What has woke ever done for us?

By Pat Hudson (Australian cartoonist)   The person speaking is Peter Dutton, the head of the soi-disant "Liberal" Party.

The Ozzie Right's nuclear plans are nonsense

Sizewell C in the middle of the image with the existing Sizewell B in the top right.
Source: Wikipedia

From IEEFA

 

The UK’s Financial Times has recently reported that the 3,260 megawatt Sizewell C project – expected to be the UK’s next nuclear power plant – is now likely to cost around GBP40 billion, or $80 billion in Australian dollars, to construct. That equates to $24,540 per kilowatt of capacity.

Sizewell C’s latest cost blow-out offers further confirmation that the opposition Liberal-National Coalition’s costing for its proposal to build nuclear power plants in Australia is far too low at $10,000 per kilowatt, and completely unrealistic. It supports IEEFA’s findings on the cost of construction for other nuclear power plants, detailed in our September 2024 report Nuclear in Australia would increase household power bills. The Sizewell C reactor’s newly estimated capital cost is about 2.5 times the capital cost used in the Frontier Economics modelling that has underpinned the Coalition’s plans.

At present the UK Government is yet to commit to construction of Sizewell C and an official costing for the project is yet to be released. But the latest information in Financial Times, which has reportedly come from government and industry sources close to the project, reinforces the findings from our prior report: that for nuclear power to be viable in Australia, large increases in power prices would be required.

If the reported $80 billion cost only covers the plant’s construction and doesn’t account for the substantial debt interest costs likely to be accumulated over the targeted nine-year construction period, then Sizewell C would need the wholesale power price to rise to average out at around $300 per megawatt-hour to be commercially viable. Even if this debt interest cost is accounted for in the $80 billion cited by the Financial Times, then it would still need the wholesale power price to rise to around $230 per megawatt-hour.

By comparison, according to the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC), over the 2023-24 financial year electricity retailers across Australia’s National Electricity Market needed to pay $132 per megawatt-hour on average for wholesale energy to service their household customers.

Shadow Treasurer Angus Taylor has asserted on repeated occasions that any government investment in nuclear power plants would be made on the requirement that they were “commercially viable”, with no subsidies provided that would hit the Government’s budget. So, for a nuclear plant with similar costs to those reported for Sizewell C to be commercially viable in Australia, wholesale energy prices would need to rise by $98 to $168 per megawatt-hour, relative to 2023-24 levels, to enable cost recovery. This equates to a 74% to 127% rise in wholesale prices, which would be charged on to household electricity consumers.

Such wholesale prices would mean that average household power bills across the states in the National Electricity Market would increase by between $510 and $874 per year prior to application of GST. Once GST is added then the increase will be between $561 and $961 – assuming electricity retailers don’t add a margin on top. This is based on ACCC data, which indicates average household annual consumption is 5.2 megawatt-hours.

Over the last year, utility-scale solar cots $52/MWh, and wind $79/MWh.  These Sizewell C costings imply that nuclear will cost at least 4.5 times as much as utility-scale solar, 8 times as much as rooftop solar, and  3 times as much as wind.  So why is the LNP fixated on nuclear as a "cure" for whatever is supposed to ail the Australian electricity market, when it's so expensive?   Well, it'll take 15 years, at least, for any nuclear power station to be built.  And in the meantime we'll have to go on using coal and gas.  In fact, the LNP proposes to stop all new renewables construction if it wins the upcoming election.

What about the "unreliability" and "variability" of renewables?  Wind and solar are so cheap we could have double the capacity we need, and throw away the surplus, and it would still be much cheaper than nuclear.  And that's ignoring battery farms and the huge storage capacity of EVs when the car/light truck fleet has transitioned to fully electric.

Millennial voting shift bad news for the right

 

From The Guardian

Millennials are not behaving as expected. But what else is new? This time it’s their voting patterns and it spells very bad news for the Coalition [The right-wing coalition of the "Liberal" and the National/Country Party].

In Australia, the previous three generations – the silent generation, the baby boomers and generation X – all voted left when they were young, on average. Now the silent generation and the boomers, on average, vote right and gen X voting habits don’t appear to have changed much over their lifetime.

As they age, however, millennials appear to be going in entirely the opposite direction. Moving more to the left.

The trend where previous generations have moved right as they age, while millennials have moved left, is being seen across the English-speaking world. This is a big problem for the parties of the right as millennials make up an increasingly larger proportion of voters and it had an impact on the last federal election.

According to data from the Australian Electoral Commission there are now four electorates where those under 40 make up more than 45% of the voters in the seat: Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane and Griffith. Griffith is an inner-city seat in Brisbane. Both Brisbane and Griffith switched to the Greens, which means the Greens now hold three of the top four.

The Coalition lost 18 seats and government, with almost all the lost seats in the major cities. The one bright spot for the Coalition was that they lost no rural seats. Rural seats are older. The 10 electorates with the smallest proportion of people under 40 are all rural seats (with the National party holding five of them). These are the seats that will see the slowest impact from millennials.

But even here the demographics are against the Coalition. Cities are growing rapidly, which means the proportion of city electorates is increasing, while rural seats are dwindling.

As older generations die out, millennials will increasingly come to dominate a larger number of electorates. If they continue to vote left, this will be catastrophic for the Coalition.

But why are millennials continuing to vote left as they age? There are probably three main reasons, and they are all linked to their economic wellbeing.

Insecure work

The first is the rise of insecure work. Whether it’s casual jobs, sham contracting, or labour hire, the number of insecure jobs is rising and younger workers are those most impacted. Millennials took the advice of their parents. They studied hard, with record numbers of them getting university degrees. But the secure well-paid jobs that were promised for those who worked hard have not appeared. In 2021 one in four unemployed people had a university degree.

While unemployment might be at historic lows, if the jobs are not secure then people are not able to plan a future. Wages growth has also been almost non-existent for a decade. Real wages, your wages after adjusting for increasing prices, have gone backwards over the last 11 years.

The economic deal of secure, stable and well-paid employment that was offered to previous generations has not been offered to millennials.

The Coalition is openly hostile to any changes in industrial relations laws that would make work more secure and give more bargaining power to workers. It was completely opposed to the recent modest changes to IR laws put forward by the Labor party. Further changes to try to reduce insecure work are expected to be brought forward this year. Millennials will likely be the biggest winners from these changes.

 Housing affordability

The second reason is housing. Housing gives families stability and security. Robert Menzies, Australia’s longest-serving prime minister and the founder of the Liberal party, understood this. His government had a specific policy of increasing home ownership rates. Menzies believed that people were more likely to settle down and support their community if they owned a part of it.

Modern Liberals have a completely different view of housing. They see it as an investment, a way for people to make money. They have opposed policies that would make housing more affordable. Policies like scrapping tax concessions to property investors or large expansions to public housing.

Perhaps the Coalition hopes that as the boomers die off, they will pass down their expanded property portfolios to millennials, giving them economic security and hopefully switching them to vote conservative. But with average life expectancy now in the 80s and continuing to rise, many millennials will be into their 60s or older before they inherit.

Climate change

For previous generations, the existential threat was from nuclear annihilation and the cold war. The Coalition was successful in convincing many people that it was the party best placed to provide protection from this.

Today’s existential threat is from climate change and the Coalition is either ambivalent or in some cases openly hostile to action to prevent it. The impacts of climate change are now clear, and they are only going to get worse. Younger people will disproportionately bear the costs of inaction on climate change, so it is not hard to see why they are reluctant to vote for parties that are unwilling to act.

These three issues – insecure work, housing affordability and climate change – mean that millennials are sharing in less of the benefits of the economy and are less secure than previous generations.

The Coalition doesn’t have to do anything about this. But parties that ignore the concerns of important cohorts of voters are usually rewarded with extended time in opposition.

Why "baseload" is so antiquated

Hazelwood big battery. Source: Engie

Back in the 50s, electric grids everywhere had coal power stations backed up with peaking gas. Since coal power stations couldn't ramp up quickly (or economically) they tended to provide what was called "baseload". This was designed to provide a fixed supply of electricity to the grid, the level set at the point of lowest demand. The fluctuations in demand above that tended to be provided by gas, which can ramp up or down quickly.

Then along came wind and solar. Their output is driven by the weather. Peaks in supply didn't necessarily coincide with peaks in demand, although in hot places, the surge in demand because of a heatwave is now routinely met by a surge in output from solar. This required changes in how we run our grids. Most likely, we will end up with some over-capacity in wind and solar (estimates vary, but, say, around 20%) along with 4 to 6 hours of grid-wide storage.

Many still hanker for the old simplicities. The "Liberal"/National Party Coalition in Australia is very keen on nuclear. It doesn't matter that it's at least 50% more expensive even than new coal; or that new nuclear power stations in Australia won't start operating for, probably, at least another 15 years, which is a bit of a problem given that aging coal power stations will have closed down by then; or that even with 8 hours of storage with batteries (at current prices), wind and solar are 1/4 the cost of nuclear. But there is another problem with nuclear. It's even harder to ramp up or down than coal. And given the penetration of rooftop solar, the net demand on the grid (i.e., after rooftop solar) in east coast Australia now falls so low at midday that there simply is no space for GW-level baseload. (A situation already driving coal power stations to bankruptcy).

From Renew Economy

On Monday at around 5 pm (AEST), Victoria posted a new high for operational demand for the state’s grid of 9,581 megawatts (MW) in the midst of a record-breaking December heatwave.

Despite having two of its coal generation units off line, the state had little trouble dealing with the surge in demand because renewables were also delivering a record level of output.

Within 24 hours, however, the Australian Energy Market Operator, having spent much of the day issuing lack of reserve warnings for NSW and elsewhere, was back on line issuing a market notice of a different kind: warning not of a lack of reserve but of a lack of demand (minimum system load) for Victoria for Saturday, December 21.

The sudden switch from nearly too much demand to nearly too little demand is symptomatic of the dramatic changes that are occurring on the grid, and one of the fundamental reasons why most energy experts thing the idea of shoe-horning gigawatts of inflexible nuclear power capacity into the grid would be nuts.

The best to deal with such fluctuations, the experts say, is with flexibility – both in demand and supply – and most of that can be delivered by providing incentives to change the times when electricity is consumed, and ensuring fast reaction and flexible power sources, such as big batteries, can be deployed.

The warning for minimum system load cited potentially insufficient demand for Victoria at around 1pm on Saturday, with sunny conditions, high rooftop solar output, mild temperatures and the lack of business activity contributing to low operational demand.

The MSL notices are issued so that the markets can prepare a response. There are various options, but at the last resort AEMO can issue instructions to big batteries in that state (like the Hazelwood battery pictured above) to stand by on empty and get ready to charge – i.e. creating demand – if conditions warrant.

If that fails, there is a solar switch off mechanism, although that has limited application and is not popular, with either households or politicians and is seen as very much a last resort.

The MSL notice from AEMO – like another that was issued in early December – cited a forecast minimum demand of around 1,643 MW. The one issued for December 8 expected minimum load of around 1,250 MW.

This fits in with Tesla’s observations, in a submission to the federal nuclear inquiry, that most states in Australia, including Victoria, would struggle to support even 1 GW of baseload, or “always on” power because of the growing impact of renewables, and rooftop solar in particular.

It has warned that the federal Coalition’s nuclear power plan would result in “severe” constraints on rooftop solar – not just the occasional partial switch off in events like those cited above, but almost on a daily basis to accommodate nuclear power that does not like to ramp up and down.

“Given Australia’s world-leading solar and wind resources, and leading rates of rooftop solar PV, the power system’s minimum operating demand threshold becomes an upper ceiling for baseload supply to operate the power system in a secure and reliable state,” Tesla wrote in its submission.

“Increasing renewable penetration at these times further displaces baseload generation, reducing capacity factors and increasing the cost of supplying energy to consumers.

“The practical sizing of baseload generation is now significantly less than the minimum operating load.”

Rubbery nuclear cost estimates

The world’s largest crane lifts a steel dome onto Hinkley Point C’s first reactor building. The cost of building the UK’s latest power plant has soared. Photograph: Ben Birchall/PA

In Australia, the right-wing Coalition ("Liberal"/National Party) opposition, in government when Australia became the first country in the world to abolish a carbon tax, is enthusiastically spruiking nuclear power. Their numbers defy belief.

Here's part of an article from The Guardian:

The primary reason the world is not embracing nuclear energy on a grand scale is simple: cost (although in Japan’s case, it’s also about safety).

The Frontier Economics report, which the Coalition is using to make its case, is written in an opaque way that makes direct comparisons difficult. Essentially, the report admits that the capital cost of nuclear is $10,000/kW, while solar and wind are $1,800 and $2,500 respectively.

So how is it that the Coalition’s modelling suggests that a world where nuclear makes up more than a third of the east coast energy grid could possibly be cheaper?

It’s easy to come up with the answer you want when you base your modelling on rubbery assumptions.

Firstly, we should appreciate that even a $10,000/kW estimate for nuclear is considerably optimistic if we look at the experience of comparable countries over the past decade. The cost at the off-cited Hinkley C plant in the UK has, to date, risen to $27,515/kW. Three others – France (Flamanville 3), Finland (Olkilutoto 3) and the US (Vogtle) – are between $15,000 and $16,900. [In other words, nuclear in the West is a minimum of 7 times as expensive as wind and solar]

Delays have been a key factor in driving up the cost of nuclear power. The longer it takes to build and operate a plant, the higher the cost of finance. The Coalition believes we can overturn national and state legislation and acquire land and planning approvals virtually overnight. And then we’ll just install an ‘off-the-shelf’ nuclear power plant, ready to run.

By its own admission, having to tweak nuclear power plants so they operate at maximum safety and efficiency can blow out build times and costs. It beggars belief that the Coalition claims Australia, which has no nuclear energy capability, could ship, build and integrate into the grid with no challenges, with a 50,000-strong nuclear workforce appearing by magic.

There is no mention of the costs of extending the life of existing ageing coal-fired power stations, or the likelihood that these plants will increasingly fail as they reach end-of-life, raising energy costs as supply falls short and, increasingly, the likelihood of blackouts. And, apparently, nuclear waste can be transported and stored without cost.

The Coalition also argues that, because wind and solar energy are not always “on”, we’ll need to build a lot more capacity, along with transmission and storage. It calls this “overbuild”, but its assumptions have overegged what that need might realistically look like, especially as battery storage becomes cheaper over time (unlike the experience of nuclear) and of longer duration. [Battery pack prices have halved this year]

Finally, to arrive at these rose-tinted costs, the Coalition has had to cut back on estimates of the amount of energy we will demand over the next two decades by almost half what the Australian Energy Market Operator says we need. That’s because it’s assumed we won’t worry about EVs or electrification. [This has led the Coalition to claim that this will cut electricity costs by 44%.  They have deliberately confused capital cost with cost per kWh of output. Of course capital costs are 44% lower if you are going to produce 44% less electricity!] This is why the Coalition will undo Australia’s 2030 43% emissions reduction target, which we are set to get very close to, taking us back to our Morrison-era status of global climate pariah. [The Coalition plans to abolish Labor's 43% target] 

And this is the kicker. Under the Coalition’s plan, our modelling shows Australia’s domestic emissions will rise by around one billion – yes billion – tonnes, at a cost of $240bn to the economy, society and environment, based on Infrastructure Australia’s cost of carbon methodology.

Most commentators who are not creatures of the Murdoch media think that this is just a ploy to prolong the use of coal and gas.   If it will take at least 15 years to build out a nuclear fleet, in the meantime we will need to extend the lives of our coal power stations.   Since they are already long in the tooth, and will be very expensive to refurbish, that will mean building new coal power stations.  But new coal in Australia costs 3 times as much per MWh of output as new wind and solar backed up by 4 hours of storage.  Which is why no utility is interested in building new coal power stations.  

In addition, the Coalition hasn't said what they're going to do about rooftop solar.  Rooftop solar, in summer, contributes 16% of total electricity supply, beating out all other sources except black coal.  Since old-fashioned nuclear power stations can't easily be ramped up or down, i.e., they're always "on", rooftop solar output will have to be curtailed to allow nuclear to keep running.  In other words, the money millions of people have spent installing rooftop solar to save on electricity bills will be wasted.  Not a winning proposition, for sure.

Peter Dutton's nuclear "plan" is just a hoax

(Peter Dutton is the head of the so-called Liberal Party, which has basically sold out to fossil fuel interests)

From RenewEconomy

Outside, in Martin Place, the voices were clear – unions and environmental groups holding placards and denouncing Coalition leader Peter Dutton’s nuclear “fantasy:” A combination of denial and delay they said: “Dutton wants gas, Dutton wants coal, nuclear is just a troll,” they chorused.

Inside the Fullerton Hotel, in the basement where Ballroom B is located, it was expected to be the moment for the nuclear true believers, but the numbers just weren’t there.

Unusually for a CEDA event, there was only a scattering of corporate table sponsors – ANZ, KPMG, and Clayton Utz – and most of the ballroom was partitioned off. Among the 160 attending, quite small for a CEDA event, there was the usual Dutton entourage, including energy spokesman Ted O’Brien, Warren Mundine, and a lot of media.

Bizarrely, many of the rest were from the clean energy industry, curious to know what they might be dealing with should the Coalition return to power next year. Did they like what they heard? Not really. Did they learn anything? No.

This was supposed to be Dutton’s occasion to spell out his nuclear power plan: “A nuclear powered Australia – could it work” was the title of the event. But we left little the wiser. The question about how many nuclear power plants, how much would they cost, when they would be built, and which technology, were not answered.

Instead, the event got a re-run of the Coalition’s renewable scare campaign. Dutton’s thesis is that wind and solar won’t work, even with storage and dispatchable back-up. Renewables, says Dutton, are dangerous and will lead to blackouts and the destruction of industry.

We’ve heard this before. It’s the common refrain of the fossil fuel and nuclear industries. They’ve gone from attacking the climate science to ignoring it, and have focused their attacks on the technology solutions. The ones that threaten their legacy and vested interests.

The Coalition uses “baseload” as if it’s another word for “reliability”. It’s not, as AEMO boss Daniel Westerman explains in this week’s Energy Insiders podcast.

Dutton did at least concede that building nuclear power stations at the seven sites identified by the Coalition will cost a lot, even if he wouldn’t say how much, or how consumers are impacted. Somehow, he imagines, the cost will be amortised by their assumed 80 year timeline. Perhaps he hasn’t seen their maintenance and refurbishment bills.

Dutton is still churning out the line that renewables are accompanied by high prices and nuclear by low prices, without ever contemplating the context, local taxation, historical prices, the influence of fossil fuels, and massive government subsidies, particularly in nuclear France.

We did learn a couple of new things. One was that Dutton admitted that Aukus – the controversial deal to sign up for half a dozen nuclear submarines at horrific cost and questionable use – was as much a Trojan horse for the nuclear debate as it is an allegory for his power plans.

He also insisted that nuclear is a bed-fellow of renewables, not a competitor. But the grids he cited – Arizona, Finland, Ontario and France – have at most 18 per cent renewables.

That’s not much, and not like Australia which is already at 40 per cent renewables, going on 50 per cent with committed projects, and where solar eats up much if not all of daytime demand. Renew Economy questioned Dutton on that very point, and asked if the Coalition had a renewables cap in mind. But he fudged the answer.

There was indeed, an awful lot of fudging. Dutton pretends that his nuclear power plan can be rolled out without new transmission lines. But he’s kidding himself, and trying to fool the public.

Firstly, the seven sites he has targeted are already filling up with their owner’s own projects – mostly battery storage and renewables. There simply isn’t room on the grid.

Secondly, the sort of nuclear reactors Dutton is planning are nearly twice the size of most coal generators – which means – as a matter of course – that there has to be more infrastructure built to support them, in transmission lines, and back-up capacity in case of a trip or unexplained outage. That is grid management 101.

Thirdly, Dutton hasn’t explained what fills the gap as coal fired power plants exit the grid. Either he has to double, treble, or even quadruple his nuclear power plans – at great cost and huge new transmission requirements, or he has to rely on renewables after all, and they will also require new transmission.

Fourthly, his complaints against new transmission is largely a furphy. AEMO’s Integrated System Plan – which is little changed for when it was produced for the Coalition government – doesn’t contemplate the 28,000 kms of new transmission as Dutton claims.

That is in one scenario that imagines Australia as a renewable superpower, exporting electrons but also “green” goods such as iron, ammonia and even hydrogen. Those power lines – should they ever be built some time beyond 2040 – will be connecting remote areas with production centres. They are unlikely to be marching through population areas or even farmland.

Dutton did confirm that the Coalition’s plan was to extend the life of coal fired power stations as much as it could, and build a lot of new gas generators. Quite how he believes these investments will lower the price of power to consumers was not and has never been explained.

Like nuclear, they are the most expensive sources of power. He suggested they will all be government owned, which is inevitable as private finance won’t touch it, and Snowy Hydro is quite accustomed to projects that run well over time and budget. And that way, the true cost will already be hidden from homes and businesses.

Dutton was asked about Plant Vogtle, the first nuclear plant built in the US over the last few decades, at horrific cost (more than $US35 billion) and years late. In its first few months of production it has already been taken off the grid twice, due to various faults, and has underpinned a big rise in local consumer bills.

Dutton insisted the delays, the cost over-runs and the other hiccups were due to the fact that the AP1000 reactors were “first of the kind.” That’s not something the Coalition intended to do, he insisted, there won’t be a “kangaroo” brand reactor in Australia, he said.

A couple of problems there: The AP1000s – the technology actually helped send the Westinghouse nuclear unit broke – at Plant Vogtle were not the first of their kind. Four had been completed in China five years before these came on line.

Secondly, if Dutton is serious about switching on the first nuclear power plants in Australia by 2035 (which he clearly is not), then the Coalition is going to have to run with a technology that has barely been proven.

Which is one of the problems with the nuclear debate in Australia – it’s hard to make an assertion without having to contradict yourself before a sentence is finished.

Dutton did make one curious excursion into the Pacific Ocean, observing that Fiji, the Solomon Islands and PNG were buckling under the cost of diesel, and didn’t to have to switch off their power after 8pm or 9pm.

But this Trumpian thought diversion didn’t go very far, which is a shame, because the media table was wondering if he was thinking of an SMR for Fiji, or a sub-sea cable. Or something.

He also confirmed he doesn’t understand batteries. They can’t store energy for more than four hours he said, which is news to the project developers of more than 3,000 megawatt hours of eight-hour batteries currently under construction in NSW.

Has he heard of demand management? Dutton refuses to see or admit the solutions that are right in front of him.

Meanwhile, the general public is being led a merry dance by folksy promises, a solution that sounds vaguely plausible, but in reality has no chance of delivering.

The protestors with the placards outside the hotel were closest to the truth: This is about denial and delay, the whole policy is an elaborate troll, a political hoax, and a refuge for the climate deniers and do-littles.  Nothing more, nothing less.

Why offshore wind is a good fit

 (Background:  The Australian right-wing coalition of the so-called Liberals and the so-called Nationals has decided to go all out for nuclear.  They knew perfectly well that new nuclear power stations won't be up and running for 20 years, though they deny this.  The real reason they "support" nuclear is because, in the meantime, we'll need to build lots more fossil fuel plants to generate electricity, because our aging coal power stations will be shuttered before nuclear comes on stream.  They've also said that they'll cap large-scale renewables.)

From The Conversation.

On the weekend, an area 20km off the Illawarra coast south of Sydney became Australia’s fourth offshore wind energy zone. It’s the most controversial zone to date, with consultation attracting a record 14,211 submissions – of which 65% were opposed.

The zone’s declaration has inflamed fierce debate over the pathway to decarbonisation, particularly in industrial regions. The Illawarra hosts heavy industries such as Australia’s largest steel manufacturer, BlueScope Steel.

In response to the announcement, National Party Leader David Littleproud declared Australia doesn’t need “large-scale industrial windfarms”. He argues the focus should instead be on household solar and battery storage.

So what is the role of offshore wind in our future energy mix? Here we argue offshore wind energy has three main advantages: scale, availability and proximity. It’s just what Australia needs.

1. Scale

Offshore wind has substantial energy-production potential. A single 100-turbine project is capable of generating up to 1.5 gigawatts (GW) of energy and the Illawarra zone could contain two projects (2.9GW).

To put this in perspective, Eraring, Australia’s largest coal-fired power station near Lake Macquarie in New South Wales, also produces 2.9GW.

Because offshore wind is more consistent than either onshore wind or rooftop solar, it is the most practical way to provide time-sensitive renewable energy grid security for large energy users.

This high-capacity, consistent energy source is particularly crucial for Australia’s industrial decarbonisation efforts. BlueScope Steel, for example, estimates it will need approximately 15 times its current energy consumption to transition to green steel-making operations in the Illawarra region.

2. Availability

Offshore wind blows more consistently than onshore wind. We can quantify this by comparing so-called “capacity factors”.

The capacity factor is the actual output of a power station over a given period of time, divided by the theoretical power that could be generated if the plant operated at full output for the same period of time.

Onshore wind has a capacity factor of 30%, meaning 1GW of onshore wind farms can be relied upon to deliver 0.3GW of output at any time.

Offshore wind has a capacity factor of at least 50%.

For reference, coal plants in Australia, due to their age and condition, have a capacity factor of 60% and this falls further every year.

It is a common myth that coal is reliable. The reliability of Australian coal fired generators is currently at an all time low and falling.

The Coalition’s plan for nuclear power plants announced on Wednesday might look like an alternative answer to the energy availability challenge. But the plan relies on coal in the meantime and coal-fired power plants have a limited lifespan. It’s highly unlikely those nuclear power stations could be built in time to take over from coal.

The International Atomic Energy Agency publishes a step-by-step guide to going nuclear. This internationally recognised manual says it takes 10–15 years for a country to go from initial consideration of the nuclear power option to operation of its first nuclear power plant.

So the first big problem with nuclear in Australia is, how do we ensure we have reliable power for the five to ten year gap between when most of the coal exits and the first nuclear power plant could possibly be commissioned?

3. Proximity

Most of Australia’s population and industry is near the east coast. Placing electricity generation near to where it is needed is more efficient. It also avoids having to construct many kilometres of new overhead electricity transmission lines to connect onshore wind farms far inland.

Australia is leading the world in the uptake of home solar panels and batteries. This is definitely worthwhile. But contrary to Littleproud’s suggestion, it’s not the whole solution to Australia’s decarbonisation effort. For example, it won’t solve the problem of the need to electrify heavy industry.

BlueScope has stated that to decarbonise its current steel-making operations, it will need 15 times more electricity. This is the equivalent of the solar exported by a staggering 3.6 million homes – more than one-third of the total number of homes connected to the National Electricity Market.

Putting this into perspective, the Illawarra region has 130,000 homes. By our calculations, the BlueScope steelworks currently uses the same amount of electricity each day as the total solar exported by 240,000 homes – assuming generous export of 10kWh per home and Bluescope’s daily use of 240,000 kWh of energy.

Even if the Illawarra had enough homes exporting solar power to electrify BlueScope’s operations, getting this electricity to where it’s needed is technically impossible. Home solar systems are connected to the lowest capacity part of the energy grid – the wires in the street. We simply don’t have the capacity to move gigawatts of power from rooftop solar to large energy users such as steel and aluminium plants.

 

Australia needs large-scale energy, including wind

Australia needs large-scale electricity generation. The Coalition has recognised this, and is now promoting large nuclear power plants as well as small modular reactors.

The clean energy transition requires multiple renewable energy sources to meet different needs. There is no “one size fits all” solution – and there is clearly an important role for offshore wind in this mix.

We can expect to see Australia’s first offshore wind farms operating in Victoria’s Gippsland by the end of the decade.

The Coalition remains committed to the Gippsland project. But it has signalled its intention to scrap proposed offshore wind zones in the Illawarra and Hunter, if elected.

This decision would have flow-on effects. An industry is emerging around the pipeline of potential wind energy projects. The latest announcement will almost certainly heighten tensions surrounding the already bitter debates raging in our communities.

Source: Australian National University

Colonisation is good....according to the Right

 From a Xit by Mike Carlton

Colonisation was “the luckiest thing that happened to this country...” John Winston Howard OM AC.

[Howard is a former "Liberal" (so called) Party PM of Australia]

Metcalfe's law

 

The London Underground is a dense, connected network, which makes it extraordinarily valuable
 to London and Southern England. 

From History-Computer

Metcalfe’s Law is one of the foundational principles of network economics. It suggests that as a network grows, its value grows much faster than its user base.

The idea behind Metcalfe’s Law is that, while a network’s cost generally grows as a direct proportion of its total number of nodes, its value grows in proportion to the square of that number. Network value grows fast because it’s related to the number of connections between nodes rather than the number of nodes. Metcalfe’s idea implies that node connectivity is the real source of utility in a network.

The word node comes from a Latin word that means knot. In this context, we use it to mean any endpoint in a network. Telephones, computers, train stations, or individual people can all act as nodes in different kinds of networks.

A network with 10 of these nodes might cost about 10 times the price of one node, but Metcalfe’s Law suggests that the network’s inherent value will be closer to 100 times the value of one node. If you add a node, the cost will jump to 11, but the value will jump to 121, the square of 11. In mathematical terms, network cost grows linearly, but network value seems to grow nonlinearly as an exponential function of the total number of nodes in the network.

Metcalfe’s Law isn’t a physical or perfect law of network value. Just like economics has the idea of supply and demand that works perfectly only under perfect conditions, Metcalfe’s idea of network effects is more of an approximation rather than an exact formula. It’s most useful as a conceptual model that you can use to think about network economics in general terms.

Metcalfe’s Law observes that any network’s value is a proportion of the square of the network’s total number of connected nodes.

The mechanics of Metcalfe’s Law are simple. If a network gains new nodes that can connect with all its existing nodes, then the amount of connections grows much quicker than the number of nodes. Every single new node adds as many connections to the network as there are existing nodes.

When Metcalfe first came up with the idea, he indicated that the formula for a network’s value worked best as an exponential function of its total number of nodes. He and other researchers like Bob Briscoe later scaled it back, calculating that the network value was closer to a logarithmic function of its number of nodes.

In 2013, data analysts from the Netherlands released a broad study of seven years of internet use across 33 European countries. They concluded that the growth patterns of smaller and newly launched networks do seem to follow Metcalfe’s exponential estimation. As a network grows, however, the growth of its value seems to taper off into a logarithmic rather than exponential function of its number of nodes.

Other recent studies involving data from the past decade from Facebook, Tencent, Bitcoin, and Ethereum networks also indicate that these networks seem to fit Metcalfe’s observation in their initial phases and then slow down as they reach widespread adoption.

The network effects of this value escalation tend to be both direct and indirect.  

We call network effects symmetric or direct when a node increase provides direct utility to the other nodes. We can see direct network effects in social networks like Twitter or Tinder, where additional users joining directly improves the user experience of the existing users, giving them the possibility of more followers or matches.

We call networks effects asymmetric or indirect when there is more than one type of node and a node increase provides indirect utility to other types of nodes. Indirect network effects show up in networks like Uber or Airbnb, where more drivers and hosts indirectly improve the experience of the riders and guests, and vice versa. Indirect effects often look like increased supply encouraging increased demand, which then encourages even more supply.

Metcalfe’s Law seems to work best when all the nodes in a network have equal value and provide equal benefit. Nodes with fewer connections are less valuable than highly connected nodes.

Many networks don’t match Metcalfe-style growth because some new nodes don’t create connections with all existing nodes. This can happen when, for instance, new users of a network speak different languages or have interests and expertise in areas that don’t overlap.

To estimate network effects accurately, we have to take into account not only the number of nodes but also the affinity between nodes. If a network’s cost per user is fixed and later users use the network less than the trailblazers, the newer users will be less valuable to the network, and the network will become less efficient.

While experts in network economics and computer science continue to battle over whether the correct formula for calculating network effects should be exponential, logarithmic, or some other function, Metcalfe’s general point is clear. A network’s overall value tends to grow much quicker than its size.

Metcalfe’s Law of network effects seems to have the strongest applications in these four main kinds of networks:

• Physical networks
• Protocol networks
• Personal networks
• Market networks

Physical networks are composed of physical nodes connected by physical links. These include electrical grids, roads, railroads, sewer systems, and broadband internet services.

Thanks to Metcalfe’s Law, it’s not uncommon to see these physical networks grow so powerful that they overwhelm smaller competing networks and turn into monopolies or duopolies. When that happens, governments tend to nationalize them and call them utilities.

Protocol networks are standards of use for digital or communications networks. They layout sets of rules for how nodes in a network must format and process data.

Nodes in protocol networks are generally digital devices rather than humans, so you can think of protocol networks as computer languages. Just like a human language, once a protocol network has been widely adopted, it’s nearly impossible to replace.

Ethernet is an example of a protocol network. When Metcalfe and Boggs came up with the Ethernet standard, other local area network protocols existed. Thanks to Metcalfe’s Law, however, the more market share Ethernet captured, the less valuable the competition became until it dwindled to almost nothing. More recent examples of protocol networks include Bitcoin, Ethereum, and other cryptocurrencies.

A network is considered personal when the nodes are people. Human nodes may be anonymous or may have their real identities tied to their usernames.

Personal networks generally grow when real-life people find value in them and influence their inner circles to join as well. When a large number of people who you like and respect are using a network, you’ll usually find a lot of value in joining it too.

Examples of personal networks include TikTok and Facebook.

Market networks take the identity-based format of personal networks and combine it with the transactional focus of marketplaces to facilitate mass transactions from many buyers and sellers. Instead of optimizing for quick transactions, market networks generally encourage long-term projects that allow users to improve their reputation with each successful purchase or sale.

Market networks provide value in both directions, from the sellers to the buyers, and vice versa. In double-sided systems like these, the value is derived from the network connectivity not from the specific system itself. Once a market network is established, the two sides tend to cement the network in place. To get users to move, you have to find a way to provide more value to both sides at once than what they’re getting from the existing network.

I'd never heard of Metcalfe's Law before I read this article, but I realise now that I'd always understood it without being aware of it.  

In particular, I thought of it as it applies to public transport networks.  Think of the extraordinary network of the London Tube, including the Underground, the Overground, the new Elizabeth line (Crossrail), the tram network, and mainline trains and airports, where almost every line connects with several other lines.  

In Victoria, the tram (light rail) and transit networks don't connect very well.  There are connections at the main downtown termini, but in the suburbs, because the tramways and railways were owned by different companies, their stops at the end of the line are sometimes far apart.  It has been suggested to the public transport authorities that tram lines should be extended to the nearest railway station to improve network connectivity.  Alas, this still hasn't happened.  Although the Labor government has committed to a new outer circle rail line, which will connect all the radial suburban branch lines.  Predicatbly, the LNP opposition doesn't want it.

Labor's flawed climate plan

 Australia is one of the world's largest fossil fuel (coal and gas) exporters.  It's always been the case that cutting its own emissions would never be enough.  We also have to cut the emissions from our fossil fuel exports. 

In these tweet threads (here and here) Ketan Joshi discusses this.

On responsibility: of course the country that supplies the cause of climate disasters like bushfires and heatwaves bears some responsibility for the chain of events that follow Global accounting systems for emissions ≠ the actual, real, material moral burden of planetary heating

Even if you only assign a fraction of responsibility of the final harm to Australia as the entity that unlocked the carbon from underground initially, you end up at the same conclusion. Aus' primary contribution to planetary heating is fossil supply, not just fossil combustion.

When you pull fossil supply, yes - it does get replaced from elsewhere - but only *partially* replaced. Eg - this line from the ruling against Shell:

"If we stopped selling oil and gas, someone would just step in and sell the same!!" Again: it is SO refreshing to see this absolutely ludicrous pleading dismissed by a court. Absolutely bloody demolished.

[RDS = Royal Dutch Shell]

Also: none of this modelling considers social, political, cultural benefit of removing aggressive actions of suppliers to protect and even manufacture demand for their sales ("we can't shut off overnight" etc)

Also: companies/countries that supply FFs, when incentivised to keep growing their supply to maintain eye-watering personal wealth, screw up demand-side measures, stick spanners in the works of policy and manufacture demand ("gas is transition fuellllll")

One second, fossil fuel supply companies are humble servants of the unchangeable demand of consumers, the next second they're slamming their first on the table telling us that there's no way we can change quick enough to reach ambitious climate targets.

On top of everything: massively blowing up Australia's supply of heatwave-intensifying dangerous and outdated products like coal and gas also means blowing up domestic emissions. Labor could easily fail on their weak 43% by 2030 due to this.

Coal and gas mining is responsible for more than 17% of Australia's domestic emissions, not even taking into account the emissions in exported coal and gas. There is no space for new coal and gas in an Australia heading for zero emissions.

I was curious, when I heard @AdamBandt say 'stop pouring petrol on the fire as you try to put it out' wrt climate - what's the ratio?

By my calculations for the Aus gov't: 3% putting it out, 97% pouring petrol on.

Labor's climate plans avoid 366 mtco2-e between 2023 and 2030. If all new coal and gas mines are approved and start running, they'll cause ~1,030 domestically and 11,176 overseas when the fuels are burned

Those extraction estimates are from @TheAusInstitute 's great report from last year, estimated emissions from coal and gas mine planned projects

If you ignore emissions from fuels when burned overseas, Labor's climate plans still reduce emissions less than the increase from new projects:

If you assume only a quarter of new coal and gas mining capacity is approved, the unlocked emissions still dwarf Labor's planned reductions between 2023 and 2030.

Australia's government plans to join Norway, Canada and the US in the club of quasi-progressive governments still running head first into unbridled fossil fuel extraction expansion. Hence: offsets, CCS, Safeguard loopholes etc all baked into modelling.

We're deep in the greenwashing era now - Labor's industry / carbon farming policies are specifically designed as wrap-around for corporate net zero targets and the BCA's efforts to control the climate narrative through fabricated action.

What's happening here is a full-size dump truck of petrol being poured onto the fire, while someone with a novelty child's plastic water pistol stands 50 metres away and squirts in the general direction of the blazing inferno.

Costs of running an EV in the UK

 From a Twitter thread by Katy Duke

Fuel costs of running an ICE v BEV updated yesterday. There are 3 BEV consumptions + av. cost pa. Have been on night tarrif from @OctopusEnergy for just a week! ICE costs 21.98p per miles, BEV is 1.79p per mile on night charge.

This is the lowest priced dealer EV locally https://drive-green.co.uk/used_evs/2011-peugeot-ion-km11umc/… £5895. HP £6685 = £127 pm + £590 deposit = £1525 pa

2011 Peugeot iOn EV

Replies to her tweet pointed out that some shopping centres and supermarkets offered free charging, so the public charge costs could be lower. Note also, that maintenance costs for EVs are lower than for ICEVs, because they have ten times fewer moving parts.  In Australia, electricity is also cheap at mid-day as well as late at night, because we have more solar than the UK, which relies much more on wind.  Obviously, that means that when demand is low, late at night, but supply continues, because the wind blows at night, the wholesale price of electricity plunges.   A good time to charge your car and heat your house. 

And if you have your own solar panels, you can charge your car, effectively for whatever your feed-in tariff is (in Oz, feed-in tariffs are low)  Also, how good it is to be able to buy a second-hand EV, thanks to early subsidies which increased sales years ago.  Australia has hardly any second-hand EVs, so cheap up-front entry to the EV world isn't possible here.  For that, blame the right-wing LNP government, recently, thank goodness, comprehensively voted out of office.

Why are coal supporters so keen on nuclear?

 From The Guardian

I think it's because they know how long nuclear plants will take to build.  While they're being built, we will (they think) have to go on using fossil fuels.   But then I'm a bit cynical.

The Coalition didn’t do much on nuclear energy while in office. Why are they talking about it now?

Last week, the Nationals’ new leader, David Littleproud, said it was time for Australia to have a “mature” conversation about nuclear energy while his predecessor, Barnaby Joyce, called for a national moratorium to be lifted and argued nuclear power would be “really important” if the country was serious about reaching net zero emissions. [The National Party was one of the parties in the former Coalition government in Australia which is strongly in favour of coal power and against renewables]

Advocates [for nuclear] have acknowledged nuclear power is the most capital-intensive energy technology, takes the longest time to recoup on investment and has not benefited from the economies of scale experienced in solar and wind energy. Costs have increased as technology has advanced.

Despite the global push to cut greenhouse gas emissions, the large-scale nuclear energy industry is going backwards. More units closed than opened in 2020. Construction began on only five reactors; four of those were in China, which is investing in all energy types. Excluding China, global nuclear generation is at its lowest level in 27 years.

The few major plants under construction in developed democracies have suffered years of delays and cost blowouts. In the UK, the Hinkley Point C station – the country’s first new nuclear plant in decades – is running 10 years behind schedule and is expected to cost at least A$45bn, nearly 50% more than initially expected. [The Vogtle 3 and 4 reactors in Georgia, USA, have more than doubled in cost and still aren't completed] 

What about SMRs?

At this point they barely exist.

SMRs are proposed to be 60 and about 200 megawatts, a fraction of the size of the traditional nuclear plant. Proponents say they would employ similar technology used in nuclear-powered submarines and icebreakers and would be easier to keep safe than bigger plants.

But a report by the World Nuclear Industry last year found talk and media coverage about SMRs was “not reflected by any major industrial achievements on the ground”.

It said SMRs in China and Argentina had been beset by delays. There had been no concrete steps towards construction anywhere else except Russia – which is pursuing a model that barely qualifies as an SMR, is years behind schedule and does not have the regulatory process expected in developed countries.

In South Korea, an SMR model was approved in 2012 but there had been no orders because it costs too much. Plans in the US had stalled; a government-backed model by the company NuScale was approved by the safety regulator, but the design was later changed and several municipalities dropped plans to host them. Backers agree that no reactors are expected before 2029 at the earliest.

The industry report concluded there was growing evidence that “SMRs, like large reactors, will continue to be subject to delays and cost overruns and the high likelihood that they would not be economical even under the most favourable circumstances”.

Is nuclear power needed in Australia?

It is a different story in some other countries, but there are plenty of analyses that say nuclear isn’t necessary here given the range of available energy options.

For example, the Australian Energy Market Operator’s integrated system plan – a blueprint for an optimal future grid – lays out a vision under which the country would run overwhelmingly on solar and wind, supported by better transmission links and backed by “firm” capacity that can be called on when needed: batteries, pumped hydro, some gas (at least initially) and demand management.

Cost is the key issue. While estimates are difficult, CSIRO’s latest analysis of different energy costs suggested SMRs would be far more expensive than solar and wind energy and at least as expensive as fossil fuel power with carbon capture and storage, which has not proven economically viable.

Why does the case for nuclear energy persist?

There is an assumption by some people, including Coalition MPs [the coal-supporting party in Australia], that renewable energy cannot do the job, despite the expert advice that says otherwise. These critiques rarely address that advice head on.

But there is also a long history of nuclear energy being used as a delaying tactic for acting on climate change in Australia, including by fossil fuel interests.

It is possible SMRs could play a role globally beyond 2030, but anyone arguing for them in Australia should be asked why they disagree with the nuclear advocates who say otherwise – and why [their] efforts aren’t better directed into backing zero-emissions technologies that are affordable and available now.