VICE: How Australia Perfected Solar Power and Then Went Back to Coal
40 replies, posted
[QUOTE]There was a time in the 1980s when Australia led the world in solar technology. To begin with, Australia receives more solar radiation per square foot than anywhere on the planet, and that presents an obvious advantage. But the true catalyst was geography: two thirds of the country consists of uninhabited desert. This posed problems for engineers tasked with constructing a national telephone network in the early 1970s. The solution was to build remote relay stations powered with solar energy, which at the time was a fledgling, expensive technology. Yet by 1978 the national provider, Telecom, had developed reliable solar cells that could be installed affordably across the country and be infrequently maintained. International recognition came in 1983 when Perth was tapped with hosting the Solar World Congress.
Fast-forward to 2014 and Australian solar power is in a very different place. This week a proposed solar farm with 2,000 dishes—capable of powering 30,000 homes—was canceled amid uncertainty about the future of renewable energy. This comes at a time when every one of the country's proposed solar farms are on hold and coal operators push legislation to strangle solar proliferation. So what happened?
"Power generators and NSPs (network service providers) are scared," says Giles Parkinson, who is the editor of the green news site Renew Economy. "There will always be a grid, but it's just a question of where that power comes from. Now we're at the point where rooftop solar, subsidized by solar farms, is becoming a cheaper option. You see this with the internet affecting telcos, with digital cameras and film—it's inevitable with new technology. But in Australia it's catastrophic because we used to be leaders, but we're now going backwards."[/QUOTE]
[IMG]https://assets-news.vice.com/images/2014/08/27/untitled-article-1409155760-body-image-1409156022.jpg[/IMG]
[QUOTE]Like most of the world, Australia swings between climate disavowal and action. In the 1980s Australian solar power was federally funded. Then, in the mid 90s, the incoming government scrapped the Energy Research and Development Corporation. Broadly speaking coal became the energy source of choice, until July 2012, when Australia introduced a fixed-price tax on carbon emissions. This carbon tax was part of a slate of climate initiatives called the Clean Energy Plan, which also legislated that 20 percent of electricity would come from renewables by 2020.
Now the weather vane has swung back, with a center-right government coming to power in 2013, promising to repeal the "job destroying carbon tax." They succeeded on July 17, and although they reluctantly retained the binder on renewables, they placed the entire program "under review." According to Dr. Richard Corkish, who is the COO for the Australian Center for Advanced Photovoltaics, "under review" is clever wording as it "effectively achieves the same thing as a repeal."
Here's why: For a proposed solar farm to get financing, they need a signed power-purchase agreement from a distributor, stipulating exactly how much power they'll buy. But given distributors are no longer required to buy renewable energy, and given their business models are threatened by solar, they're not signing the agreements. The result is that solar farms don't get built. According to Dr. Corkish this is what happened to the aforementioned solar farm. "We were hoping they could hold out until the review finished," he said. "But uncertainty is enough and the investors ran. It's a terrible shame."
According to Australia's Clean Energy Council, there are four large-scale solar farms currently under construction and another 13 in development, all with uncertain futures. As their Acting Chief Executive, Kane Thornton, explained via email, "Australia's Renewable Energy Target is the critical policy for all renewable energy projects. While large scale solar projects also receive support from other Australian Government programs, without the Renewable Energy Target they wouldn't get built."[/QUOTE]
[url]https://news.vice.com/article/how-australia-perfected-solar-power-and-then-went-back-to-coal?[/url]
The mining industry is just too large a part of our GDP to give it up, even if it's detrimental to the environment.
We have a huge photonics department at our university dedicated to optimising solar tech.
Our current government is sucking on the tits of that Gina Rinehart slag and as a result will keep using coal, as Bradyns pointed out Australia makes a shit ton of money through the mining industry but I don't know why we can't have both
[QUOTE=fruxodaily;45859988]Our current government is sucking on the tits of that Gina Rinehart slag and as a result will keep using coal, as Bradyns pointed out Australia makes a shit ton of money through the mining industry but I don't know why we can't have both[/QUOTE]
[QUOTE]"the slothful, vindictive and devious baby elephant"[/QUOTE]
What I always think when I hear that name.
[QUOTE=Bradyns;45859971]The mining industry is just too large a part of our GDP to give it up, even if it's detrimental to the environment.
We have a huge photonics department at our university dedicated to optimising solar tech.[/QUOTE]
More than 50% of the coal mined in Australia is exported, money can still be made if local electricity production is replaced. Even more money can be made if we continueto subsidise, develop and lead in the solar electricity and renewables market. Especially because we're not going to be relying on coal forever.
It's incredibly short sighted to say that it's too much of our GDP to give it up. If you were to expand GDP forecasts to a few decades coal will reduce dramatically as a percentage of GDP and the present value of the coal industry in 2050 will probably be negative if we don't adapt to changes.
If we do, then we will have so much more value to our GDP.
It's no excuse to say it's too big of our GDP, because it ain't gonna be for long.
Environment is more like a plus than a key driver of change, it has to be if anyone wants anything done.
[url]http://www.news.com.au/technology/environment/renewable-energy-target-who-benefits-from-scaling-back-the-scheme/story-fnjww1r5-1227042169344[/url]
More reading if you're interested.
[QUOTE=gerbe1;45860058]More than 50% of the coal mined in Australia is exported, money can still be made if local electricity production is replaced. Even more money can be made if we continueto subsidise, develop and lead in the solar electricity and renewables market. Especially because we're not going to be relying on coal forever.
It's incredibly short sighted to say that it's too much of our GDP to give it up. If you were to expand GDP forecasts to a few decades coal will reduce dramatically as a percentage of GDP and the present value of the coal industry in 2050 will probably be negative if we don't adapt to changes.
If we do, then we will have so much more value to our GDP.
It's no excuse to say it's too big of our GDP, because it ain't gonna be for long.
Environment is more like a plus than a key driver of change, it has to be if anyone wants anything done.[/QUOTE]
Problem is, most companies only want a short term gain, and don't really give a fuck about investing extra money unless it's more profitable, which in terms of solar energy, is not. Why lay down extra cash for something else when what you have is already making you roll in the money better than the alternative?
I wish power wasn't privatized, that really fucked over any chance of renewable energies being put in place.
If only people didn't have such a big fucking hangup about nuclear energy, that's worth investing into for the long run.
[QUOTE=Tasm;45860337]Problem is, most companies only want a short term gain, and don't really give a fuck about investing extra money unless it's more profitable, which in terms of solar energy, is not.
If only people didn't have such a big fucking hangup about nuclear energy, that's worth investing into for the long run.[/QUOTE]
You can easily power the entirety of Australia if anyone could be bothered with renewable electricity within a decade. You wouldn't even need nuclear energy. But yeah, it's not profitable without subsidies at the moment, but it won't be long until it is. In fact, coal production is hardly valuable without subsidies, with the government having provided subsidies to the industry for years.
So actually, it very well may be just as profitable as coal, renewables, if they dropped the subsidies, or continued to subsidise renewables on a level that they do for coal.
The problem isn't coal itself, it's the horrible inefficiency of the combustion engines/whatever in the power plants. If someone would fix that pollution is pretty much over, as carbon emmisions would be reduced
[QUOTE=LVL FACTORY;45860480]The problem isn't coal itself, it's the horrible inefficiency of the combustion engines/whatever in the power plants. If someone would fix that pollution is pretty much over, as carbon emmisions would be reduced[/QUOTE]
The basic design hasn't changed since the 1700s, we feed coal into a furnace and boil water with it.
Carbon sequestering helps (That's what "clean coal" is, we burn the coal, then bury the pollution so we can ignore it), because unless we come up with a new way to get energy from coal, burning it is currently the best we can do (And that's what causes the emissions)
Australia's energy solutions have never made sense. The nation is home to 31% of the world's uranium reserves, yet it does not make use of this nuclear potential because of misinformed public hysteria.
(For reference, the only country that even comes close to having nearly as much uranium as Australia is Kazakhstan with only 12.1% of the world's share of uranium.)
This whole reworking coal business... doesn't that essentially mean reworking the basic principle of all of our energy generation (channel heat to make it do what you want)
[QUOTE=LVL FACTORY;45860480]The problem isn't coal itself, it's the horrible inefficiency of the combustion engines/whatever in the power plants. If someone would fix that pollution is pretty much over, as carbon emmisions would be reduced[/QUOTE]
Carnot limit states that there is only so much improvement that can be made, ya powerplants are crazy efficient if but right and maintained, but there still is that ~35% max efficiency obtainable from combustion
[QUOTE=gerbe1;45860815]This whole reworking coal business... doesn't that essentially mean reworking the basic principle of all of our energy generation (channel heat to make it do what you want)[/QUOTE]
All steam-electric power plants work in the same way yes. Either coal, natural gas, or uranium (through nuclear fission) are heated to extreme temperatures to create steam which then turns turbines producing mechanical energy which is then converted into electricity.
[QUOTE=PolarEventide;45860827]All steam-electric power plants work in the same way yes. Either coal, natural gas, or uranium (through nuclear fission) are heated to extreme temperatures to create steam which then turns turbines producing mechanical energy which is then converted into electricity.[/QUOTE]
Not to mention solar and geo-thermal power.
[QUOTE=PolarEventide;45860811]Australia's energy solutions have never made sense. The nation is home to 31% of the world's uranium reserves, yet it does not make use of this nuclear potential because of misinformed public hysteria.
(For reference, the only country that even comes close to having nearly as much uranium as Australia is Kazakhstan with only 12.1% of the world's share of uranium.)[/QUOTE]
Hell if Australia could figure out how to transmit power to Asia they could make shitloads of money just being a giant generator state with its vast amounts of desert, uranium, solar potential, its not infeasable to make a massive super conducting cable to supply your close neighbors in new zeland
[QUOTE=PolarEventide;45860811]Australia's energy solutions have never made sense. The nation is home to 31% of the world's uranium reserves, yet it does not make use of this nuclear potential because of misinformed public hysteria.[/QUOTE]
Nuclear power in itself is safe, it's the way we harness, maintain and control the plants that isn't.
We are far better off putting money into renewable research than building reactors.
[QUOTE=Brandy92;45860913]Nuclear power in itself is safe, it's the way we harness, maintain and control the plants that isn't.
We are far better off putting money into renewable research than building reactors.[/QUOTE]
The entire process is safe. If you have been told otherwise, you have been misinformed.
And while, yes, we should put money into renewable energy research, we have an energy crisis now, we have to deal with global climate change now. The most feasible, efficient solution to the problems we face is nuclear energy.
[QUOTE=PolarEventide;45860950]The entire process is safe. If you have been told otherwise, you have been misinformed.[/QUOTE]
You must be a nuclear engineer.
The entire process is made unsafe either directly or indirectly by human nature. Here's a handy list:
[url]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_civilian_nuclear_accidents[/url]
Most of the world is slowly retiring their nuclear reactors, some even early.
[IMG]http://cdn3.vox-cdn.com/assets/4844968/Screen_Shot_2014-08-01_at_12.08.58_PM.png[/IMG]
While it provides a [B]lot [/B]of power, the risk it entails is too catastrophic to put it to use indefinitely.
[QUOTE=Brandy92;45861226]You must be a nuclear engineer.
The entire process is made unsafe either directly or indirectly by human nature. Here's a handy list:
[url]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_civilian_nuclear_accidents[/url]
Most of the world is slowly retiring their nuclear reactors, some even early.
[IMG]http://cdn3.vox-cdn.com/assets/4844968/Screen_Shot_2014-08-01_at_12.08.58_PM.png[/IMG]
While it provides a [B]lot [/B]of power, the risk it entails is too catastrophic to put it to use indefinitely.[/QUOTE]
Why is it "too catastrophic"? Sure, the Chernobyl area is still uninhabitable, but that was a case of gross negligence. Nuclear power is largely clean, and it has a much smaller ecological foot print than coal and such.
[QUOTE=GoDong-DK;45861285]Why is it "too catastrophic"? Sure, the Chernobyl area is still uninhabitable, but that was a [B]case of gross negligence[/B].[/QUOTE]
See list above.
[QUOTE=Brandy92;45861355]See list above.[/QUOTE]
[url]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_coal_mining_accidents_in_China[/url]
And this is just China.
And your list also includes this stuff (apparently all incidents in the 1970s):
[QUOTE]7 December 1975 – INES Level 3 - Greifswald, Germany (then East Germany) - Station Blackout
A fire in a cable duct after a short-circuit disabled the electrical power supply for all feedwater and emergency core cooling pumps. A power supply was improvised by the operating personnel after several hours.
22 February 1977 – INES Level 4 - Jaslovské Bohunice, Slovakia (then Czechoslovakia) - Fuel damaged
Operators neglected to remove moisture-absorbing materials from a fuel rod assembly before loading it into the KS 150 reactor at power plant A-1. The accident resulted in damaged fuel integrity, extensive corrosion damage of fuel cladding and release of radioactivity into the plant area. The affected reactor was decommissioned following this accident.[20]
28 March 1979 – INES Level 5[citation needed] - Middletown, Dauphin County, Pennsylvania, United States - Partial meltdown
Equipment failures and worker mistakes contributed to a loss of coolant and a partial core meltdown at the Three Mile Island Nuclear Generating Station 15 km (9.3 mi) southeast of Harrisburg. While the reactor was extensively damaged, on-site radiation exposure was under 100 millirems (less than annual exposure due to natural sources). Area residents received a smaller exposure of 1 millirem (10 µSv), or about 1/3 the dose from eating a banana per day for one year. There were no fatalities. Follow-up radiological studies predict between zero and one long-term cancer fatality.[21][22][23]
See also: Three Mile Island accident[/QUOTE]
No fatalities at all.
[editline]1st September 2014[/editline]
I mean, the most notable recent accident was the Fukushima disaster - that plant wasn't adhering to safety standards, and it was hit by both an earthquake (which it survived) [I]and[/I] a tsunami. Even that incident hasn't resulted in near as many deaths (only in form of increased cancer risks, and even then it's not all that significant) as simple coal mining incidents. That's totally discounting people dying from mining coal and breathing all that shitty air - that causes lung cancer and stuff as well.
And again, the ecological impact of coal mining (and if we go a bit further, oil drilling and tar sands (mining?)) is just that much bigger.
[QUOTE=GoDong-DK;45861410]
I mean, the most notable recent accident was the Fukushima disaster - [B]that plant wasn't adhering to safety standards[/B], and it was hit by both an earthquake (which it survived) [I]and[/I] a tsunami. [/QUOTE]
If a nuclear plant in Japan of all places isn't adhering to standards we don't have much hope.
Fatalaties are not what is most crucial here, it's ecological destruction.
I get your point about coal mining, it's bad, everyone knows.
We should be pushing harder into renewables than into dangerous and destructive sources of energy.
[QUOTE=Brandy92;45861527]If a nuclear plant in Japan of all places isn't adhering to standards we don't have much hope.
Fatalaties are not what is most crucial here, it's ecological destruction.
I get your point about coal mining, it's bad, everyone knows.
We should be pushing harder into renewables than into dangerous and destructive sources of energy.[/QUOTE]
"Dangerous and destructive sources of energy" - Solar panels use rare materials, and it's not like no material goes into making a wind mill. Water power obviously has an impact on the ecosystem as well. I'm not thrashing on renewable energy, but getting 100% of your power from renewable energy isn't really practical in the short term. Nuclear energy has a much higher output, and I'd prefer that to coal, oil and gas.
I'm not saying that nuclear power is super safe and the best solution on earth, but compared to the power output, it's a great solution. It isn't dangerous just because you say it is, it can be done safely.
About Japan, I think I should again point to the earthquake and tsunami part of the equation - this stuff doesn't really happen in Europe at all, so there's no reason why Germany and France (and others) shouldn't use nuclear energy.
And if ecological destruction is the important thing here, why is Fukushima in any way relevant? Oil and coal still have a much bigger ecological impact. Sure, radioactive levels were slightly higher in Tuna, but not surpassing that of a banana.
[QUOTE=Brandy92;45861527]If a nuclear plant in Japan of all places isn't adhering to standards we don't have much hope.
Fatalaties are not what is most crucial here, it's ecological destruction.
I get your point about coal mining, it's bad, everyone knows.
We should be pushing harder into renewables than into dangerous and destructive sources of energy.[/QUOTE]
Honestly, with a fairly large amount of Australian society not really understanding how much potential the renewable energy industry has and those looking to make a quick buck, renewable energy won't be much of a market here. Then again once the coal & natural gas reserves run out, the only real things we'll have to turn to is nuclear, geothermal and solar energy. I think the older generations here don't understand that their own grand-children and children will have to deal with the environmental destruction of the land they live on. Where I am (Queensland: the backwards state of the nation) they shouldn't even call this the "smart state" or "sunshine state" because eventually there will be no sunshine left nor any signs of intelligentsia. Not much left of the tourism industry either, thanks to the state & federal governments approving the dredging the the Great Barrier Reef.
[QUOTE=LVL FACTORY;45860480]The problem isn't coal itself, it's the horrible inefficiency of the combustion engines/whatever in the power plants. If someone would fix that pollution is pretty much over, as carbon emmisions would be reduced[/QUOTE]
No the problem is definitely the coal.
[QUOTE=Bradyns;45859971]
We have a huge photonics department at our university dedicated to optimising solar tech.[/QUOTE]
We do?
[QUOTE=adam1172;45862064]We do?[/QUOTE]
yeah we do and a black hole engineering department
[QUOTE=Brandy92;45861226]You must be a nuclear engineer.
The entire process is made unsafe either directly or indirectly by human nature. Here's a handy list:
[url]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_civilian_nuclear_accidents[/url]
Most of the world is slowly retiring their nuclear reactors, some even early.
[IMG]http://cdn3.vox-cdn.com/assets/4844968/Screen_Shot_2014-08-01_at_12.08.58_PM.png[/IMG]
While it provides a [B]lot [/B]of power, the risk it entails is too catastrophic to put it to use indefinitely.[/QUOTE]
Can somebody link to that one post that pretty much highlighted every detail as to why nuclear power is not bad
I forget who posted it, but it was such an amazing post that anybody who has seen it will know exactly what i'm talking about
[QUOTE=shingda;45863002]Can somebody link to that one post that pretty much highlighted every detail as to why nuclear power is not bad
I forget who posted it, but it was such an amazing post that anybody who has seen it will know exactly what i'm talking about[/QUOTE]
Gotcha covered. [url=http://facepunch.com/showthread.php?t=1336387&p=43252922&highlight=#post43252922]Snowmew lays down the law[/url].
Sorry, you need to Log In to post a reply to this thread.