By Jo Nova
Thanks to Paul Homewood at NotAlotofPeopleKnowThat for finding this gem of a video.
Commiserations to friends in the UK, where Ed Miliband, or worse, his new National Electricity System Operator (NESO) think that flywheels will save money because the UK won’t need to maintain back up power stations and import so much electricity.
Ed Miliband is the Minister for Energy Security and Net Zero, which is a bit like being the Minister for War and Peace at the same time, or perhaps more like Health and Ebola. His big new plan is to set up a big new bureaucracy (NESO) and their big idea is to stop blackouts by installing giant flywheels around the country.
Flywheels are good at smoothing out the frequency glitches, but the second largest flywheel operation in the world would only power the UK for a fraction of a second. It’s going to take a lot of flywheels, or as David Evans dryly remarked, if they can speed up the flywheels it might work, but to put enough energy in, they may need to get close to the speed of light.
Ed Miliband reveals plan to prevent net zero blackouts
by Johnathon Leake, The Telegraph
Giant flywheels are to be installed around the UK to minimise the risk of blackouts as the power system goes carbon-free.
Flywheels are energy storage systems that use surplus electricity to accelerate a massive metal “wheel”…
NESO said the schemes would save consumers money by cutting the need for maintaining backup power stations and importing power from overseas via interconnectors.
A spokesman said: “The pathfinders alone are expected to provide consumers with savings of £14.9bn between 2025 and 2035.”
As Paul Burgess explains, the flywheel sales team often talk in megawatts but rarely mention megawatt-hours (probably because they are embarrassed). The worlds second largest flywheel system has 200 carbon fibre flywheels spinning in a vacuum chamber and provides 20 megawatts. But it can only supply 1 megawatt for 15 minutes, which is a quarter of a MWh, which is a problem because the UK uses about 860,000 MWh every day.
Paul Burgess estimates the second largest flywheel installation in the world can power the UK for about one 200th of a second.
A flywheel is like a coal generator the second after it runs out of coal.
Then there’s “The Cost”
Burgess points at a study by Dongxu et al that reviews the costs of supplying energy via flywheels, and its in the ballpark of $1,000 to $5,000 per kilowatt hour. (That’s a million dollars a megawatt hour). It’s 1,200 to 4,600 times as expensive as gas in the UK, and about 100,000 times as expensive as Australian brown coal power.
It’s cheaper to cook food over a pile of burning money.
…the capital cost per unit power of a FESS [Flywheel Energy Storage System] with a rated power of 250 kW and a maximum expected storage time of 15 min is 250 to 350$/kW, and the corresponding unit energy cost is 1000 to 5000$/kWh. The International Renewable Energy Agency estimates that the unit energy installation cost of FESS will decrease by 35 % by 2030, from the current estimate of 1500–6000$/kWh to 1000–3900$/kWh [14]. — Dongxu et al.
Yet NESO says it will “save consumers money”. Aren’t there laws about fraud or dishonest advertising that apply to statements like these?
Then there’s “industrial accidents”
The same paper mentions that things can get fairly hairy with heavy objects moving at high speeds:
In order to fully utilize material strength to achieve higher energy storage density, rotors are increasingly operating at extremely high tip speeds. However, this trend will lead to severe centripetal stress and potential safety threats caused by rotor failure.
In 2011, two carbon fiber composite rotors weighing 1 ton and storing about 30 kWh failed and began to disintegrate.
Flywheels are also known as “Synchronous Condensers” though coal, hydro, nuclear and gas plants effectively have free flywheels built into the system. The only reason to add flywheels to the grid today is to allow the wind and solar generators to run without crashing the system. It’s yet another subsidy for wind and solar generators, and the costs should be laid at their feet.
The real issue here is that the people running the country are innumerate simpletons, and the professors who know that are too afraid to say anything lest they lose their next grant, or fall off the Honours list, and the journalists are too indoctrinated, and the editors too captured for the bad news to make it to the front page.
REFERENCE
Dongxu et al (2023) A review of flywheel energy storage rotor materials and structures, Journal of Energy Storage, Volume 74, Part A, 25 December 2023, 109076.
Flywheels as energy storage media have been studied for a long time, and even with advances in materials science of super strong materials, have found to be uneconomic except for niche applications and have very low storage capacity for any reasonable system.
The main uses for flywheels are:
– (limited) backup for intermittent wind and solar systems
– grid stability services such as for frequency and load balancing
– uninterruptible power supplies with zero switching time for large organisations like hospitals, data centres or Australia’s King Island Renewable Energy Integration Project
– the electromagnetic aircraft launch system (EMALS) as used by the US Navy.
(See my article April 2020 Silicon Chip. https://www.siliconchip.com.au/Issue/2020/April/Grid-scale+energy+storage )
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In 2011, two carbon fiber composite rotors weighing 1 ton and storing about 30 kWh failed and began to disintegrate.
That 1 ton(ne) mass, if it was perfectly placed at the perimeter of the disk, would have to be traveling with a tip speed of 1673km/hr. No wonder it wanted to fly apart. Must have been in a vacuum too.
I wonder what the diameter was. If that was published it could be possible to work out the forces in the disk platter and with some fabrication drawings we could even calculate the stresses in the disk. It would be interesting to see how close to the tensile stress limits that the disk was planned to operate at.
And the point to remember about carbon fibre failure, it is typically all or nothing, there is no ductile failure in carbon fibre members. Unlike steel reinforced products which yield first.
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If you were a petrol head in the ’60s and 70s the limit was about 7,000 rpm. That was the limiting factor for hotting up a Yank Tank motor.
But it could be done by bogging a Toyota Landcruiser in a black soil plain and sending a bunch of drunks to get it out. Fortunately no legs were disconnected by the shrapnel.
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A 7,000 rev limitation for a four stroke is caused by a failure to bring in new combustion fuel and to vent exhaust gases. The noise of cams bouncing also was a problem.
A two stroke, which has the gases exchanged via ports to the side of the cylinder, (and hence no valves), can rev a lot higher. The limit on them is typically the velocities in the ports. If it goes super sonic, it’s all over.
If you wanted to take an old engine beyond 7000 revs then use light valves, light weight but VERY stiff springs and light weight valves. The less weight that has to move the faster it can be accelerated, (not the car but the engine component), the stiff spring is to keep the cam and valve lifter in close contact. A smoother cam and hence wider valves also helps.
I’m betting the highest 4 stroke, rev limited engines use multiple, wide valves and a relatively smooth cam to limit their mass and acceleration. The cam(s) obviously has to be on top, as close to a short valve lifter and no lifting rod for the valves, etc. And short con rods, low offset crank shafts and relatively wide low mass pistons.
And of course…. in the ’60’s and ’70’s, these were not on the drawing board. You just bought a V8 and made all the noise you wanted.
And as a bonus, if you want really high revs, get a turbine spinning. The limitation on the rev range is usually the tip speed on the largest compressor blade set.
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My recollection is that the flywheel was the weakest link. Racing cars used, and probably still do, a system which sees the valves closely follow the cam. i.e it both opens and closes the valve to stop bouncing. I never saw one.
I always thought 2 strokes too heavily dependent on good luck to go. It was ever a mystery to me that so many people could go to sea with a 2 stroke and get back again.
I remember chainsaws and lawnmowers and gummed up spark plugs.
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The system you describe is called desmodromic, and Ducati use it in their racing engines (Or did?) few actually used it due to complication and high precision required.
Modern F1 cars (and others I expect) use gas filled ‘valve springs’ essentially a pressurised chamber that replaces the old spring steel device.
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My experience with flywheels and engines began with a 1950 English Field Marshall tractor, a single cylinder diesel. Starting procedure involved a decompression lever working on a thread on the flywheel that would have weighed around 100Kg. Usually setting it for three revolutions and the inertia of the flywheel allowed the cranker to pull the engine over the initial compression, and allow the engine to start. Reckoned that I was grown up when I first accomplished that feat.
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I remember that at 12 years I could crank start the 60 hp International WD9, which had a low compression start with intake through a carburettor to warm the motor up before closing the valves to put it on high compression for diesel operation. It had an impulse magneto, i.e.spring loaded, which gave it a good spark which made it so easy.
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“failed and began to disintegrate” sounds like something of an understatement.
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The good thing about carbon fibre is it turns into a fairy floss rather than solid chunks.
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Airports also used to use large spinning flywheels as part of their no-break emergency power systems. IIRC, the flywheel at Perth Airport was 15 tons. Brought to a sudden and violent halt once when a mechanic forgot to remove the clutch lock when testing the system, resulting in the flywheel spinning out through the side of the brick building.
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That sounds a bit like running your navy aground on a distant shore.
Not so long ago the Poms hit the rocks at Norfolk Island with a submarine. They rescued it but I don’t know if it ever saw service again.
I wonder what the penalty might be for a commanding officer. Or a forgetful mechanic.
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It depends if they were a DEI placement or not.
-DEI placements get a promotion.
-Merit placements get sacked/fired.
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Way back when the first of the FFGs was being delivered to the RAN, the officer selected to command the first-of-class (a prestige appointment) was relieved of command when she went ashore (grounded, relatively minor damage, not sunk).
His next posting was a desk job in Navy Office, organising launches and life rafts.
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I mistakenly first read that as ‘organising lunches…’
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When I was in the RAN, failing the Perisher (submarine command) course meant you were immediately escorted off the training sub by the coxswain, given a bottle of whisky, and you would never set foot on a submarine again.
If you were lucky and otherwise exceptional you might end up being in command of a shore base but that stigma would follow you for the rest of your career in the Pussers.
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cR85gqVwbWQ
read the comments
DEI = yes
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The mechanic would have been a public servant, so probably reassigned to the Regional Workshops, or “old men’s home”, for the rest of his working life.
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I think it was a destroyer – HMS Nottingham. Recovered, repaired and eventually scraped.
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David,
all that inertia can do is smooth small and short term frequency deviations, they cannot load balance, that requires an adjustment of input power from a dispatchable source of generation.
Renewables have been criticised, rightly for their lack of inertia and some who do not seem to understand how the system actually works think it is as easy as adding artificial inertia. It is (another) mistake and another cost to an already very expensive electrical supply system.
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Flywheels are low grade PMMs. At best they are very limited smoothers of irregular energy sources. They are even more useless than batteries because a battery can store energy from the irregular energy source but the flywheel can’t.
The energy discussion is getting surreal. Pixie dust, new laws of thermodynamics, ZPE and every other ratbag idea will get currency with the nitwits espousing man made global boiling.
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If you want to burn millions on crazy science, Australia takes the world prize. Here are some ARC prizes in the Australian today.
University Project summary Amount
Sydney Identify the “missing link” in global movements of multispecies justices using innovative musical approaches to communicate the urgency of climate change $3,768,211
Monash Innovate new ethnographic methods to investigate the role of future human values in developing a path towards technologically supported environmental sustainability $3,154,326
ANU Idea of humanity. Critique the contemporary phenomenon of humane-sounding exclusion of refugees $1,222,727
WA “Ground-breaking research” into Aboriginal ‘restorying techniques’ … to produce a NEW general Aboriginal history of WA $1,204,666
Sydney New understanding of women’s contributions to philosphy and greater appreciation of women’s role in European thought and culture $1,167,659
RMIT Understand role of mobile media in grief rituals as a reflection of social and cultural lives $1,107,631
NSW Investigate how performance contributes to cultural diplomacy between Australia and South East Asia. $1,077,256
WA Bring Australia into the global history of slavery by exploring the legacies of British slavery in SA and Vic $658,520
Southern Cross Climate change – conceptualises climate change education with Country. Will generate child and youth-led transcultural understanding of climate change education with Country $608,096
Charles Darwin Develop ways to use AI to communicate about climate change with “remote first nations communities in Northern Aus” $595,528
Tasmania Explore “games and play-based” activities to engage a range of citizens in setting the agenda for climate adaptation and policy $487,736
ANU Investigate gender inequality in policy frontiers focusing on articificial intelligence, space and climate change $483,177
Melbourne New knowledge of how Indigenous sovereignty shapes water law $477,576
Sydney Challenge the “protectionist myth” that Australia is an island continent girt by sea $476,113
Notre Dame Modern slavery – climate change nexus $465,195
Queensland Identify the causes of gender bias in the staged english-language translations of ancient Greek tragedy $464,951
SA Investigate Aus’ LGBTIQ+ youth in our past and investigate what their histories mean to LGBTIQ+ youth today $457,754
RMIT How the art sector engages with colonial history $446,781
Melbourne Opera – examine gender inequality in freelance work. Generate new knowledge about factors that support career advancement $439,293
Melbourne Conceptualise the connection between colonial history and contemporary justice matters … Developing an innovative methodology of historical tracing. $437,827
Sydney Relationship between policing and popular music in Aus $434,347
Monash Study about Chinese Australian writing about Indigenous people, culture and country from 19th century $393,644
Western Sydney “Experience, needs and aspirations” of Indigenous gender and/or sexually diverse people in NSW $387,525
Paywall link here
By comparison, clean energy from wheels covered in flies make sense. As long as the principles of DEI and ESG apply to the flies.
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The mind boggles. That list is the biggest pile of flysh*t ever published. No wonder we are living in a less than second rate society.
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Our government has destroyed science in Australia … they aren’t even being sneaky anymore, those grants are all going to political operatives.
Lol … wouldn’t it be cheaper and more polite to go talk to them yourself?
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Don’t they realise that ‘first nations’ communities who have lived in remote areas for 65,000 years(sic) may just have a handle on the weather already?
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And how do they access AI? In their language(s)?
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This is rape and pillage of Australian Research funds by rent seekers. Obviously with the explicit agreement of the ARC. And what ‘research’ does the Australian taxpayer get from this? It’s daylight robbery.
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“just talk to them yourself”
No. You have to get an interpreter, if you remember the WA Covid experience. That’s a lot of money if every time an aborigine up north has a climate change question. Even though that’s probably a multiplier of zero.
Must be using the same maths as Bowen does with his calculations for the number of wind turbines required to power all houses in Australia, where:
1000 x 0 = 0
BUT
5000 x 0 = free electricity.
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ARC is not solely science.
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So it seems!
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But its Research Integrity Policy appears wholly Dadaist.
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Barry Humphries would be impressed. A random phrase generator making millions.
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Out of curiousity I went to take a peek at what in fact they are supposed to be doing.
https://classic.austlii.edu.au/cgi-bin/download.cgi/cgi-bin/download.cgi/download/au/legis/cth/consol_act/arca2001266.txt
I was admittedly surprised to discover that not only are you right … but it turns out that neither “science” nor “technology” are even part of their job description!
Lots of structural procedures and corporate sounding names but ultimately as long as it can pass as “research” and providing the relevant Minister of the day doesn’t step in, the scope is extraordinarily broad. They make their own rules, and apparently also evaluate their own performance … but ultimately it all comes back to the Minister … so despite the elaborate structure it effectively functions as a wing of the Commonwealth Public Service.
So … yeah … they can give money to pretty much anything they want. Oh well!
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University of Sydney. $3,768,211
‘Identify the “missing link” in global movements of multispecies justices using innovative musical approaches to communicate the urgency of climate change.
Not science. Not anything. This is AI generated nonsense. Your money. Beats working.
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I would like to see a research grant on the correlation between social “science” grants and donations to the Labor Party.
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I think here the ALP would be accepting payment in kind.
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From my above-mentioned article:
Flywheel storage equations
The energy of a spinning flywheel can be calculated from these two equations:
Ef = 0.5 × I × ω²
I = k × m × r²
Here, Ef = flywheel kinetic energy, I = moment of inertia, ω = angular velocity (measured in radians/second and proportional to RPM), k = inertial constant (a value from 0 to 1 depending on flywheel shape), m = flywheel mass and r = flywheel radius.
If we combine the above equations and create a new constant K, we get Ef = K × ω² × m × r². For comparison, assuming the flywheels to be compared are the same shape, we can see that flywheel energy storage goes up with the square of the angular velocity (or RPM) and the radius of the flywheel. Thus, if either the radius or RPM doubles, the energy storage quadruples.
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One of the big surprises from the SA $100Million battery is that while useless for storage, it did supply the very short term inertia of a flywheel to the SA grid. That stopped the catastrophic collapse of the windmills which could take a full day to restart. It is a big problem with zero inertia systems supplying AC power, the need to continuously and precisely match voltage and phase on thousands of systems state wide. So Milliband has decided to go back to real solid flywheels. A bit like Kamala Harris thinks there really is a cloud, up there. And the UN President thinks 100F is the boiling point of water.
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The original flywheels were the turbo-alternator assemblies in real power stations. The rotating mass of these maintain frequency and power output.
For example, at Australia’s Bayswater Power Station which the Government and Left want to close from 2030 and which is coal fired, each 660MW generator has a weight of 1,342 metric tons (1,479 short tons) and spins at 3,000 rpm.
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Which is a huge mass at this speed and beats out a wave shape which is impervious to external feedback from the grid and becomes the reference for all the zero mass electronic inputs. And the ability of the big battery to do the same thing was remarkable, being instantaneously as dominant in amperage despite potential grid variations. The investment ended up making sense for a quite unexpected reason and solving a core problem in an AC grid with so many inputs. Very lucky, not clever.
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Even the climate zealots are realising that the transition is not going to plan. Rather than adopt a back to the drawing board approach they try to innovate on the run to fix it. Green hydrogen, batteries and flywheels are all theoretical solutions to the mess they’ve created. Whilst forget everything and go back to coal is the best solution nuclear is a good compromise. The first thing is to admit to the mistakes and stop the renewables transition. Build the base load first and use the renewables at the fringes. But our politicians are too timid to tackle the renewables lobby and the feral greens.
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Jo, the link to Paul Homewood’s website does not work.
[Thanks Roy, fixed! – Jo]
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Try this –
https://notalotofpeopleknowthat.wordpress.com/2024/10/07/the-cost-of-milibands-flywheels/
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That article and its comments explains the system and its some of its limitations. Additionally, the graphs show that spinning flywheels cannot contribute ant significant amount of energy storage, either now or in the future.
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Not A Lot Of People Know That Yer’ Know……………
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TpNNNXrGttY
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‘Allo, my name is Michael Caine…………………
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rX0F3kY3uxU
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All “green” energy is useless and economically destructive, as per the plan.
Engineers have already designed economic, clean and low environmental footprint (and generally invisible to most people) means of inexpensive and reliable electricity production which have been in use for well over a century.
These are:
-Hydro (real hydro, not energy-consuming SH2).
-Coal
-Gas
-Nuclear
These don’t need battery backup of any kind.
Let’s go back to those. Our Civilisation depends on them.
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Please people, make sure our moron that identifies as an energy minister, never gets to hear about this harebrained fantasy, lest he gets any far more harebrained fantasies himself.
We’re in enough trouble as it is!!
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Just wondering what happens even with a minor tremor in the region. Unbalanced washing machine on steroids.
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The unbalanced washing machine or unbalanced flywheel is a terrible problem. The forces are destructive not settling. Basically you have to stop or self destruct.
An earthquake would raise serious questions about the flexibility of bearings on the axle as the flywheel would NOT move in an earthquake. The sort of problem you get with skyscrapers and especially stone buildings. You need flexibility in the foundations and the joints. The Romans used sliding joints. Some of the flexibile Roman structures in earthquake prone Istanbul are amazing. Cities were destroyed by earthquakes rather than by vandalism.
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Supposed Chinese plant.
Interesting but daft.
https://youtu.be/3VF5jNXw4nE
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The Chinese don’t really believe in “renewables” or anthropogenic global warming.
The only reason they build plant like this is for demonstration purposes so they can sell their economy-destroying “green machines to naive and gullible Sinophilic Western countries like Australia.
They know their future is strictly coal, gas, nuclear and real hydro (e g. hence their interest in Tibet).
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They say power 2000 homes for a year. At standard 10kWh per house per day, the available stored energy is 7500MWh so 250 hours duration at rated 30WM.
Snowy 2 has storage of 350GWh so about 46 Dinglungs. At $48m it would take $2.2bn to replace Snowy 2 with Dinglungs. Snowy 2 is now heading for AUD20bn so Dinglung looks low cost.
Household/year is not a recognised engineering unit so I could be way off and there is now where actually stating the available stored energy.
I have some doubt about these systems actually offering grid inertia. They are decoupled through electronics so the inertia is limited to the resting of the electronics. It has not hard to get 10X rating out of a turbine for the milliseconds it takers to clear a fault.
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Referring to some of the recent “powering x households” statements of the solar and wind providers, the actual power seems to work out at 500-1000 Watts per house.
30
No doubt about it the UK’s bogus energy transition is barking mad and for a population of about 68 million these loonies should check and understand that their annual co2 emissions today are about the same as the 1880s.
Population in 1880s about 26 million and co2 emissions were higher then than co2 emissions today.
Population today about 67.9 million and they emit less co2 emissions than were emitted in 1890.
Meanwhile China, India and the NON OECD countries’ co2 emissions have been soaring for decades.
Check out the real data from OWI Data at the link. The active graphs make it easy to check over a ling period of time.
https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/annual-co2-emissions-per-country?country=OWID_WRL~GBR~CHN
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You mean there is someone in charge of a country’s energy supply that is stupider than Chris Bowen? Yikes.
210
Don’t say that.
Bowen will see it as a challenge.
170
Comments elsewhere suggest Starmer gave Miliband the job deliberately knowing it would be an albatross and he would have to wear the failure. It may be a case of neutering the competition.
In comments threads Miliband is variously known as Millibrain and Miliamp.
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It’s a disgrace that “professional” scientific and engineering organisations remain silent about the “green” energy disaster and the anthropogenic global warming fraud.
They surely can’t also be so woke as to not know the truth?
It is a further disgrace that taxpayer-funded scientific research organisations such as CSIRO won’t tell the truth. They can’t all be woke, some of the older ones must know the truth?
I know some might lose their jobs for speaking the truth. That’s a moral decision they have to make and live with.
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Finkel, Australia’s ex-chief scientist, claimed that green hydrogen was workable. As a scientist he should have known better.
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And because of that advice, we taxpayers have just lost $115 million on the following project, not counting others.
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And the rest. According to the current Judith Sloan article in The Australian, South Australia, a mendicant state dependent on other states for its money, is still pushing ahead with a $600m green hydrogen project.
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Being woke is knowing truth that is not so, and projecting guilt that is.
20
What’s being burned is the economic future and the productivity of the peasantry.
Western governments are printing ghost currency for political virtue signaling.
That projected spectre money is being handed out to elite investors that turn future debt into present real wealth.
Like Pfizer and Bill Gates.
They walk away with fortunes.
We get insurmountable debt in the promise of being saved from dragons and witches.
Net Zero Ponzi scheme.
Collapse looms.
Likely the reason customized luxury billionaire island redoubt construction is a growth industry.
I’d being interested in being corrected if my assessment is wrong.
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They know it’s coming.
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If this is not a description of diabolical evil I don’t know what is 🙁
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Honk,
You can’t eat money – they are sociopaths playing “The Great Game” and will not escape retribution when reality reasserts itself . They are the emperors without clothes .
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Thanks again Jo for linking to the video and a very accurate summary from the competent engineer.
And the short, important warning from Dr Carl Sagan at the end was from about 30 years ago, because Dr Sagan died at age 62 years in 1996. Dr Sagan just repeated Eisenhowers’ warning about govts and con merchants from the 1960s.
So why do we refuse to listen and try to understand their warnings about the liars and con merchants today?
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Flywheels are only good for stabilising frequency and power factor. King island has one and that is part of their “renewable” system . The system they have installed is capable of supplying all of their demand but rarely does and requires both flywheel and resistor to function . If their diesel genset goes down life will become “interesting” . I was looking at the “dashboard” yesterday and demand and output didn’t match which implies shennanigans .
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BTW the same old BS and nonsense from the small King Island hybrid system that includes a flywheel.
Again,so far this morning the Diesel is supplying power most of the time and toxic W & S SFA most of the time.
https://www.hydro.com.au/clean-energy/hybrid-energy-solutions/success-stories/king-island
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And yet the governments still want to put wind turbines out in the Bass Strait, because they somehow believe that the wind always blows there.
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I watched this video yesterday. By chance only as it appeared on my youtube homepage. First impressions were how stupid politicians and their advisors are.
I am just an average bloke in the street, no tech qualifications or experience in the power industry. But even I know that a flywheel is not a usable source of electricity. Paramount for frequency control and grid stabilisation but not for power generation.
Incompetent, ignorant politicians and bureaucrats are costing us a fortune. No wonder I refuse to acknowledge them at the polling booths.
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“You mean there is someone in charge of a country’s energy supply that is stupider than Chris Bowen? ”
I’ll see your stupid politician and raise you even more stupid advisors.. This brainless b1tch in fact-
“Dr Rebecca Huntley is a leading social researcher and director of research at 89 Degrees East.”
“I’ve provided a lot of advice for governments over the years…. a government-sponsored, complementary home battery solution is also required….Chris Bowen was on the money recently when he said “the sun doesn’t send a bill”. Please, all decision-makers in Canberra – stop being afraid of spending money to make it happen.”
She wants the Govt to provide free solar batteries to all Australians, and there was NO mention of how much it would cost, how many families it would burn to death and how long before it all gets replaced. A typical SMH Teal article!
https://www.smh.com.au/business/the-economy/if-you-give-voters-free-solar-batteries-they-might-keep-you-in-power-mr-albanese-20241002-p5kfaf.html
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She must think that governments have an endless supply of money.
It’s becoming a more common trait with government advisors.
I dream of a day where governments actually balance their budgets, just like 99% of the population successfully manage to do.
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It sounds like Miliband is talking about the same concepts recently spruiked here in Australia. Will he next spruik the repurposing of shut-down coal-fired generators? And the concepts behind EV, train and tram regenerative braking?
Networks have been using synchronous condensers to support system stability for yonks; however, no one who knows anything about power systems would claim a syn-con is a back-up source of supply. They stabilise voltage and inertia, control voltage by controlling reactive power and counter fault levels. What’s the bet the claims that syn-cons can be a back-up source of supply are ultimately walked back just like similar claims about batteries. Remember when shills were spruiking batteries as back-up sources of supply? Then when it became apparent that batteries couldn’t supply power for any viable length of time the spruikers changed the message and started saying that the batteries were working because they had prevented outages. And that’s true, they do prevent outages, they provide quick release synthetic inertia so they are great stability assets; but that’s not what they were installed to do. They were allegedly installed as a source of supply, not network support. It’s like saying a car without wheels works brilliantly because the car radio produces fabulous sound.
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If only the grid could be powered by leftist stupidity. Talk about ‘Superpower”.
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It’s very profitable cunning and plain fraud. Pretending to be cleverness. Like the ARC grants. Like the whole of man made CO2 driven Global Warming. The most remarkably successful and ridiculous science hoax in human history. Hell fire and carbon credits. Medieval. And it still works. I am amazed the Pope is not printing his own carbon indulgences to be sold at churches around the world.
80
As soon as I saw these words –
“the schemes would save consumers money”,
my b.s. detector cranked-up to 11 then exploded. Someone’s pocketing those $trillions and it ain’t Marjorie & Bob down in Snivelly-on-Stoke [unless] Scientists Say Hottest UK Winter EVER!
80
Again, Mark Mills easily explains the problems with so called renewable energy and their so called energy transition to toxic W & S.
This only takes 5 minutes to watch and he is a master at including so much data packed into the available time.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wDOI-uLvTnY
50
Always a blast of fresh air. And nothing to do with Climate Change. It makes you wonder if all the Greens are funded by China. The people who demand more mining are the ones who stop mining, except in China. And the same ones who demand windmills and solar panels and electric cars, from China. War on the West was declared long ago. And the fifth column contains the Greens and endless politicians.
110
Andrew Bolt was correct in 2018 when he quoted Dr Finkel ( under oath) in the Senate.
Thanks to Senator MacDonald we know the truth about Aussies reducing our co2 emissions to zero and ditto for the UK in 2024.
See Bolt’s summary and the Finkel video at the link.
https://www.heraldsun.com.au/blogs/andrew-bolt/finkel-was-right-first-time-virtually-nothing/news-story/763a69d7fdbc383cf3a210342842aac3
50
Well, the other article on that page didn’t age well!
“SIGNS THAT UKRAINE COULD ACTUALLY WIN THIS-
Russia’s advance has slowed to a crawl. Its army is running out of fuel and food, and is losing many more jets and helicopters than it can replace.”
I’m amazed they’ve left it up, everything he says turned out to be wrong.
40
Russia is playing the part of the Germans/Austro Hungarians in the first world war with WW2/WW3 weapons. They will collapse when they run out of resources.
10
Paul Burgess has got his wires crossed. Synchronous condensers do eliminate the need for high inertia generating plant to stay connected.
Once the synchronous condensers were installed in Australia, the need for AEMO directions to SA gas plants plummeted. Batteries provide the longer duration energy in the range 6 seconds to a few hours.
UK has average demand of 30GW.
To meet that demand you could have:
A. 40GW of coal generators plus 10GW of gas topping.
OR
B. !00GW of wind, 100GW of solar, 30GW of gas for when there is no wind or solar, 10GW of synchronous condensers so you can have 100% wind and solar when there is wind and/or sun and 30GW/100GWh of batteries to keep the system alive when a front comes over before the gas plant can be bought up to capacity.
But remember wind and solar are cheaper.
It is worth noting that UK electricity demand is declining. It has dropped 25% so far this century. Projecting that, it will be zero by 2100. So there will be no need for a grid.
61
Yes indeed, https://gridwatch.co.uk/ shows when I randomly cjeck it on an almost daily basis, seldom much over 30GW. and that’s with already so much electrification. 10 to 15 years ago, you’d have said it was around 45GW. and despite the reduction in consumption and increase in useless windmills, we always ever seem to get a production of around 8 to 10 GW. ( too many Herons for the fishponds )
Millibrain couldn’t have done Physics at school to learn the basics of electricity, otherwise we wouldn’t even be contemplating this nonsense …. so what about the 8 out of 10 who DIDN’T vote for this bunch of scammers ?
20
Given how the government is going, it won’t be long before we become the next S. Africa.
Should we replace our anthem with a more appropriate one?
“We’re committed to Net zero, the WEF, and renewables”
Cue new Albo anthem:
https://youtu.be/0jTHNBKjMBU?feature=shared
😆
50
Net zero is treason. It is political interference by foreign powers.
60
If these units could be incorporated in the system most of the problems might be solved. https://www.bing.com/videos/riverview/relatedvideo?q=+turbo+confabulator&mid=20FF25DFA9B4CC3B53D220FF25DFA9B4CC3B53D2&FORM=VIRE
20
It’s interesting to note that both Miliband and Bowen hail from the same politics! They both once had flywheel toys. The ones that require several pushes along a hard surface to activate the “flywheel” that would propel the car/truck/train etc at a diminishing speed in a straight line for about 5 meters. The only energy was that expended by the owner in the retrieval process.
80
Don’t be so negative. Someone is going to cash in big from making these things. Isn’t that a good thing?
40
This is what happens when you elect the mathematically illiterate.
60
But Brian – our politicians are ignorant of many things, not just children’s readers.
50
It’s not mathematics they are ignorant of, they didn’t get past first base with arithmetic.
30
I heard about a flywheel in Finnish industry about 50 years ago. It worked well to minimize power peaks until its bearing was broken. The flywheel dropped to floor, took off and passed through several walls until stopped. They didn’t try it second time.
140
Yes, all one has to do is play with a spoked Bicycle front wheel on its Spindle in your hands, getting someone else to quickly spin it up to speed before you try and move it. Go ON, : TRY it.
30
We should never forget that in 2023 their toxic W & S lunacy generated just 2.59% of the world’s primary energy consumption by source.
But fossil fuels generated 91.49% and bio fuels 0.86% of the world’s primary energy consumption by source in 2023.
So why don’t our clueless donkeys understand these very simple kindy sums?
https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/share-of-primary-energy-consumption-by-source
50
Here’s Australia’s primary energy by source in 2023.
Toxic, unreliable W & S about 5% of primary energy by source in 2023 and fossil fuels 93.64%.
Can anyone tell me how Labor, Greens Teals loonies hope to achieve their ruinous net zero by 2035 or 2050?
And how many trillions of $ will it cost? And what is the trillions of $ cost of destroying up to 28,000 klms of our wilderness areas?
https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/share-of-primary-energy-consumption-by-source?country=~AUS
40
But consider environmental tourism after the wind turbines are removed, nice flat hilltops for camping and access roads.
sarc.
30
I believe Synergy, the Western Australian energy provider, has offered the old wind turbine sites in Esperance to the local council. Not sure what the council is planning to do with all these hilltop parking areas.
30
“Can anyone tell me how Labor, Greens Teals loonies hope to achieve their ruinous net zero by 2035 or 2050?”
By demand reduction. Remember you are the carbon they wish to reduce.
Forget what they are telling you. It is obviously lies.
Modern civilization and standards of living and the increased population occurred because of our use of coal and oil etc. Remove coal and oil etc and and you remove modern civilization and the increased population.
Simples !
20
Neville- Sadly, any Climate cultist / Renewables zealot sees those figures and just screams “we just need more RENEWABLES”!!
This is now parroted regularly in every newspaper comment section, Social media sites such as LinkedIn, Face Space, X etc with AEMO, Bonehead Bowen and all the sycophant rent seekers saying “Look, look, we achieved 70+ % power from our beloved Wind /solar for 30 minutes”! “Renewables now supply 40% of our power on average” (this seems true enough). They all say “We just need to install MORE” whilst knowing nothing of synchronicity, frequency, peak demand, duck curves, distribution costs, etc, etc!!!
30
This is what happens when Marxism and their culture wars are ignored, or laughed at as too stupid to influence anyone in a decision making position.
Like Bobowen and his sarcastic sanctimony, where everything he says comes with an incredulous sneer that anyone could think differently to him and his echo chamber.
The hive mind needs resistance now and there are leaders like Milei, Meloni, Ortez, Mulina, with Trump, Dutton, Poilievre ready to join the cavalcade of fact providers. The time of nuclear is now, to take the grifters out of the equation and provide baseload for the AI technology age. For better or worse, that, rather than the Marxism we’ve seen the historical destruction from, is the future.
40
Energy commissars are to flywheels as houseflies are to a turd.
The only difference being it’s the poor taxpayer ending up in the s***.
00
there is no-one in Miliband’s department, high up, middle level, SPADs with ANY scientific expertise, never mind knowledge of energy.
And it’s five years till Nirvana…
10