20.02 Four Icebergs in the Path of Renewables Titanic
Purpose. To explain that the transition to renewable energy will be very difficult in Australia with existing storage technology
Background. All the major parties are in favour of increasing the supply of electric power from wind and solar energy.
Critical Issues.
Four features of the Australian situation will make the transition to wind and solar energy very difficult and impossible with existing storage technology. This has been demonstrated worldwide by the negligible replacement of hydrocarbons by wind and solar over 20 years at the expense of some 5 trillion US dollars in subsidies.
- Wind droughts. There are frequent and prolonged “wind droughts” when there is next to no wind across SE Australia for many hours and even days
20.03 - The Island Effect
Purpose of this note: To explain that Australia, being an island, is seriously disadvantaged in attempting to achieve ambitious renewable energy targets because we cannot run transmission lines to other countries to obtain power when our solar and wind systems fail.
Background. A previous briefing note described four obstacles in the path of ambitious RE targets (The Four Icebergs Note 20.2).
Frequent wind droughts.
The need for 100% of demand to be met 100% of the time.
The island effect.
No grid-scale storage available from batteries or pumped hydro.
The Critical Feature of the Island Effect: We cannot run extension cords to other countries to obtain power when we are short.
All the other places that have major RE
20.01 - The Choke Point – when the wind fails and the grid dies.
Purpose: To signal the critical situation for power security and the implication of the lowest “choke point” level of input from the sun and wind.
The Critical Issues:
(1) After the loss of several coal fired power stations we have virtually no spare baseload capacity. We are “running on the rims” with no spare tyre.
(2) Many times a year when the wind supply is critically low the system will “choke” unless conventional power sources (dominated by coal) can provide 100% of the demand for electricity.
(3) That situation is rare at present but it will be a constant danger when Liddell closes in 2023 taking almost 2GW of supply out of the system.
(4) We are told that wind and solar power can replace coal-fired