Replacing Hazelwood coal-fired power station – Critique of Environment Victoria report

I’ll reread this analysis but it seems to confirm my initial reaction that it sounded too good to be true. The omission of open cycle gas power should have been a giveaway.

I’ll repeat my comments from earlier threads
– 500 or so new wind turbines won’t go down well
– brown coal at $6/t and no ETS is a gift from heaven
– Vic will eventually have to get gas from WA or Qld.

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While we’re bashing Victoria I thought I’d get the boot in. For nearly two centuries Melbourne has avoided taking water from the Murray Darling Basin. Not now.

Envirocrats must try harder.

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Thank you John, John and Fran for your comments.

John Morgan, good suggestion. I have not had much luck with my previous letters and submissions to the various Federal and state government environment and energy departments. Hopefully, Environment Victoria or Green Energy Markets might respond on the BNC web site.

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Germany has been installing renewable electrical generation capacity regardless of cost; the results have been very bad for the consumer and the taxpayer.

I guess emulating failed policies from other countries is fashionable even in Australia.

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It is difficult to assess how long Victoria’s gas reserves would last with a major switch to gas fired generation. Fig 1 from this report shows the Otway, Bass and Gippsland gas basins. Pipelines shows some of South Australia’s gas and all of Tasmania’s coming from these basins. Mercifully they are isolated from the lucrative LNG export market.

Most of these basins were discovered in the 1960s and have been flogged pretty hard since then. The average oil flow that came with the gas now appears about 80% less than the early days. Unlike other states Victoria doesn’t need much gas fired generation as it has absurdly cheap pollute-for-free brown coal. When CCS was all the rage they were going to pump CO2 from coal burning down depleted gas wells. That was another good photo op for Brumby and his mates except they used lab grade CO2, not actually from a coal fired power station.

If single and combined cycle gas plant lasts 30 years I would expect the price of Victorian gas to at least quadruple in that time. They’re not going to build gas fired plant with 800 years of almost free brown coal lying around.

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One of “Yes Minister’s” golden rules was “Never commission a report without knowing what it will say.” It seems that this rule was followed in this case. What
needs to happen next is that Peter’s analysis needs more publicity, which will
be tough because commercial mainstream media seems to have a
moderately strong aversion to quoting or mentioning blogs.

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A few questions for those who know:

1. Did the cost of wind power in the report allow for the cost of reqired high voltage transmission lines required to connect Victoria’s best wind sources (SW Coast) to Melbourne? My understanding is that, for Melbourne and Adelaide, the primary constraint on many wind sources is inadequate capacity to transmit power back to the capital. This would add to the cost of wind, though woudl have other benefits. A high capacity interconnector from Adelaide to Melbourne via the coast would allow for the development of many wind sites in both states, but might cost $1bn or more for the 1000km link.

2. Did they consider substituting black coal power from NSW (Hunter valley), again assuming a higher capacity transmission line was built? Emissions from the high quality Hunter black coal would still be 20-30% less than from the low quality La Trobe brown coal.

3. Regarding gas, my only conern is whether it realistic to assume that gas from other states will be available? Do they have a surplus?

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Hi Scott,

Here is the link to the study: http://www.environmentvictoria.org.au/sites/default/files/Fast-tracking%20Victoria%27s%20clean%20energy%20future%20to%20replace%20Hazelwood.pdf

They do not mention the cost of transmission for the wind farms. But I have included it in the critique (see Appendix 3 in the pdf version: https://bravenewclimate.files.wordpress.com/2010/05/plang_hazelwood_replacement_with_appendices.pdf

The Environment Victoria study does mention importing more black coal fired power from NSW. However, that would mean NSW has to build more black coal fired power stations. NSW is currently importing more electricity from Victoria that it exports to Victoria. NSW has been falling behind with building electricity generation assets for more over a decade.

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As I recall Peter, you did that in ““Cost and Quantity of Greenhouse Gas Emissions Avoided by Wind Generation“.”

Your conclusions then were:

1. Wind power does not avoid significant amounts of greenhouse gas emissions.

2. Wind power is a very high cost way to avoid greenhouse gas emissions.

3. Wind power, even with high capacity penetration, can not make a significant contribution to reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

The scholarship in that paper was sound, and I have yet to see it refuted by anyone, anywhere to date.

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I really think we ought to be writing to Energy Victoria to urge them to respond to Peter’s analysis here.

We should draw their attention to the errors Peter has highlighted and remind them that by their own criteria, the configurations they offer fail.

It is very clear that no political party with a reasonable prospect of making policy is going to substantially increase the cost of exploiting Victoria’s ample cheap brown coal resources nor take action that would double the cost of energy on a quarter of Victoria’s grid. Nor can anyone agree now to pay a marginal cost well above the end price for emissions of about the $35 per tonne that is canvassed. Not_going_to_happen. Unless clean energy fits into this budget nobody in power will support it and yet the scenarios offered above are well above that.

We should invite them to project forward and imagine themselves defending this report and it’s basic errors in a politically hostile election-time contest and invite them to consider redrafting to avoid looking silly.

That’s what I will do anyway.

PS: It also occurred to me that Peter may have actually been over generous to Energy Victoria in his analysis. After all, rapid cycling of gas plants is likely to reduce their effective life and increase maintenance costs, and the more wind there is to cover, the more relevant this is. There’s a pun in here somewhere based on windbags, gas and hot air but I can’t be bothered putting it together right now. Perhaps by the time I write my letter …

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Jim Holm,
That was a very interesting link that included LFTRs and reminders of what the USA was able to do during World War II. Sadly, the USA is run by lawyers today so engineers and scientists are held in check by means of “Environmental Impact Statements” and all kinds of bureaucratic red tape.

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Peter,

Another informative post. I have one or two questions and comments.

1) I was surprised that replacing Hazelwood with CCGT only would cut emissions by as much as 73%. I would have expected something nearer 66% on the crude rule of thumb basis that emissions/mWe tend to be in the ratio of 3:2:1 for brown coal, black coal and gas respectively. However, I expect that you are correct.

2) Was wind’s contribution based on its capacity factor? My understanding from recent comments here is that a lot of wind’s potential capacity is not currently used, in part because grid managers daren’t risk using it at times of anticipated high demand in case it stops blowing. Thus, given that usable capacity tends to be well less than half of real capacity with the percentage dropping as the wind proportion of the the generating mix increases, is it possible that you have been over-generous with respect to wind? I suppose that this is not so because you are providing the grid manager with the option to use all the wind, given the greater flexibility he will have with two types of gas generation as backup and no inflexible coal generation to worry about.

3) You suggest that you have relied partly on Hawkin’s Master-resource in your calculations of extra emissions consequent upon using gas in back-up mode. However, presumably because they seemed too good to be true in terms of making your case, you decided to be conservative and to halve them. This strikes me as illogical. If you are going to cite a non peer reviewed source, you might as well rely on it. What was the scientific basis for halving it (why not cut it by three quarters)? If you are attempting to demonstrate that official or quasi official documents are flawed, you may have to get better evidence. I am not necessarily doubting its validity. It is the credibility that concerns me.

4) You tag nuclear on to the end of the paper, but, IMO, you are doing it no favours. By using conservative figures, it shows up as producing electricity somewhat more expensively than gas (at current gas prices) and also shows that avoidance costs are only a little lower than those of gas. You are also encouraging non discerning readers to jump to the conclusion that coal electricity costs half that of nuclear electricity by failing to highlight that the comparison is not apples to apples. The true comparison should be between new (non CCS) coal versus new nuclear. Thus, if you wish to put in the nuclear figures, you should also have looked at the electricity costs that would accrue were Hazelwood to be re[placed by a new brown coal plant (with and without CCS – though you’d have to guesstimate the former).

5) Your report is essentially a critique of another report. As such, it would be better if it remained as such and left out the nuclear section. I suppose you could add (in words, not numbers) that your conclusions demonstrate that wind is not viable without fossil fuel back up; that , when used with back-up, it doesn’t reduce emissions significantly more that when gas is used alone; that it will be expensive. You could therefore conclude that the only remaining clean options (based on affordability and reliability) are nuclear and CCS coal with the former being technology ready and cheaper.

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For reference, I have addressed the following letter to the Environment Victoria Hazelwood campaign director, ceo, and Board:
====================================

Dear Sirs and Madam,

As a resident of NSW I have not been involved with your organization. Nevertheless, as we share the same atmosphere, and since NSW is a net importer of Victorian generated electricity, I applaud your Replace Hazelwood campaign and hope for your early success in replacing Hazelwood with clean energy.

Unfortunately, there are technical problems with the report you are using in your campaign, and its recommendations are unlikely to result in success. The report “Fast-tracking Victoria’s clean energy future to replace Hazelwood Power Station” [1] has recently been critiqued [2], and a number of specific shortcomings have been identified.

Perhaps the single most significant issue with this report is the failure to consider replacing Hazelwood with just combined cycle natural gas generation. This is equivalent to the report’s Scenario 1, but without deploying the wind component. This scenario has been modeled [2], and we can compare the two outcomes:

Emissions saved MtCO¬2pa Capital Cost
CCGT + Wind, Scenario 1 [1] 13.6 unstated
CCGT + Wind, corrected [2] 12.2 $6-7 billion
CCGT only [2] 11.8 $2 billion

A correction to [1] was required as the replacement capacity was underestimated due to the use of average rather than peak summer generation, and incorrect treatment of transmission losses. Details of the errors and their correction are set out in [2].

The report [1] does not estimate the capital cost of the alternative generation, and notes “A detailed assessment of the cost of replacing Hazelwood is beyond the scope of this project ..” (p29) Nevertheless, a plan for replacing Hazelwood cannot credibly be advanced without consideration of this cost. This cost has been estimated in [2].

The conclusion is obvious. We could replace Hazelwood with CCGT for about $2 billion and save about 12 megatonne of CO2 per annum. Or, we could build CCGT and OCGT and spend an additional $4-5 billion to bring wind power into the mix for no additional benefit in emissions reduction.

The reason for this surprising result is mainly that a gas generator, like a car, achieves its best fuel efficiency when generating steady output. When forced to shadow the fluctuations of wind power, the gas generator is like a car in city traffic and its fuel efficiency is poor. In Scenario 1 of [1], the clean generation of the included wind is entirely offset by the greater emissions intensity of the gas plant, and billions of dollars of wind power gives no benefit in emissions reduction. [2] uses an engineering model for gas plant emissions intensity [3] to account for this.

There are other problems with [1] discussed in [2], but the key failure is to avoid comparing emissions and cost for the gas only option with the gas + wind option when the enhanced emissions intensity of the gas plant is correctly accounted for. I do not believe you have been well served by your consultants.

What role then is wind power playing in the Scenario? In other market sectors we would call it greenwashing. We do not stand for greenwashing when used for soap powders or cosmetics. Why should we stand for greenwashing when used in power generation?

For comparison, [2] also considers nuclear power on the assumption of a mature nuclear sector in this country. Nuclear power cuts deeper and cheaper into emissions than either CCGT or CCGT + wind. I appreciate that nuclear power will be anathema to many in your organization. This does not remove the responsibility for giving that option detailed and objective consideration, or for advancing it if analysis indicates it is the best option.

I have reviewed the makeup of your Board as detailed on your website. I do not doubt their capabilities or integrity. However, I do not see representation that covers power system engineering. It is now clear that the overarching environmental issue of our time is energy, and how we get it. Environmental advocacy that is to be effective in its aims necessarily requires sound decision making ability in the area of energy, including engineering infrastructure for generation and transmission. Your Hazelwood campaign is a case in point.

I would therefore urge your organization to seek representation of these skills at Board level, in the form of a director with experience in electricity generation, electricity transmission, and operation of the Australian electricity market.

Any such Board candidate should be able to make decisions free of influence from the coal, gas and nuclear industries. Equally, though perhaps not so obviously, they should also be able to make decisions free of influence from the renewable power industry. As the critique of the Green Energy Markets report illustrates, renewable power is not always the right choice, and nuclear power is not always the wrong choice.

The GEM report is presently under discussion at

Replacing Hazelwood coal-fired power station – Critique of Environment Victoria report

Your participation in this discussion would be most welcome.

I fervently hope you achieve a result with your Replace Hazelwood campaign, and I trust you will recognize the positive intent behind this letter. I hope you will consider your options more widely than those in the GEM brief, and that you will seek experienced oversight from your Board on matters of energy infrastructure and power engineering.

Yours sincerely, etc. + refs.

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I wonder if just a few stark facts will linger in the public’s mind along the lines of;

1.6 GW mixed gas generators construction cost $0.5 bn. Estimated first year fuel cost $500m. Fuel cost in tenth year $800m. Annual CO2 emissions 8 million tonnes.

1.6 GW 3rd gen nuclear construction cost $10bn
Estimated first year fuel cost $65m. Fuel cost in tenth year $80m. Annual CO2 emissions negligible.

I’ve assumed the gas will run at full capacity at 60% thermal efficiency with gas costing initially $6 per GJ increasing at 5% annually. The nuclear running costs are from WNA. The idea is to convince people that the initially appealing gas option is like getting money from a loan shark, it’s not such a good deal.

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Surely you don’t still REALLY believe all the AGW nonsense do you? I suppose it’s either live the lie or lose the meal ticket.

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Billy Liar …

You aren’t supposed to post off-topic. Your invitation to dance should be in an open thread like Open Thread 4.

Please observe the rules.

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Douglas Wise,

I have thought some more about your points 3 and 5.

3) You suggest that you have relied partly on Hawkin’s Master-resource in your calculations of extra emissions consequent upon using gas in back-up mode. However, presumably because they seemed too good to be true in terms of making your case, you decided to be conservative and to halve them. This strikes me as illogical. If you are going to cite a non peer reviewed source, you might as well rely on it. What was the scientific basis for halving it (why not cut it by three quarters)? If you are attempting to demonstrate that official or quasi official documents are flawed, you may have to get better evidence. I am not necessarily doubting its validity. It is the credibility that concerns me.

Further to my earlier reply https://bravenewclimate.com/2010/05/29/replacing-hazelwood-coal/#comment-70158 , Kent Hawkins’s new post, which provides more empirical evidence in support of the calculator, had not been posted when I wrote the paper. Although more studies are needed to validate the Calculator, I expect it may provide the best estimate currently available of the emissions caused by firming wind. I also need to point out that I simply applied the figures in Kent Hawkins example case, Table 2 here http://www.masterresource.org/2010/02/wind-integration-incremental-emissions-from-back-up-generation-cycling-part-v-calculator-update . A more detailed analysis would enter actual NEM data for wind power production, such as capacity factors in high wind and low wind periods, proportion of CCGT and OCGT operating in high wind and low wind periods, and other inputs. I didn’t do any of this. That would be done in a more detailed study than I felt was required for this critique. My purpose was simply to point out that the study had not been done properly. I am hoping the critique will raise awareness of the problems of the greenwash bias in the government departments and the effect such bias is having on policy and ultimately on energy costs. I hope enough people will raise a fuss to cause governments to do such studies objectively and without greenwash bias in future. One of the main reasons electricity prices are rising so fast is because of the irrational, greenwash energy policies we have been implementing for at least two decades. For readers’ interest, if I had not halved the emissions intensities given Kent Hawkins Table ??, the figures in Table 3 of the article above would change to:

;;Revised Scenario 1;CCGT only
Capital cost; $ million; $7,045; $1,913
Electricity cost; $/MWh; $110; $55
Emissions avoided per year; kt CO2/a; 11,703; 11,834
Emissions avoided per MWh; t CO2/MWh; 1.11; 1.12
Avoidance Cost; $/t CO2 avoided; $72; $22

5) Your report is essentially a critique of another report. As such, it would be better if it remained as such and left out the nuclear section. I suppose you could add (in words, not numbers) that your conclusions demonstrate that wind is not viable without fossil fuel back up; that , when used with back-up, it doesn’t reduce emissions significantly more that when gas is used alone; that it will be expensive. You could therefore conclude that the only remaining clean options (based on affordability and reliability) are nuclear and CCS coal with the former being technology ready and cheaper.

My article has a higher aim than just “a critique of another report”. The main aim is to highlight the greenwash bias that is endemic in the governments’ environment departments. Highlighting the anti-nuclear bias is part of this. Having said that, I agree that selecting figures for nuclear costs without providing sufficient background as to why these particular set of figures were selected may weaken the argument. If I was going to use costs for nuclear which figures should I use? Should I use the costs that nuclear could and should be if we removed all disincentives, market distortions, etc? Or should I use, established but high cost European figures, as I did? Or should I use even higher costs for ‘first-of-a-kind’ in a country such as for the newly contracted UAE nuclear power station?

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Peter,
If you assume only 1500MW of wind capacity (500MW average) is going to replace 1300MW average of Hazelwood, you have to have a very high capacity factor for NG power. This would appear to be uneconomic( because of the price of NG) and a poor use of OCGT resources( best for providing <8h of daily peak power).
My suggestion would be to replace 1500MW peak output with 1100MW of OCGT and 3300MW of wind dispersed along the SW coast of VIC and SE coast of SA( along existing 300MW transmission lines that can be easily upgraded), in TAS near existing hydro transmission lines, and southern highlands of NSW and VIC near existing Snowy hydro transmission lines. This would give 1100MW average from wind, so OCGT power would run at 200/1100=18% capacity. We may need less than 1100MW of back-up for wind because of the present need to have back-up for Hazelwood.
The issue would be how much wind would be shed during high wind events occurring at off-peak periods(1-5am) when the remaining coal-fired plants on the aemo grid are operating at lowest output. In TAS the wind output would just replace hydro consumption, leaving more hydro for export during peak times.
This would have to substantially drop CO2 emissions from the 100% OCGT/CCGT scenario.

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Considering the Environment Victoria report’s recommendation to invest $4-5 billion dollars in wind on top of $2b for gas but with no additional reduction in greenhouse gas emissions, I am reminded of an old slogan from the Franklin Dam campaign circa 1981, directed at the Tasmanian Hydroelectric Commission:

“HEC: Power without purpose”

That seems to be very descriptive of the wind contribution.

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Peter Lalor,
Your appeal to the “ex cathedra” defence quoted some of the most prominent suspects in the CAGW farce.

Bill Old’s question remains unanswered.

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Peter Lang (31st May, 10.08):

Thanks for your further reply. I would like to explain the background that has led me to question the strategy that you are adopting. First, I should emphasise that I don’t consider that, at present levels of technology, there is any hope for a realistic solution to peak oil and global warming (short of rapid mass human die off) other than nuclear fission. Further, wind is a non scaleable and expensive distraction. Thus, on the apparent facts of the case, you have convinced me. However, the people who matter remain to be convinced. How to do so?

I recently received a response from a senior politician in the UK, responsible for shadowing energy policy, to whom I had made the pro nuclear, anti wind case. He responded by stating that it was an unfortunate fact that many advocates of a particular energy solution tended to try and rubbish alternatives. He went on to state that it was evident that no single approach would work and that we needed to deploy all available technologies. He totally failed to deal with “”the level playing field” point that I had raised and it remains government policy to subsidise renewables but not nuclear.

In other words, my advocacy was a spectacular failure. I suspect that a politician, particularly one approaching an election, will try to be all things to all men. Obviously, therefore, a little bit of everything should garner maximum votes. On reflection,I think that I should have avoided any judgement with respect to wind versus nuclear and, instead, argued solely on the “level playing field” basis. (I appreciate that, in Australia with no nuclear in the energy mix, the situation is different).

I suspect that you will have to demonstrate the futility and huge expense of the wind/solar approach before you get much traction for nuclear. Thus, I see advantage for you in keeping the anti renewable and pro nuclear cases separate. Public disillusion with the former may be the best way to get support for the latter. Thus, the Kent Hawkins’ calculator , validated with real data, may be the optimum way forward.

I discussed the high cost of wind energy with David Mackay a couple of years ago. At that time, he responded by saying that , as far as he was aware, publications intimated that wind and nuclear were equivalent but that solar, wave and tidal were much more expensive. At that stage, he clearly hadn’t thought about the extra emissions and expense created by wind firming or shadowing He went on to become chief scientific advisor at the deparment of energy and climate change. I don’t know whether, in light of refined data, he has altered his view. In his new position, he became somewhat unapproachable and, though I sent him links to your work and that of Kent Hawkins, I received no response. Perhaps, he never received my communication. It seems to me that he is/was (I don’t know whether he has been retained by the present government) precisely the sort of person who would be persuadable by good scientific data, who would be in an excellent position to initiate real time validation studies and who might be able to influence his political masters.

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The article above has been edited to correct the error pointed out by Wilful. A revised pdf version is posted https://bravenewclimate.files.wordpress.com/2010/05/plang_hazelwood_replacement_with_appendices_v2.pdf.

My sincere apologies to all for the mistake. Especially my apoligies to John Morgan who wrote an excellent letter to Environment Victoria to further the cause. https://bravenewclimate.com/2010/05/29/replacing-hazelwood-coal/#comment-70159. John, you letter is still excellent. Not wasted.

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On timelines I believe nothing will happen by end 2012. Federally we may have an ALP-Greens coalition but that won’t change anything if Tasmania is anything to go by. I expect a gaggle of new wind farm building probably not even the promised ‘offset’ for desal let alone replacing other coal met energy demands.

I understand the Vic govt wants to keep Hazelwood until 2031. I suggest that the price ratio natural gas: brown coal is probably now something like 10:1 for equivalent energy. By 2030 that price disparity could be more like 30:1 due the abundance of brown coal, looming shortages of gas in south eastern Australia and the absence of carbon taxes.

So here’s a potted future history assuming NP remains unacceptable.
2010 -2020 State and Federal govts do nothing about replacing Hazelwood. Token wind build plus new small gas plants. High emissions continue while electricity prices climb.
2020 local gas is now far too expensive for baseload. Global weather is chaotic.
2020 -2030 yelling and screaming then fade out.

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Terry Krieg, thats a great comparison: Australians as ignorant and uneducated about nuclear power as Americans are ignorant and uneducated about the need for of “a national health scheme that covers the entire population for basic health care”. By the way, the Canadian health system is far better than ours (IMO) – hopefully I can win a few brownie points from for that acknowledgement. :)

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The capital cost in previous post should be $ billion.

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Yes Peter Lang, the Canadian health scheme is superior to ours. We imported our scheme from them. Which begs the question, why did Hilary Clinton send a delegation to Australia to check our scheme when she was first lady. She should have sent the delegation over the border to Canada.They would have saved heaps on travel costs. And still, even after Obama has made some improvements, they still can’t get it right for all of the people. It’s shameful that the world’s number one nation cannot look after the health of all of its people. It’s a b——-y disgrace.

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If you want to know who the Vic Government listen to for energy policy, well it’s not cut and dried, but the most influential players are, in broad terms:
CFMEU
Dept Treasury and Finance resources and infrastructure branch (couple of climate change denialists in there (though this is not the Vic Govt position or views of Ministers))
Dept Primary Industries Energy Policy branch.

Beyond that you’ll get weak players such as Office of Climate Change, Sustainability Vic and Dept of Sustainability and Environment.

Beyond that you’ll get NGOs, but they are pretty readily ignored except when ALP internal polling suggest they should be listened to.

Environemtn Victoria, along with the ACF, isn’t terribly effectual.

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Peter Lang:

In view of my earlier comments about David Mackay, I thought I’d check out his website. Since I last looked, he has posted what he descibes as a consensus energy plan to take the UK forward to 2050. It can be found on http://www.inference.phy.cam.ac.uk/mackay by clicking on “Plan C” pdf.

If you have the time, I’d value your opinion. it made me queasy. He starts with the assumption that, by 2050, our per capita use of energy will fall by 46%. The then primary sources of energy are specified in approximately the following ratios: nuclear 1.2; renewables1 (of which wind =50%, rest wave/tide plus biomass plus imported solar).

The intermittency of renewables will not be a problem because they will effectively be shadowed by pumped hydro (current capacity increased), flexible use of heat pumps and batteries in electric vehicles. So says our chief scientific advisor on energy.

Do you have access to any figures that might immediately demonstrate why this consensus lacks sense other than the obvious ones of expense and optimism about efficiency? Arguments relating to emissions reduction aren’t immediately helpful if no emissions are envisaged in the first place.

I’m not sure that Mackay isn’t playing a game that he is inviting people to join. His “consensus” plan lays out the limits to what is theoretically achievable from each energy source but not what is economically optimum. For all I know, he would welcome the demolition of the plan. His deparment is loaded with civil servants, each responsible for promoting separate renewables technologies. The nuclear ones are split between those encouraging new nuclear, those worrying about waste and yet more concerned with proliferation prevention and are probably all at loggerheads. None of the three ministers in charge has any scientific background. I suppose this chaotic shambles exists in other nations.

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Thanks DV8. Pleased to hear that Hilary C did look at the Canadian health scheme. The entire Congress should have been compelled to go and check it out.

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The grass is always greener on the other side of the fence. I can remember years back when there were cries to institute the Australian Royal Flying Doctor Service in the Canadian North.

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Douglas Wise,

I can’t find the DM article you referred to. Could you please post the link to the article.

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Douglas Wise,

Overall I do think David Mackay’s ‘Plan C’ is fairly reasonable, but make these comments as I go through.

He assumes UK’s average power (i.e. energy consumption) for transport and heat will be cut from 200GW today to 125GW in 2050. The plan does not taking into account any increase in population, not the projected 8 fold increase in GDP (or whatever the GDP projections are)?

In projecting a reduction in overall energy use, has DM allowed for all the unknown new energy demands that will spring up? This is where economists and green activists often differ. Green activists think only of improving efficiency of existing technologies. Economists look at long term trends and notice that energy consumption has increased at a rate over the long term. No one can predict what new technologies will become common in the future and demand more energy. I will give more weight to the economists’ than to the optimists, enthusiasts, and scientists projections of future energy consumption. I’ve been through all this optimistic projections of improving energy efficiency and declining electricity consumption before. We went through it in the early 1990’s with the Ecologically Sustainable Development working groups and ABARE modelling. The economists were correct. I remember the discussions between those promoting renewable energy and efficiency as the great white hope as opposed to those with a real world understanding of the industries and economics. The latter proved correct. The others were in ‘fantasy land’.

In Figure 1.2 I see no allowance for the new, but currently unknown, sources of demand. No mention of desalination. Perhaps UK won’t need it, but we will.

Figure 1.4 states: the pumped storage systems would compensate for the wind variations, I think he hasn’t calculated how much storage would be needed to firm wind power (see the discussion on the ‘Pumped-hydro …’ thread).

1. Efficiency measures. Obviously, we take all the low-hanging fruit. We provide mandatory free building insulation for all old buildings. We install smart meters that engage and inform building users. We switch all building lighting to LEDs, or equally efficient alternatives, by 2050. We promote car clubs, public transport, cycling, and walking. We promote “reduce, reuse, recycle” everywhere they make sense.

Australia has just tried what was supposed to be the lowest of the low hanging fruit, building insulation (our infamous “pink bats” home insulation program). The CO2 avoidance cost of that program is $200/t CO2 avoided. Some low hanging fruit that is!! (Sarcasm alert) We also tried in the 1990’s to do improve the energy efficiency of existing buildings with massive government funding. Little is viable.

We’ve been encouraging people to walk and “hop on their bike” forever. Few take any notice. Public transport: yep we’ve been talking the talk on that for decades too. Dream world stuff.

10. 100GWp will produce 30GW on average. This amount of wind would be roughly a 35-fold increase over 2009 levels.

I cannot see how sufficient storage and transmission capacity can be provided, economically, to make wind power viable.

11. … five new pumped storage facilities would be created – perhaps one in Wales (new build) and four in Scotland (by conversion of existing hydro facilities). Each would be similar in scale to Dinorwig with a peak output of 2GW, and preferably storing a little more energy than Dinorwig, say 40GWh each.

By “storing a little more energy than Dinorwig, say 40GWh each” David Mackay means storing four times as much as Dinorwig. Dinorwig’s storage capacity is about 10GWh. 40 GWh is four times Dinorwig’s capacity and twice the total capacity of all Australia’s pumped-hydro plants. David Mackay envisages five new plants with each one equal to twice Australia’s total capacity. Where? And at what cost? What is the cost of the transmission lines from the power stations to the pumped hydro plants in Wales and Scotland and then to the main demand centres? (Nuclear can be located near the demand centres)

14. Nuclear. New stations are built at a rate of 2.2GW per year, the first
stations coming on line in 2018. By 2050 Britain would have 70GW
of nuclear power – roughly what France has today. This sustained
build rate (2.2GW per year) is similar to the historical build rate in
France (3GW per year).

Now we’ve go to the nub of this Plan. And this exposes just how biased against nuclear and in favour of renewables this plan is. David Mackay is assuming a rate of new build for nuclear over the next 40 years which is less than France achieved three to four decades ago. In fact, just 70% of what was achieved three to four decades ago using superseded, Gen II technology. UK could easily double or quadruple the build rate France achieved in the 1970’s and 1980’s. The cost of nuclear will be far less than renewables. It seems clear to me that the rational approach will be to double or triple the nuclear build rate and subsidise a little renewable energy on the side to keep the hippies happy.

16. Fluctuations of renewables and of demand; smart grids and storage. Both wind power and nuclear power have difficulties tracking demand. (Modern nuclear power stations can be turned down, but they give the best economic return on investment if they are left on all the time.)

That is nonsense. Wind power cannot track demand. Nuclear can. It just has to be designed to do so, as the European EPR is. It is a little more costly for nuclear to be built to track demand, but much less so than what we’d need to go to make intermittent renewables capable of tracking demand. And the limited potential pumped-hydro capacity we have is far more valuable when matched with nuclear than with intermittent renewable energy sources (refer to the discussion on the Pumped Hydro thread for more on this).

Without smart demand management, the expansion of wind and nuclear
will not work.

I understand that statement as applied to wind but do not see why it is true for nuclear. I do agree we need smart grid anyway, especially for battery and heat storage.

There is lots of good stuff in David Mackay’s Plan C. The main thing I do not believe he has correct is the proportion of our energy that will be provided by renewables by 2050. I expect renewables may provide around 10%, nuclear 80% and fossil fuels around 10% by 2050.

An uncosted plan is no plan at all. This is totally uncosted. It is dream world stuff by a scientist. The engineers need to be involved to estimate the cost of Plan C

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David Wise,

My rough cost estimate above does not include these costs:

1. Higher cost of offshore wind and solar thermal from deserts

2. higher costs of the other renewables

3. cost of smart grid and implementing the energy efficiency plans

4. energy storage for renewables (e.g. the pumped hydro)

It is obvious to me that the ‘nuclear only’ option is far less cost than the options that have a large renewables component. Now I am wondering if David Mackay’s argument for forced major improvements in energy efficiency is also irrational. Would it be cheaper to simply provide the power that people want, using nuclear power, rather than force massive energy efficiency improvements? Could we instead simply allow energy efficiency improvements to occur over time as the market dictates For example, when new buildings are constructed they can incorporate the optimum energy efficiency practices current at the time. But we would not make massive retrofitting of existing buildings except where it is economic to do so.

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One thing David Mackay’s ‘Plan C’ http://www.inference.phy.cam.ac.uk/sustainable/book/tex/PlanC.pdf and the Hazelwood analysis make very clear is that for the past three or four decades the electricity industry has been prevented from making rational decisions by irrational public beliefs and constraints on the industry. We are going to pay now. These analyses show this. The question is: when are we going to become rational?

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Peter Lang:

I’ve been mulling over why David Mackay saw fit to produce his so-called consensus plan for a UK energy solution to add to his previous list of 5 other plans, one of which was his “Plan E” where E stood for economy. One possibilty is that Plan C was produced after he joined the Ministry and the other plans before. For interest, I set out below the comparison (expressed in kWh/person/day) between E and C. I have expressed the comparison in percentage terms such that each totals approximately 100. However, it should be noted that Plan C allows each citizen a mere 67.8 kWh/person/day while Plan E would have provided a princely value of 70. In the column below, the percentage of each technology’s contribution places E first and C second:

Nuclear 62.9 41.3
Wind 5.7 17.7
Pumped heat 17.1 19.2
Wood 7.1 5.9
Waste 1.6 1.6
Tide `1.0 5.5
Biofuels 2.9 0.0
Solar hot water 1.4 1.5
Hydro 0.3 0.3
Desert solar 0.0 5.9
Clean coal 0.0 1.8
Wave 0.0 0.4
PV 0.0 0.4

What can be learned from this comparison? Has Mackay got his tongue in cheek or has his new position forced him to appreciate that there is no correlation between economic and political reality? Nuclear has taken a bit hit in Plan C yet its most obvious replacement , clean coal, is a very minor contributor. The big winners appear to be wind (mainly expensive offshore), tide and, even more bizarrely, imported solar from North Africa.

There is no question in my mind that David Mackay is extremely intelligent and has made a great contribution to the energy debate by demanding that realistic numbers are used in place of words. However, I’m not sure whether his avoidance of economics is deliberate or reflects lack of interest or knowledge. His numbers relate to the theoretically possible from a scientific but not an economic perspective.

Peter, you highlighted one very important statement that was made in the Plan C preamble. Mackay gave the impression that nuclear expansion could not be rolled out any faster than that envisaged in the new Plan. But this represents a 36.3% reduction from the E Plan. What has happened to change Mackay’s thinking since he became a “Ministry Man”? Are there any real constraints other than political? What about lack of labour skills or large steel forging capabilities or too many competing purchasers?

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Douglas Wise,

I suspect ‘political correctness’ is having a big part to play.

I don’t accept the constraints of labour and manufacturing plants given we are talking a period of 40 years. If UK could gear up to fight WWII 70 years ago, surely it could build nuclear plants now if it wanted to. The delay is due to the lack of want.

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Neil,

I understand what David Mackay is saying about the energy efficiency improvements. I left that aside and focused only on the alternatives to supply the electrical energy (and power when ever demanded) that he lists. I did a really simple calculation of the cost of David Mackay’s Plan C and a nuclear only option (some pumped hydro would reduce the cost of this option). For Plan C, I costed all renewables at the rate of the least cost renewable option – on-shore wind power. So the estimate for the renewables option is a substantial underestimate.

I think you are getting lost in the details of the energy calculations and missing the point. The point is that the ‘nuclear only’ option provides reliable power at about half the cost of Plan C. So I wonder why anyone would advocate renewables.

Your post suggests a few misunderstandings. You imply Australia has 20,000 GWh of pumped-hydro energy storage. No, we have about 20 GWh, not 20,000 GWh.

If you are thinking you can total the storage in all the hydro sites and consider them as pumped hydro storage then that is a complete misunderstanding. We need large storage for hydro to level out the inflows over periods of decades. With the storage we have Snowy Hydro has a capacity factor of about 14%. If we had less storage, the capacity factor would be lower during long dry periods.

Snowy Hydro is very valuable despite the low capacity factor. It provides very high value power because it is available on demand, with very short response time, and large amount of power can be provided almost immediately to compensate for failures in the electricity generation system, or sudden changes of demand.

Our total hydro storage cannot be considered as available to back up for intermittent renewables. Only new pumped hydro, designed and built with variable speed pump turbines, should be considered as storage for wind power. The cost should be attributed to wind power, as should the waste of the valuable asset. The few pumped hydro sites we do have should not be wasted on backing-up for intermittent renewables.

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As a novice, I want to know why geo-thermal didn’t rate a mention in the discussion about baseload. I hope one of the key contributors from last year glances back at this and can elucidate for me.
I learnt a lot from reading the discussion – thanks

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