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http://www.afr.com/business/energy/south-australia-intervenes-in-electricity-market-as-prices-hit-14000mwh-20160714-gq5sacquote:Turmoil in South Australia's heavily wind-reliant electricity market has forced the state government to plead with the owner of a mothballed gas-fired power station to turn it back on.
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Jul 17, 2016 23:44
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Isn't that pretty much a predictable issue that should be considered and grappled with BEFORE massive renewable rollout?
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Jul 18, 2016 05:42
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Pander posted:Isn't that pretty much a predictable issue that should be considered and grappled with BEFORE massive renewable rollout? Yup The story is still important because there are some renewable proponents who think that baseload is some sort of myth. But it's not. It's something that needs to be addressed, and too often a nationwide solar+wind rollout plan simply ignores it or doesn't adequately plan for it.
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Jul 18, 2016 05:50
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https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-environment/wp/2016/08/11/turns-out-wind-and-solar-have-a-secret-friend-natural-gas/
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Aug 12, 2016 21:51
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Number Ten Cocks posted:https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-environment/wp/2016/08/11/turns-out-wind-and-solar-have-a-secret-friend-natural-gas/ The "100% renewable" crowd's response to this is what? Fingers in ears?
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Aug 12, 2016 23:27
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Pander posted:The "100% renewable" crowd's response to this is what? Usually they argue for spending on biofuels, biogas and storage along with demand reduction and effiency as the means to close the gap between 30%-60% all the way to 70%+. Some of these can even be net carbon negative (e.g. Burning methane from sewage) while providing a path to providing dispatchable generation and weaning off natural gas. Or they do what most technologists do, and point out how newer wind and solar plants are providing these services currently provided by natural gas. China has 1GW of dispatchable and overnight CSP on order. New power electronics allows wind farms to act together to provide reactive power and other critical ancillaries. Or they take a realist tack and point out that a US grid of "renewables + natural gas" is better than the status quo and that the Clean Power Plan* will provide the regulatory framework to make the changes to the carbon cost of electricity that we need. Or they take the Bernie Sanders approach and point out that they're simply arguing for 100% renewables in the hope we get the best compromise we can and never realistically expect to get 100% but need to argue for it anyway. (*assuming a Clinton presidency)
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Aug 12, 2016 23:43
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Mmmmmmmmm natural gas. I better invest some more money in oil and gas stocks while the prices are low. Just wait until everyone is hooked on cheap low cost natural gas, mwa ha ha ha. You thought high price oil was bad? When the electricity bills skyrocket and the rolling brown outs and black outs say in 4-5 years...
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Aug 13, 2016 14:03
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Senor P. posted:Mmmmmmmmm natural gas. I better invest some more money in oil and gas stocks while the prices are low. Source your quotes
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Aug 13, 2016 20:55
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Phanatic posted:http://www.afr.com/business/energy/south-australia-intervenes-in-electricity-market-as-prices-hit-14000mwh-20160714-gq5sac This is complete bullshit from the fossil-fuel sector http://reneweconomy.com.au/2016/wind-solar-removed-major-price-spikes-south-australia-48504 https://www.crikey.com.au/2016/07/22/558133/ The cost overruns are be blamed on the high mix of wind in South Australia, but it's simply not true. blacksun fucked around with this message at 05:37 on Aug 14, 2016 |
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Aug 14, 2016 05:21
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blacksun posted:This is complete bullshit from the fossil-fuel sector http://reneweconomy.com.au/2016/wind-solar-removed-major-price-spikes-south-australia-48504 https://www.crikey.com.au/2016/07/22/558133/ There is a lot of contradictory information in these articles. The original article, the one you are arguing against claims: quote:The emergency measures are needed to ease punishing costs for South Australian industry as National Electricity Market (NEM) prices in the state have frequently surged above $1000 a megawatt hour this month and at one point on Tuesday hit the $14,000MWh maximum price. The rebuttal article (the one you are linking) simply claims that there are no spikes in the electricity price in South Australia. quote:This graph below, from the Australian Energy Regulator, shows the number of high price events – peaks of more than $5,000/MWh – across Australia over the last 15 years. Someone's flat out lying. And honestly I am not sure who it is. Who is the correct authority to state about the price peaks of electricity in South Australia?
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Aug 15, 2016 06:24
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BattleMoose posted:Someone's flat out lying. And honestly I am not sure who it is. Who is the correct authority to state about the price peaks of electricity in South Australia? On one hand, you have the people who run the actual electricity market in SE Australia. Its not a true national market because gently caress WA, but its the biggest and covers the majority of the population. On the other hand you have a right wing propaganda mouthpiece run by a undead lich who has constantly lied about renewable energy and its effects. The Australian is a vanity rag which has never actually made a profit run by Rupert Murdoch simply so he can say he runs the nations only national daily newspaper. The only good use for that paper and its stable mates is to line the bottom of bird cages.
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Aug 15, 2016 06:30
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Frogmanv2 posted:On the other hand you have a right wing propaganda mouthpiece run by a undead lich who has constantly lied about renewable energy and its effects. The Australian is a vanity rag which has never actually made a profit run by Rupert Murdoch simply so he can say he runs the nations only national daily newspaper. The only good use for that paper and its stable mates is to line the bottom of bird cages. You're not wrong about the right wingers. But I hold the left wingers, on the topic of energy with an equal amount of contempt. I regard both as horrifically incompetent. And unfortunately the rebuttal articles were from left wing websites. Frogmanv2 posted:On one hand, you have the people who run the actual electricity market in SE Australia. Its not a true national market because gently caress WA, but its the biggest and covers the majority of the population. I would specifically like the names of those people who gave those numbers and their positions within the appropriate regulatory body. Or referenceable material published by the appropriate authority.
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Aug 15, 2016 06:49
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BattleMoose posted:I would specifically like the names of those people who gave those numbers and their positions within the appropriate regulatory body. Or referenceable material published by the appropriate authority. http://www.aemc.gov.au/Australias-Energy-Market/Markets-Overview/National-electricity-market Knock yourself out.
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Aug 15, 2016 06:55
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Yeah, the details aren't readily available there and no I am not going to spend my time trying to find them. And I dont need to do that in order to call for facts to be referenced.
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Aug 15, 2016 07:33
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ok
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Aug 15, 2016 07:41
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Senor P. posted:Mmmmmmmmm natural gas. I better invest some more money in oil and gas stocks while the prices are low. And I'm going to laugh when your futures are worthless when someone figures out how to mass produce graphene cheaply or accidentally does something to a battery experiment that ends with massively increased storage and immediately turns it around to market, makes trillions, and everything starts rapidly switching off of oil  Oil/gas will never be worthless, but don't bet the farm on something that also has pretty good odds for one of the many avenues that are being heavily worked on for breaking our need for it in absolutely massive quantities becoming a runaway success.
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Aug 15, 2016 19:04
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Boten Anna posted:And I'm going to laugh when your futures are worthless when someone figures out how to mass produce graphene cheaply or accidentally does something to a battery experiment that ends with massively increased storage and immediately turns it around to market, makes trillions, and everything starts rapidly switching off of oil Oil and gas will never be worthless. Do you know how much oil derivatives are used in the first, second, and third world? Where do you think plastics come from? How the hell did your 100% cotton shirt get processed without using some kind of heat source? Please continue with your pie in the sky attitude of graphene/bucky balls/energy storage. In the mean time, electricity production today can be solved today and quite economically, with natural gas. You know what else can be done with natural gas? Cogeneration! That is the ONLY current technology we have that is readily available that can replace coal power and retiring nuclear plants. The nuclear 'fleet' in the U.S. amounts for 20% of our electricity and unfortunately we are going to see more and more plants retiring. I love nuclear power but I do not see us replacing what was built and commissioned in the 70s and 80s at this time. It is currently taking 6-10 years for the license and another 6-10 to build. And right now there are only 2 plants (2 reactors at each) in construction in the U.S. Renewables are going to be intermittent for some time, and while there have been some improvements. (Solar thermal and heat storage for a few hours into the night.) There is only so much you can get. Wind is growing, and the best spots are quickly getting taken. (Similar to hydro power.) That leaves solar photovoltaic which is not that good and solar thermal with a relatively poor track record. Offshore power holds some potential but also has some big big concerns. Corrosion, maintenance, distribution, etc.... Senor P. fucked around with this message at 14:55 on Aug 16, 2016 |
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Aug 16, 2016 13:12
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BattleMoose posted:The rebuttal article (the one you are linking) simply claims that there are no spikes in the electricity price in South Australia. The first article I linked (there are two) actually has a graph of historical price surges. Murdoch's rag is 100% lying.
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Aug 16, 2016 22:29
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Natural gas? I thought clean coal was the answer
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Aug 16, 2016 22:30
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Well, that's why I said it will never be worthless. There's a LOT of counterinvestment against oil/gas being the backbone of energy needs though, and several good avenues for demand to drop rather suddenly as supplies remain constant or increase. As a short-term investment, sure, but I personally wouldn't stake my own money on oil/gas rocketing up, either. We're around the corner from a bunch of rather affordable 200+ mile electric cars that, while they won't take over overnight by any means, are probably going to start levelling off and driving consumer demand slightly downeard for automobile gasoline within the next few years. Industrial use (agriculture, heavy machinery) and of course plastics probably aren't going anywhere soon, though corn plastics and biofuel are plinking away at that slightly so I'm not even confident that's a huge growth sector. The price of the oil drives the growth here, and the higher it goes the more it slows and costcutting measures such as, well, using ethanol biofuels instead of oil, or materials that are not plastics are taken. The big questionmark is backbone electricity, but placing a huge bet on natural gas (and oil in general) is betting against the huge amount of money and research going into energy storage and renewable generation in general. While of course I have personal biases rooting on these things and I'm not going to pretend otherwise, the sheer number of them and how lucrative they are to whomever can get them to market first is something that even if I was just deciding where to place bets, er, invest in and focus only on what will offer good returns, I'd just stay the gently caress away from energy altogether. In the immediate term sure, I'd maybe put a few bucks on natural gas since that's an immediate need, but I'd sell as soon as I got a good ROI or get out if it doesn't go anywhere fast. It's entirely possible that no breakthroughs will happen and we'll still have poo poo batteries and solar generation will remain a bit unwieldy and unreliable, but that's a risky bet that I would not take with any significant amount of money.
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Aug 16, 2016 22:39
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blacksun posted:The first article I linked (there are two) actually has a graph of historical price surges. Murdoch's rag is 100% lying. Yeah but it wasn't referenced, just like murdochs claims. I might be being pedantic but if I cannot check the references of claims being made, the claims are rejected.
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Aug 17, 2016 01:10
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That must be a very difficult life
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Aug 17, 2016 01:18
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ohgodwhat posted:That must be a very difficult life Not really, the upside is that I dont have to deal with much bullshit.
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Aug 17, 2016 01:26
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BattleMoose posted:There is a lot of contradictory information in these articles. The original article, the one you are arguing against claims: Those quotes don't contradict each other. If you read closely, the AFR article mentions $1000/MWh prices, which is something no other source will reference because it has no special meaning while the non-AFR articles used $5000/MWh. This is because $5000/MWh is classified as a high price event and has data that is posted already summarized on the AER website. Since AFR do not include data or give a source for their "$1000/MWh" events or what metric they are using for average price I'm not sure why you are lending equal credence to the AFR article. In contrast, the articles you are demanding sources from provide exactly the source you need to verify their claims. You can find the high price events that they reference by going to the regulators website, clicking market performance and then digging through the wholesale statistics tab. https://www.aer.gov.au/wholesale-markets/wholesale-statistics/trading-intervals-above-5000-mwh-quarterly I also find it interesting that the AFR article mentions: quote:Electricity contracts for delivery in 2017 and 2018 are priced at $91-100MWh in South Australia, compared to $50-63 in Victoria, NSW and Queensland. While the AER weekly report for the final week of July indicates that: quote:The AER notes that data for South Australia is less reliable due to very low numbers of trades – no trades were recorded BattleMoose posted:Not really, the upside is that I dont have to deal with much bullshit. It does make you look rather daft though when you can't seem to find a source for data that took a google search for "High price event AER" to find. Which the linked articles state was their source for the data, directly under the charts for the data. The only way they could make it any easier is by providing a URL.
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Aug 17, 2016 04:55
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freezepops posted:Those quotes don't contradict each other. If you read closely, the AFR article mentions $1000/MWh prices, which is something no other source will reference because it has no special meaning while the non-AFR articles used $5000/MWh. This is because $5000/MWh is classified as a high price event and has data that is posted already summarized on the AER website. Since AFR do not include data or give a source for their "$1000/MWh" events or what metric they are using for average price I'm not sure why you are lending equal credence to the AFR article. In contrast, the articles you are demanding sources from provide exactly the source you need to verify their claims. You can find the high price events that they reference by going to the regulators website, clicking market performance and then digging through the wholesale statistics tab. Firstly, I am not lending credence to the AFR article, my disdain for nonreferenced claims applies equally to both (I guess thats a type of equal credence). But to the matter at hand. The AFR article claims the spot price in Australia peaked at $14,000/MWh, which I hope you appreciate is greater than $5000/MWh, the date of which was in July. Which is in the THIRD QUARTER of 2016. The AER data provided does not cover this time period. The rewneweconomy article, is essentially using data from BEFORE July to argue that the claims made by AFR AFTER July are wrong. This is just awfully disingenuous. In short, AFR claim spot price hit $14,000/MWh in Q3 of July. Reneweconmy argue against this claim using data NOT INCLUDING Q3. In short, I have no idea if the spot price hit $14,000/MWh. If it did, that is extremely noteworthy. And I completely disagree with the assertion that high oil and gas prices could cause a singular high spike, as the rewneweconomy article argue. High gas prices would cause sustained high prices, as could be seen 2008-2010. But again it needs to be pointed out, we have no freaking idea how many high price events occurred in JULY of 2016 because that data was not presented by anyone! freezepops posted:It does make you look rather daft though when you can't seem to find a source for data that took a google search for "High price event AER" to find. Which the linked articles state was their source for the data, directly under the charts for the data. The only way they could make it any easier is by providing a URL. When claims are made they need to be referenced. No ifs or buts. Its true I was too stupid to think of the google search string that you suggested. Not being particularly familiar with high price events I am okay with that. You should be okay with people challenging unreferenced claims. EDIT: You should also notice how rare it is for a high price event to occur in Q3 for South Australia. It is an exceptional event. DID IT HAPPEN? BattleMoose fucked around with this message at 11:35 on Aug 17, 2016 |
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Aug 17, 2016 11:29
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BattleMoose posted:Yeah but it wasn't referenced, just like murdochs claims. I might be being pedantic but if I cannot check the references of claims being made, the claims are rejected. This took me less then 2 minutes to Google. If you actually wanted to find out, you could have in less than the time it took you to write the post. https://www.energycouncil.com.au/analysis/high-price-events-a-history/
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Aug 17, 2016 13:36
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https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2016/aug/17/energy-companies-withholding-supply-to-blame-for-july-price-spike-report-findsquote:Fossil fuel electricity generators in South Australia withheld their supply to push up prices and reap bigger profits, according to an analysis of the causes behind the extremely high prices there in early July. Turns out privatization is the problem.
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Aug 18, 2016 02:36
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Always find it hilarious when articles like this say what's needed is "more competition". It's just such trash, competition doesn't get you anything you want in these sorts of things unless you've already got strong regulations. And if you have those strong regulations you could already be forcing those outcomes anyway. Competition to solve pricing/availability is something that's really relegated to minor things, like toothpaste or juice brands. It simply can't work for utilities.
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Aug 18, 2016 02:49
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fishmech posted:Always find it hilarious when articles like this say what's needed is "more competition". It's just such trash, competition doesn't get you anything you want in these sorts of things unless you've already got strong regulations. And if you have those strong regulations you could already be forcing those outcomes anyway. I agree, nationalise the energy companies.
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Aug 18, 2016 03:26
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Energy providers tout competition as their moderating force while glomming into God-level monopolies. See: Southern Company
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Aug 18, 2016 03:26
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quote:Mountain said Snowy Hydro, Engie, AGL and Energy Australia were exploiting their market power to push up prices. He said they weren’t doing anything illegal, but they were taking advantage of a market that wasn’t functioning properly. Snowy Hydro at least should be doing this. Hydro power is the best technology to be used for a peaking plant with much short lead times (time taken to go from zero production to 100% production). Additionally, there isn't nearly enough water to be operating continuously. It makes sense on a societal level and a profitable level for Snowy Hydro to only operate during peak hours. In fact their primary income is from selling insurance to energy retailers, guaranteeing to provide electricity at a predetermined set price for electricity when the price goes nuts.
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Aug 18, 2016 03:32
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Energy is a strategic resource, and we've seen it used as a political lever in the EU two years ago (Russian natural gas pipes, one-way pipes not capable of bidirectional flow at first in states downstream of those with desire to leverage the capacity to interrupt flow to their downstream customers for political gain). There's a difference in immediate impact of deprivation between commodities and strategic resources. We don't grind to an instant and dangerous halt when the flow of cars, toothpaste, and anime is flagging or stopped outright. Grid failure kills commerce and access to money in seconds. Resiliency is not something a private business has a stake in implementing, especially when liability (both financial and PR) is largely compartmentalized in a large web of subsidiaries. Energy is a strategic resource and deserves a better breed of caretakers than your run-of-the-mill post-1980s "Grow quarterly at all cost, siphon the rewards" MBA program graduates.
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Aug 18, 2016 03:51
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Potato Salad posted:Energy is a strategic resource, and we've seen it used as a political lever in the EU two years ago (Russian natural gas pipes, one-way pipes not capable of bidirectional flow at first in states downstream of those with desire to leverage the capacity to interrupt flow to their downstream customers for political gain). Frogmanv2 posted:I agree, nationalise the energy companies.
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Aug 18, 2016 03:54
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Your post inspired my post. I'm supporting some research labs that throw staticians, political scientists, and ex stock researchers in energy industries into a blender with the goal of modeling "How to Kill X State's Energy Infrastructure Legally" reports and other general works on resiliency, so I may have more amateur-on-a-soapbox posts yet 
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Aug 18, 2016 04:08
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Frogmanv2 posted:I agree, nationalise the energy companies. This, always.
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Aug 18, 2016 17:43
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I CANNOT EJACULATE WITHOUT SEEING NATIVE AMERICANS BRUTALISED!
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If only Exxon was more like Aramco then....
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Aug 18, 2016 17:45
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Has this been discussed? http://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-new-mexico-nuclear-dump-20160819-snap-story.html quote:When a drum containing radioactive waste blew up in an underground nuclear dump in New Mexico two years ago, the Energy Department rushed to quell concerns in the Carlsbad desert community and quickly reported progress on resuming operations. I'm generally supportive of nuclear energy, but it's troubling to see that an accident involving a single barrel of nuclear waste could cost billions to clean up. The waste that caused the accident was from the US nuclear weapons program, but the contaminated facility was/is supposed to store commercial reactor waste as well. It's also not great that safeguards like the air filtration system failed. It's nice to see that the company contracted to manage the site during the accident received an additional contract to clean it up.
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Aug 24, 2016 01:44
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Nocturtle posted:Has this been discussed? While its certainly an issue, disasters are not unique to nuclear power and the costs associated with nuclear disasters should be viewed in context to alternative sources of power. Dam failures ( which also occur in the US and other first world countries) can cause similar financial costs and typically at least some loss of life. Depending on location dam failures can kill in the tens of thousands and even in the hundreds of thousands. The on going health costs from coal power plants alone are substantive, never mind their impact on climate change. http://www.climatecouncil.org.au/uploads/d2b6cbbfff522e700c99f3c4e3c0aee0.pdf quote:In the US, 50,000 deaths each year have been attributed to air pollution from coal-fired power generation. http://www.nuceng.ca/refer/risk/risk.htm Even lives lost from falls from installing rooftop solar PV panels is non trivial when compared to quantity of energy produced. (I haven't read these specific sources but they are consistent with other articles/publications that I have) The holisitic costs of nuclear power, including disasters, compares very favourable with other power sources. Lives lost per energy unit produced from nuclear power, its by far the safest power source we have.
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Aug 24, 2016 07:48
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Nocturtle posted:Has this been discussed?
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Aug 24, 2016 09:08
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evil_bunnY posted:Try putting a number on the healthcare costs of coal power if you really want to go straight to clinical depression. Like I get the initial reaction to say "but coal bad" in the face of yet another failure of the nuclear industry. And sadly while this will further hurt commercial nuclear power, it was a Los Alamos's fault. But still, the delays in long term storage (even if reimbursed by the Feds) provides another kind of economic uncertainty that would inevitably make nuclear a less attractive option for grid planners at power utilities. Failures like this are in part why we don't have nuclear replacing those coal plants.
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Aug 24, 2016 19:03
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