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Australia's Looming Power Crisis
Posted by Big Gav on March 22, 2010 - 9:07am in The Oil Drum: Australia/New Zealand
Robert Gottliebsen has a thought provoking, albeit slightly confused, article in the Business Spectator, arguing Australia (like Britain) faces a crisis in power generation capacity in the coming years ("Our power vacuum") and that action needs to be taken if the looming supply gap is to be filled by private investment rather than a rushed program of government built power stations when blackouts become more frequent (given the enormous prices rises forecast for power in NSW over the next 3 years we seem to be seeing the impact of this already).
Australians expect their governments to provide them with reliable electricity and if, or when, that doesn’t happen, community anger will be white hot. With the exception of a period in Perth, for the past few decades – except in extreme weather conditions – power has been reliable. But unless we take action now Australia is about to enter an era where electricity supply will be much less reliable. We have received an alert from the UK where, like Australia, the country moved away from the traditional model of one government supplier. ...
It takes about four to five years to put together a major power project, we must make decisions fairly quickly. The biggest problem is in Victoria. In the 2009/10 summer, Melbourne had only one very hot day and that took place in January when industry was shut and many people were on holiday.
Had Melbourne experienced a hot January/February, black outs would have been widespread and Premier John Brumby would have copped the blame – possibly leading to his electoral defeat later this year. Yet Brumby is fully aware of the problem but can’t act to solve it because of the buffoons in Canberra. Australia not only needs more baseload power, but also needs to reduce its dependence on coal, particularly brown coal. Renewables are important, but they can't fill the gap. Gas, or nuclear, is essential.
Robert's conclusion is confusing for a number of reasons - nuclear power simply isn't an option on any level (it's too expensive compared to the alternatives, could never be built in time to avert a 2015 crisis in any case and would meet intractable public opposition) and thus could be discounted without further thought.
While gas could be used to avert any potential failure to meet future demand (as I've noted before, if you take natural gas, coal seam gas, biogas and unconventional gas into account, we could generate all our power from gas and still be chugging along happily - discounting all the carbon emissions - for more than a century) its hardly the cleanest option and keeps us locked into an extract and pollute model of power generation.
While Robert glibly dismisses renewables without explanation, these are clearly the best option for shifting Australia onto a sustainable, carbon free power generation model - and are eminently suitable for meeting the near term challenge of growing peak consumption on hot summer afternoons in the major east coast capitals.
Looking at the available options:
- wind power available from the South Australian coast is often strong when days are hottest in Melbourne and Sydney (as the southerly change approaches)
- solar PV can be deployed locally within the big cities and follows load on hot summer days
- solar thermal power can be built in northern Victoria and Western NSW, which will also have maximum production on hot summer afternoons
- solar thermal power could also be combined with gas, as is being proposed for some new Queensland power stations to provide "baseload" power if combining energy storage proves too expensive for the time being
- solar thermal power can be built out in small units (and on brownfield sites close to cities, eliminating transmission costs) which requires smaller amounts of capital
- home insulation projects implemented as part of the stimulus package should decrease summer power demand (as should solar hot water programs) regardless of all the bad press the program received
- geothermal power could be pursued more vigorously (as could tidal power in bass strait, as the British are looking to do in Scotland)
- smart meters / smart grids can be used to manage demand without the need for blackouts / brownouts (and are something we need to accelerate the implementation of regardless)
Robert goes on to note that creating a price for carbon emissions would annoy foreign investors in Victorian brown coal fired power stations:
The emissions trading scheme legislation would have had the effect of destroying the Australian equity of major global power generating companies (led by China Light & Power). If their capital was destroyed by government action, there is no way those global generating companies would fund new developments in Australia given the attractive proposals being offered to them by India and China.
Our local power generating groups like Origin and AGL do not have the capital for extensive investments and even if they could raise the equity funds, banks would not lend the enormous sums required to a few groups.
In response to this it would be tempting to ask who cares about foreign investors in the dirtiest form of power generation - global warming science was already on their radar when they bought these assets so they need to be prepared to take a loss for ignoring it - and they will invest whenever they see an opportunity to profit, regardless of past mistakes.
Cross posted from Peak Energy.
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"Nuclear power simply isn't an option" - "thus could be discounted without further thought".
So young yet so set in your ways - so sad.
Not at all - I've considered all the options carefully and concluded that nuclear is just an expensive dead end - its not a matter of being close minded.
If you look at the reasoning I gave in this case you'd have to admit I'm correct - right ?
Hi Gav.
I am Pro nuclear but am willing to be persuaded otherwise.
Where will I find non-hysterical anti nuclear arguments?
How does it stack up in the long term?
Does a blanket "Nyet" cover strange and foreign lands?
Is this a lost opportunity argument? (we have enough resources to build either this or that technology)
My understanding of Thorium reactors is that they consume plutonium.
Spent pebbles from pebble bed reactors can be dropped from the air over the Amazon to frighten off the loggers. (Hey, we need the oxygen)
What about laser fusion?
It seems as though there are a lot of issues to be mulled over.
Amory Lovins has done a pretty good job of explaining why nuclear isn't a solution - try reading up on him...
http://www.rmi.org/rmi/Library/E08-01_NuclearIllusion
http://www.grist.org/article/2009-10-13-stewart-brands-nuclear-enthusias...
http://www.democracynow.org/2008/7/16/amory_lovins_expanding_nuclear_pow...
Even Switkowski's report considered that 2020 was the first year we could get a nuclear power station operational - even if the implementation was done "fast".
http://www.abc.net.au/news/opinion/items/200611/s1793937.htm
("Fast" does sound rather un-characteristic of our National Government!)
...And four years have elapsed since then with no action... so make that 2024?
;-)
You're ignoring Gav's point about public opposition. It doesn't matter if nukes can be built for $1 and overnight - Aussies just don't want nukes.
I happen to believe in democracy, if Aussies want nukes we should definitely have them, if we don't then we shouldn't. Put it to the people: do we want coal, gas, oil, biofuel, wind, solar PV, solar thermal, wind, geothermal, tidal, nuclear, or what?
Of course many will reply, "but the public don't know about these issues!" And the simple answer is, well then advocate for your favourites and then they will know. If you believe the public is too dumb to be trusted with such decisions, I suggest you go live in China or somewhere like that where the government will agree with you.
Aussies just don't want nukes.
I didn't read the article (need to register) but I don't think Oz is the same as the UK. In the UK they are actually running out of fuel for the power stations or being forced to get it from countries that are less than democratic - gas from Russia, Algeria and Qatar and coal from where?
Here in Oz the power stations are ageing but with approx 1100 years of coal left we are hardly running out. With or without nuclear Australia has more than enough options but people will have to pay more.
The UK has more problems than we do but the basic problem is the same - lack of capacity (generation infrastructure) to meet projected demand (the UK then faces the additional problem of having to import fuel which was once plentiful locally).
There are so many buffalo on the prairie it is laughable that we could hunt them all out.
And Cod, sir, why you can walk over them, they are so plentiful.
We are going to increase our population to 50 million.
And then stop?
"The greatest failing of humanity is the failure to understand the exponential function." Bartlett
The tuna used to practically leap into the boat...
Mate, we can feed 50 million in Oz, no problem. We already do, considering exports.
If people would eat soy-burgers instead of T-bones we could feed hundreds of millions. (And they will eat soy-burgers when they have to; my ancestors lived on almost nothing but oats and it didn't kill them.)
Then there is the small consideration of climate uncertainty.
There will always be Climate Change Skeptics.
Just as there are still people who still deny the harmful effects of smoking.
Why did King Crimson's "Bat out of Hell" just spring into my mind?
you did not actually just type "1100 years of coal left"... did you?
The big difference between Australia's power needs and the power needs of the UK is the timing of demand.
Renewables will be very hard put to supply the UK's needs. Neither solar nor wind supply peak at the right time for them.
For Australia -- as the original post said, I can't see any fundamental technical reason we couldn't be 100% renewable in Australia. I'll boldly predict that we could do it with solar, wind and existing hydro. Very, very few countries are in the same enviable position as we are.
The reasons for not being 100% renewable are almost entirely financial, mostly to do with the way the auction system works for paying energy producers.
By a thousand tiny slices we can get to 100% renewable. We roughly know what we need to do to get there.
Nuclear: I disagree with the original post on this. I don't think there's a fundamental technical reason we couldn't do it. We could churn out nuclear physicists and engineers from our universities; getting fuel won't be a big problem; pouring a lot of concrete very fast isn't a problem either; we won't get sanctioned by the US for deciding to build something. But the "intractable opposition" is the key to the problem.
I think the reason we won't get nuclear is because it would require a brave political decision to do so, and our political system is not about our leaders delivering bold visions. That's not what universal suffrage delivers -- our system is designed to make our politicians follow the herd opinion.
We will end up doing without nuclear in Australia simply because we do have other options.
The key reason for not going nuclear is that it simply isn't cost effective and would take 10 odd years even if the intractable opposition could be overcome.
So it wouldn't solve the problem, regardless.
So we'll either go the right way, or we'll fall back on gas (or, heaven help us, coal).
One major issue with nuclear in Australia is location. A nuclear ps like a coal fired ps needs lots of water for cooling. All major power stations built in Australia have relied on either the ocean or major coastal rivers for their water supplies. I can't see too many coastal communities being ecstatic about a 2500MW nuclear power station being built near the lovely coastal village.
And don't think it can be built anywhere on the coast. It needs to be reasonably close to the HV grid and it needs to be near a town centre to provide somewhere for the builders and later operators to live.
Putting all these together means it would have to be somewhere on the SE coast - like to nominate any locations that would not be controversial? And which political party would be game to approve it?
Forget it, nuclear will never happen in Australia at least not on the east coast.
Somewhat less-controversial locations would be alongside existing coal-fired plants, therefore taking over the existing water and grid infrastructure and preserving the jobs of many of the skilled employees. But all this would be 15-20 years off if you started right now.
- Amongst other things we'd have to invent a new planning process dealing with tricky issues such as waste and reprocessing. (Or would that be eight planning processes to account for all the States and Territories?)
There's already a reactor and a nuclear waste stockpile in the southern suburbs of Sydney that attracts no comment - how much more in our backyard could it be?
...But with our rich coal and gas reserves I don't see any popular imperative for nuclear here just yet. - Unlike the UK with its looming energy security issues, now that their coal is gone and the North Sea Gas is running out. (Yes there's a greenhouse imperative in Australia but thanks to the pollies that one's been derailed for the moment too, at least as a popular issue.)
My hunch is those squeaky clean forms of electrical generation will generate just megawatts when we really want to displace gigawatts of coal. I understand the Vic brown coal burners have had big bucks waved at them by the Feds to convert to gas fired. Eventually south-eastern Australia (SA, Vic, Tas) will have to get natural gas from WA or coal seam gas from the north-east. At the same time I predict a huge swing to gas for transport (CNG & GTL). Those factors will raise power prices more than any ETS medium term. If the ETS ever required 50% CO2 cuts relative to year 2000 then gas would struggle.
I fear that new coal plants that are 'capture ready' will be approved and somehow escape CO2 mandates. They will be gasifier type units. High temperature coal plants using supercritical water also burn somewhat cleaner, say 20% less CO2. Gas plants using open cycle, combined cycle and CHP may spring up but will battle against high gas prices. They could all be deemed 'honorary renewable' and get credits to help fudge the figures.
If some of the squeaky clean technologies could provide steady power at gigawatt scale then I think they should get some help with capital, not so much with ongoing revenue. Trouble is it should all have happened yesterday.
Big Gav you raise a serious issue, Victoria is in serious trouble. (NSW may not be any better.)
Load shedding already occurs in Summer, Some Projects have already been Started, eg the Completion of the Kiewa Hydro Electric Scheme. adding back a station that was in the original scheme but later dropped. Also a Natural Gas fired Station has been completed at Laverton North.
The real Problem is in aging base load in the Latrobe Valley. This is privately owned, and the Herald Sun has previously carried reports on the lack of maitenance spending. This has not been helped at all by the Emmissions Trading Scheme proposal. Who in their right mind would commit the serious spending required; when it seemed likely that the investment in power generated from Brown coal would be taxed severely.
New base load capacity is required.
Proven Candidates
Neither wind or Solar are suitable for base load. I doub't either will make for good investments.
Victoria does not yet have the political will to make the required decision.
When the blackouts happen that will change; however way too late.
So I moved out. Voted with my feet.
"Baseload" generation is a mythical concept that is basically meaningless.
Solar can be made 24/7 if you build in energy storage. Pumped hydro can effectively do the same for wind power.
If you want a large amount of capacity that is available around the clock, then a geographically diverse selection of different types of renewable energy generation can meet all of our needs - we just have to be bothered to build the stuff...
Big Gav you are absolutely right that we need to build new plants.
However “baseload” is neither mythical nor meaningless.
It is what makes the grid so reliable.
During each day the amount of electricity required fluctuates usually at a minimum during the middle of the night, and at a peak typically early evening.
Mains electricity is not storable. It has to be generated when it is needed. Controlling the grid to achieve the required tolerances is quite a serious business.
The demand at its lowest point is referred to as baseload
In Victoria this is supplied by Coal fired Power plants. (70% Of Victorian generation capacity) Which are slow to start and stop and once running just keep on going at a constant output.
At the other end is peaking load, which needs to be able to be started quickly to meet changing demand. Hydro electricity (6% of Victorian generation capacity) is particularly suited to peaking plants.
And In between There is Intermediate to fill the gaps, Natural Gas (19% Of Victorian generation capacity) is often used in intermediate plants.
Of course there is flexibility in how the generators are managed, when some turbines are down.
Wind currently is 4% of installed capacity. It should be noted that with all the types listed above will normally operate at full capacity. Wind generation does not often run at full capacity. But worse, it can not be switched on when required, you can only use it when its available.
Other Generation is 1% of installed capacity.
Pumped Hydro can indeed store energy, not directly electricity; though it is not very efficient. (more energy is used to pump it back up than it generates on the way down.)
Not a single Victorian Hydro Plant is currently equipped to pump back.
As soon As there is something close to surplus generating capacity that doesn't need costly fuel inputs perhaps it will be looked at. I won't hold my breath waiting for it.
Victoria’s Total installed generation capacity is 9,488 MW
To cover just 1% with
Would require storage capacity in the order of 474 MAh Somehow I just can’t see it.
Victoria is heading for blackouts like a runaway train.
and it won't be limited to Victoria.
Regards,
AusDarren
On the "baseload fallacy" :
http://www.sustainabilitycentre.com.au/BaseloadFallacy.pdf
Your argument seems to be circular - legacy plant generates baseload, therefore we need it.
A lot of our demand was engineered around the fact that capacity was there around the clock and therefore should be used (plus a desire for flat rate charging due to the low granularity of meter readings) - but even then people's daily life patterns made it hard to level out the load, resulting in expensive daily / early evening peaks.
We can adjust this model now as we move from a model of large scale, centralised generation with flat pricing (for consumers) to a model of distributed generation with dynamic (market based) pricing.
A few other nits :
Pumped hydro is surprisingly efficient (around 90%).
The fact that wind and other renewables is intermittent is irrelevant - so are coal and nuclear plants - their outages just aren't as frequent, but the occur nevertheless - every power source we have is intermittent and this fact needs to be dealt with. You deal with this by having diverse sources of supply.
You don't need storage for all your solar power - the best thing about solar is that it matches summer peaks - and that is what would be causing blackouts, not the minimum night time load level.