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Comment by toomuchtodo | Hacker News Reader

Won’t the rising cost of fossil gas due to these issues speed electrification? Behold the death spiral, embrace the death spiral!

(As more fossil gas consumers electrify, an ever smaller population must support the network fixed costs, driving up costs and continuing to more rapidly push consumers to electrify; like bankruptcy, it happens slowly, and then all of a sudden)

https://reneweconomy.com.au/new-blow-to-fossil-gas-as-regula...

https://www.asme.org/topics-resources/content/energy-blog-ar...

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It will particularly in Victoria, which has highest number of residential gas connections (90%).

However, the primary dispatchable electricity generation comes from gas fired power plants. To say, Australia has a dependance on gas is an understatement.

Unfortunately, there has been considerable in-action and lack of investment mainly due to the main political parties having competing energy policies. The conservatives previously had a "gas led" generation plan, but due to the gas crisis they have switched to a nuclear-led proposal (Australia has no nuclear power plants, and no expertise in them). The current government is pushing renewables and storage, however progress has been slow due to land owners being unwilling to allow new transmission lines and environmental concerns about offshore wind infrastructure.

Meanwhile about half of Australia's energy comes aging coal power plants, whose live has been extended, all of which are due for phased retirement in the near future.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40808618 ("Australia electricity grid with 100% renewables and 120GWh batteries")

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-03-07/end-of-co... | https://archive.today/2owbd ("Australia’s rapid shift from coal-fired power to cleaner alternatives is underwriting a boom in battery projects able to store solar and wind energy. The country has at least 250 planned battery developments with a potential capacity of almost 130,000 megawatt-hours, a pipeline that’s second only to China, data compiled by BloombergNEF show. While Australia still relies on coal for more than half of its electricity generation, many major plants are set to close in the next decade.")

https://www.ga.gov.au/scientific-topics/energy/resources/oth... ("Australia receives an average of 58 million PJ of solar radiation per year, approximately 10,000 times larger than its total energy consumption. However, Australia's current use of solar energy is low with solar energy accounting for only about 0.1 per cent of Australia's total primary energy consumption.")

Yep. This is the current direction. As I said, investment uncertainty due to the alternative nuclear proposal, issues with transmission lines, and environment issues for wind projects are the main barriers.

> investment uncertainty due to the alternative nuclear proposal

I think it is a stretch to say that the nuclear proposal is creating any investment uncertainty. What is there to be uncertain about? Optimistically the coalition has to win government then the plant will take >10 years to be designed and constructed (probably much longer assuming that something goes wrong politically). The power produced by such a plant will almost certainly be expensive. Unless Labor makes more supportive sounds it'd be quite reckless to invest in the project as a private investor.

That is far enough out and a small enough commercial risk that it probably doesn't change the investment landscape in the here and now. We could see any number of similar policies as we feel the political backlash from mismanaging our energy infrastructure.

The coalition Nuclear plan comes with dropping 2035 targets and international climate agreements. This creates a lot of uncertainty. Polluting plants and factories remain viable until 2050 (unless a future government walks back), making a lot of investment a crap shoot. Australian industries may find themselves locked out of international trade or subject to tariffs, making export markets uncertain. Nobody believes that the Nuclear power will be as cheap as the government claims, given all the experts and industry representatives say it is bollocks or relies on technology that does not yet exist, creating a lot of uncertainty.

So not so much a problem with Nuclear, but the diversion of funds from other projects needed to meet existing 2035 targets. Still, if the leader of the coalition is able to invent viable small nuclear reactors, bring that much capacity online in such a short time, and produce cheaper electricity than 2037 tech solar/batteries or wind/batteries in the vast, sun drenched plains and deserts of Australia, he probably deserves his Nobel prize and a seat on the board of Westinghouse or similar. After all, taxpayers need to pay for the nationalized generation since no corporations seem willing to invest in this amazing opportunity with its achievable deadlines and budget.

> The coalition Nuclear plan comes with dropping 2035 targets and international climate agreements.

Why would either of those things matter now though? Aren't renewables supposed to be an economic option?

People can "just" invest and make money. There just needs to be some mild support to let the projects start up and maybe I've missed a policy document but it seems unlikely that the Coalition would want to do anything about that.

Internationally, the countries currently paying to meet their Paris targets will need to recoup some of that investment through tariffs on imports from non-participating countries. This is the stick. Will they be nice and not put tariffs on imports that can be demonstrated to be Green enough? Doubtful, given the cartel of Green nations will see the opportunity to increase market share of their own exports. Will your personal investments into Green production, which costs more since you have to personally take on the otherwise externalized cost of pollution, cause you to be noncompetitive? On the local market. Will your customers pay more for the 'Green' logo on your product? Will they believe it? Or will a competitor eat your lunch with their dirty production, relying on the rest of us to pay to clean up, or give up on clean air, cheap healthcare and bearable weather.

I don't want to be impolite but that is verging on gibberish. Someone could build a solar farm and presumably start making money. The costs are reasonable (eg, [0]).

There is an outside risk that in 10 years an extremely expensive source of power enters the market. Assuming a bunch of relatively unlikely stars align, including that someone is mad enough to fund a nuclear plant in Australia despite the usual vocal political opposition that has scuttled the industry in most other western countrys. There is nothing there that threatens solar investment; people invest in riskier capital projects all the time. We're in the middle of what appears to be an energy crisis right now.

The targets and stuff were an issue when mass solar buildouts were an ideological stunt. But we delayed that idiocy for long enough and it appears that private investment will take it from here as long as the environmental approvals etc aren't too onerous.

[0] https://www.csiro.au/-/media/Energy/GenCost/GenCost2023-24Fi...

I hope you are right and that solar, wind and battery farms can continue to navigate environmental regulation, be built, and actually sell enough of their electricity to the grid to turn a profit, without incentives from the government, investment in grid connections to suitable locations, and while gas and coal power remains subsidized in all sorts of ways. If this is true then, yes, the problem solved itself. But I personally suspect continuing rollout of wind and solar and the necessary scale is going to require government support.

So, to get to 100%, Australia would have to increase solar usage by 1000x. Which, according to the above figure, would mean covering ten percent of Australia with solar panels. Sorry, I don’t believe the analysis.

> So, to get to 100%, Australia would have to increase solar usage by 1000x.

Can you explain how you came to that conclusion?

https://www.dcceew.gov.au/climate-change/emissions-reduction...

https://www.climatechangenews.com/2022/12/01/unparalleled-in...

https://www.aemo.com.au/-/media/files/initiatives/engineerin...

At least Victoria is finally starting to make some moves by banning future development of residential uses of it.

https://www.planning.vic.gov.au/guides-and-resources/strateg...

It is firmly in the camp of, government bans a thing, let the market solve it. For better or worse...

I've had gas service removed from my house and the pipes taken out - but that was for environmental reasons - I'm committed to only using electrical (i.e. fuel independent) appliances.

I salute your efforts, onward.

At my last house, I removed the gas stove and replaced it with induction. I had two motivations:

* Gas stoves are awful for indoor air quality

* Compared to induction, they're awful to cook on

If only manufacturers would use knobs instead of those horrible and often unintuitive touch interfaces. Here's hoping the slow acknowledgement that touch controls in vehicles are usually a bad idea makes its way to other appliances.

Yeah, options are limited, but there are a few. We got an LG one from Costco with knobs (was a major filter for us).

Not gonna happen. Touch interface is cheaper, more reliable and easier to clean.

Maybe someone will make one with pot motion sensor where turning pot around controls levels. But I’m not holding hope.

Samsung make one with a magnetic knob for controlling it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B4OhGdPjmc4

So the underlying surface is smooth but you can have a physical control.

Hmm. Reminds me Mustang Mach-E has a fake rotary finger knob thats touching a screen. Might make a good retrofit for induction cooktops...

If only we all lived in houses!

The concrete sidewalk is a lot like induction, as long as the sun is out.

I haven't gotten around to trying it, but I've heard a lot of good things about getting a cheapish induction hotplate and using it for a lot of cooking.

I am fortunate enough to have jumped from owning an apartment to owning a house in the last year. The freedom is amazing.

And renting is woeful.

Landlords renting out anything don't benefit from solar, so they don't install it. Landlords renting out apartments won't want the fees for EV chargers or ripping out gas or even having aircon.

Not all landlords are obstinate about it, some are nice. But the financial incentives are certainly not there.

When I was renting an apartment and talking to people about solar, EV, gas vs electric, heat pumps... I definitely felt like I was a second class citizen.

We went the other way, and converted to a gas cooktop and tankless gas hot water heater. Its a notable cost savings and quality of life improvement - there is no conceivable way to do tankless electric here.

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