21.01 A Review of the CSIRO Gencost study 2018
Purpose : To challenge the view that electricity generated by wind farms is less expensive than coal fired generation.
Background: Governments and other agencies have generally accepted the advice in the CSIRO publication GenCost 2018 (updated in 2020) that the cost of wind and solar power is less than that of coal fired power stations.
Critical Issues:
1.The GenCost study does not include the costs to ‘firm’ (balance) wind farms when the intermittency of wind causes their power outputs to reduce dramatically.
2. Wind farm output intermittency is currently masked by the availability of coal fired or gas fired power stations to compensate. These coal fired power stations will be progressively decommissioned, which means that
20.06 Planning the Green Energy Transition. The AEMO Integrated System Plan
Purpose: To explain the purpose of the ISP, its scenarios and assumptions
The Critical Issues:
- Scheduled retirement of scheduled generators (coal, gas, battery), with construction of intermittent wind and solar:
| Period | Retired dispatchable MW | Built dispatchable MW | Intermittent MW |
| 2010-2020 | 2,500 | 7,100 built | |
| 2020-2030 | 5,800 | 2,400 (incl Snowy 2) | 10,500 underway |
| 2030-2040 | 14,000 | 39,000 announced | |
| 2040-2050 | 12,000 |
(2) The ISP is the official National Electricity Market transmission network plan. It requires network operators to begin planning the transmission projects that AEMO wants. It is designed to encourage more wind and solar into the network.
This is central
20.05 Lessons from the Californian Blackouts
Heatwave conditions in the USA and wildfires in California have recently precipitated a state of emergency with rolling power blackouts. California’s conventional power capacity has been run down in recent years while they promoted wind and solar generation and import up to 30% of their power from other states.
As the other states run down their conventional power resources under the influence of policies to promote the "green transition", Californians are now being subjected to demand management. This means urgent instructions to domestic and industrial power users to reduce their consumption of "non-essential" power and constrain heavy industrial processes like smelters to reduce the risk of blackouts. Sometimes this is not enough
20.04 This is a warning to all leaders.
The world depends on modern shipping travelling from country to country to support international trade delivering cargo. The ship in Figure 1 in 2019 was the largest in the world with a cargo capacity of more than 200,000 tons but even so it achieves a speed of a constant 21 kn. It is diesel fuelled which many claim should be curtailed because of CO2 gas emissions, but our modern economies cannot go back to sail.
It used to be that cargo was carried place to place by sailing ships. This all but ceased in the 19th century and it is obvious why. First there is the size, see figure 2 “County of Peebles”. It was launched in 1875 and was one of the very last sailing ships. At the time it competed with steamships which then were quite small
20.02 Four Icebergs in the Path of Renewables Titanic
Purpose. To explain that the transition to renewable energy will be very difficult in Australia with existing storage technology
Background. All the major parties are in favour of increasing the supply of electric power from wind and solar energy.
Critical Issues.
Four features of the Australian situation will make the transition to wind and solar energy very difficult and impossible with existing storage technology. This has been demonstrated worldwide by the negligible replacement of hydrocarbons by wind and solar over 20 years at the expense of some 5 trillion US dollars in subsidies.
- Wind droughts. There are frequent and prolonged “wind droughts” when there is next to no wind across SE Australia for many hours and even days