No more excuses for sloppy, inaccurate language. How can you run a country with falsehoods?
Hydropower is a generator. Pumped Hydro is giant appliance that sucks electricity and gives you back some later. In a system with reliable baseload generators it is superfluous, redundant, and entirely unnecessary. It is an expense we don’t have to have, didn’t need, and don’t want to pay for. It can only make things more expensive than the system we used to have. Not only do we have to pay for the giant infrastructure, every day it operates we also throw away 20 – 30% of the electrons (so to speak) that go through it.
Scott Morrison says it’s only $1.4 b from the taxpayer, but the total cost may be $4 billion, and as Judith Sloan says, someone’s got to pay — if not through taxes, it will be added to electricity prices. The Snowy Corp may “self fund” it (a deceptively nice way to put it), but they won’t be donating the money.
And the Snowy Corp couldn’t “self-fund” it from electricity bills if they weren’t already so ridiculously high. If we had enough coal power to keep electricity as inexpensive as it was a few years ago no one would buy this non-competitive supply.
Let’s be clear about the economics of this project: it rests on very high and variable wholesale electricity prices. Water can be pumped up the hill when prices are low and released when prices are high. That might be a good deal for the corporation, but it’s not a good deal for consumers. — Judith Sloan
Let’s be absolutely clear, this is entirely a Renewables Expense
The cost of any storage should be henceforth added to the cost of Wind and Solar Power. No one should say Wind power is cheaper than coal — unless they’ve added in the cost to make it reliable (like coal power is) — add on the costs of the batteries, the interconnectors, the pumped hydro. Let’s compare apples to apples.
Lets remind ourselves why we are spending up to $4,000 million dollars — we’re trying to stop bad weather
This is pure superstition money — we think that buying expensive electricity will stop droughts and floods and if we only pay enough penance to the Climate Gods the weather will get nicer. Follow the money trail, there is a chain of profit-makers living off our pagan fear. If our conservative major party sells out the voters out to the likes of Vestas, GE, Siemens, the EU and the UN and a bunch of B-grade bullies and grant troughing scientists, no wonder their polls are so dismal.
Let a real conservative party take their place or hope the Liberals can be reborn.
h/t Ian
It is essentially an exercise in applying arbitrage to electricity prices, buy cheap sell when expensive. It is not a system designed to help the consumer.
320
The problem with this arbitrage is that eventually it will even itself out and there’ll be no margin in it to meet the depreciation and amortization costs associated with the monstrosity.
That may happen even faster if the reliable power generators (coal and gas) close down and are not replaced with new coal-fired capacity.
50
Well he’s blown it with me. The 2 worst policies of Turnbull, Subs & pumped Snowy just confirmed.
We might as well have left Turnbull in the job.
50
We are locked and loaded into a high cost electricity supply. No going back now after this expenditure, it’s just “deal with it” time.
I don’t buy the Libs 24% target. Once the wheels of intermittent energy are in the market, it snowballs to 80%. No one is building coal, just solar and wind. We are seeing the market respond like this already. Libs are just as bad as Greens. Just more naïve perhaps.
00
It’s all about votes. Morrison is desperate. Green votes can be up to 20% and he needs to be seen to be doing something himself which costs a fortune and achieves nothing, which appears to the be the whole point of Climate Change/Global Warming. Everything is fake.
491
But we will not pick up green votes, ever.
This is what is so ridiculous about his stance.
The votes he needs are the ones lost by Turnbull,
and pandering to the green agenda will just drive more of those away.
481
typo fix…..But he will not
80
There were good reasons Turnbull broke all traditions and stalled until Morrison beat Peter Dutton.
If Turnbull has any ambition left, it is to get rid of Abbott. Only Abbott was absolute and called Climate Change crap.
The left of politics are still absolutely desperate to destroy Abbott and will spare no expense. While he remains in parliament
he is a threat to the Climate Change billions. Morrison is trying to please everyone, a middle of the roader guaranteed only to become roadkill.
511
Well then, Morrison needs to keep Abbott in Parliament to take the heat.
30
Kelly was gone. Morrison rescued him. Kelly is #2 on the ABC/Fairfax/Greens/Labor Climate hate list.
50
Andy
This fishing for voters needs the right equipment and the right skills and I don’t think this will get many.
Reminds me of a report by Jennifer Marohasy a while back on the status of Murray cod.
A research crew with mega-dollars worth of gear hadn’t been able to catch any, while commercial fishermen nearby were catching tons nearby.
One of the local papers ran the headline “Good Cod!” on their report.
130
This fishing for voters needs the right bait.
70
off curse he wont but he may influence Lib voter dithers without enough brain cells to know its all BS
70
It is beyond stupidity that people of the ‘Right’ think they can woo Green Votes.
You can’t.
People who believe in ‘Green Issues’ already vote Green. If you honestly want to gain their votes you need to go full Green and that brings us to the basic rule – you cannot expand your support base at the expense of your core.
Your core supporters support you because of what you are. You change that to try and attract new supporters and you end up pleasing no one. Your core gets dark because they believe you no longer listen to them and the ‘new’ supporters see it as tokenism.
It would be like being some AFL bigwig trying to expand the game who latched onto the idea that Rugby and Soccer fans don’t like AFL because the playing area is the wrong size and shape. Hench the way to gain the support of these Rugby and Soccer people is to play AFL on a rugby sized field. You are going to impress no one. The AFL purists are not going to be happy because it is not AFL and the non AFL fans are going to wonder what the drokk they are watching.
You want to improve your support, you talk your strengths up, not water them down.
Morrison should be leading with wall to wall baseload power driven from thermal powerstations heated by burning the Paris Agreement, not trying to be ALP-X.
80
Beyond stupidity it is. and the coalition in NSW is riding for a hiding because in chasing the 10% who vote Greens they have given away 50% of their policy base.
The electorate doesn’t believe that they stand for anything!
50
Our Goulburn/Murray irrigators are paying $5k/ML for a water licence and $500/ML for temporary water and we have a proposal to pump water back up the hill so we can be raped with high electricity prices all to satify somebody in the EU with whom we don’t do much business because they charge us WTO rates on tarrifs!
This is the shortest way to lose 20% of your base vote I have yet seen.
330
Yep.
90
Seems to me the worst fakery is that the raison d’etre for the whole shebang is a vain attempt to prevent severe weather eg droughts and floods ..but to do it their clever plan is to make Australia 100% dependent on the reliability of the element of climate that they say is becoming more unreliable and more severe every year…the weather.
So they’re telling us that we’ve only got about 12 years left [ so sez Ocasio-Cortez and the other very smart striking schoolchildren] to kill coal and all fossil fuels and make our country 100% dependent on ever more unreliable weather-dependent intermittents..before the unreliable and more severe weather we MUST make ourselves 100% reliant on …finally…irrevocably does us in.
100
And this is why the present government with their insane energy policy needs booting out, to bring ina new LabGreen government that is even more insane. Then when the catastrophe of highly unreliable electricity supply hits the public we may be able to turn things around. Until that point is reached the slowly boiling frogs will just keep on complaining and nothing sensible will be done.
130
Robdel: are you advocating crashing the system as badly as possible so that it can be properly rebooted?
If it works, then that’s all well and good. But, if it doesn’t work, what then?
(It won’t affect me, I’m on the other side of the Tasman Sea—with a different set of problems but with similarly devout believers in witchcraft and magic—but I can see, even from this distance, that such shock tactics may have something in them, though for everybody’s sake, think it through thoroughly first!)
30
Yes I am advocating a complete crash followed by a complete renewal of the political system. I feel I am in an asylum now run by inmates and ignoramuses, so things must change drastically.
51
Yes I am advocating a complete crash followed by a complete renewal of the political system. I feel I am in an asylum now run by inmates and ignoramuses, so things must change drastically.
20
He may as well be proposing bandaids for a shot to the head.
The only real choice is don’t get shot or die, and when you’ve got that covered, disarm the assailant.
Appeasing The Greens and their kin in Labor and Liberal only works for as long as you have enough citizens to betray.
After you have misrepresented every last one of them into poverty, all you have left is your 30 pieces of silver and a persistent, uneasy feeling each night while you try to sleep, hoping the proles can no longer afford those pitchforks they’ll be wanting.
70
The problem is, you cant have green Communism and capitalism in the same space – you have to crush communism to get rid of it , or it will do us in.
Simples….
50
:
It’s snakes and ladders, without any ladders!
30
He will pick up a few fence sitters that will fall into his paddock.
A lot of conservatives will be digging a tunnel to, anywhere but here.
30
Well it is. It generates untold millions for the renewables industry.
270
????
50
Who will benefit from this scheme? Who benefits from windmills and solar panels?
150
bemused
More on that
“There is a lovely Latin phrase, “Cui bono?”, that helps to unravel crimes and other situations in our lives. “Cui bono?” means “Who benefits?”. If you are looking at a crime, someone benefits from it. And if you can figure out who that is, it points you in the direction of understanding what’s going on.”
https://rosebyanyothernameblog.wordpress.com/2019/01/08/cui-bono/
Though Willis was applying it to a different subject
70
Fake power.
110
The Regressives resurrected windmills. Pumping water up hill courtesy of free wind and sun smacks of the centuries old obsession with perpetual motion, the ignorant delusion of something for nothing, wastage, inefficiency and failure in plain sight.
What is new?
Certainly not the rank ideological centred stupidity.
80
Don’t worry! She’ll be right, mate!
We’re going to use all of the enormous excess energy generated to transmute Lead into Gold to pay for all of the subsidies needed to maintain this grotesque boondoggle.
40
Free wind? Water will be pumped uphill by free coal. All to try to justify building useless privately owned windmills at public expense.
90
Our system is already broken. The only ways to fix it AFAIK are to tear up a heap of contracts with alphabet soup names [won’t be done] OR build Snowy 2.
I am not defending our system or the madness that got us here, just being pragmatic. If our goal is a cheap, reliable grid then we can’t get there from here.
BTW Pumped hydro works in Norway but they have a lot of hydro already so I assume the capital cost was not high and European electricity costs vary widely with the Danes and Germans having installed so many windmills.
71
Yep. The Norway model works because their neighbours have plenty of wind-power to ditch at cheap times. Of course, green Norway would be nowhere without fossil fuel sales and tree-chopping…but they’ll prefer to talk about their pumped hydro running on other people’s wind. (Not so easy for Oz to feast from the off-casts of PNG, NZ and New Caledonia, while South Australia is still trying to build a better canoe…)
220
South Australia, not so good at building canoes but ve-ery good at building gravy-trains.
271
and submarines apparently, but not Holdens or Mitsubishis
110
It’s a colossus of inefficiency and wastage … for no reason other than ideology.
Just consider the massive energy loss in numerous energy transitions.
There’s a twisted parallel with battery powered electrick cars that haul around 30% of their kerb side mass as perpetual dead weight battery (>1000lbs dead weight for a Tesla 3).
Green ideology is a squandering colossus of purposeless waste.
110
Hanrahan:
Norway doesn’t have ANY pumped storage. All they do is shut down their turbines as the surge of cheap** electricity comes in from Germany (via Denmark).
Sweden has ONE plant but they also get electricity from Germany so they don’t operate it.
** Very cheap, sometimes they are PAID to use it.
50
Cheapest way to reduce costs is to bring back Hazelwood.
511
Pretty sure they blew that one up within the first week of decommissioning. And I’m pretty confident they were thinking something like: “well if that’s how they want to be, we’ll make sure they can’t change their minds later”.
110
Not blown up.
As I recall the components were sold over seas.
However still an excellent site for a new HELE power plant. The coal is still there.
Morrison could spend some of the Climate Change Fund money there as it would save CO2 compared with the old power plant.
210
And upgrade Liddell.
140
Liddell desperately needs this if it is to be viable beyond the planned closure date. It has almost certainly already been derated as it has not run beyond 84% capacity for the entire year, even when there have been very hot, high demand periods.
AGL are doing a stellar job of running the plant on minimal maintenance with the intention of imminent total failure on the day of decommissioning.
80
I believe the process of destruction of Hazelwood is well past the point of no return.
No power station is to be mothballed, all are to be destroyed.
The only thing that can be done with the Hazelwood site is to build another coal station there as it has a coal mine, a cooling pond and power lines although they are talking of turning the mine into a lake.
They have found an excuse to destroy the cooling pondage as well.
http://engie.com.au/media/UploadedDocuments/News/22-2-19/Hazelwood%20Pondage%20-%20Media%20Statement.pdf
Mine destruction is well underway.
http://engie.com.au/hazelwood-closure/Latest-News
It is a scorched earth policy. Soon there will be no evidence of a past that had a cheap, reliable generator.
Orwell prophesised:
Every record has been destroyed or falsified, every book has been rewritten, every picture has been repainted, every statue and street and building has been renamed, every date has been altered. And that process is continuing day by day and minute by minute. History has stopped. Nothing exists except an endless present in which the Party is always right. I know, of course, that the past is falsified, but it would never be possible for me to prove it, even when I did the falsification myself. After the thing is done, no evidence ever remains. The only evidence is inside my own mind, and I don’t know with any certainty that any other human being shares my memories.
240
A Canticle for Liebowitz…
60
I really liked that book.
60
Yes Nuclearise Hazelwood 😉
60
Hazelwood would also be a good nuclear site because of existing power lines, a site that is not too close or too far away from the nearest major city (Melbourne), the possibility of a cooling pond, plus waste could be disposed of on site in the mine pit.
110
I drove past Hazelwood in August 2018. At that time there were a few cars and staff, not much activity, and no sign of things being removed. But I could not see inside. The site was being maintained in the sense it was clean.
It doesn’t mean a lot but certainly there were no outward signs of demolition, just a security crew. As far as I could tell, the outside transmission lines, car parks, security fences, were intact.
https://s3.amazonaws.com/jo.nova/photo/myshots/man-made/electricity/coal/hazelwood-jo-nova_-m-8050.jpg
https://s3.amazonaws.com/jo.nova/photo/myshots/man-made/electricity/coal/aug-2018-0002-m.jpg
I have more shots and larger ones if anyone can make anything of it. I don’t know that it’s much help.
A couple of bigger ones. 1.5Mb
https://s3.amazonaws.com/jo.nova/photo/myshots/man-made/electricity/coal/IMG_8056.JPG
https://s3.amazonaws.com/jo.nova/photo/myshots/man-made/electricity/coal/IMG_8059.JPG
100
Yes, nuclear coupled with pump storage does have its merits. I used to rock climb in the old Dinorwig Slate Quarries on the flanks of Elidir Fawr in Snowdonia in the early 80s. At the time a massive cavern was being mined under Elidir Fawr to house a pump storage unit which used the night-time surplus from the two magnox reactors on the isle of Anglesea. There was no artificial stacking of power prices in those days yet the scheme paid itself off.
It’s not only about storage of energy though I think Dinorwig holds nearly 10 gigawatt hours, but it’s about providing electricity to the grid during transient demand spikes such as TV ad breaks when people turn on kettles. It also reduces the requirement for the grid to maintain a coal unit as a “spinning reserve”. Dinorwig has a neat function where they purge air from the turbines, spin them up to speed using grid electricity and then open the valves from the high storage lake. In this way they can hit full phase-matched power inside 2 minutes.
Of course, nuclear is more expensive than coal and super high temp modern coal units are superior in many respects to standard reactors. We could do well to develop a high temp nuclear reactor using liquid helium coolant.
My father worked out a reasonable waste glassification process based on the data the French gave him but all that info was put through the shredder when the UK AEA (reactor design team) was dissolved.
Right now the obvious answer is a new coal unit at Hazelwood and at Mt Piper NSW where a plot of land has already been allocated.
Politicians could do well to advertise the stupidity of Au restricting coal burning when at the same time we are selling huge volumes of coal to Chinese power plants. It seems okay for them to “pollute” but not for us. We used to be the lucky country but in reality Australia is the Dummy Country.
50
Quillette has an interesting article by Michael Shellenberger (an ex-believer in renewables, still a carbon dioxide worrier) about nuclear power and how he came to understand that it was the best choice for the future.
https://quillette.com/2019/02/27/why-renewables-cant-save-the-planet/
30
Bringing back Hazelwood would do nothing to reduce cost. All intermittent generators have priority access to the market and nearly all their potential energy is sent to the market. Coal has to follow demand above what is met by wind and solar.
All wind and solar energy garners transfer payments in the form of income from LGCs and STCs above the wholesale price ruling at the time of delivery.
80
Do the ‘coal haters’ put up with gas? Im not sure. Can Hazelwood be converted to gas? Huntly in NZ, North Is, was many years ago.
20
Who, exactly, is going to fund the invasion of the Peoples’ Republic of Victoriastan in order for that to ever happen?
Be much cheaper to build some new coal in NSW & QLD and some nuke facilities in the West (and a big, BIG wall on the Murray).
60
Don’t knock the PRoV.
Vive la révolution.
We the proletariat have struggled to defeat the oppressive exploitation of the bourgeoisie.
We have…?? we have…..??
Mmmm.
Can you leave a gate in the wall for me?
20
The wall is easily breached by way of IQ test.
Question 1: Do you adhere to the Church of CAGW?
I say leave the cult in place and secure the border – let it die out naturally.
20
Who, exactly, is going to fund the invasion of the Peoples’ Republic of Victoriastan .. the CIA of course, Victoriastan needs a colour revolution. sarc.
10
Another way is to add two 500 MW units to the existing two at Loy Yang B. The Station was designed for four units and has the station common plant, coal, cooling water etc. already in place.
Another possibility would add one 500 MW gas fired unit to Newport’s existing 500 MW station. It was designed and built as a 1,000 MW two unit station but the second unit was not installed due to Union pressure, but most of the common facilities for a two unit station exist. The turbo generator for the cancelled unit was installed as Unit 1 at Loy Yang A.
90
Traditionally pumped storage was a way of keeping the coal fired units ticking over at a fairly efficient level during off-peak load periods. So ,ideally , the water should be pumped uphill by coal fired generation. Scomo and his crew know this but are reluctant to admit it. Comparing 2.0 with the SA Tesla device is misleading. The big battery is more about smoothing out short term load fluctuations than providing peak load supply. Too many lawyers inParliamnent and not enough engineers and the like.
370
Too many self-serving idiots in Parliament.
270
“Too many weights and not enough speed work…”
60
Lawyers no dip squat about anything engineering or science thats why they believe the hype thrown at them every day by the ‘agenda’ fools.
30
It works like this: Build wind and solar generators to meet say 50% of average demand of 24 GW. But wind and solar are intermittent, not average – they go from 0-60% of nameplate capacity. So to supply 12 GW average they must have a total nameplate capacity of about 48 GW. Therefore, on occasion they will deliver 29 GW. Therefore generation must be restricted, or build a very big store – batteries or pumped hydro. For pumped hydro, buy when surplus, sell when demand is high and production is low.
And when wind/solar deliver zero, what to do? Must have 100% dispatchable generators on standby to meet peak demand. So now we have over 80 GW of installed capacity (300% of average demand) – what a waste, all caused by the imposition of renewable energy targets.
270
HOW MUCH WILL IT COST?
The Minerals Council has suggested “clean coal” power plants like a 1000 megawatt HELE (high-efficiency, low-emissions) or ultrasupercritical coal-fired power station could be built for as little as $2.2 billion.
However, others have disputed this figure, saying it does not include project development, finance and legal fees and interest costs during construction.
As Ben Potter wrote in the Australian Financial Review, “Australia is famous for delay and ‘lawfare’, so this is a big exclusion”.
He believes the cost would be more likely to mimic expenses in the United States, where the country’s only HELE plant took six years to build and cost $US1.8 billion ($AU2.3 billion) for 60 MW a decade ago, due to civil cases and regulation. This would bring the figure closer to $US3 billion ($AU3.9 billion) for a 1000 MW plant.
In comparison, Malcolm Turnbull has suggested an extension to the Snowy Hydro scheme which is estimated to cost up to $AU4.5 billion for up to 2000 MW of power. It will be fully operational after eight years.
80
Forced acquisition of Liddell from AGL, for what they paid for it.
Upgrade Liddell to 2 or 4 units of HELE or ultra critical.
141
Tony reported weeks ago that Bayswater and Mt.Piper were already planned for upgrading and additional generator units.
120
More the merrier 🙂
50
Announced about a year ago. All 4 turbines will be replaced but it will only increase their output by about 25MW each (so a 100MW upgrade for the station).
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-02-28/agl-announces-$200-million-upgrade-at-bayswater-power-station/9491800
http://www.planningportal.nsw.gov.au/major-projects/project/3616
And amazing how the ABC pulled in an “expert”, Chris Dunstan (a research director at Sydney’s Institute for Sustainable Futures at UTS), who managed to spin the looming shortfall as a “need to move away from coal as quickly as we can”
It only took the NSW Department of Planning and Environment 7 MONTHS to approve the upgrade.
https://www.planning.nsw.gov.au/News/2018/200-Million-Upgrade-to-Bayswater-Power-Station-Approved
100
Sorry, my addled mind forget that there are 12 months in a year – the approval period was 9 MONTHS.
30
The previous posts were for Bayswater.
Mt Piper will by “upgraded” by adding a 27MW “energy recovery project” – a garbage burning boiler
https://utilitymagazine.com.au/mt-piper-power-station-proceeds-to-the-next-stage/
https://arena.gov.au/projects/energy-recovery-feasibility-study-mt-piper-power-station/
This all reminds me of a statement made by Professor David MacKay when assessing people turning off chargers and appliances in homes rather than leaving them on standby
https://www.withouthotair.com/c19/page_114.shtml
70
It would cost 2 billion for security to handle all the green loonies laying on the road and chaining themselves to trucks.
90
Last year Vietnam signed contracts with 3 companies (one from Germany) for HELE stations on Green Field sites. Average cost was close to $A2.8 billion.
70
He’s busy trying to appease the green lefties and alienate further his own base .
190
That certainly seem to be the case. Sad. !
He needs to WIN votes, and there are no votes to be won by pandering to the far-left.
Labor and Green will always hold those votes.
190
Yeah, it’s pretty silly. But the light bulbs and the oiler subs and reef foundation which had more board members than staff…they were pretty silly too.
But we have to consider all the not-so-silly people – Italian instead of French this time! – who might be very happy to help out with this latest white elephant boondoggle. Think they wouldn’t be colossal admirers of Malcolm Turnbull?
80
Apparently Snowy Hydro had little interest in Snowy 2.0 until Turnbull started backing the idea.
I think the pollies desperately hope for some reflected glory from the “nation building” Snowy scheme.
It was a genuine hydro scheme with irrigation.
I think a lot of the public have been misled into thinking Snowy 2 is as well.
110
I understand that the Snowy Mountains Scheme included the now called Snowy 2 system but it was rejected for not being cost effective.
80
Here’s an assessment by Peter Lang from 2010. I seriously doubt many of his conclusions are not relevant to the Snowy 2 proposal. Also note the issue of the long water column inertia which means it won’t be any use for rapid response when the wind suddenly dies – it’s a baseload extender and the watermelons are adamant that baseload requirements are a myth.
https://bravenewclimate.com/2010/04/05/pumped-hydro-system-cost/
90
For the calculators.
(No inefficiencies allowed for.)
To store 1kWh (3.6 Mj).
You would need to raise 1000l of water 367m.
80
Annual evaporation rates in the snowy mountains is between 1.4 and 1.6 metres per annum.
We will have extended droughts during it operational life.
If one of these lasts 10 years that’s 14 – 16 metres of water storage lost
Probably another 20 – 40% more as evaporation rates during droughts are higher than the average.
Source is BOM S own website
50
Here’s another equation for hydro systems:
power (watts) = head (metres) x flow (litres per second) x gravity (9.8 metres per second squared) x efficiency factor
20
I have now become a poet
I always was,
but didn’t know it
Here is my first big poem
I know, I need to work on the title.
Ode to the energy cycle (and loses) in a gravitational potential system.(Hydropower)
In an electron I begin,
With a lot more,
all fenced in.
The gate is open
were on the run
fast as the light
from the sun.
up ahead,
in a coil we slow
as the magnetic flux
it grows
free of the electron
with out despair
I push a magnetic
that is my pair.
now part of the magnet
that does spin
I turn an impeller
as part of my thing
Pressing the water
with all my might
I now take a journey
up a pipe.
Against gravity
with its force
I maintan my
present course
Relaxing now
in a sea of height
awaiting my time
for my flight
here I go
I’m off again
down a pipe
like a speeding train
against an impeller
I do push
around it goes
with a great big swoosh
I’ve finish my journey
I’m a bit worn out
for what I’ve lost
It does make me pout.
30
As I said, make the pumping operate ONLY off renewable electricity supply, wind and solar.
It should NOT be a PARASITE on the coal fired grid.
120
Coal does not ramp efficiently. Thus, the idea is to use cheap power via coal (or whatever) to pump water up. Use the water to produce energy when demand-price is high and the spread earns a profit.
High cost wind and solar do not work in this equation.
If there is not a source of cheap (coal) power then the math doesn’t work and the project is nothing more than a white elephant.
140
Actually we never really have excess unreliables. Any storage works in FAVOUR of fossil fuel generators because they allow these generators to work at more constant loads, which coal boilers love, because there is a steadier market.
51
100 Mw in, 80Mw out.
That’s what I call efficiency.
70
Twice as good as the nameplate vs actuals for wind and solar
40
No way, no how.
Snowy 2.0 just uses energy generated at non-peak (low cost) times, for feeding back into the grid during peak (high cost) times. It is a big wet battery that smooths out prices.
It does “save” a portion of any excess power generated. But its hard to see how solar and wind generators dont sell everything they produce at current demand prices given their massive subsidies, unless they are just storing it for selling into peaks – the market speculation story.
But like most markets, the secondary industry is already out there to buy low, store it, then sell high; thereby flattening out the price curve. People are already privately setting up battery farms. When that fully happens, Snowy 2.0 will be redundant.
When looked at on an energy in – energy out basis, Snowy 2.0 will consume energy. Liddell does not. Simple as that.
130
It would make more sense if it was used as a storage for wind and solar energy, to level out the erratic nature of those pseudo-supplies.
I thought that was what it was meant to be.
Instead it looks like being just another parasite dependent on the COAL fired supply grid.
RIDICULOUS !!!
140
From an above link, intersting example
The REAL costs
‘ As estimated in a report commissioned by EIA, the overnight cost to construct a pumped hydroelectric plant is about $5,600/kW, higher than the $3,100/kW for a conventional hydroelectric plant. A conventional natural gas combustion turbine, which might be used to supply the peak daytime power added by the pumped storage plant, is $1,000/kW, though hydroelectric operating costs are much lower than those of a combustion turbine.’
from the us all $USD.
40
Interesting figures with pumped hydro plants being 50% more expensive than straight hydroelectric.
10
Also that system is pumped by power from an existing hydro lake, NOT unreliables or coal. So its a hydro storage come backup.
10
I read it as the construction cost of each system and you then have to put running costs on top, so the additional pumping cost may be local hydro, as you say, or off peak from another supplier.
KK
00
Readers might be interested in an example of pumped storage.
In this link, scroll down until you see the photo with the circular reservoir.
https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=6910
Here’s a YouTube drone view of the project:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6OI-gv6w240
The dam in the valley is called ‘Kin-zoo’ but spelled Kinzua.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kinzua_Dam
My father’s family is from the town of Warren, just 10 km downstream from the dam.
50
Hi John,
A neat looking arrangement.
One of the most obvious statements missing is about the use of the energy potential of water in the main dam. There’s no mention of it being used in the production of electricity, it’s all run from the off peak, nominally “surplus” power.
One of the diagrams shows that the linked dirty fossil fuel plant has been shaded over.
In the end there are many ways to power electricity generation but the main issues should be cost, availability and quality of supply.
This quality aspect seems to be rearing its ugly head over many areas which have “unprecedented” voltage and frequency irregularities associated with renewables.
It would be wonderful if one day we were able to take the politics out of science and engineering but things being what they are, it seems a long way off.
KK
60
Hi K K,
The primary purpose, and the funding, for Kinzua was flood control. The local Natives were not impressed.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cornplanter
See the part about moving. A member of the tribe worked in my family’s restaurant (prior me).
The project did/has provided much in the way of recreation.
I’ve no knowledge of how well the project has performed.
However, it is an interesting example, and it has been there for a long time.
20
I’m sure that all of the advisors in our PMs orbit are paid to specifically NOT tell him of the real costings of electricity from different sources.
KK
120
While this might be so, if the guy is too thick to figure this out on his own then, unfortunately, he is too stupid to be PM (or should that be, precisely stupid enough).
50
I mentioned in the weekend thread that due to the forecast synoptic patterns, the wholesale electricity price for South Australia would be worth watching this week, as temperatures increase and winds ease, particularly Friday afternoon/early evening.
Well the AEMO agrees with me only they project that Victoria will be affected as well and that it will start on Thursday evening. It makes sense that with Victoria being the interconnection for South Australia to the rest of the Australian grid, when Victoria experiences a generation shortfall then South Australia will be clobbered as well. It’s too bad that Victoria can’t charge South Australia a premium for the interconnector flows when their local generation is inadequate (ie whenever the wind drops out and it’s hot).
https://www.aemo.com.au/Electricity/National-Electricity-Market-NEM/Data-dashboard
60
The AEMO dashboard has been updated with the forecast demand and pricing for Friday, and it’s now looking like another BILLION A$ week for Victorian and South Australian electricity wholesalers. Good luck with the Federal Government getting them to keep rates down!
https://www.aemo.com.au/Electricity/National-Electricity-Market-NEM/Data-dashboard#price-demand
20
The cost forecast for Snowy 2.0 make interesting reading.
In true fashion, Turnbull estimated the project cost at $2bn.
The real costs look like Build Cost $3.8-4.5 bn, $1.5-2.5bn for transmission line upgrades, which means the stand alone project estimate is now $5.3-7.0bn.
On top of that, the federal government has to purchase the Vic and NSW government’s share of Snowy Hydro for $6bn, so as to get Snowy 2.0 through.
Its $12bn all up – for a battery. Wow!
Shades of the Labor desalination plant fiasco – $20bn for nothing!
110
Listened to Wendy Harmer and Robbie Buck ABC breakfast show the other morning talking about this very subject; I think that they fancy themselves as climate comedians or other – what a laugh!! Wendy sounds as though she’s permenantly commotosed and as for Buck well his IQ is lower than Wendy’s and between them they wouldn’t make two hundred! Tells you somthing about ABC listeners I guess.
Disclaimer for myself, after 15 mins I stopped listening as they gave me an ‘upset tummie’ and I had to make a dash for the dunny.
In reality their knowledge on the matter is limited to green brainwashing and a massive dose of ABC political correctness. I did think of ringing in and explaining that Snowy Hydro 2 or whatever, is only a glorified rechargeable battery (you know Wendy, like that little black thing inside your mobile phone). Well as it turnes out I didn’t have time (dash to the toilet remember) anyways, with their superior ABC intellect they would have laughed me off air! Just as well I suppose. And would they have understood? Probably not. Enoough bad enough to make a fool of myself here on Jo’s blog but at least I’m among friends. ps I don’t recommend their show.
GeoffW
100
Always worth trying as long as you don’t expect people to be curious or polite. Put your armor on, smile and stay civil, and thank you for getting in there.
It does get to group thinkers if calm, unflappable people keep explaining the basics. No man alone can turn them, but a group…
70
I be very surprised if it even gets to 70% efficiency, especially with the extra transmission distance.
100
Is there an election on the horizon?
Is this a plan to buy votes?
Will it get built?
110
Also
Scott Morrison heads to Tasmania to support ‘battery of the nation’ plan
This stunt will require the shut down of quite a few coal fired generators.
Will it get build?
110
Will it get Built?
We can only hope not.
It won’t happen if the Australian Conservatives get a balance of power block in the Senate.
Vote as best you can in the Lower house seats but consider Australian Conservatives in the Senate.
Australian Conservatives are opposed to all subsidies for electricity suppliers, large or small scale.
130
Both leaders are crisscrossing the country promising anything they think the votes might like. Economically this all is nonsense.
I’m waiting for The Australian to tally up the Labor party’s promises, and The Age to do the same for the LNP, although this probably will have to wait for the ‘official’ campaign launch.
And yeah, I meant built
92
I will, I will!
Off tonight to hear Jordan B Peterson at Southbank.
Viva free speech.
100
How much are you paying?
20
No matter how much he is paying, it is an exchange of values with free choice.
That is the important thing.
If you want to know how much, check out the net.
You’re mute attempt at a free shot was not missed, just a bit churlish.
40
well duh. It was a joke
00
OK Gee Aye
It’s Just that many of Peterson detractors, unable to compete on an intellectual level, adopt the ad hominem tactic of attacking how much money he makes, which is a bit boorish.
I could assume you are a bit more sophisticated than that, but after the “Well duh” rebuke, i’m not to sure.
30
Will it get Built?
We can only hope not.
It won’t happen if the Australian Conservatives get a balance of power block in the Senate.
Vote as best you can in the Lower house seats but consider Australian Conservatives in the Senate.
Australian Conservatives are opposed to all subsidies for electricity suppliers, large or small scale.
80
#
But will they have the guts to stand on this policy WITH NO SURRENDER even if it brings down the government, or will they follow the tradition of caving in at the slightest opposition. Remember .you were elected on the basis of your policies.
40
I love the “battery of the nation ” PR. 500MW if the push it, much more at pfffft!
mmmmm, double it 1GW is they push it? how long will water last at that rate? didnt they have problems over driving what they had? havent the loony greens stopped them from storing more water? hav ethey dynamited that gas plant yet? surely they dont need it
60
Basslink allows Tasmania to conserve perched water. All hydro helps coal run more consistently because it readily accommodates the ups and downs of intermittents. Without the hydro the coal plants would be ramping more and that increases costs.
Tasmania typically imports power through majority of any day and exports through afternoon and early evening to meet peak demand on the mainland. Last night Basslink changed from export to import at 8pm. It started exporting at 2:30pm so only 5.5 hours of export yesterday. Export will probably be longer today because Melbourne is forecast to be hot overnight. More import means the State can conserve perched water.
Any existing hydro infrastructure that can be used to accommodate the ups and down of intermittents is a lower cost option for new generation compared with new coal. Tasmania is the only existing hydro that is not already fully exploited.
10
‘Is this a plan to buy votes?’
It won’t work unless he adds Hele, real baseload power.
50
“Is this a plan to buy votes?”
Will more likely loose votes.
50
“How can you run a country with falsehoods?”
When do politicians run a country any other way?
120
The science is clear on this, and quite settled. Pumped storage is a net consumer of energy. Read this next part carefully – it reveals the scam of pumped storage clearly. It is most easily understood as equivalent to pumping water back up over the dam to let it generate electricity a second time around. It is that absurd.
It costs more in energy to pump water uphill than is reclaimed by passing it though generators on the way down a second time.
It does this one thing very well – it consumes off-peak energy at night which is released as high cost energy during the day. It competes intentionally with off-peak users to drive up the cost of off-peak energy. That is the goal – cut the losses of selling power at off-peak prices by creating an artificial off-peak demand.
100
not so sure really, we are in an era of over supplied excessive generation as well as off peak
30
Good point.
10
Joanne says this in her text: (my bolding here)
Think about this for a minute.
I use the U.S. as an example, because we started later than they did.
Back at the end of WW2, the U.S. had many many hundreds of tiddlers, small 10MW coal fired Units dotted all over the Country, because that’s all they thought they could get out of the current technology in the mid forties, and power generation and consumption was localised.
Then the technology improved and just kept on improving, the generators especially, and from that, the driving turbines, and then back from that all the way to the coal feeder.
Now able to ‘push’ vast amounts of power over distances, generators improved up to 500MW to 700MW by the mid 70s, and with 4 Units at the one plant, there was 2000MW plus at the one site, able to be transmitted vast distances. Power got cheaper and cheaper and cheaper.
It was a careful planning task, where to site those plants, so there was the minimum number of them, and the minimum transmission capability.
Some of those ‘tiddlers’ were kept on as rolling, spinning, or running reserve, for when they were needed to supplement Units off line for maintenance.
Now, we have introduced thousands (wind towers) of individual units, and millions (rooftop installations) of individual units, and just added them to the existing ‘poles and wires’.
We have turned something simple, reliable, efficient, and working well, into something so that is now so complex that it is becoming unwieldy.
No wonder the cost has gone up ….. exponentially in reality.
We copied what the U.S. did, and it worked well, and now all they can do is to find ways of making it even more complex.
And the people driving the change, politics, and green interest groups have absolutely no clue whatsoever, thinking that an electron coming out of that proverbial ‘hole in the wall’ is the same, no matter where it comes from.
Well, they aren’t!
That’s a lesson still to be learned.
Tony.
371
yeah and it’s coming. There’s been a real push of late about our capability to achieve 100% renewable power generation by 2030. That coal is on the way out. Well that’s only “11 years” away. And SO MANY people believe it.
There’s going to be some heartache.
80
I’m interested in your opinion on this article, partly reproduced from Catallaxy files, especially the System Levelised cost of Electricity. I don’t think the links work.
“It’s all insane but nevermind, we have this motley crew telling us, “Cost-effective, clean, reliable grid: “You can have it all,” says Zibelman. (Read it and weep as they intend to scale up the disaster). The motley crew clearly doesn’t know the first thing about electrical power engineering but may have to learn at their peril bit by bit as they try to bend the laws of Physics”.
“Re LCOE, yes it is the System LCOE that matters. See here for an article on this subject about a talk that was given last year on the System Levelised Cost of Electricity by Dr Robert Barr AM to AIE Sydney on October 16 2018.Ignore the first pages and go to page 7. This shows the direction in which we are heading – to $250/MWh and that’s just AEMO’s neutral case from their Integrated System Plan that Ziebelman talks about which is more than double the current price. And that price could (and in my guess would) be easily exceeded, that is if we ever get anywhere near the end goals.
So as for Snowy 2.0 reducing power prices, the only retort is bollocks”. HT Delta Catallaxy.
40
We call things like Uphill Snowy silly and blatantly wasteful and we ask why our leaders don’t get it. But they do get it. The trouble is, they either live in fear of the globalist elites (Scomo?) or they form part of those elites (Turnbull!). You wouldn’t want to be found guilty of eating a raw onion while drinking a Grange found on your back step, would you?
The climate beat-up is the best and sharpest weapon in a program of de-industrialisation. That’s what it’s for. Some countries are first up for the chop (Oz!), some like Germany can go on a bit longer provided they lay out an expensive decor of renewables. The reason the climatariat couldn’t care less how many resources, including fossil fuels, get wasted is simple: this was never for a moment about CO2, and it was certainly never about conservation.
You don’t have to buy everything he’s selling, but Piers Corbyn, brother of the “joyless ideologue”, gives an insight…https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1qmU4vT1uF0
150
“Economists Are Like Weathermen
February 27, 2019
Kate
It’s Probably Nothing 2 Comments
They’re better at predicting the past than the future.”
http://www.smalldeadanimals.com/index.php/2019/02/27/economists-are-like-the-weather-man/
30
26 Feb: RenewEconomy: Giles Parkinson: Network’s message to Canberra: The energy transition is happening now
The first thing to note about the results presentation from Australia’s biggest network operator, Spark Infrastructure, is that it is title(d) “Future Energy” and it does not include a picture of a coal fired generator. Or a gas plant.
Instead, it is solar panels. And in case anyone listening to the presentation broadcast, CEO Rick Francis made it clear: “This (clean energy transition) is happening now, irrespective of the policy uncertainty.”
Which is to say that the conservative media and the Coalition government can shout all they want, but they can’t prevent what is inevitable – the exit of ageing, highly polluting coal generators and their replacement with the cheapest option – a mix of renewables and storage.
Spark – whose interests extend from the Transgrid transmission company to distributed networks in Victoria and South Australia – says it understands this and is ready for this transition.
It is hooking up dozens and dozens of large scale wind and solar projects, various storage proposals, and numerous rooftop solar installations, as well as technologies that help “smooth” the output and impacts of renewables on the grid…
GRAPH
This graph illustrates just how quickly this transition is likely to take place. It is from the “neutral” scenario of the Australian Energy Market Operator’s integrated System Plan, and shows a rapid switch from the remaining fossil fuel generators to a mix of wind, solar, hydro and other forms of storage and distributed generation. Remember, this is just the ‘neutral case.”…READ ON
https://reneweconomy.com.au/networks-message-to-canberra-the-energy-transition-is-happening-now-99249/
21
so because someone does or doesnt use a picture of something in a presentation, that is proof of that something being doomed. Pure genius Giles. When I was a corporate powerpoint plonker , I never knew I wielded so much power.
50
Wrt LNP and others this seems to fit here too
“Old Mother nature as described by Jed Clampett”
https://www.redpowermagazine.com/forums/topic/119844-old-mother-nature-as-described-by-jed-clampett/
30
26 Feb: Reuters: Australia clears way for massive hydropower expansion
Australia’s conservative government approved A$1.38 billion ($989.46 million) for a huge expansion of the state-owned power generator Snowy Hydro to back up wind and solar power, ahead of an election in which climate and energy policy will be hot-button issues.
The A$4 billion expansion is needed to shore up Australia’s power supply as aging coal-fired plants shut over the next few decades. The plan was pushed by former Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull, who touted it as Australia’s biggest renewable energy project since Snowy Hydro was first built…
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-australia-hydro/australia-clears-way-for-massive-hydropower-expansion-idUSKCN1QE2OF
41
This nation and the West in general has lost its way. No point arguing about it. All the signs are there for those with eyes to see and ears to hear. The best one can do is prepare for the crash and burn as best one can. Any common sense and logical response to the crisis at hand is for the voters at the next election to dump both major parties like a hot potato, at least to send a loud and clear message. Of course it’s not going to happen that way as most people are still asleep, aloof or just plain stupid. It will be business as usual as we slide down into the abyss. That’s reality.
90
“It’s worse than we thought!”
Seriously though PeterS nobody is showing any sign of waking up to what is happening and the smart money is saying we’ll sink silently without trace. Learn to love it I guess…
50
Climate change alarmists are escalating their efforts to demonise many aspects of our Western lifestyle and foundations. They are even now proposing that companies disclose how much they are allegedly causing CAGW to scare investors away. This is just one of many of their deliberate attempts to destroy the West and only the West. Other parts of the world are left to do their own thing, including building hundreds and hundreds of new coal fired power stations. The West is not allowed to continue with them and is being punished for daring to have coal fired power stations at all. The CAGW crowd are evil and will help to bring down the West unless peoples of the Western nations wake up. I doubt that will happen in time though and in any case the West is declining rapidly in a couple of other ways, which I won’t go into detail here.
50
They will wake up when the lights go out.
10
No, they won’t. If anyone was going to wake up, it would have happened by now.
There will be legions of happy zombies, all gathered around a diminishing candle, smugly content that they are not committing the hate-crime of using electric lighting.
50
Terry the lights have not gone out yet. I meant on a semipermanent way, not the very occasional blackout
10
26 Feb: MySunshineCoast: CleanCo: Queensland’s newest electricity generator
by Sonali Paul
Press release: Minister for Natural Resources, Mines and Energy, The Honourable Dr Anthony Lynham
The Palaszczuk Government’s support for renewable energy and the jobs it generates is continuing after legislation to create CleanCo was introduced to parliament today.
Energy Minister Anthony Lynham said Queensland’s new publicly-owned generator would be all Queensland and all renewable.
The government, split over energy policy as its right wing backs coal, is eager to burnish its green credentials as it faces challenges in key Liberal seats from independents pressing for more aggressive action on climate change.
Snowy will add 2,000 megawatts (MW) of power generation through so-called pumped hydro, which acts like a huge battery, pumping water uphill between two dams when there is cheap wind and solar power on the grid, and releasing that energy when the wind eases and the sun goes down.
“This will be one of the largest pumped hydro projects in the world,” said Morrison. “Which not only reduces electricity prices and takes the pressure off electricity prices, but it creates the reliability of electricity supply.”…
Snowy last year said the expansion was justified as it would cost half as much as building the batteries and natural gas-fired power plants that would be needed to prevent blackouts in the mid-2020s, following the closure of some coal-fired plants…
“This is delivering on an election commitment and it will help drive down energy prices and support even more jobs in the renewable sector,” Dr Lynham said.
“Our support of the renewable energy sector means 4000 Queenslanders are now employed in these jobs.
“CleanCo will be fully operating with its own generation assets this year and that means more jobs for more Queenslanders…
“This third, publicly-owned generator will help to increase electricity supply, driving down prices and cementing reliable supply for households, business and industry.
“CleanCo will build, own, operate and maintain a portfolio of clean energy assets for the benefit of all Queenslanders.
“It’s a long-term structural reform to the energy market that will give Queenslanders maximum competition benefits and increase investment in renewables in the longer term as we head towards a renewable future.”
CleanCo’s foundation generation assets will be transferred from the other two publicly-owned energy GOCs: Wivenhoe near Ipswich, from CS Energy, and Stanwell Corporation’s Swanbank E gas-fired power station in the south-east and Barron Gorge, Kareeya and Koombooloomba hydro plants in Far North Queensland.
Dr Lynham said CleanCo was key to the Palaszczuk Government’s strategy to create jobs and business opportunities in an export-orientated renewable energy sector.
“Queensland has seen 21 large-scale renewable energy projects commence operations in just over two years, and we have another $2.5 billion worth of investment on the books.
“Queensland consumers have taken up our renewable programs enthusiastically, with more than 2000 applications to my department for our latest interest-free loans and grants for solar and batteries.
“By keeping our electricity assets in public hands, we can deliver Queenslanders the cheapest power, the most reliable supply, and a steady transition to renewable energy and a strong renewables sector.”
Today’s bill, when passed, will ensure…READ ON
https://mysunshinecoast.com.au/news/news-display/cleanco-queenslands-newest-electricity-generator,58352
20
News
« Back
New Solar Farm Development Application Shines A light on Jobs
A DEVELOPMENT application to construct a large solar power plant at Harlin in the Somerset region, has today been given the green light by Council.
Somerset Regional Council conditionally approved the 1500 megawatt farm to be constructed over two stages on a 2,055 hectare site east of Harlin on the D’Aguilar Highway.
The facility is proposed to be staffed seven days per week with up to 60 permanent staff. During construction, this solar farm has the potential to create up to 200 jobs.
Somerset Mayor Graeme Lehmann said the solar farm, once completed, would be Australia’s largest.
“This was a complex development application put together by Ethos Urban planning consultants, who have been involved in other large infrastructure projects throughout Australia, on behalf of Sunshine Energy Australia Pty Ltd,” Cr Lehmann said.
“This application has been referred to various government departments and agencies for their input and Council approved the development in line with our planning scheme which allows for such developments in rural areas.”
Cr Lehmann said Council had taken into account concerns raised by submitters during the public consultation phase and had addressed these concerns, where possible, by implementing conditions on the development application to offset these.
“For example, where residents were concerned about the solar farm being seen from the D’Aguilar Highway, we’ve requested that trees be planted along the fenceline,” he said.
“We’ve also increased offsets and stipulated that solar panels cannot be installed within 100 metres of a neighbouring property.
“We have also requested that a year after construction and operation that developers review the impact of glare and if there is an impact on neighbouring properties that additional trees be planted or the tinting of windows is to occur.
“Further, Council has conditioned the development application so that no solar panels can be installed in the flood plain.
“These are just some of the conditions we’ve placed on the developers to ensure we’re addressing the concerns of residents, where possible.”
Cr Lehmann said it was important for residents to remember that these types of proposals provide an opportunity to capitalise on an emerging market for renewable energy sources.
It is anticipated that construction of the solar farm will start mid-2019, will take up to three years to complete and be completed over two stages.
10
Cleanco means the turbos are now lit on Queensland electricity prices.
NSW has been slow to the party but a raft of promises form NSW State Labor is set to change that if elected:
Breakthrough renewables plan revealed
I expect the State government will match these.
10
meanwhile:
26 Feb: Hull Daily Mail: Drax returns to profit as annual earnings surge
The huge operator has switched from being a predominantly coal-fired operation to biomass in a decade’s journey, and is now piloting carbon capture as it looks to enhance its credentials further as the sector turns green.
And the base load security of supply offered by the raw material that is shipped in via Immingham and Hull to replace reliance on fossil fuel – together with the addition of gas assets and developments – is strategically positioning it to smooth the intermittent nature of wind and solar…
Posting earnings of £250 million, Will Gardiner, chief executive of Drax Group Plc, said: “Drax is now one of the leading generators of flexible, low carbon and renewable electricity in the UK. As the grid decarbonises, our ability to support intermittent renewables will become increasingly important as we strive to deliver our purpose of enabling a zero carbon, lower cost energy future…
The completed acquisition of ScottishPower Generation has accelerated the strategy, with the addition of a 2.6GW multi-site, multi-technology portfolio of pumped storage, hydro and gas…
Further highlights in the year included the successful low-cost conversion of a fourth biomass unit, with biomass now accounting for 75 per cent of generation compared to 65 per cent in 2017, with a third US biomass pellet plant commissioned, and fully operational…
LaSalle Bioenergy, a half a million tonne pellet capacity in Louisiana – helped Drax post a 64 per cent increase in production to 1.351 million tonnes, from 822,000 tonnes last year, with a 10 per cent cost reduction achieved. Further savings are to be achieved with a dedicated rail spur to support the link with Baton Rouge port facility, with commissioning this year, the penultimate step before the biomass arrives on the Humber.
Biomass availability hit 91 per cent, compared to 79 per cent in 2017…
https://www.humberbusiness.com/news/drax-returns-to-profit-as-annual/story-11537-detail/story
behind paywall:
26 Feb: UK Telegraph: Drax sees future in supporting ‘intermittent’ solar and wind power
By Chris Johnston
Drax now produces three quarters of its electricity from biomass as the electricity producer announced higher annual profits in a year that saw it buy generating assets from Scottish Power.
The FTSE 250 firm said it was now one of the UK’s leading generators of low carbon and renewable electricity, with four of its six units converted to burn compressed wood pellets from sustainably managed forests in the US rather than coal.
While Drax expects the UK’s power system to become increasingly dominated by wind and solar power, it said alternative supplies would still be needed when those forms were not available.
“Our ability to support intermittent renewables will become increasingly important,” said chief executive Will Gardiner, the former finance chief …
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2019/02/26/drax-sees-future-supporting-intermittent-solar-wind-power/
10
The staggering biomass lie that is Drax; for bald-faced effrontery you’ve got to hand it to the UK money men.
Ever on the lookout for the next wheeze they’ve copied Robert Hill’s RET idea into their Renewable Obligation exemplifying how the climate financier’s vocabulary drips with luvvie-targeting piety in its use of the key words “eligibility” and “obligation”.
40
Anyone who has burned wood and coal would have little difficulty in understanding the Drax lie.
Problem is that so few young people have actually seen either burn in their cooking stoves.
KK
30
behind paywall:
26 Feb: UK Times: Compensation bill mounts for failure of £1bn Western Link power line
by Mike Wade
The £1.1 billion underwater electricity cable linking Scotland with England and Wales has failed, leaving consumers to foot the bill for up to £2.4 million in compensation to windfarm companies.
The Western Link interconnector, developed for National Grid and Scottish Power Transmission, “tripped” a week ago and has been out of action while engineers investigate the cause.
Neither National Grid nor Scottish Power was prepared to identify the reason for the failure, but said that they would soon issue a “further update”.
The Western Link is a key element in the Scottish government’s renewable energy network, routing electricity to the rest of Britain and enabling energy imports when generation in Scotland is low.
Data collected by the Renewable Energy Foundation (REF), a charity which scrutinises the green energy market, shows that £2.4 million has been paid in “constraint payments” to wind-energy companies in the first week since the link went down. Operators of onshore wind farms receive these payments to power down turbines when electricity supply outstrips local demand and bottlenecks in the grid prevent exports. The money is paid out by the National Grid but is ultimately charged to consumers and added on to electricity bills…
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/d1a2f058-393c-11e9-a664-d81d3e2c8975
26 Feb: UK Times: CO2 emissions are falling in 18 countries
by Tom Whipple
Carbon emissions are in decline in 18 of the most developed countries and the reduction is greatest in those that have implemented renewable energy and energy efficiency policies, research has found.
However, part of the fall in the countries, which include Britain and the United States, can be explained by reduced demand after the 2008 economic crash
Even so, scientists said that the research, published in the journal Nature Climate Change, was a rare positive finding in relation to global warming. Carbon emissions were still rising overall, they said, but it showed that mitigation strategies could work.
“Our findings suggest that policies to tackle climate change are helping to decrease emissions in many countries,” Corinne Le Quéré, from the University of East Anglia, said…
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/e866b34c-394b-11e9-ac2f-7ff26270aa53
10
I reckon the politicians are just building a power source for parliament when the rest of Australia is enjoying green earth hour 24/7.
Parliament should be the first place enjoying earth hours when the sun doesn’t shine and the
El Niño-CO2 button is broken …Calm winds are hurting U.S. wind power producers.
“Blame El Nino.
While it’s a relativity weak one, the El Nino that’s formed in the equatorial Pacific Ocean still has enough heft to temper the gusts that typically roar through the U.S.’s wind belt and cause turbines to spin with abandon.”
https://burnmorecoal.com/2019/02/26/el-nino-causing-wind-to-fail/
40
New Mexico coal plant saved.
1,600 jobs and lowest-cost-producer of electricity… saved.
Congratulations to Farmington, NM.
https://burnmorecoal.com/2019/02/26/new-mexico-coal-plant-saved/
50
So does this mean we will have to shut down two instead of one of ours very soon to save the planet? After all the alarmists are proclaiming it’s urgent. If we only had a real PM with guts. We ought to be building a couple of new coal fired power stations by now instead we are still on course of closing them down. This nation is stuffed and not many people give a damn.
00
This scheme will be a huge white elephant of gigantic with ongoing losses that never end !!!
Reason being is that pumped hydro needs cheap constant baseload power to be economical. Historically, the cheap offpeak surplus baseload from coal-fired plants at night was stored and then used during peak demand the next day when the price was at a premuium. This economic model turns upside down with renewables. During the day when prices are still high due to high demand we have wind plus solar and at night we only have wind. This means we never have a low cost surplus power source from which to recharge the dams. When you consider the system return loss is around 30%, it’s unlikley that the price differential will ever be enough to pay for maintainence let alone provide a way of paying off the initial enormous investment cost.
The other issue here is the net loss of total grid capacity. When providing power, Snowy 2 will output around 2000MWH, however when recharging, it will drain more than 2500MWH from the grid. Currently, the grid is losing energy capacity every year as we remove continuous baseload coal power and replace it with ‘sometimes’ wind and solar power. Put simply, we will almost never have enough periods of surplus power to push the water back uphill.
This really is the beginning of the ultimate end game. The final image will be a dry dam, idle wind turbines at night and complete darkness across 6 states. And we’ll have payed billions for the privilege.
120
yes and the sooner the better so the path to sanity can be realised and taken
60
I agree with Jo.
However, in addition to storage (e.g., Snowy Hydro 2.0), which doubles the cost of renewables, we also should add the cost of connecting to transmission lines and decommissioning.
These transmission lines can be very long and CSIRO Report No. EP141067 (dated 2014) indicates that transmission lines could double the cost again for renewables, which is probably why they are not included in the levelized cost of renewables.
Renewables Summary: (2 x cost for storage) + (2 x cost for transmission) = 4 x cost of coal
70
But the Snowy already has transmission lines. Where’s the problem?
10
There are No trasmisssion lines in the area where the pumped Hydro system will be built.
So the cost of building them is part of the cost of the project.
31
Hanrahan and Bill
I was thinking about wind and solar that need the cost additional transmission lines and demolition to be added to their cost, which significantly increases their cost levelised cost.
Snowy 2.o is a storage option which would further increase the cost of renewables (see diagram).
10
OT just had a win with a lefty who was aghast at my non believing of CAGW , using the logic of Ian Plimer .
Greenie – usual guff about Co2
Me – what is the atomic weight of Co2
Greenie – no idea but what does that prove
Me – it proves you have no idea of what your talking about , you know nothing about Co2 and the only thing you know you’ve been told and believe without question .
Greenie – ok what is the atomic weight of Co2
Me – 44.01
Silence
81
Fine Robert. But why does it matter ?
I didn’t know that the atomic weight of carbon is 44.01 either.
And I have read Ian Plimer & agree with his thinking about CO2 – it’s harmless minor ingredient of the air.
In what sense was the silence significant ?
21
In my context the silence said there was nothing to come back with and I was right ,it’s all about what someone has been told and what they believe ,in essence a lie becoming a fact .
This guy isn’t your typical troll brainwashed get up wannabe and now is going to look and check facts or says he will .
As for you not knowing about the atomic weight of Co2 it makes no difference your not one of the brainwashed 97 percenters .
21
Not sure which is the worse idea, turning CO2 back into coal and burying it, as per the link, or capturing CO2 from the atmosphere and selling it to plant growers and soft drink manufacturers. At least with the CO2 that goes to plant growers, the plants turn it into leaves and oxygen. The CO2 that goes to soft drink manufacturers gets put into soft drinks and ends up back in the atmosphere
https://thenewdaily.com.au/news/world/2019/02/27/co2-coal-research/?utm_source=Adestra&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Morning%20News%20-%2020190227
41
Like the alarmist snobs that wont engage in climate debates as the know better, I refuse to even discuss carbon capture because it simply.does.not.matter
50
Maptram if you can capture enough Co2 and lower what’s in the atmosphere enough you have a license to print money .
50
Years ago when CCS was a new idea it was suggested that it could be stored in depleted oil wells [this is in the US]. Sounded like a good idea at the time but twenty years later it hasn’t happened. If the simplest idea has not attracted any interest, we can rule out the hard ones.
30
Posted this in previous article but goes as well here and more may see it.
CCS is probably not as “simple (/sarc)” as it seems. Since the oceans contain about 49 times as much CO2 as the atmosphere, by Henry’s Law, we would have to remove an amount equal to 50 parts per million in the atmosphere to achieve an actual reduction of 1 part per million. i.e. We need to remove the amount that would out-gas as the atmospheric concentration was reduced. To get from 400ppm back to 360ppm, we would have to sequester an amount almost equal to 5 times the CO2 currently in the atmosphere. Big job anyone?
40
G’Day Hanrahan,
The quaint idea of reusing depleted oil wells to pump thin air underground is just more ‘recycling’ bovine excreta from the science and engineering-proof green blob that proves they don’t have a clue about anything they are talking (at length) about.
There are problems with the integrity of depleted oil fields and the abandoned wells that penetrate the caprock that trapped the oil in the first place that risks CO2 leakage and an operator loses carbon (sic) credits (monopoly money) for sequestration in the event of leakage.
The reality of CCS is it that is less troublesome to sequester CO2 in new wells in saline aquifers than in depleted oil fields. But even then there is no business case unless we all pay the ‘price on carbon’ the green blob and associated parasites and vultures keep harping about; and no corporation is that well intentioned as to expensively pump thin air underground and lose money doing so.
In other words, Drax et al can waffle on all they want about carbon capture, but until some COP-off fest results in a globally binding price on CO2, which no one, even in the west, is quite stupid enough to agree to then CCS is just another green pipe-dream that will never amount to more than another very expensive, inconsequential token guesture.
30
A MUST-READ:
International Petroleum Week remarks by Saudi Aramco President and CEO
LONDON, United Kingdom, February 26, 2019
By Amin H. Nasser, Saudi Aramco President and CEO
Our industry should be proud of the pivotal and sustained contribution to the global economy and people’s lives, around the world, day after day for over a century.
Two billion more people today have access to ample, affordable, and reliable sources of energy than even just a generation ago. It has lifted them out of poverty, enabling them to enjoy the essentials of modern life that people in developed countries take for granted…
The scale required to achieve this is equally staggering and inspiring.
Last year alone, oil and liquids demand hit 100 million barrels per day for the first time in history.
And once again this inspirational industry rose to meet that demand – affordably and reliably.
Despite this historic success, there is a worrying and growing belief among policy makers and regulators, investment houses, NGOs, and many others that we are an industry with little or no future.
A recent survey revealed that the energy sector faces greater reputational challenges than any other.
The full extent was brought home to me when I was in Davos last month.
One senior financial figure I spoke to confidently predicted the end of our industry in about five years!
Another was slightly less pessimistic – but he speculated that most vehicles on the road would be electric in five to 10 years, when today they account for less than half a percent!
In other words, important stakeholders believe that the entire world will soon run on anything… but oil!
These views are not based on logic and facts, and are formed mostly in response to pressure and hype.
But they are sincerely held…
And our stakeholders are clearly tuning out.
They are not hearing us when we say that passenger vehicles are only 20% of the world’s oil demand.
Or that the remaining 80% is used by sectors like planes, ships, trucks, petrochemicals, and lubes for which there is no alternative yet and where demand for oil is expected to increase substantially.
They do not recognize a world where alternatives such as solar and wind, although growing rapidly (including in Saudi Arabia), still account for just 2% of primary energy demand today.
The intermittent nature of renewables does not seem to be a concern either, or the ongoing need for proven and reliable electricity generation capacity as back-up, much of it fueled by gas.
There is very little thought given to the massive global energy infrastructure that would need to be transformed in every corner of the world, costing trillions of dollars, bearing in mind under-developed countries that cannot afford expensive technologies.
And people gloss over the reality that today, in many countries, more electric vehicles means more coal-powered vehicles.
In fact, in some of the world’s most populated countries, up to three-quarters of electricity is generated by coal!
In other words, my encounters in Davos showed me that fewer and fewer of our stakeholders accept logic and facts, least of all from us.
We are therefore facing what I would call a crisis of perception…
And because it threatens our industry’s very relevance, it puts our ability to supply ample, reliable, and affordable energy to billions around the world at risk, which in turn risks their energy security…READ ALL
https://www.saudiaramco.com/en/news-media/speeches/2019/international-petroleum-week-2019
70
Thanks Pat. There’s far too few stories with these sensible numbers being put up for consideration. Politicians are addicted to stampeding populations to the next short term goal; maybe we should eliminate election campaigns and simply announce on a random Monday that people will be required to vote on the following Saturday.
70
As Lord Monckton would say.
It’s time to call a spade a spade.
KK
40
Spot on Jo.
Cheers
Speedy
40
Britain sent out Dam Busters, heavy bombers to wreck nationalsocialist power generators as part of the war effort. The same tactics–the continuation of war through politics–are why we call it Cold War. Totalitarians, committed to the initiation of deadly force as modus operandus, see reliable energy as an enemy defense asset to be wrecked. Surely we are not so naíve as to hope intellectuals of the looter persuasion will recoil in shame from the initiation of mere fraud, deception and treachery?
40
Carbon Pulse has this behind paywall; no other MSM reporting it, as far as I can tell. Dunleavy is a Republican:
26 Feb: Arctic Today: Alaska’s new governor has dismissed the state’s climate team and scrapped its climate policy and plan
Gov. Mike Dunleavy’s move undoes his predecessor’s policy and came as a surprise to team members.
By Yereth Rosen
The state of Alaska no longer has an official strategy for addressing climate change.
With an administrative order issued on Feb. 21, Gov. Mike Dunleavy dismantled the state’s Climate Action for Alaska Leadership Team appointed by his predecessor, Gov. Bill Walker, and jettisoned the group’s strategy and action recommendations…
In an emailed statement, a Dunleavy spokesman dismissed the Walker initiatives, all launched by administrative orders issued by the previous governor, as unnecessary.
“For various reasons these AO’s are no longer needed: they are no longer relevant, have fulfilled their intended purpose, are not aligned with the Governor’s policy direction, and/or appear to have been made primarily for political or public relations purposes,” Matt Shuckerow, Dunleavy’s press secretary, said in the email…
But members of the climate team said they were, in fact, surprised that the governor had taken such an action.
“I didn’t expect it,” Chris Rose, founder of the Renewable Alaska Energy Project and a team member, said in an email. Rose said he received an emailed letter from the governor that provided “no explanation” and did not make it clear that Dunleavy was ending the entire climate program…
Walker established the climate team in 2017. Last September, the group released a strategy and a series of recommendations for helping Alaska adapt to climate change — which is occurring far faster in the Arctic than in the rest of the world — and reduce its own greenhouse gas contributions. The recommendations included targets for transition to renewable energy sources, consideration of a carbon-pricing or carbon-tax system and a call for diversification into new businesses, including the selling of carbon offsets through preservation of Alaska forests and wetlands…
Information about the Climate Action for Alaska Leadership Team and its work has been stripped from state government websites. But that information, including the team’s report and strategy, is preserved elsewhere, including on the website with information about the climate action plan that is being developed by the municipality of Anchorage.
https://www.arctictoday.com/alaskas-new-governor-has-dismissed-the-states-climate-team-and-scrapped-climate-policy-and-plan/
70
25 Feb: CarbonBrief: Renewable hydrogen ‘already cost competitive’, say researchers
by Jocelyn Timperley
Hydrogen produced using renewable electricity is “already cost competitive” in niche applications, a new paper says, adding that it is likely to match industrial-scale alternatives in about a decade.
The research (LINK), published today in Nature Energy (LINK), contrasts with other work on renewable hydrogen, which has found it would be prohibitively expensive compared to the alternatives…
It could be used to reduce emissions from industrial processes that need gas to create high temperatures, such as steel production. Or it could replace natural gas in homes already connected to the gas grid, with some modifications to boilers, pipes and hobs…
Many energy experts remain sceptical (LINK) that large-scale renewable hydrogen will ever be viable at a low cost…
https://www.carbonbrief.org/renewable-hydrogen-already-cost-competative-say-researchers
30
for what it’s worth!
CarbonBrief: People learn to accept extreme weather as normal in “as little as two years”, the New York Times reports. The finding comes from a new study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, which analysed more than two billion messages on Twitter to see how people reacted to weather events. They found that if Twitter users were experiencing extreme weather that they were unaccustomed to they discussed it a lot. But “if the location in question had already experienced those sorts of temperatures in recent years, even if the weather was extreme compared to the baseline, people tended not to tweet about it”. “That might lead people to underestimate the extent of global warming, given that it has already caused extreme temperature changes”, the New York Times writes.
25 Feb: ScienceDaily: Tweets tell scientists how quickly we normalize unusual weather
Study: ‘Remarkable’ weather becomes normal within a few years
Source: University of California – Davis
A study examined those questions through the lens of more than 2 billion US Twitter posts…
“There’s a risk that we’ll quickly normalize conditions we don’t want to normalize,” said lead author Frances C. Moore, an assistant professor in the UC Davis Department of Environmental Science and Policy. “We are experiencing conditions that are historically extreme, but they might not feel particularly unusual if we tend to forget what happened more than about five years ago.”…
The study’s co-authors are Nick Obradovich of Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Flavio Lehner from National Center for Atmospheric Research and Patrick Baylis from University of British Columbia.
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/02/190225170252.htm
20
27 Feb: Daily Mail: Carbon dioxide is turned BACK into coal in world-first breakthrough which ‘could lead to permanently cleaner air’
•Research team at RMIT University in Australia made claim about new technique
•They say it can efficiently convert CO2 from a gas into solid particles of carbon
•Burying these ‘flakes’ back in the ground ‘is like rewinding the emissions clock’
By Peter Lloyd
The study, published in the journal Nature Communications, also involved researchers from the University of Munster in Gemany, China’s Nanjing University, North Carolina State University in the US as well as other Australian universities.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-6747591/Scientists-turn-carbon-dioxide-coal-world-first.html
30
Spain’s energy plan ‘a breath of fresh air’, Iberdrola chief says
Financial Times-26 Feb 2019
The arrival of Spain’s long-delayed national energy plan will unlock significant opportunities and investments in clean power in the country…
26 Feb: Reuters: UPDATE 2-Spain’s Iberdrola to speed up investment programme
Spanish energy company Iberdrola said on Tuesday it will speed up its investment plans, the majority of which will be spent on its networks and renewables businesses, as part of its four-year strategy to 2022.
The leading global wind energy producer said total spending in the period will amount to 34 billion euros ($38.61 billion), higher than the 32 billion euros it expected to spend.
Of the total figure, 47 percent will be poured in to the regulated network business and 40 percent into green assets.
In its home market, where the ***outgoing Socialist government recently disclosed its draft proposal to decarbonise the economy, Iberdrola said it will spend 8 billion euros in the period, earmarking 4.2 billion euros for renewable assets…
https://www.reuters.com/article/iberdrola-strategy/update-2-spains-iberdrola-to-speed-up-investment-programme-idUSL5N20L1GR
10
Hilariously I just watched a repeat of an old NCIS episode where the finale was in a derelict “Hydro pump facility” an old (defunct) technology.
30
I wouldn’t say pumped storage is a complete waste of time.
It is used in the UK to do some peak lopping. When everyone gets up after the big game to put the electric kettle on to make a cup of tea then we use pumped storage to very quickly ramp up electricity generation.
They can respond faster than the firemen in the conventional power stations can shovel more coal into the furnace heating the boilers. 😉
20
Can you provide names of the successful pumped storage systems in the UK? I believe that they have all been failures, so interested to hear of one that actually works.
50
Dinorwig is the only one of substance. It’s also the blackstart facility for the UK (ex-Scotland and Northern Ireland) grid
https://www.power-technology.com/features/featuredinorwig-a-unique-power-plant-in-the-north-of-wales-5773187/
It was primarily developed to peak shave from overnight excess power from the nuclear power plants with this making the rapid and reliable blackstart capability economically viable. Another similar facility would be incredibly difficult to justify.
10
Why is my post in moderation? Is it the word “black$tart” ?
20
The Dinorwig Power Station known locally as Electric Mountain, is a pumped- storage hydroelectric scheme, near Dinorwig, Llanberis in Snowdonia national …
Installed capacity: 1,800 MW (2,400,000 hp) (Others say 1728MW) Turbines: 6 × 300 MW (400,000 hp)
Construction cost: £425 million Construction began: 1974 finished 1984
https://www.ice.org.uk/what-is-civil-engineering/what-do-civil-engineers-do/dinorwig-power-station
Reports that it can generate large amounts in 12 seconds.
30
I actually do know of one case where pumped storage used to make sense. Niagara Falls in Canada has a pumped storage facility. Back before windmills and solar they used to take excess power generated during nights and weekends to pump into the reservoir. The reservoir would then increase the capacity of the river generators during peak hours. Most of the other base capacity was nuclear with some coal. Then the green energy act kicked in and we had to take all the wind and solar they could provide at inflated rates. Coal is gone. The river generators are actually turned off to allow wind when it’s windy. The pumped reservoir is mothballed. The only bright sign is the fact that the architect of all this might be indicted for an unrelated crime. I hope.
50
I believe the falls are mostly shut down at night when the tourists have departed and the water diverted into holding ponds to provide additional water the next day when the falls are turned on again. Stayed at a hotel overlooking the falls and there was far less spray off the falls at night.
40
Nick Kilvert doing his best impression of that guy who stands on the street corner with the sign that says ” the end is near” .
https://www.abc.net.au/news/science/2019-02-28/climate-cant-be-tricked-by-clever-accounting/10846554
40
robert rosicka –
note the ABC’s url:
“Climate can’t be tricked by clever accounting” (which is now merely the final sentence in the article).
maybe they realised such a headline would open ABC to some mockery!
e.g. it should have been:
“‘Climate science’ & ‘climate policies’ can be tricked by deceptive accounting”
however, ABC changed the headline to:
“Is Tony Abbott 2.0 really the strong climate policy Australia needs?”
AbbottAbbottAbbott.
shut down the ABC.
30
I wrote an article on pumped hydro storage in the Jan 2017 Silicon Chip magazine.
http://www.siliconchip.com.au/Issue/2017/January/Pumped+Storage+Hydroelectricity?res=nonflash
30
Pumped storage in economical locations is a valid system in the context of a properly engineered electricity grid.
Australia’s electricity grid is no longer properly engineered because it has been destroyed by solar and wind unreliables and this particular proposal for hydro storage is not economically viable under a free market electricity regime. Even under Australia’s highly inflated artificial electricity prices it is still not economically viable without a massive injection of taxpayer money and government regulations that promote monopoly pricing of some of the world’s most expensive electricity.
70
David just reported on my radio the reason we had so many blackouts over summer was because old coal fired power stations were just so unreliable.
The comment by someone from the Climate Council was along the lines of. Old coal fired power stations had over twenty break downs over summer, they are so unreliable that when one breaks down it’s like a dominon effect, they all just go off line. As normal no responding comment from anyone who may doubt this claim
50
Are there any viable pumped storage systems running anywhere in the world David? Your Silicon Chip article mentions Raccoon Mountain, but I thought this hasn’t worked out. I looked at Wivenhoe, but even RenewEconomy admits that one is not very successful.
Whenever I ask this question, I seem to be directed to hydro plants that also have reserve ponds, but I have yet to find an actual stand-alone pumped hydro system that works.
00
It’s the last day of summer, and a heat wave is here, with forecast temperatures in Vic/SA/Tas up to 40 degrees over the next three days. AEMO peak demand forecast is 30 GW for Thursday and Friday, still well down on the 34 GW peak on Jan 25, but similar to 30.4 GW peak on Feb 6.
Wind has been delivering a strong 2.4 GW at 40% capacity factor with northerly winds delivering the heat. Current hydro is a nice complement, able to drop to 0.5 GW and then quickly rise to 3-5 GW to meet evening peak demand. Yesterday large solar delivered a peak of 1.2 GW and rooftop 4.2 GW, but the evening peak relies on increased coal, gas and hydro.
50
Politically
Coal is moving into the same weed infested parking lot alongside nuclear. If it was commercially viable, there would be a clamour to build them, to do it as a government project, after NBN, not going to happen. This is despite the obvious cost benefits associated with large coal fired plants.
So we now have 2 hydro projects, Snowy and Tasmania (basslink 2.0).
Both are large projects, which is part of our disease which preferences large generators, and a massive interconnected grid, all in a country with population densities so low that, apart from the major state capitals, means that we have to pay extra to transport those electrons, than say America, (we have about the same land area, but there are 360 million Americans vs 24 million Australians.)
48
Peter,
Nail…hammer…head…..energy policy has made them non viable, energy policy has made wind, solar, pumped hydro, batteries viable through large scale subsidies.
80
Yep, crakar24. But to say we have an energy policy might be a stretch. Personally I would love to see a policy which took advantage of our resources, and provided energy security in the long term. For example, given the long construction time for a coal fired base load plant, we should have started the necessary preparatory work years ago. But no, all we did was waffle.
64
To build a HELE for a 1000 MW plant would cost about $4 billion and built within five years. Whereas the Snowy Hydro will cost $4.5 billion for 2000 MW of power, but will take eight years to build.
Angus Taylor must inform the electorate that a HELE is essential.
40
If we had a policy which stated for our energy security we will need this percentage of our total demand to be supplied by coal, this percentage by gas, etc. Then a coal plant would be built tomorrow. Oh, and by preparatory work I mean site selection, community consultation, environmental impact, land acquisition (both for the plant, and the necessary transport corridors). As you say the construction won’t take that long.
54
“ land acquisition (both for the plant, and the necessary transport corridors)
Surely there is enough room for expansions at Bayswater/Liddell
Everything is already there.
Environmental impact issues wouldn’t be a problem either.
In Victoria they already have the Hazelwood site, and expansion possibilities at Loy Yang.
50
ps, That is my “up” thump, p.f.
40
Ta.
34
A thumping good thumb.
21
Hazelwood supplied 22 per cent of Victoria’s energy requirements and the demolition squad is moving in, so with no regulatory or environmental obstacles it would be the obvious place to build a new HELE.
The Australian government should underwrite it.
60
Peter Fitzroy, off topic slightly, but I was out most of yesterday afternoon, and I missed you last question where you asked:
Here’s two images I have just finished. They show just the coal fired power generation for yesterday, Wednesday 27th February 2019.
The first image (shown at this link) shows the load curve for ALL 48 coal fired Units currently operational in the three States still with coal fired power.
Note that the load curve (the black line) follows the actual consumption for this coverage area, low in the early AM, rising to the morning peak, falling a little, then rising to the evening peak, and then falling again. The coloured lines you can just make out at the bottom of the graph indicate the individual output from each Unit. I have highlighted with that vertical line the minimum for the day, and that’s 15480MW at 2.35AM.
The second image (shown at this link) is the same load curve. This time I have highlighted the peak for all coal fired Units, and that is at 6.55PM, and is (indicated at the left there) 19957MW.
Of those 48 Units, there are currently four of them off line. The total Nameplate for all 48 Units is 23000MW. The current total of the 44 Units in operation on this day is 21200MW.
So, at the peak on this day coal fired power was operating at an effective Capacity Factor of 94.14% of Nameplate. Some of the older Units cannot make their Nameplate any more, but most of those older Units can still find 80% of their maximum.
As you can see, coal fired power went up from the low of the morning, fell a little, and then rose consistently across the day to the peak and then fell again. The range from low to high was just under 4500MW.
ALL of that generated power at all times is being delivered to the grid, and is being consumed.
At that minimum there, coal fired power was delivering 81% of all power being consumed, and at the peak, coal fired power was delivering 72.4% of all power being consumed.
I hope this addresses your question.
Tony.
91
Cheers, TonyfromOz, Thanks for taking the time to help my understanding. my experience in LV distribution networks, and I never considered the generation side of supply .
42
Total power generated from all sources for consumption yesterday was 571.2GWH
Total power generated from coal fired power yesterday was 431.04GWH, so 75.46% of all generated power.
Across the whole day coal fired power delivered its power at a daily operational Capacity Factor of 84.74% for all 44 Units currently on line.
Tony.
41
A policy for our energy security should simply read “Coal: 100% for all of Eastern Australia”. The rest can be gas, nukes, hydro, whatever. We in NSW and Qld could maybe stage an Hour of Pity for those stuck with second-rate power sources. Candles, serious faces, “Imagine” etc. So embarrassing to have centuries of the best supply, just lying about. Need to check our privilege every time we turn on the toaster.
Diesel for large scale power should be banned…because Strait of Hormuz, duh.
70
The Chinese built a USC coal plant, 2000MW in 2 years for US$2 billion from memory.
I don’t like the term HELE because LE stands for low emissions and that implies emissions are a problem which of course they are not.
40
I think the terminology changes to suit what they think the public might understand better.
Sub Critical, Critical, Super Critical, Ultra Super Critical, and Advanced Ultra Super Critical.
HELE I think came in only two or three years ago.
Like you, I’m also not a fan of terminology change as it becomes confusing, just converting everything to an ever changing acronym.
I honestly think if the process was actually explained it would interest the public. I’ve lost count of the times I have explained the coal fired power process to people, and watched as they listened, fascinated, because no one has ever taken the time to explain it to them.
Ask people how they convert a lump of coal to electrons coming out of the hole in the wall, and they have no idea.
The biggest ‘wide eyed’ jaw dropping moment for me is when I stand up spread my arms in front of me so they make a right angle, and imagining someone opposite me doing the same. Now, fill that space between us, and you have (approximately) one tonne of coal. Tell them a typical large scale Unit under normal operation will burn that much coal in ….. five to six SECONDS, and the looks I get are astonished disbelief.
Tony.
41
Let’s hear it for HEHE.
20
“All we did was waffle”
We did more than that Peter, we allowed more on’s to take control of our energy policy. If building solar and wind plants was inevitable we should have married them up with existing coal plants for example.
Rather than destroying Playford or Hazelwood we should have built solar or wind plant near by, plugged that power into the coal plants to assist with the water boiling process, this way we would have reduced our GHG emissions (greeny and starry eyed more on’s are happy) also we could have maintained a stable grid because when the wind stopped or no sun we would run the coal plant on more coal etc.
If you wanted to be really clever you could have built new HELE plants next to the older plants, plugged the renewable power into the HELE and shut down the old plant and reduce GHG emissions even more.
But no……………..the more ons where in charge and their ideology trumped (pun intended) logic and common sense. Its all too late now the horse has bolted and with shrten a shoe in to be the next PM its all down hill from here.
40
I wholeheartedly agree crakar24.
51
I’m so glad you used the word ….. assist here.
The problem they have is with the weight of the assembly on the rotor of the coal fired unit, and its immense weight, requiring enourous amounts of high pressure steam to drive the turbine to drive that weight.
So far the biggest they can get a CSP (solar thermal) unit to turn over is 125MW, and they need gas fired assistance to start it up until the solar component can take over.
So if solar was all they had to operate Playford, Northern or Hazelwood, it would just sit there motionless.
Tony.
41
Nice idea except that ramping the output of a boiler is the limiting factor in the response rate for a steam turbine plant. It is for this reason that a CGCT plant loses a LOT of efficiency when it has to load follow to compensate for intermittent renewables as the steam turbine output stays relatively constant when the gas turbine is throttled (not technically but figuratively) up and down.
Liddell had one boiler “assisted” by a solar concentrator system (now destroyed by a storm) and I was told that the balancing of output was problematic so they only used it when someone wanted a (political) demonstration of the solar boosting.
10
Peter,
Unfortunately you are like a lot of people, who misunderstand electromagnetic energy. Electrons don’t get transported anywhere, especially over long distances – they move at very low speed backwards and forwards within the outer shells of the adjacent atoms of the conducting material. The fundamental particle of electromagnetism is the Photon which travels along outside the wire below the speed of light. The electron certainly is involved with the movement of the photon, radiating or absorbing the photon when it changes it’s energy level but electrons do not travel very far at all. IN fact the average electron drift velocity for a 12 gauge copper wire with 10 amps of current has been measured at about 80 centimeters per hour.
30
Thanks rk. Was was unaware of just how slow each electron’s movement was.
11
Peter Fitzroy,
Seeing you have been kind enough to acknowledge my reply to you I thought I might provide you with some more power information especially as it relates to solar and wind. There are two types of power transmitted with 3 phase AC – active power and reactive power which together make up Total Power. Active power is what is used up in your light bulb, toaster or other appliances. Reactive power is power that also has to be provide by big generators to maintain voltage control. It is most commonly stored in inductors and capacitors so that it can be stored or used when needed. Every time large motors or other huge draws of power cause the frequency and voltage to drop, reactive power is needed to get the frequency and voltage back up to correct level. It is also necessary to provide the power for transformers to operate, in other words raising or lowering the voltage in all the field windings in all those grid transformer. Solar and wind cannot provide any meaningful amounts of reactive power into a grid nor can they inject it into the grid close to where it is needed. It is a compelling reason why Government should do all power generation, because reactive power is not billed directly to the end user but has to be provided by someone. It is possibly another reason not to have very long transmission systems. I have seen to mentioned by US power engineers that around 67% of generation is lost in the whole system by the time it gets to the consumer. If you google Reactive Power it will make your head spin as it is very complicated. I had to learn about it once because of electrical systems I operated but am no expert on such a difficult subject.
60
Thanks again rk, I’m familiar with LV – from a 33 kva zone substation on down. so all this info is new to me. As they say, everyday is a school day
31
Interesting.
I have a vague concept of a/c being the transmission of a pulse rather than actual movement in one direction. The pulse moves from the input end and from what you say is losing 67% of it’s original energy by the time it gets to the work end.
KK
10
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kU6izpryqqw&feature=youtu.be This was posted here quite some time ago and is well worth listening to.
40
The video by US Power Engineers on the problems with wind and solar on the US grid
30
Very interesting perspective from a professional.
His singing along with the radio analogy highlights just how badly the rooftop solar scheme has been handled. Then we realize that politicians don’t do electricity very well.
20
Basically, very interesting. I’m now wondering if our major city grids have similar problems. There doesn’t seem to be any practical solution other than to remove all wind and solar from our grids.
10
A lot of the loss is in transformers, and at low voltage. That is why LV systems tend to run at 11KVA from the Zone Substation, to 240 volts at the local transformer. Generally about 100 meters is the max distance a 240V line will be run, as resistance losses will become unacceptable for longer runs. The exception is the SWER (Single Wire Earth Return) lines, which can run for up to a kilometre
31
“The exception is the SWER (Single Wire Earth Return) lines, which can run for up to a kilometre”
If that is the case we must never have gotten off 32 volts!
“The SWER line is a single conductor that may stretch for tens or even hundreds of kilometres, with a number of distribution transformers along its length. At each transformer, such as a customer’s premises, current flows from the line, through the primary coil of a step-down isolation transformer, to earth through an earth stake. From the earth stake, the current eventually finds its way back to the main step-up transformer at the head of the line, completing the circuit.[3] SWER is therefore a practical example of a phantom loop. ”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single-wire_earth_return
The SWER line we’re on is more like a couple of hundred km.
20
Another Ian, I’ve never worked with SWER’s that were more than a kilo, but your point is well made.
10
KK
I am not an expert in electrical power but I think what you are describing is current alternating ( the change in the sine wave of the three phases causing it to alternate )- it is the voltage going in one direction.
20
KK,
What I think is happening is that as those giant rotors turn in power station generators, the field windings cross the magnetic field at 90 degrees, a voltage is induced in the three phases spaced at 120 degrees apart on the stator. The voltage (photons) than gets transmitted out along the line but is carried or radiated by the electrons which together with their opposite particles the positron can absorb and then re emit the photons, all at huge numbers. These are actually called virtual photons and it requires a detailed reading of Quantum Physics or more specifically Quantum Electro Dynamics to comprehend all this. The work of Richard Feynman who won the Nobel Prize in Physics for this with two others is one place to try and understand it all. Until recently I had never bothered to think about what magnetism actually is. It appears that force coming out the end of a magnet is a stream of photons. The number of photons emitting from a 100 watt bulb in one second is something like 2.7 billion, trillion photons – inagine what is happening along a 750,000 volt line. If anyone has a better explanation of electro magnetic physics I would be glad to hear it.
30
A photon is a Concepticon, I think.
A thing put up there for us to hang our imagination on when we are dealing with things too small to see.
I’m sure I once had a good idea of how a.c. and dc worked but many decades of other stuff has blurred it beyond recognition.
🙂
10
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H9fjhQMsDW4 For those who don’t know of Richard Feynman this is a great video of the life of a Nobel prize winner, someone who worked on the atomic bomb and was a really brilliant man
20
The concept of QED (Feynmans et al work) is to ‘quantize’ the EM field theory effectively. But engineers use normal Em field theory as in Electric and Magnetic as separate entities. QED is used at sub atomic dimensions and applied to particles. Normal EM works as there is quadrillions of electrons therefor it becomes a field for engineering and most calculations. Remember the theory (mostly done by Maxwell and Faraday using Gauss’s work) was put in the early 19th cent well before quantum mechanics or even the electron was known (discovered by J J Thompson 1900 ish.)
20
Australia is so heavily “invested” in unreliables that it’s difficult to understand how this huge mess is going to be undone, unless the country itself becomes a failed state.
Someone will have to compensate (billions of dollars) all those who have “invested” in this garbage if we are to be liberated from the tyranny of the unreliables.
Did I just invent a cool phrase?
The tyranny of the unreliables.
90
Very appropriate for Australia and it’s electricity system considering our original tyranny is still with us.
But ScoMo will fix all that in complete ignorance of both tyrannies when he adds a new undersea cable to Tassie.
Go Sco, we want Mo tyranny.
KK
30
It’s official hottest evah summer and the Bureau is predicting a dry autumn so I’m thinking there will definitely be flooding .
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-02-28/summer-hottest-on-record-autumn-outlook/10833800
No wonder it’s hottest evah if they keep cooling the past .
100
The BOM are STILL claiming that there is a possibility of an El Niño! For at least two years they said we would have an El Niño, and what happened? La Nada. So now they triple down again for yet another attempt to get it right. I suppose if they keep on claiming we will have an El Niño for long enough, they will eventually be proved right.
10
ATT PM Morrison – Electric Bill Shorten.
Trigger Warning!
India Using Coal to Achieve Universal Household Electrification
The Indian Government is on its way to achieving the goal of universal household electrification through the opening of 52 new coal mines since Narendra Modi’s government came to power.
The 52 new coal mines reflect an 86 percent increase over the 28 mines it added in the five-year period between 2009 and 2014.
The new mines added 164 million metric tons to India’s annual coal production capacity, increasing capacity by 113 percent over 2009-2014 additions.
India generates 57 percent of its electricity from coal.
The new mines have made electrification possible since India could meet the additional electricity demand of 5 to 6 percent through coal-fired electricity generation.
https://www.instituteforenergyresearch.org/international-issues/india-using-coal-to-achieve-universal-household-electrification/
10
NYT/WaPo, the lot, have this AP report. inclusion of “living in her car” in opening line is deceptive, of course:
PICS: 27 Feb: Daily Mail: AP: Snowplow bumps into snow-covered car, finds woman OK inside
SOUTH LAKE TAHOE, Calif. (AP) – A woman who authorities believe was living in her car was rescued after a snowplow inadvertently bumped into her vehicle, which was buried in snow.
South Lake Tahoe, California, city spokesman Chris Fiore highlighted the Feb. 17 incident in a Tuesday news release urging drivers to take safety precautions in winter weather. He said the city has had problems with illegally parked vehicles, which slows snow removal.
Fiore said the snowplow driver bumped into the back of the car, which popped the vehicle’s trunk open. After that happened, workers from the plow truck started shoveling around the vehicle to prepare to tow it when the woman put her hand on the window from the inside.
“She wasn’t trying to get out,” he said Wednesday. “She wasn’t making any noise.”
The name of the woman was not released because police did not cite her for any violations, Fiore said. She declined medical attention and left and the vehicle was towed.
The woman said she’d been in the car for about five hours and seemed unconcerned about what could have happened had the snowplow not hit her vehicle, he said. The car’s battery was dead and she couldn’t roll down the windows.
“The truth is that this could have turned out very differently,” he said…
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/wires/ap/article-6753445/Snowplow-bumps-snow-covered-car-finds-woman-OK-inside.html
20
Perhaps PM Morrison can make this water flow elsewhere to save the planet …
Queensland floodwaters flow to outback South Australia and Kati Thanda-Lake Eyre
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-02-27/queensland-floodwaters-head-towards-lake-eyre/10849292
10
Might have to rethink my travel plans , hoping to take the Warburton crossing to cross the Simmo but it’s cut again .
A tourist guide told me two years ago at Oodnadatta that Warburton crossing had only been open a total of a few months in over nine years .
10
28 Feb: RenewEconomy: NSW Labor aims for “at least” 50% renewables by 2030
by Giles Parkinson
New South Wales Labor says it will aim for at least a 50 per cent share of renewables in the state’s electricity consumption by 2030, and will source the equivalent of all the state government electricity needs from renewables by 2025.
The policy unveiled by shadow energy minister Adam Searle follows on from the massive investment plan unveiled ten days ago, when Labor promised up to 7GW of large-scale wind and solar through a series of reverse auction, on top of the 2GW of rooftop solar expected to be added through its solar rebate program.
NSW faces the closure of the Liddell coal generator in 2022 and Vales Point in the late 2020s, followed closely by Bayswater and Eraring in the early 2030s…
The Australian Energy Market Operator says it faces one of the most dramatic and rapid transformations of any state, thanks to the sheer size of its grid – it has a peak demand of 14,700MW – highlighted by this graph (below) included in the Integrated System Plan.
The red and black in the second circle are all that is expected to be left of the gas and coal generators that currently dominate the grid…GRAPH
“Renewable energy is the cheapest new build form of energy, so if you want to bring prices down and tackle climate change, it is the future of our energy system,” Searle said…
The 50 per cent target for renewable energy means that each of the state grids in the National Electricity Market would have a 50 per cent target by 2030. Tasmania is already there, South Australia will likely source close to 100 per cent of its demand through wind and solar by 2030, and ACT will reach that milestone by 2020.
Victoria and Queensland, both with Labor governments, have committed to 50 per cent renewables by 2030…
Searle said dispatchable generation (i.e. via storage) would be developed in consultation with AEMO and likely through the reverse auction mechanism. If Snowy 2.0 were to go ahead, as now seems likely following the green light from the federal government, then the need for more storage is much reduced…
Greenpeace said it welcomed Labor’s plan to “turbocharge” the transition from coal to clean energy.
“After almost a decade of wilful inaction by Premier Gladys Berejiklian and the Liberal Party, it’s great to see Labor proposing measures that will help replace our aging coal burners with clean energy,” Greenpeace Australia Pacific campaign manager Holly Dawson said.
“Replacing that dirty power with energy from clean sources like wind and solar will not only help ease the climate crisis, but will benefit the whole of New South Wales with cheaper bills.”…
Greenpeace and other environmental groups also want all household (including low-income and rental properties) to be able to access solar power within 10 years, and they suggest by introducing a Solar For All Rebate and helping families with solar install batteries…
https://reneweconomy.com.au/nsw-labor-aims-for-at-least-50-renewables-by-2030-2030/
11
In the absence of an unthreaded I’ll comment here.
Another hot day with little wind [familiar story] in the south but coal is keeping the wheels of industry turning and the air cons churning. Do ya reckon Qld, exporting 1.1 GW, will get a thank-you note?
50
28 Feb: ABC: NSW Labor Party aims for renewable energy target of ‘at least’ 50 per cent by 2030 if elected
By state political reporter Nour Haydar
NSW currently obtains less than 13 per cent of its energy from renewable sources…
‘Not a war on coal’
(Opposition Leader Michael) Daley said coal-fired power stations “will see their lives to an end” and Labor’s plan is “not about a war on coal”.
“As far as coal goes there still will be a place for coal in New South Wales for decades to come, but it won’t be based in load power generation,” he said.
“If we don’t act to save the environment in New South Wales and do something about climate change our grandchildren will condemn us.”
“I don’t intend to be a premier that has the condemnation of children into the future.”…
Mr Searle foreshadowed that Labor would make further announcements before the March 23 election outlining its plan to help diversify and transition regional economies currently reliant on coal industry.
“They are not closing today or tomorrow, we have the time to build new renewable energy capacity with storage and dispatchability over the next decade,” he said…
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-02-28/labor-climate-change-policy-nsw/10857470
20
o/t but what on earth is this?
28 Feb: ABC: Ita Buttrose will chair the ABC board. Here are five verbs to help futureproof it
RN By Monique Ross and Muditha Dias
Posted about an hour ago | Updated about an hour ago
It also caps what author and board advisor Marc Stigter calls an “extraordinary” and “unprecedented” level of turmoil at the top…
Stigter has some advice — in the form of five simple verbs — for the board going forward.
These verbs, he told RN’s Richard Aedy (LINK), will help the board futureproof itself, so history doesn’t repeat…
1. Boards that can
2. Boards that know
3. Boards that want
4. Boards that are
5. Boards that dare
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-02-28/ita-buttrose-advice-for-futureproofing-the-abc-board/10422544
it links to an audio from last September!
AUDIO: 13min12sec: 29 Sept 2018: ABC This Working Life: Boards that dare
Marc Stigter writes in his new book Boards that Dare that boards need to reassess their own thinking and practices more critically and frequently.
Presenter: Richard Aedy
Producer: Muditha Dias
LinkedIn: Marc Stigter
from Summary:
He was a Shell Country Chairman in the Middle East and worked for other blue chip companies around the world. Marc earned a PhD at Lancaster University Management School (UK) and also earned three Master’s degrees. He is an Honorary Senior Fellow at the University of Melbourne and an Associate Director at Melbourne Business School…
https://au.linkedin.com/in/marc-stigter-phd-b6084312
madness.
30
“NSW Labor Party aims for renewable energy target of ‘at least’ 50 per cent by 2030 if elected”
The problem they have is mathematics. Let’s look into this future.
One of the consequences of the difference between nameplate and delivered, as Tony continually points out, is that this is going to be a total disaster.
Say the 50% is name plate and is delivered is 20% of nameplate, even averaged out because it is never when you want it, we will pay to move from a system with 100% to a system with 50% guaranteed, reliable and on demand coal and gas power and 20% of 50% or 10% unreliables, a total of 60% with a massive shortfall of 40% on a cold winter’s night or even 50% on a stinking hot windless summer’s night.
No battery, water or lithium can make up a total system shortfall of 50%. So to reach 50% wind and solar, we are going to have to have exactly the same amount of power from coal and gas as today. 90%.
Then the politicians and the Green communists can claim 50% unreliables. Celebrations. A huge success and a huge cost to achieve precisely nothing.
The mistake politicians are making is closing down and blowing up coal power stations. In fact we will need everyone of them working flat out to support 50% unreliables on a hot windless summer’s night. So a massive expense to achieve precisely nothing.
In fact you will probably need more coal and gas power plants to pump all that water uphill at great expense just so it can come down again when you need it.
Total waste for nil gain.
Typical. Nuts. The crips are raiding the liquor store.
70
It will all go bang, and when even the hard core unionists lose thier jobs due to the power being off, at *that* point, Herr Shortonideas will be confronted and shown the error of his ways by his union mates….wont be pretty I suspect…..
When the tv goes off and the mobile phone towers shut down, there will be an outcry…. when people cant get thier normal bogan brainrot content, at that point it will all get a bit ugly.
30
And if you need coal and gas to pump water uphill, why not just use it when you need it and not spend $6-$12 Billion on pumping water uphill?
Still the numbers will look better as you can claim you have more hydro. Which is just deceit.
40
O/T again but I’m watching Fox’s coverage of the Trump/Kim summit with Ingram and Newt among others. Clicked to CNN and they are still orgasmic about Cohen. That their President is in Hanoi trying to end a war is inconsequential to them.
61
CNN = Cable ‘Nuclear’ Network – pro WAR.
10
Next, try convincing said greenie that H2O is a greenhouse gas.
30
The Ultimate green powered storage system.
Have an upper dam and a lower dam, with a pipe between and a generator at the bottom.
Nothing new, but getting the water from the lower dam to the upper dam.
You have greenies with a yoke over their shoulders with a bucket hanging from each end.
They full up the buckets from the lower dam,
trod up the hill and empty the buckets into the upper dam.
And repeat.
Release the water at night and we have green energy.
Just doing my bit to help save the world.
31
That’s how some fountains used to work in pre-industrial times. The Greens will have us back there ASAP.
31
The South Pacific is not living up to its name: It ain’t peaceful. TC Oma has been wandering around west of New Caledonia, blowing big waves onto our coast for weeks and now, further east there is a severe cyclone Pola central pressure 950, [that’s low]. It is west of Tonga close to a speck on the map Ata Is.
10
Because pumps and turbines are about 70% efficient, the system will return about 50% of the electricity used to pump the water uphill (excluding network losses). i.e. Pumps at 70% efficient x turbines at 70% efficiency = 49% system efficiency.
If coal is used to power the pumping then the pumped hydro will have twice the carbon output compared to the case where the electricity used to pump the water uphill was just fed into the grid.
20