Australia is so outrageous. So much land, sun, wind, and money but no, they'll just use coal thank you.
If you look at the snapshot at the current time (of this posting), the sun has gone down and there's less solar power.
They started behind the curve, but they're moving quickly, relatively at least
Obviously not good for the long-term, nor good for the planet, but this is the same driver for coal power also (which we indirectly contribute to due to the sheer amount of goods they export to the advanced economies).
The net result was the grid being taken over by the government after a series of rolling blackouts in a number of states and letting everything rip. All this is was directly attributed to _one_ coal station going offline unexpectedly and losing the baseload it generated.
I can write a book on how fucked the market here is.
A couple of highlights from Australia's energy transition story in the last few days, which show some of the work being done at state level in spite of a largely renewables-hostile federal government over the last several years:
> the Western Australia grid ... reached 82 per cent renewables for a half-hour period on October 30 ... and it is likely that new peak is the highest for any gigawatt-scale grid in the world.
> South Australia ... has established the world’s highest share of renewables – as a percentage of demand – in any gigawatt scale grid in the world, when it reached 146 per cent on September 14. The excess is, of course, exported to the neighbouring state, in this case Victoria.
-- https://reneweconomy.com.au/the-stunning-wind-and-solar-leap... [2022-11-04]
> [NSW is seeking] solutions on replacing 10GW of coal capacity that is likely to leave the grid within the next decade.
> Those plans are being accelerated by fast-tracked closures of the main coal generators, including Liddell early next year, Eraring in 2025, and Bayswater as early as 2030. Vales Point is expected to close by 2029, leaving Mt Piper with the only uncertain closure time.
-- https://reneweconomy.com.au/nsw-formally-declares-its-third-... [2022-11-04]
With a new government and increased market pressures, the tides are turning, quite erratically though, because of time/market pressure, mismanagement, incompetence, opportunistic capitalists, and whatever else.
Wind has other issues. There is no silver bullet here.
https://www.csiro.au/-/media/News-releases/2022/GenCost-2022...
They just had a government that wanted to funnel money to their backers in coal industry.
That solar is cheaper at noon doesn't mean much. It's a bit like saying that coal is free underground.
Renewable power is cheap in the same way someone whose head is dipped in liquid nitrogen and whose feet are in molten lead in over all pretty comfortable.
Plus, Australia has hydro, which can be varied to fill the gaps.
> Greater confidence in role of wind and solar PV: GenCost previously included a Diverse technology scenario which explored the case where deployment of variable renewables was more limited and other technologies played a larger role. Stakeholder feedback received during AEMO’s 2020-21 Australian scenario development process found that it was unlikely that alternative technologies will be able to compete in a significant way with renewables. This reflects relatively uncompetitive gas prices, a lack of confidence in the future cost competitiveness of CCS technologies and abundant low-cost renewable resources.
Their 2030 forcasts also include costs for grid integration for different percentages of variable renewable.
That's a bit like saying that there is no point in growing crops in Europe, because of the winter.
In fact, when it comes to food production (which is really just a form of energy), there are 3 major strategies how we deal with winter: storage (e.g. granary), shifting production (e.g. eating a pig you raised during the year), and trade (e.g. buying oranges from a tropical country).
We can apply all these to electricity as well.
Which grid can store enough energy to run for a week if all renewables are offline?
Hint: there aren't any.
But the technology does exist, and it's gonna be deployed eventually.
[[citation needed]]
https://helioscsp.com/the-cost-of-concentrated-solar-power-f...
But as you say, Australia has no such excuse, having both the geography and the cost of capital to be a world leader in this, way beyond what they are now, which is okay but could have been much, much better.
Also points to an easy way to provide assistance to any country that is trapped into this financial dead-end.
Best time to invest heavily in fusion was 20 years ago, second best time is now.
We should definitely continue the pace on fusion but it's not strictly necessary. We should prioritize deploying proven technology ASAP.
Each dollar diverted to fusion or fission from build-out of wind and solar brings climate catastrophe nearer.
For example, the nuclear plants are forced to sell their energy to energy traders at unprofitable low rates but those traders are never required to buy the energy and if the price of energy drops below this rate (AFTER it was bought) then the traders can just "return" the energy and the operators have to eat it. This happened during covid when energy prices collapsed due to lack of demand. These middlemen profit off of cheap nuclear energy instead of rate payers.
In addition, the nuclear plants must pay a 23 euro per MWh tax that subsidizes the operation of renewable energy. Since the plants are forced to sell their energy below cost and subsidize renewable generation, they are not profitable and aren't given the proper funds to maintain/improve these plants. So then these plants look bad/expensive and the ministers in charge demand that these plants are closed down before the end of their life. Even though the upfront costs have already been paid and the electricity they make are far cheaper than renewable generation if you don't force these crazy disadvantages on them.
Mark Nelson talks about theses problems in this interview: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=isgu-VrD0oM
Is this just nuclear or does it apply to other generation?
> In addition, the nuclear plants must pay a 23 euro per MWh tax that subsidizes the operation of renewable energy.
Source? One that isn't an hour long video and actually has a primary source.
So nuclear plants are forced to sell energy below cost and they must buy a certain amount of renewable energy at inflated rates. This has forced them into debt. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-france-budget-carbon/fran...
I was technically mistaken about the 23 eu/MWh tax. The amount seems to be correct but it is charged to the ratepayer (not EDF) and is meant to help EDF cover the cost of the renewable energy they are forced to buy. But it does not actually cover the amount of renewable energy they are forced to buy, hence the debt.
CSPE tax: https://www.spglobal.com/commodityinsights/en/market-insight...
https://www.economie.gouv.fr/entreprises/contribution-servic...
And the feed in tarriff acumulated a quarter of a nuclear reactor's worth of extra liability which they are now being paid?
You seem to be really reaching to claim this is somehow unfair. Especially considering the other side of the deal where taxpayers or utility customers who are victims of new nuclear plants are just told 'fuck you, you're paying the price we made up even if we don't generate any power' or 'we made one in another country and failed really bad so you get to pay half' or 'whoops, we only put aside 1/4th of the money needed to decomission...have fun paying another billionperGWbyeeee' or 'we racked up a quarter trillion dollar cleanup bill but we made you sign a treaty saying we only have to pay 0.5%, have fun'.
Nuclear infrastructure that is already paid for is being neglected and paracitized to pay for new solar/wind generation. The government has mandated that they will shut down perfectly good plants, taking nuclear from 75% of generation to 50%. The grid was already largely decarbonized! They are throwing away reliable cheap energy in order to pay for new intermittent energy. The result is increased cost, decreased reliability, and more emissions when the renewables aren't available. Fossil fuel use has stayed the same or even increased since renewables started being added: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_in_France#/media/File:F...
> Especially considering the other side of the deal where taxpayers or utility customers who are victims of new nuclear plants are just told 'fuck you, you're paying the price we made up even if we don't generate any power' or 'we made one in another country and failed really bad so you get to pay half' or 'whoops, we only put aside 1/4th of the money needed to decomission...have fun paying another billionperGWbyeeee' or 'we racked up a quarter trillion dollar cleanup bill but we made you sign a treaty saying we only have to pay 0.5%, have fun'.
Hmm, maybe they'd have more money to fund things properly if they were allowed to charge the true rate for electricity (instead of letting other companies arbitrage for free), and weren't forced to buy renewable electricity at high prices?
A plant that is aging out or reaching the stage in its lifetime when it needs a $1.5/W refurb isn't 'perfectly good'. Nor is a much newer one that is corroding due to major design faults and is off half of the time.
Replacing them with energy sources where total costs are lower than running costs is just financial sanity. At least until there is a large enough renewables fraction that storage is a concern.
> Hmm, maybe they'd have more money to fund things properly if they were allowed to charge the true rate for electricity (instead of letting other companies arbitrage for free), and weren't forced to buy renewable electricity at high prices?
You misspelled 'fully exploit their monopoly rather than have a price cap at their claimed true cost of generation for 25% of it'. If €48/MWh isn't enough to pay for the upkeep then maybe don't claim it's cheap?
Turning the sun on at midnight is somewhat more difficult.
My silly point was mostly that solar has its limits. Here we have polar day in summer - so the sun does not set (at midnight or otherwise).