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politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » PB Video Analysis: The Future’s Bright. The Future’s Not Coal.
You flick a switch, and there’s light.
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I am currently responsible for demolishing a perfectly good coal power plant in South Australia, which has decided that it wants to use only wind, solar and gas for power, just as suggested in this video. The results are a disaster. SA has the highest wholesale power prices in the developed World, despite having the one of the highest percentage installations of onshore wind plus a famous Musk battery. Why? Because there are times when wind power across the whole state produces literally nothing. And it is NOT cheap to spin up a gas station just for this - the real cost is having it sitting there doing nothing. So when there is a power shortage, they will only spin it up if the wholesale price they get for the marginal power is outrageous. Which means that overall, costs skyrocket.
The real truth about renewables is that in SA, the moment there is a problem with solar and wind they need to get the power from other states, mostly Victoria. Without this inter-connector, SA would have regular blackouts (and have had some anyway). And where does Victoria get its power from to sell to SA? Coal of course. And this is the reality of renewables - largely it just moves the pollution elsewhere. I have seen a study that shows that the CO2 generated by the Chinese in making solar panels is greater than the amount they have saved.
I live near Sydney and installed solar on my roof. The reality, as opposed to the 'official calculations', is that it works out more expensive than simply buying the power off the grid. Home solar calcs are done on the basis that if you install (say) 50% of your total usage as capacity you will use whatever is generated. But it doesn't work that way at all. Even though my wife is at home all day at least a third of the power is sold back to the grid (at a large loss). Because you never need the power exactly when the sun is shining. If you put on the kettle and a cloud comes across, you don't have the power. If you turn off the dishwasher and the sun comes out, you waste the power. Batteries, despite all the hype, make the economics far worse. They take a long time to charge, they have a short life and they are inefficient. They also contain chemicals which are terrible for the environment and after 10 years or so you need a new one.
SA consumers, I can tell you as an absolute fact, would be far better off if they had kept their coal power. Real world wins over theory.
(a) are flexible and can power up and down when needed
(b) have much lower operating costs
(c) now have lower fuel costs
People think coal is cheap because - on a price per calorie basis - coal at the mine exit is cheaper than natural gas. Now, as it happens, Australia has a f*cked up natural gas market, which results in SA and Vic utilities paying some of the highest natural gas prices in the world, despite the country being a large exporter of gas. But that's not the fault of renewables, that is the fault of government policy decisions 15 years ago.
What you say about batteries is not born out by my experience. I am an investor in a company that rents solar panels and batteries to people and takes the economic risk. I.e., we turn up at your door and offer you an all in price per Kwh that's about 20% lower than your local power company's. If we miscalculate, we're buying from the grid at a higher price than we've agreed to sell to the consumer. And batteries increase our returns meaningfully. (We're very conservative with our cycles assumptions.)
Now, the big issue, as I identified in the video, is the death spiral for utilities: falling solar prices encourage people to put panels on the roof, which cuts profits for utilities and forces them to raise prices, which encourage more people to put panels on their roofs.
What is the percentage of you overall electric power usage actually supplied by your rooftop solar ?
What are the actual retail electric prices in SA, and your neighbouring state ?
https://www.newyorker.com/culture/culture-desk/will-scandal-sink-emmanuel-macron
Of course, this is all dependent on his reforms working, and him getting a second term.
https://twitter.com/MrKennethClarke/status/1026392840702779393
Have to wonder why they bothered with the special election though given the midterms are in 3 months!
Will give the video a look once caffeine has been consumed.
I’m sure your father would have volunteered to hold on to them while you were away!
Sounds like everyone is getting paid out except the Indians, which serves them right for putting too high a value on the team. They both have plenty of other problems to occupy them though.
https://www.motorsportweek.com/news/id/19420
Really dumb.
Embarassing.
Or an irate spouse?
In respect to your point about baseload, I disagree. Ultimately you have to have enough electricity infrastructure to supply peak demand. Peak demand is in the evening, when solar is of no use. SA proves that a huge installed wind capacity can quite literally provide zero power. Ultimately, the issue with renewables is that the non-renewable capacity required doesn't reduce much. It is easy to say that you can use cheap renewables and somehow 'turn on' fossil fuel plants when they are needed, but this is in reality ludicrously expensive. The 'real' price for wind is not just its own capital cost, it is the capital cost of all the backup infrastructure that you need when it doesn't work.
Good video. Interesting stuff (knew a bit of it but plenty of new stuff too).
Germany is going all green about electricity. France has lots of nuclear plants. Clearly what is needed is an EU scheme to guarantee baseload supplies across Europe rather than just buying electricity on an as-needed basis, especially after those unreliable Anglos have Brexited.
Germany keeps its lights on; Brussels gets more bureaucrats and a bigger budget; France gets more of those lovely, lovely German euros. Oh, and you can spend a few quid cleaning up Romanian and Czech mines in order to get the East Europeans onside.
https://money.cnn.com/2018/08/07/news/companies/elon-musk-tesla-private/index.html
If the rumours about the amount of hedgies short-selling Tesla stock are correct, it could turn out to be a stroke of genius, but if he hasn’t got all his ducks in a row he’s going to have half of Wall St after his head!
Power prices in SA are around 43 cents/kwH. In neighbouring Victoria they are 27 cents. But that will rise as Vic is getting rid of coal as well.
For the foreseeable future we look pretty awash with gas. That will be even more the case when we get over our silly paranoia about fracking. Will that be enough with ever increasing wind and solar? I have my doubts.
Right now 16% of our electricity is being generated by renewables: http://gridwatch.co.uk/
Of course the sun is barely up yet and that will increase during the day. As is frequently the case these days the % being generated by coal is 0%. Gas, CCGTs, is producing nearly half and nuclear another quarter. My concern is that as @archerau101 is indicating might have happened in SA, the infrastructure for electricity production by coal is simply not going to survive with so little demand for its product. I think that may prove unfortunate. We have a lot of coal left in this country even if we have very little enthusiasm for digging it up right now. I think we are putting too many eggs in one basket with gas and if demand increases significantly, which I believe it will, we may find ourselves paying a heavy price.
I'm not a lawyer, but it does seem strange to me that a man can be accused of so much, and then settle before going to court over and over again.
At some point, isn't it obvious that such a person is scamming the system, and is a wider danger to society and so should be prosecuted by the government, even if the parties involved want to settle?
As it happens, Catholics and Orthodox were much happier for Lithuania to remain pagan than to convert to the "wrong" brand of Christianity,
but the cricket.. not so good
F1: no changes on the Red Bull second driver market. I wonder if the big shift (Hartley and Kvyat's prices ballooning, Alonso's shortening dramatically) were just down to weight of money or if some cunning insider info was partly the cause. I hope so.
Unfortunately this was because it was a faulty meter that nobody had actually spotted, and when it was replaced with a smart meter this rather nice feature ceased.
Musk is playing a seriously high stakes game, but he’s clearly fed up of all the negative press coming from the hedgies, and having to structure his whole operation around quarterly reporting deadlines rather than simply getting on with business. I say good luck to him!
If France wish to subsidise nuclear power for our benefit, I don't see the problem.
https://www.google.co.uk/amp/s/www.bbc.co.uk/news/amp/science-environment-45084144
If RCS takes video requests, how about the revival of pre-1990s style conglomerates (is that the right word?) like Tesla or Amazon which have divisions operating in quite unrelated markets, against the Wall Street and hedge fund conventional wisdom that conglomerates should be broken up and their constituent businesses sold off (or unlocking shareholder value and not asset-stripping at all)?
I’ve stayed in Lumley a few times and it is brilliant.
The tidal barrages were killed by a concerted effort by the nuclear industry. For now. It will be one of the very few joys of a Corbyn Government when he commits to make Wales an entirely renewables-generated country.
Then again, we'd all be screwed as it would essentially bring down civilisation, especially if rapid.
Time to see if I can get some seed funding for my giant nanotube straw idea again.
http://www.energysavingtrust.org.uk/renewable-energy/electricity/micro-chp
Looks quite easy to buy too:
https://www.plumbnation.co.uk/site/baxi-duo-tec-40-combination-boiler-natural-gas-erp/?gclid=CjwKCAjwqarbBRBtEiwArlfEIHFB2rmqzdlt4SlJjfq-mSse2-dVMHzFBU6q3IClkaEOwp8F7p_8BBoCeDkQAvD_BwE
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2016/aug/11/may-urged-to-pull-plug-immediately-on-hinkley-c-over-spying-allegations
Middx are in Div 2. They were relegated last yr IIRC and were champions the year before.. unless I am living in a parallel universe?
I used to live in Saudi Arabia with my parents. My mother never went out of the house except with my father, and always wore long clothes that covered all skin below the neck. It never occurred to us to have her swanning around in a bikini because it would be racist for the Saudis to object. It is their country, their culture and we respected it without question.
Burkas are an insult to the British culture and an affront to gender equality. I don't think we should ban them, but we have every right to feel that people that wear them are offending us. If pointing this out offends them, tough.
Incidentally, watching Middlesex's complacency about how easy it would be to get promoted out of division two given how rubbish all the other sides are take such a brutal hammering has been quite funny.
So if I'm right about that - and it is a big conditional - then who else has the money?
Weren't Apple interested in cars?