesses and genuine damage to property are insurable. What is not insurable is the damage claims resulting from the communities demand for irrational responses. The community wants an irrational response to nuclear accidents, so the community must pay the insurance premium for that part. (The irrational response is a result of 50 years of irrational anti-nuclear advocacy by the anti-nuclear lobby). The government has said it will carry the risk of leakage from CCS, so why treat nuclear differently. If a train of cyanide crashes, the community carries the risk. The treatment of nuclear is totally irrational. That is why CO2 emissions are higher than they should be. It is really frustrating that these silly arguments keep getting repeated. This argument has the effect of arguing to maintain technologies that cause 700 times more fatalities per unit of energy provided rather than move to a far safety technology. How irrational is that? Think it out for yourself. I can’t be bothered with answering this silliness.

Wind generation drops to 0 MW (and even <0MW) across the whole NEM. We’ve covered this in previous comments. We’ve covered all those points you’ve raised in previous comments on this thread. I suggest you reread the thread. You are dead wrong on the capacity factor, but I am wasting my time explaining any of this to you. Clearly you are not interested and haven’t read or understood any of the links I’ve provided.

>“I think wind turbines are good for 30 years.”
What you think is irrelevant. Support your beliefs with sibstantial evidence that most wind farms have been commercially viable for 30 years. I can tell you you can’t even demonstrate 20 years. They are obsolete and worn out long before that.
http://webecoist.momtastic.com/2009/05/04/10-abandoned-renewable-energy-plants/

>“re Ireland”
You haven’t a clue what you are talking about. You clearly didn’t understand the paper. Read the paper and the many other papers from around the world that demonstrate similar results. Wind power.

>” re Nuclear Costs”
You clearly do not understand the basis of the costs you are quoting. You are quoting completely different basis of estimates. Clearly you don’t understand any of this and simply pluck out figures that suit you. You don’t understand when you comparing costs that are derived on a completely different basis, e.g, ‘overnight cost’, EPC, total plant cost, total capital cost, IDC included or excluded, FOAK or NOAK, etc. You really haven’t the faintest clue what you are talking about. You clearly haven’t read or understood what I’ve told you and you haven’t read the references I’ve provided links to.

< re US O&M Costs
I used these because I couldn't find any O&M figures in the AETA.”

Well clearly you haven’t looked have you, let alone read the report and understood it or down loaded the Excel model.

You are an example of the doomsayers that have been blocking progress for 50 years through pure ignorance and closed minds.

Gary Murphy,

I mentioned this thread to another NSW electricity system engineer after you made your comment with your $25 billion estimate of the transmission costs (@28 December 2012 11:21 PM)

His response was:

"What a long and exhausting thread! I remember reading the original article and writing it off because it was hevay on opinion and light on substance.

I read the comments from top to bottom and, like most readers, I followed none of the links. As you are well aware, the real discussion is not in OLO’s comments columns.

Your work over the past couple of years adds solid numbers and states the basic assumptions you have made. I expect that much of it will live on, in part as those un-read references linked to by amateurs, and in part as brain food for those who are trying to distill policies and proposals for the real world out of a cloud of confusion and straight-out lies and promotional nonsense from get-rich-quick schemers.

Thanks for drawing my attention to it, but I will not contribute at this time – nobody is listening, so it is all noise."

Well, I feel the same. It is a complete wast of time talking to zealots. They don't what to know what doesn't support their beliefs. Their minds are closed. They jump all over the place and continually repeat points they've raised previously. Their thinking is disorganised, illogical and irrational.

How frustrating it is talking to 'Progressives' and trying to persuade them to allow progress.

Gary Murphy,

Your comments about nuclear costs are just babble. I've given you links in previous comments so you can get to understand what you are talking about. Until then, all your comments on this subject are just meaningless babble because you don't know what you are talking about. You are mixing apples and oranges.

You also don't understand - and wont listen - on the wind capacity. Average wind capacity can be high if there is a small percentage of wind in the grid. As the amount of wind capacity increases, more wind power has to be spilled. All generation above what the gird can take must spilled. At 20 GW capacity a large proportion would be spilled. at 60 GW or 90 GW the vast majority would be spilled.

You transmissions cost estimates are just plucking numbers out of thin air. They are nonsense. I've told you that in several previous comments.

Gary Murphy,

Once again, you’ve not understood and not bothered to try to understand when I’ve explained to you that you have to do comparison using properly comparable cost estimates. If you don’t your comparisons are worse than useless. They are highly misleading.

The AETA report say estimates the cost of a FOAK nuclear plant in Australia at $4210/kW. You can calculate that figure yourself from the V.C. Summers units 2 and 3 that are under construction in the USA. That is a FOAK plant for the AP1000. The total project cost is estimated at $9.8 billion for two units of 1100 MW each. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virgil_C._Summer_Nuclear_Generating_Station That is US$4,455/kW total project cost for the FOAK plant. Converted to A$ (at A$1 = 1US$1.05) it is A$4242/kW. These costs do not include interest during construction. The higher costs you are referring to may include Interest During Construction (IDC) or as the US calls it AFUDC (Additional funds used during construction). These costs are included in the LCOE but often not included in capital costs.

I told you this in previous comments. If you’d bothered to read the references I gave you links to you would be starting to understand some of this by now. But instead, you brain seems to be locked shut and determined to find some way to believe what you want to believe. That is not a sign of an objective or rational person or of “independent thinker” as you call yourself.

The AETA Report, p87, warns the reader:

“Capital cost comparison need to be treated with caution. This is because methodological differences mean it is impossible to determine whether the same capital cost components are consistently covered. For example, it is unclear whether all these studies include owner’s costs. Further, because the studies have been conducted in different years, there are likely to be macroeconomic differences arising from inflationary effects and movements in the Australian dollar exchange rate. Differences in cost estimates are also to be expected when comparing Australian and overseas studies as a result of country-specific factors, such as labour costs.”

P55: “WorleyParsons estimate that the average overnight capital cost for four first-of-a-kind (FOAK) nuclear power plants in the US based on AP1000 Gen III technology is $4210/kWe. With standardisation of design, it is projected that Nth-of-a-Kind (NOAK) versions of this power plant technology will cost $3470/kWe in the US. The overnight cost for new nuclear projects in Asia is significantly less. The AP1000 in China costs of the order of $2300/KWe, and the APR1400 in Korea costs $1556/KWe.”

Pity you have to be spoon fed everything, isn’t it?

There is no point using US cost estimates when we have the up to date Australian estimates which include labour rate and labour productivity conversions and a whole lot of other factors that need to be included.

I’d urge you again to red the AETA report carefully.

Gary Murphy,

""At 20 GW capacity a large proportion would be spilled." You really will have to explain that one to me."

Read the links I've provided for you. Read the Elliston et. al. paper. Read any of a mass of other literature on the subject of wind penetration in the grid. Transmission cost optimisation is one constraint. But even with a theoretical "copperplate" transmisison system, as many studies such as Elliston et all assumed, a lot of wind power must be spilled at capacities well below baseload demand. The reason is the system has to maintain other generators, spinning inertia and a whole host of other constraints.

By the way, a recent study of wind farms in UK shows wind turbines have an economic life of about 12 years - i.e. about half that used in the advocates litterature to promote them. Furthermore, their average capacity factor decreases from about 24% to 11% after 15 years. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2254901/Wind-turbines-half-long-previously-thought-study-shows-signs-wearing-just-12-years.html#ixzz2GaI6Dw4S

Factor these figures into your cost calculations, "Independent thinker".

As I said several times, not only is the cost of the renewable and gas system some three times higher than a nuclear system to do the same job, the uncertainties on the cost estimates for the renewable system are far higher, the CO2 emissions would be higher, and the CO2 abatement cost would be far higher.

Given all this, there is no rational justification for pushing renewable energy. There is no justification for continuing to block progress. Those who share your agenda are responsible for blocking progress for 50 years. If not for Labor's anti nuclear campaign in 1993, Australia's CO2 emissions from electricity could be 50% lower than they are now and be 90% lower by 2023. That is what your advocacy for renewable energy and blocking of nuclear power has achieved. Your advocacy of these irrational policies are also responsible for fatalities from toxic air pollution, in NSW alone, being in the order of 400 per year higher than they need be now and 900 higher in 2023. These are a few examples of what your irrational beliefs are causing.

You said "Until I know that you are correct - my estimates are quite inaccurate. Just have to wait for the AEMO costings I guess."

Your estimates are not just inaccurate. They are without any basis whatsoever. They are complete nonsense. If I made baseless comments and estimates like you make, how would you respond, eh?

No, you don't have to wait for the AEMO costings. The information is available. It is absolutely clear. You have a choice. Get rational and logical or continue to swallow nonsense based on ideological beliefs. You call yourself an independent thinker, but you certainly do not show that by your comments. In this case, when you don't like the answer, you squirm out of it and say you'll wait for another result. No doubt if that study doesn't say what you want it to say, you won't accept it either.

You should also consider that the study being undertaken by AEMO for DCCEE, is driven by politics. The terms of reference were strongly influenced by the Greens. The study is being done, and other technologies such as nuclear excluded, because the Greens demanded this study as one of the requirements for their support for the Labor-Green Alliance Government. It is a political study and is not impartial. Some of the inputs to the study are ridiculous - two examples, of many, are the potential capacity of bio fuels and pumped hydro. So, I will take it as a politically motivated study, although there will be a lot of useful information come out of it. I am not sure to what extent the transmission costs will be influenced by the politically driven terms of reference.

Gary Murphy,

"It doesn't appear from your comments that you have considered these viewpoints. It shows a remarkable lack of objectivity from someone who regularly accuses other people of being zealots. "In this case, when you don't like the answer, you squirm out of it and say you'll wait for another result." It is deliciously ironic that you say this and then proceed in the next paragraph to try and squirm out of the results of the AEMO report if you don't like it. " "

I realised long ago you would just believe what you want to believe. Facts and objectivity are irrelevant to you. Your happy to believe what the renewable energy advocates and industry tell you, but won't even consider the other side. So be it, trying to explain anything to a zealot who doesn't what to know is a waste of time.

Gary Murphy,

>"You still haven't explained why the wind generation would have to be spilled"

There is no point continuing. You will continue to believe what suits your agenda and not read anything that doesn't support it. I've answered all your questions, many of them several times, and I've provided links to authoritative sources to back them up. You choose not to read them nor to acknowledge what you accept and what you want to discuss further. So we keep going around and around the mulberry bush making no progress. There is no point us discussing it any further. There is enough here on this thread for you to pursue it if you are actually interested, which I get the impression you are not.

In short, renewables are far too expensive, not capable of making any significant impact on CO2 emissions, cannot provide a reliable energy supply. Nuclear is clearly far better on all the important parameters. You can't even deal with the simple facts.

Gary Murphy,

>"You still haven't explained why the wind generation would have to be spilled"

By the way, as far as I am aware, you never did indicate that you'd read the critiques of the BZE and Elliston et al 100% renewable energy studies, nor say if you believe you've found any significant errors in them. So, as far as I am concerned they provide a reasonable indication of the relative costs of renewables verses mostly-nuclear to provide low emissions electricity in Australia. Furthermore, the uncertainty of the figures for the renewables option is far higher than for the nuclear option.

http://bravenewclimate.com/2010/08/12/zca2020-critique/

http://bravenewclimate.com/2012/02/09/100-renewable-electricity-for-australia-the-cost/

http://oznucforum.customer.netspace.net.au/TP4PLang.pdf

The key results are summarised in Figures 5 and 6 in the last two papers listed above and in the Conclusions of the first listed.

@Peter
re critiques of Elliston et al 100% renewable energy study

Yes. I have read them. As I have explained many times the large amount of solar thermal is unnecessary and expensive. The wind generators are situated mostly close together on the south coast which makes their generation quite volatile. The generation is situated a very long from demand centres which makes the transmission network unnecessarily expensive. The use of biogas backup instead of natural gas is expensive (if your costings of $5000 / kW instead of the natural gas $1000 / kW are to be believed).

I have also looked at your costings. You seem to have used FOAK plant costs for all of the solar thermal. Your assumption of transmission line costs at a linear $1500 / kW.km is ridiculously oversimplified and inflated (real figures for high capacity 500kV transmission lines are around $600 / kW / km - maybe even lower). Your assumption that each wind generator would be connected separately to the trunk lines (instead of consolidated into higher capacity and hence cheaper transmission lines) inflates the cost of the wind generator connectors.

http://www.climatechange.gov.au/en/government/initiatives/aemo-100-per-cent-renewables/~/media/government/initiatives/aemo/APPENDIX2-AEMO-transmission-cost-assumptions.pdf

re Wind energy spillage

You still have not answered the question so I am going to assume you can't.

Gary Murphy,

I've answered every one of these points you've raised again in this latest comment before on this thread. Re read the answers I provided when you raised them before. You have been shown to be wrong on every one of them. I've explained it all. Just read the previous answers.

Regarding the transmissions line costings, if you think the cost of 500 kV transmission line is $600/MW.km, how can AEMO get it so wrong for the "South Australia Sydney Interconnector feasibility study"? And even if the figure was lower than I used, how much difference do you think it makes to the conclusions? Answer: None!

I've explained the increasing wind power spillage as wind penetration increases.

There is no point me explaining any more because you either wont listen, wont read the links provided, don't have sufficient background to understand, or don't want to understand.

I explained before, the solar thermal is essential because it is the only storage. Don't you read.

The cost of the wind transmission would be higher than my assumption if you used smaller capacity lines. You clearly just don't or can't think clearly.

I've explained that the wind farms are located where they will get the highest capacity factor. If you spread them out more, capacity factor will decrease, the cost of electricity would be higher, you'd need more wind farms so the capital cost and cost of electricity would increase even more. You just are incapable of thinking anything out for yourself.

The plant costs are the costs provided by Department of Resources Energy and Tourism (DRET). This was before the latest AETA report. There is little change for most of the figures. Nuclear is significantly lower in the AETA report.

My frustration with you is that I've explained all this over and over again. You don't understand it so you ask the same thing again. You don't seem to be able to recognise what would make a significant difference to the overall conclusions and what would not, and therefore just focus on what would be significant. Instead, you argue incessantly over irrelevancies. I can't be bothered wasting time answering such questions. I feel I've explained it all ad infinitum and you are incapable of understanding anything and incapable of separating the irrelevancies from what is important.

What is important is shown in Figures 5 and 6 http://oznucforum.customer.netspace.net.au/TP4PLang.pdf. Unless you can show that the figures in these are significantly wrong, then you are just blabbering on for the sake of doing so.

Interesting discussion of curtailment and negative power pricing (in the context of the wind-rich US midwest) here : http://www.dotyenergy.com/Economics/Econ_Stabilizing_RenewableGrid.htm

@Peter

"And even if the figure was lower than I used, how much difference do you think it makes to the conclusions? Answer: None!"

Are you serious? You have costed the transmission line requirements at $100 Billion and you think a change in this figure won't affect the total?

"I explained before, the solar thermal is essential because it is the only storage."

In that particular scenario - yes.

"I've explained the increasing wind power spillage as wind penetration increases."

Repeated assertion is not explanation.

"I've explained that the wind farms are located where they will get the highest capacity factor."

No Peter - haven't you read the report? The wind portion was simply scaled up from present wind generation locations at the same locations because that's where they have the generation data. There are perfectly good wind farm locations scattered across the entire country.

Gary Murphy,

You are a waste of time. You are the one making continuous baseless assertions. On the other hand, I have provided a cost estimate for two study where the work has been done to define the capacities of each renewable energy technology needed to meet the demand. You’ve done nothing except make silly assertions. When you’ve prepared a plan that can meet the requirements, then we can cost it. There s no point trying to cost some silly, baseless assertions you make that have no more substance than that the idea appeals to you. You’ve done no end of making such silly baseless assertions that on this and previous threads. And you’ve been shown to be wrong every time.

You’re just a zealot. A complete waste of time.

If you are genuinely interested, why don’t you critique the EDM study yourself and provide proper alternatives and cost them all like I did here:
http://bravenewclimate.com/2012/02/09/100-renewable-electricity-for-australia-the-cost/
and here:
http://oznucforum.customer.netspace.net.au/TP4PLang.pdf

Just saying these are no good and you know better without providing anything worth discussing is pathetic. You don’t have a clue what you are talking about, there is no point wasting time on your silly beliefs.

Cheers for the info Alan.

I guess you would agree that leaving the regulation of safety to the private sector but having the public sector responsible for the costs of accidents is a recipe for disaster.

Alan John Emmerson,

Thank you for your contribution. I agree we need to get facts right and I know little about the aviation industry or aviation safety. So I welcome your input.

I am specifically interested in this part of what you said:
"National airworthiness authorities do approve in detail the design ... of all civil aircraft."

Can you please expand on this statement, and perhaps provide a suitable link (high level summary). Can you explain what level of US federal agency design approval is required for new aircraft designs – such as the Boeing 787 Dreamliner? The Nuclear Regulatory Commission says they can handle only three designs at a time and it takes 5 to 10 years to get them through the approvals process. Does it take that long to get a new aircraft design approved? How long does it take?

Passenger aircraft accidents caused many hundreds of fatalities per year. Accidents at nuclear power plants have causes less fatalities in total in 57 years than passenger aircraft cause every year. According the US EPA, pollution from coal fired power plants in the US causes about 13,000 to 35,000 fatalities per year. Nuclear near zero. On the basis of fatalities per unit of electricity supplied, nuclear is about 150 times safer than coal for electricity generation in USA or about 700 times safer on world averages. By blocking the development of nuclear and making it far higher cost than it should be, as we've been doing for 50 years, we’ve caused about 1 million more fatalities world wide than would be the case if nuclear replaced coal.

I agree all you said about setting the design standards, the operating rules, safety inspections and user pays principle, etc. should also apply for nuclear plants. What I am seeking is appropriate equivalence across all industries and all technologies within an industry. Given the much greater safety of nuclear than the safety of what we accept as safe enough (such as coal fired electricity generation and passenger aircraft), the cost of ensuring safety of nuclear should be far less than it is compared with that of all other electricity generation technologies. We don't have anything like that equivalence.

You said: "Similar regulation for the electric power industry must be included if it is going to be similarly safe."

I agree. If that happened there would be an enormous reduction in compliance cost. The requirements need to be applied consistently, objectively, impartially to all technologies, not just single out one technology on the basis of an irrational paranoia.

"It [cost of air safety regulation] is relatively small beer."

It should be for the electricity industry too. But it is not for nuclear power. It is a huge cost and the world is suffering as a consequence. It has delayed development and roll out of nuclear power. Bernard Cohen (1990) estimated regulatory ratcheting had increased the cost of nuclear by a factor of four by 1990. It's probably doubled again since. And that has done the opposite of improve the breed and improve safety. It has thwarted development. Imagine if we'd thwarted development of the commercial airline industry in an equivalent way. We’d still flying in marginal improvements of Vickers Viscounts, de Havilland Comets, Boeing 707s. Air fares would be far higher than they are, there’d be far less air travel, fewer aircraft, less development. This is what's happened to the development of nuclear power.

You said: “In the event of an accident, the liability of the airline to compensate passengers and the public is limited, in the first instance, by an international agreement.”

Yes. And the same needs to be the case for electricity industry. The community already accepts the cost of 150 fatalities per year per unit of energy for coal fired power, so why would it not want to avoid this cost and instead accept the cost of 1 fatality per year (on average) from nuclear power? The blocking of nuclear power on the basis of safety arguments is irrational. It is due to widespread nuclear paranoia caused by 50 years of anti nuclear propaganda by the usual doomsayers.

Here are some of the benefits of allowing the world to have low-cost nuclear power:

• solve many environmental problems caused by burning fossil fuels (and mining, waste disposal and transport of these fuels)

• clean energy cheaper than from coal

• stopping particulate air pollution and other toxic emissions from electricity generation would save over a million lives per year

• lowering energy costs will increase economic productivity

• ending energy poverty leads to sustainable population

Gary Murphy,

"leaving the regulation of safety to the private sector but having the public sector responsible for the costs of accidents is a recipe for disaster."

Where did you see anyone suggest that regulation of safety should be left to the private sector?

That is a highly misleading comment. It is dishonest. It demonstrates your lack of integrity.

Peter Lang:

"A first step would be to remove the responsibility from approving nuclear power plant designs from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and placing it back where it rightly belongs, i.e. with the private sector."

Gary Murphy,

That comment is a short extract from what I've been saying for a very long time. That happens on blog sites. It's not practicable to continually re write the whole story each time. Read it in context of what I've been saying all along. We do need safety regulations for all industries. But all technologies should be subject to the same or equivalent standards. That is not happening with nuclear and other generation technologies. Nuclear development is effectively blocked by regulations that make it to expensive despite it being 150 safer than what is accepted as safe enough in USA (i.e. coal) and and 700 times safer than the world average for coal generation). Something is very wrong and irrational. The block is the Nuclear Regulatory Commission which takes 5 to 10 years to approve a design and can only handle about 3 new designs in that period. There are at least 43 small modular nuclear power plant designs that haven't been able to get into or through approval for decades. That is what is blocking the process. NRC has to act in accordance with its mandate and that is driven by politicians response to the public's paranoia about nuclear power. That paranoia is cause by that anti-nuclear groups and their followers. You are clearly one of those. Certainly, you are not an independent thinker.

Argue with yourself. If you want to learn you can.

@Peter

"That paranoia is cause by that anti-nuclear groups and their followers. You are clearly one of those. Certainly, you are not an independent thinker."

I have said virtually nothing about the risks of nuclear power. Instead of projecting onto me the things you think of other people - how about you try just responding to what I write without resorting to personal attacks.

Alan John Emmerson,

Thank you for another interesting and informative comment. It’s great to have you contributing. When I wrote my previous comment I didn’t notice you were a former Chief Engineer of CAA. I greatly appreciate your comments.

> “The motivation for Government regulation is the national benefit to be obtained from using aviation. The present regulatory system took a long while to evolve – to identify the hazards and the fixes. Corporate memories are short and– the regulatory system can unevolve..”

Why shouldn’t the same justification apply to regulation of the electricity industry – i.e. the national benefit? The regulations of nuclear power thwart its development while allowing fossil fuel generation despite the fact it causes 150 times more fatalities per year in the USA and 700 times more fatalities globally (per unit of electricity generated). All electricity generation technologies cause more fatalities than nuclear power: http://nextbigfuture.com/2012/06/deaths-by-energy-source-in-forbes.html

> “A new aircraft design does not start with a blank sheet of paper. First of all the customer’s wants and wish list has to be consulted. At the same time there will be background work going on developing new ideas to be pulled out of the drawer when the time comes. Eventually, the NAA is advised that a project is in the offing. The manufacturer’s design team sits down with the NAA and the operator and perhaps some foreign NAA and thrashes out the revisions that will be necessary to the design rules. That sort of activity goes on for some considerable time. Staff of the NAA will be positioned in the manufacturer’s plan and some manufacturers people are designated as signatories for the NAA. The aircraft is signed off bit by bit until the whole Type Design is approved and it is certificated by the head of the Certification Branch of the NAA as conforming with the Design Standard. There is a certificate of type approval for the purpose

How long does it take. Just enough time to have the aircraft ready when the airlines want it.. Barring major snags.”

Thank you for this explanation. It raises the question, why shouldn’t an equivalent process be followed for regulation of electricity generators - with all of them being required to achieve the same level of safety? If that was done, then the technologies with the lowest cost of electricity would win in the market place. If this had been the case for as long as air safety regulations had been in place (say 50 years) we’d have little coal fired electricity now because they could not compete with the far safer and cheaper electricity from nuclear power. Furthermore, progress would not be blocked by widespread nuclear paranoia in the developed countries.

> “I don’t think you are right in saying there are many hundreds of passengers killed each year.”
This lists fatalities per year for the past 12 years for airplanes that carry more than 6 passengers. The fatalities range from 771 (in 2004) to 4,140 (in 2002)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aviation_accidents_and_incidents

I Googled and found this which, although not authoritative, suggests my comment with regard to commercial air craft fatalities was not an overstatement.
http://www.heraldsun.com.au/travel/news/number-of-deaths-in-air-accidents-falls/story-fn32891l-1226439142729
"On a global level... the number of accidents involving passenger fatalities in scheduled operations remained high at 16, but the related number of fatalities to passengers dropped from 658 in 2010 to 330'' in 2011, the EASA said.”

Alan, I guess my Boeing friends aren't 'good' sources of information for you?

What about FAA directives -- not good either?

What's the point you're trying to carve out this way, Alan?

Aircraft and airlines are businesses, subject to all the frivolities and frailties of human-operated entities.

Alan, if you are an expeienced engineer, as I am, you would understand the half truth you wrote "It is not right to assume that faults will appear in the test article before they are found in the fleet.."

If you really are a degreed engineer, you'll have understood what the purpose of testing at scale, and ahead of deployed structure uses, provides.

If nothing happens on the ground, that doeesn't mean nothing will happen in the air -- you float a tautology in assuming I assumed that.

But, if something happens in ground tests, then indeed engineers know it's time to check the fleet.

The 737 skin-failure incidents and directives are well documented, which your self-advertized capabilities should easily make available to you.

The scam that allowed used military turbine blades into the commercial engine parts streams was also well described years back, along with other FAA failings.

I don't get your purpose in adding tidbits on 747 & 727 pieces are, unless you sense need to puff up your expertise to the audience here.

The point is that agencies have failings, often undiscovered by the public for years. Aircraft regulators are not exempted.

Thanks very much Peter. Yers indeed the Germans have yet to learn what 'green' means...

www.pointcarbon.com/aboutus/pressroom/pressreleases/1.1552105
www.reuters.com/article/2012/01/17/us-siemens-energy-idUSTRE80G10920120117
http://spectrum.ieee.org/energywise/energy/nuclear/siemens-says-germany-nuclear-phase-out-to-cost-trillions/?utm_source=techalert&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=011912
www.world-nuclear-news.org/NP_Eye_watering_cost_of_renewable_revolution_2301121.html?utm_so
http://rt.com/news/germany-reactors-cold-weather-927/comments/?d=1?
www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-04-23/utilities-plan-79-billion-of-power-plants-in-germany-bdew-says.html
www.washingtonpost.com/world/europe/germany-aims-for-stronger-grip-of-switchover-from-nuclear-to-renewable-energy/2012/05/23/gJQAZXwRkU_story.html
www.spiegel.de/international/business/rwe-s-new-ceo-terium-to-halt-nuclear-power-and-invest-in-renewables-a-841260.html
http://thoriumforum.com/david-gleason-too-little-wind-too-much-hot-air

Starting to wonder who we're talking to here, Alan. Anyone saying "The accident was not catastrophic." when someone was sucked out of an aircraft whose skin tore open, could rightly be set aside as a crackpot -- especially since other skin failures have since occurred, fortunately with folks buckled in..

Again, I see your volunteered 'knowledge' of other aircraft models as posturing, since we all know no aircraft have been perfect. The DC-3, 747 B52 and Lockheed C130 are among the longest-lived, safe designs. The Electra & DC10 not so blessed.

Back to the used turbine-blade scam -- indeed someone high in the FAA was involved, as well as those charged with supplying parts for commercial maintenance facilities (one company having a former FAA official near its top). I forget the impacts on FAA staff, but it was a well-publicized event years back.

The 737 skin-thickness issue was more recently summarized in an IEEE publication, as an example of how management can deflect proper system design away from correctness, thus safety.. You may say: "Nor is it uncommon to go down a gauge in such a program by sharpening the pencil", but the deviation for the 737 was anything but "sharpening the pencil", in relation to Boeing standards before or after the 737.

Your saying: "So presumably the FAA knew of the gauge change.. The question then is whether the FAA's decision was wrong." conveniently ignores the fact that not only did the FAA know, it listed the necessity to increase gauge in its subsequent directives. Those directives were ignored and the only efforts to deal with the problem involved increased inspection frequency for the aircraft. The more recent skin separation occurred farther back on the 737 fuselage than was covered by mandated, more frequent inspections. The passengers in those rows were quite surprised to suddenly see blue sky while their oxygen masks dropped down.
;]
Again, Alan, what kind of engineering degree do you have?

Alan Emmerson,

Thank you for your ongoing contributions. I find them most interesting. I also find them valuable because I learn more about what I see as lessons that can be applied for regulation of nuclear power with the aim to get costs down, and improve the breed through greatly increased production and roll out of small power plants.

I greatly respect a person who has reached the heights in their career that you have reached. Your contributions should be appreciated and welcomed by everyone.

Alan, you, as Peter says, have great experience in the aircraft business and operations. Great.

But falling back on a bureaucratic definition of "catastrophe" to cover your unfeeling remark about the Aloha disaster, is exactly the problem.

This all started because you had the idea that aircraft regulatory functioning provided some example for better nuclear regulatory functioning. All you demonstrate is that you're a BS in AE with decades of experience in the airline industry & bureaucracy, with facts to drop.

Your ICAO "catastrophe" is the mocking, Alan, and you seem to know it.

Not being an aircraft expert myself, with only 4 engineering & math degrees, I do feel able to point out American events that I know of, which show the aeronautical business and regulation to be no better and apparently worse than our NRC, which I do know about.

And, I, being about your age, along with my Boeing friend, who headed their computerized airframe test group from 1964 until he retired, have seen close up, various aeronautical scandals and bad events that would not have so easily occurred in the nuclear industry. My friend has his BS like you, and an additional MS, in case that matters.

No, I don't know of the Canberra's reliability, but you should. I do know of failures in some of our most aged, workhorse aircraft, as you should too. But, again puffing up expertise in the aircraft biz was never the point here, Alan.

The point was how bureaucracies charged with regulating product designs and construction to avert civilian injuries & deaths, perform.

Latest reports say this past year was a record for airline safety -- great. It was the usual record for western nuclear safety too -- 0 deaths (of course you allow 1, we don't). Perhaps the airline regulators can look to the NRC for hints on improving?
']

Alex,

I suggest we shouldn't get side tracked into talking about matters that are pedantic. In the Energy industry, Major accidents are defined as those in which 5 or more immediate fatalities occurred: http://www.ier.uni-stuttgart.de/forschung/projektwebsites/newext/

Let's focus on what Alan is willing to contribute that adds to the discussion about getting an objective, unbiased, level playing field for regulation of electricity generation.

Yep, Peter, I was hoping the reminder: "This all started because [of] the [false] idea that aircraft regulatory functioning provided some example for better nuclear regulatory functioning."

would get us back on track.
;]

Alan Emmerson,

Thank you for another interesting and informative comment. Would you care to comment on what seems to be an inconsistency with the regulation of safety in the electricity industry? It seems to me this is quite different from what happens with regulation of commercial aircraft?

I can't imagine the situation could arise where totally different regulation is applied to one passenger aircraft from another to the point where it would regulate the much safer aircraft technology to the point where it cannot compete with the less safe aircraft technology. However, this is what has happened with safety regulation of electricity industry.

One technology, nuclear power, is about 150 times safer (fatalities per unit of electricity supplied), than coal power (due mostly to pollution), based on US figures or about 600 times safer based on world average [1]. Excess regulation on nuclear is causing it to be uncompetitive so that we stick with coal instead.

Bernard Cohen showed that regulatory ratcheting caused a four times increase in the cost of nuclear energy up to 1990 [2]. I suspect it has doubled again since 1990.

Is there any example in the airline industry where regulation has regulated to the point of being uncompetitive a plane that is two orders of magnitude safer that its competitors?

[1] http://www.phyast.pitt.edu/~blc/book/chapter9.html

[2] http://nextbigfuture.com/2012/06/deaths-by-energy-source-in-forbes.html

>"Only an outdated system of baseline generation will suffer from high wind penetration."

This is complete and utter drivel. Around 70% to 80% of our demand is baseload. Baseload plants are by far the least cost way to meet baseload. See here http://oznucforum.customer.netspace.net.au/TP4PLang.pdf for a cost comparison for a system where demand is met by renewables and gas versus nuclear and gas. The options are compared on the basis of capital cost, cost of electricity and CO2 abatement cost.

The remainder of your comment is also drivel. All your points have been addressed in previous comments on this thread. Suggest you background your self before posing more nonsense..