the pricetag is a bit steep. Give the leftys enough rope though, they'll hang us all !!!!!!!!!!




Quote:

AUSTRALIA could switch completely to renewable energy within a decade by building a dozen vast, new solar power stations and about 6500 wind turbines, according to a major new study. The Zero Carbon Australia Stationary Energy Plan - a collaboration between Melbourne University's Energy Research Institute, the environment group Beyond Zero Emissions and engineers Sinclair Knight Merz, puts the cost at $37 billion in private funding and public investment every year for the next decade. The price tag may make it sound like a pipedream but the scheme earned the endorsement of the federal Liberal MP Malcolm Turnbull who added his support at a forum at Sydney Town Hall last night. ''The work they have done is important,'' Mr Turnbull said. ''It provides the most comprehensive technical blueprint yet for what our engineers, our scientists, can begin to do tomorrow.'' Mr Turnbull contrasted the Coalition's ''direct action'' plan with Labor's policy, which he claimed would lead to longer delays in cutting greenhouse gas emissions. ''I believe our long-term global goal is to very substantially reduce our emissions, a goal that will require almost all of our stationary energy to be produced from zero or near-zero emission sources,'' Mr Turnbull said. ''This report demonstrates we could already be technologically ready to do that.'' The plan has also been endorsed by Australia's former chief scientist Robin Batterham, and a senior official at the International Energy Agency's renewable energy division, Cedric Philibert. However, the National Generators Forum, which represents power station owners, and the office of the federal Energy Minister, Martin Ferguson, were decidedly lukewarm about the plan when asked about the findings last month. Under the plan, 60 per cent of the nation's electricity would be sourced from 12 huge solar thermal power plants, which use Australian-developed technology to store heat in molten salt, allowing them to operate for long periods when there is no sunshine. The remaining 40 per cent of the power grid would be filled by about 6500 wind turbines at 23 large-scale wind farms dotted mainly around the coast. The plan would generate 325 terawatt hours of electricity a year, meeting the nation's entire power demands in the year 2020, if a comprehensive energy efficiency plan is also factored in. Any shortfalls could be made up by biomass energy generation, using a portion of the stubble from the nation's wheatfields. To properly harness all the renewable energy, the report calls for the unification of Australia's three separate electricity grids and some new transmission lines to link the new power stations to capital cities, at a total cost of $92 billion. If the cost of completely transforming the energy sector was passed directly on to households, it would add 30 per cent to the average utility bill. Matthew Wright, the chief executive of the Beyond Zero Emissions group, claimed the report was more realistic than Australia's continued dependence on foreign oil supplies and fluctuating fuel prices. ''The fact is, from an energy perspective, we are in big trouble,'' said Mr Wright when he briefed staff from the NSW Department of Climate Change, Environment and Water on the plan yesterday. ''If you're going to secure Australia's energy future, then you're going to do that with risk-free renewable energy that has no fuel costs.''

http://www.smh.com.au/environment/energy-smart/how-to-be-fully-renewable-in-10-years-20100812-121l0.html?autostart=1

Ah yes, the old pricetag trick.

Enquiring mind wrote on Aug 13^th, 2010 at 1:24pm:

Ah yes, the old pricetag trick.

And what's wrong with that Karnal????

As with everything else, if you 'want' it fast...it's gonna cost extra...

If you want it to be 'affordable'....then it'll take longer....

karnal - you offering to ante up the $37 B per year for the next 10 years then ?

gizmo_2655 wrote on Aug 13^th, 2010 at 3:39pm:

Enquiring mind wrote on Aug 13th, 2010 at 1:24pm: Ah yes, the old pricetag trick. And what's wrong with that Karnal???? As with everything else, if you 'want' it fast...it's gonna cost extra... If you want it to be 'affordable'....then it'll take longer....

Something tells me it's gonna take quite a while...

Enquiring mind wrote on Aug 13^th, 2010 at 4:04pm:

gizmo_2655 wrote on Aug 13th, 2010 at 3:39pm: Enquiring mind wrote on Aug 13th, 2010 at 1:24pm: Ah yes, the old pricetag trick. And what's wrong with that Karnal???? As with everything else, if you 'want' it fast...it's gonna cost extra... If you want it to be 'affordable'....then it'll take longer.... Something tells me it's gonna take quite a while...

Yes it probably will....
To quote a tv Clairol ad...
"It won't happen overnight..but it WILL happen"..

Sprint - I somehow don't think that $37 billion (overpriced though it may be) is likely to come out of the public purse. They are leaving nuclear  energy and geothermal out of the mix. Nuclear is the most critical one. Forget about wind power. The infrastructure costs are far less. The $37 billion per year would be more like $5 billion per year if we allow nuclear. (and we must)

Sprint - how much do you think coal fired power stations take to build? They are not free you know.

As for Solar Thermal, that is a good idea. We already have solar thermal plants in the US providing electricity at grid parity costings. We should be capitalising on the fact that we get more solar energy per square metre here than in the US.

Whichever way you look at it, it's worth building, but it should be done by private enterprise, not public money.

Even these Israel built hybrid units will provide grid parity:

http://www.zenithsolar.com/

We should be building similar units in Australia and installing them  on all new hot water installations. That way we get electrical generation plus hot water. These units extract solar energy with an efficiency of 75%. I take it that's about 35% in PV (because they quote triple junction technology) and the remaining 40% in thermal.

http://www.zenithsolar.com/images/z.gif

Here's a critique of the Stationary Energy Plan at Brave New Climate:

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


Quote:

* The ZCA2020 Stationary Energy Plan has significantly underestimated the cost and timescale required to implement such a plan.    * Our revised cost estimate is nearly five times higher than the estimate in the Plan: $1,709 billion compared to $370 billion.  The cost estimates are highly uncertain with a range of $855 billion to $4,191 billion for our estimate.    * The wholesale electricity costs would increase nearly 10 times above current costs to $500/MWh, not the $120/MWh claimed in the Plan.    * The total electricity demand in 2020 is expected to be 44% higher than proposed: 449 TWh compared to the 325 TWh presented in the Plan.    * The Plan has inadequate reserve capacity margin to ensure network reliability remains at current levels. The total installed capacity needs to be increased by 65% above the proposed capacity in the Plan to 160 GW compared to the 97 GW used in the Plan.    * The Plan’s implementation timeline is unrealistic.  We doubt any solar thermal plants, of the size and availability proposed in the plan, will be on line before 2020.  We expect only demonstration plants will be built until there is confidence that they can be economically viable.    * The Plan relies on many unsupported assumptions, which we believe are invalid; two of the most important are:         1. A quote in the Executive Summary “The Plan relies only on existing, proven, commercially available and costed technologies.”         2. Solar thermal power stations with the performance characteristics and availability of baseload power stations exist now or will in the near future.

Peter Lang is a strong advocate of nuclear power.