[HN Gopher] Australian coal plant in 'extraordinary' survival ex...
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Australian coal plant in 'extraordinary' survival experiment
Author : h0l0cube
Score : 93 points
Date : 2024-10-13 21:37 UTC (3 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.abc.net.au)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.abc.net.au)
| bastawhiz wrote:
| I can't tell if this is a good thing. It seems like maybe a good
| thing that you can shut off plants that historically couldn't be
| shut off. But it seems like a bad thing since it means these
| plants will likely stay in service longer. Is there a tipping
| point in the foreseeable future where these plants are
| unprofitable regardless of whether they run only part time?
| pabs3 wrote:
| Probably once there enough batteries in service to soak up
| enough negative-priced rooftop solar power produced during the
| day to meet the overnight demand, baseload coal/gas will be
| less needed or no longer needed.
| h0l0cube wrote:
| Correct. It will take around 10-20 years for this happen at
| current scaling of grid storage. In the meantime it doesn't
| make sense to scale up new gas, coal, or nuclear, as they
| won't have a decent ROI over their lifespan.
| pabs3 wrote:
| At least in Australia, the oversupply of rooftop solar is
| already getting to be enough of a problem that its a signal
| to investors that getting into grid scale batteries could
| be profitable, and to home owners that house scale
| batteries are a good idea.
| h0l0cube wrote:
| Sodium-ion battery packs are starting to enter the
| market, and are already quite cheap. I think within a
| couple of years the economics will be difficult to
| resist.
| defrost wrote:
| > and to home owners that house scale batteries are a
| good idea.
|
| There's a middle ground to exploit for business that I've
| seen few (although some) examples of in Australia -
| "neighbourhood" batteries that cover 200 homes or so.
|
| Good for small towns, developments, suburbs, etc - about
| $1 million (AUD) as I recall, decent economics - work
| with grid provider to soak charge container sized battery
| from surrounding solar, feedback on demand, etc.
| firecall wrote:
| To encourage this, here in South Australia, households can
| get free power between 11am and 2pm, to charge their EVs.
|
| We also charge our home batteries and run other things like
| the dishwasher, washing machine and so on...
|
| It's actually a bit of a thing, where you can be out and the
| 11am alarms on peoples phones will start going off!
| BLKNSLVR wrote:
| I haven't come across this. Our power company has cheaper
| 'shoulder' rates between 10am and 3pm, during which I
| schedule more things to be 'on', but haven't heard about a
| free power time range.
|
| I'm with AGL, and don't tend to shop around (because
| hassle), but this might inspire a review.
| threeseed wrote:
| Also need to factor in the possibility of grid connectivity.
|
| If there is ever a Western to Eastern Australia connector
| that would have a big impact on excess capacity given the 3
| hour time zone difference and just how warm it gets there.
| strken wrote:
| It sounds like it's a mixed bag. It'll be quite difficult to
| transition to renewables before storage projects like Snowy
| Hydro 2.0 are complete, and an increased service life really
| just means an increased service life _before we need to pay for
| an expensive infrastructure project_ the cost of which
| companies will try to recoup, so a longer lifespan might
| actually cause the plants to shut down sooner.
| mikewarot wrote:
| I wonder what kind of arrangements they had to make to keep
| things hot while not producing power. I'm assuming that you could
| keep the shaft spinning at near operating speed, and hold the
| temperature of the turbines, etc... the big question for me is
| the boiler tubes themselves you'd have to essentially turn the
| whole firebox into a superheater, pulling just enough steam out
| to keep the turbine supplied, and the make-up water flowing.
|
| This stuff really isn't designed to be throttled up and down like
| a yo-yo. I'm amazed they were able to do it at all, and seem
| confident they can keep it up.
| think_build wrote:
| Well said, but as the article goes on, it seems even with no
| technical hurdles this innovation seems dead in the water with
| policy. At least they're not doing what the Germans have done,
| shutting down coal power plants and buying Polish electrical
| generation... made with coal power plants.
| Symbiote wrote:
| Germany is a net exporter of power to Poland.
| mahkeiro wrote:
| Exactly, Germany in 2024 mainly import electricity from
| France, Denmark, Switzerland and Norway, which are all low
| carbon producers.
| jabpattern7 wrote:
| It's strange to see Germany so against nuclear, but
| happily buying all that clean nuclear energy from it's
| neighbour. Nuclear accidents don't care about borders,
| you'd think if they really meant what they preached
| they'd boycott their closest nuclear plants aswell
| Cthulhu_ wrote:
| It's "not in my backyard" politics, but Europe is full of
| that.
| Ghaenergyyy wrote:
| In bavaria, chernobyl was an event my parents generation
| fully experienced.
|
| It was very clear (especially when you watch the old
| reports, i did a presentation about this in school)
| people didn't know a lot about nuclear and how to act
| upon an accident. Kids were not allowed to play on
| playgrounds, food had to be washed etc.
|
| Even today if you shoot a dear, you have to check it for
| radiation!
|
| its not strange.
|
| And another reason why politics are stupid: Bavaria is
| reigned by the CSU. They have the majority for a very
| long time and the partner CDU was in power for over 16
| years. None of them made any long term nuclear power
| strategy ever.
|
| No one cared to plan longterm enough at all. Building
| nuclear is not easy and its a lot harder in a country
| like germany were we want to be extra save.
|
| Even the newest europeon nuclear power plants take very
| long time. The last one took i think 18 years instead of
| 10?
| ZeroGravitas wrote:
| Poland imports slightly more from Germany than it exports to
| it, and isn't in the top 5 countries that Germany imports
| electricity from.
| cocok wrote:
| > Poland imports slightly more from Germany than it exports
| to it
|
| Why do they import/export the same product between each
| other?
|
| Honest question. In general, not just about Poland and
| Germany.
| wongarsu wrote:
| Because electricity is difficult to store, but because of
| how the grid works you always have to generate exactly as
| much as is used. Not electricity generation fluctuates
| (obvious with wind and solar; all plants need
| maintenance; nuclear often has to shut down in the summer
| either because rivers don't carry enough water or are so
| hot that feeding warm cooling water back into them
| endangers fish). Demand also heavily fluctuates both over
| the course of a day and with the seasons.
|
| Trading electricity over geographically large areas
| smoothes out some of these fluctuations and gives you
| more options to deal with planned outages
| pyrale wrote:
| > nuclear often has to shut down in the summer either
| because rivers don't carry enough water or are so hot
| that feeding warm cooling water back into them endangers
| fish).
|
| I don't believe this has much impact on Germany's export
| patterns: in fact, summer is usually the time scheduled
| maintenance is planned in France, because electricity
| usage is much lower during summer than during winter. So
| there's still a lot of wiggle room before France ends up
| being forced to import in the summer because of that
| phenomenon.
|
| The main driver for import/export patterns are different
| consumer patterns (not all countries have the same daily
| load curve - for instance, France and Spain both benefit
| a lot from trading because France's peak use time is an
| hour ahead of Spain's) and renewables availability.
| Symbiote wrote:
| If you look at the electricity map at various times of
| day or over a week, you'll see the import arrows flip
| direction depending on the weather and time of day.
|
| The UK exports wind power at night, but imports power
| during the day. Scandinavia often exports hydro power.
|
| Taxes on carbon emissions mean Poland will import green
| power if it's available, as it will be cheaper than
| burning their own coal.
|
| https://app.electricitymaps.com/map
| pyrale wrote:
| For instance, Germany could import on windless winter
| days, and export on windy summer days.
| kalleboo wrote:
| Super simplified (and not real) example.
|
| Say it's a super sunny day, Germany generates more solar
| power than they use themselves (Germans don't usually
| have aircon at home anyway), Poland is happy to import
| and use it since it's basically free since it has no
| input costs of fuel, so they can idle their coal plants
| and use less fuel. Now it turns to night and the sun goes
| down and Germany generates 0 solar power. Then they can
| import coal power from Poland.
|
| Expand this over a whole content and you get flows of
| electricity between companies depending on how the grid
| interconnect loads look and the prices of the various
| power sources. If Polish coal costs more then French
| nuclear, then Germany can sell their cheap wind power to
| Poland for something in between polish coal costs and
| French nuclear costs, and then buy nuclear from France
| and pocket the difference. Assuming the grid
| interconnects can't handle Poland importing direct from
| France.
|
| Again none of these examples are real, just an
| explanation of why you would want to trade electricity
| and why you have a big market like the EU power market.
| pyrale wrote:
| This is a common talking point, but it really doesn't mean
| much in terms of the reliability of electric systems.
|
| If you import a lot and export a lot, that doesn't mean
| both countries could be autonomous, it may mean your
| country strongly depends on imports sometimes, and on
| exports at other times, which typically is the case for
| Germany.
| therealrootuser wrote:
| Oh this is the oldest trick in the book. If you need to
| greenwash, then just burn the coal somewhere else. Easy.
|
| Los Angeles has been doing this for decades - for years the
| largest single energy source for LAPW has been an 1800MW coal
| burning plant that they operated in Utah, which has very
| loose environmental regulations.
| bigiain wrote:
| I sometimes wonder how directly some of the big flashy
| renewable energy projects in Australia are funded by coal
| exports to China...
| threeseed wrote:
| But it's offset by Australia being able to validate
| approaches e.g. South Australia's battery.
| Cthulhu_ wrote:
| Yeah, unlike e.g. European countries or US states,
| Australia is an island and they can't import / export
| electricity or connect grids easily.
| adrianN wrote:
| I was under the impression that China had large coal
| deposits of its own. Do they really import a lot of coal?
| shakna wrote:
| Yes, but not for power generation. The majority of
| Australia's coal exports are metallurgical coal, for
| manufacturing. Australia owns about 58% of the global
| trade for metallurgical coal, which means everyone
| imports it from us.
| onedognight wrote:
| Interesting. It is as bad as you say (21% coal), but after
| a decade of planning, coal is about to be phased out next
| year[0].
|
| > The Agency planned to build the third unit of 900 MW
| capacity. This unit was expected to go online in 2012;
| however, the project was cancelled after its major
| purchaser, the city of Los Angeles, decided to become coal-
| free by 2020. [0]
|
| > The plant includes a HVDC converter. It is scheduled in
| 2025 for replacement with an 840 MW natural gas plant,
| designed to also burn "green hydrogen."[0] (released by the
| electrolysis of water, using renewably generated
| electricity)
|
| [0]
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intermountain_Power_Plant
|
| [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Los_Angeles_Department_
| of_Wa...
| cassepipe wrote:
| So they will replace coal with gas. Better (?) but not
| great overall.
|
| Hydrogen is a total joke of greenwashing (apart from some
| niche use cases) so I am not taking it into account
| organsnyder wrote:
| Yeah, I don't understand the use-case for hydrogen here.
| Why convert from electricity -> hydrogen -> electricity
| if everything is stationary? I suppose it could be useful
| for storage or long-distance transmission, but it seems
| like it would be much less efficient than other, simpler
| options.
| cassepipe wrote:
| Even storage is a nightmare. That thing really wants to
| leak.
| philipkglass wrote:
| It's because hydrogen scales up to much greater energy
| capacity.
|
| "Chevron joins Mitsubishi in 300 GWh hydrogen storage
| project as construction continues"
|
| https://www.utilitydive.com/news/chevron-mitsubishi-
| hydrogen...
|
| _The ACES project aims to use electrolysis to produce up
| to 100 metric tons of hydrogen per day, which will be
| stored in naturally occurring salt caverns at the site.
| The caverns have a potential storage capacity of 300 GWh
| of energy, according to Mitsubishi Power, which is
| developing ACES jointly with now Chevron-owned Magnum
| Development._
|
| For comparison, last year the largest battery system in
| the world was the Moss Landing project in California with
| 3 GWh of capacity:
|
| https://www.energy-storage.news/moss-landing-worlds-
| biggest-...
|
| The largest pumped hydro station in the US stores 24 GWh:
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bath_County_Pumped_Storage_
| Sta...
|
| At 300 gigawatt hours this underground hydrogen storage
| system can store more energy than all utility scale
| batteries in the US combined.
| dyauspitr wrote:
| It's short term measures while it transitions to a heavily
| renewable based energy system. Aren't they currently at 60%+
| renewable and are aiming to be 80% by 2030? Claims of
| greenwashing with those stats is disingenuous.
| mahkeiro wrote:
| A part of the increasing of the renewable share in Germany
| electricity production is also the result of a decrease in
| total electricity production. In 2017 Germany was producing
| 560 TWh (with 138TWh solar + wind) vs 430TWh (with 192TWh
| solar + wind) in 2023 and probably even less this year.
| That's why Germany is importing electricity.
| Loic wrote:
| These are very informative numbers one reads nowhere in
| the news. From destatis[0], we go from 608 in 2019 to
| 514TWh in 2023. So not the same absolute values, but same
| trend. Thank you.
|
| [0]: https://www.destatis.de/DE/Themen/Branchen-
| Unternehmen/Energ...
| Symbiote wrote:
| We often read equivalent figures in the British news, as
| it shows the energy efficiency push of the last 30 years
| has reduced power use, leaving space for charging
| electric vehicles.
| pyrale wrote:
| Efficiency, sure, but also industry getting wiped out.
| Ghaenergyyy wrote:
| Industry which didn't care for investing into energy at
| all.
|
| For a car its btw. 1%
| fransje26 wrote:
| > At least they're not doing what the Germans have done,
| shutting down coal power plants and buying Polish electrical
| generation... made with coal power plants.
|
| And shutting down nuclear power plants and buying French
| electricity.. ..made with nuclear power plants. Strong the
| hypocrisy is with this one.
| Cthulhu_ wrote:
| But hey _they 're_ doing their part, right? This is the
| flaw in European and international agreements, they're
| still done on a per-country basis instead of EU or a
| continental basis.
| Ghaenergyyy wrote:
| You simplify the state of german power import/export.
|
| We did reduce the coal burning from 45% to 23% and not by
| 'just importing it from poland'.
|
| We importet AND exportet 3 tWh 2023.
|
| And the overall renewable energy part has increased to 25%
| xattt wrote:
| The article skirts around saying that not much damage is
| happening in two-shifting operation.
|
| What kind of damage is expected? Is two-shifting a sacrificial
| operational mode that's planned to see the coal be sunset in
| the next decade?
| pcchristie wrote:
| If you look at the data, capital spend on these things is
| plummeting because the operators know they aren't here to
| stay. This has caused decreases in their reliability and
| increases in their downtime. I wonder if this new "operating
| mode" will further accelerate the aging of the plants and
| continue the death spiral?
| joe_the_user wrote:
| It would be a good thing if you could trust utilities and energy
| companies to use this new-found flexibility as a way to minimize
| coal use on the way to carbon neural energy generation.
|
| But I think we've seen there can be no trust there and so this is
| a bad thing that will help the coal industry survive. I'm not
| saying other industries are "good" but this industry is
| definitely evil.
| h0l0cube wrote:
| It's a matter of necessity. Until grid storage catches up
| shortfalls in renewable output need to be mitigated somehow.
| The other option is to just keep all the gas and coal baseload
| and switch off the renewables, which would be much worse for
| emissions
| worik wrote:
| > The other option is to just keep all the gas and coal
| baseload and switch off the renewables
|
| The other option is to shut down the coal plants that are
| destroying the climate.
|
| And put up with the consequences.
|
| But, money.
| adrianN wrote:
| The consequences of "just shutting of coal" right now would
| be blackouts. People would riot and people would die. It
| would kill any support for climate action.
| hackable_sand wrote:
| U so right
|
| Let's just do nothing now and leave it for later :)
| adrianN wrote:
| No, what we need to do now is not "just shut off
| electricity lol". It's building carbon free alternatives
| as quickly as we can.
| hackable_sand wrote:
| Homie
|
| You flinched. But you came through.
| immibis wrote:
| Exactly. We have to choose between everyone dying and
| everyone rioting.
| adrianN wrote:
| No, there are more options. In fact it's rather
| impossible to choose ,,everybody is rioting" in
| democratic countries, and very difficult in
| dictatorships.
| usefulcat wrote:
| That's a transparently gross oversimplification, and I find
| it very hard to believe that you're not aware of that fact.
| h0l0cube wrote:
| But.. health services. But.. utilities. But.. transport.
| But.. basic goods. But.. writing comments on hacker news.
| Sure, big business will suffer, but so will everyone else.
| It's fairly understandable why rolling blackouts are not
| politically sensible.
| radiowave wrote:
| My dad worked on something similar, when during the 1980s the
| coal-fired station he worked at had to convert to two-shift
| operation, from the three-shift operation that it's 1950s design
| had intended. He described this process as, "bashing hell out the
| machines to make them do things they weren't designed to."
|
| One interesting detail was that the more rapid startup and
| cooldown of turbines meant that blade spacing couldn't be as
| tight as before, reducing efficiency during operation. (The
| turbine casing has less thermal mass than the rotor, and hence
| contracts faster during cooldown. The spacing of the blades needs
| to account for this.)
| jojobas wrote:
| Surely this kind of experiments must be first done in controlled
| conditions and not on a live plant. The article doesn't mention
| any sort of fatigue study. Remember how a Russian hydro plant
| blew up because one of its turbines was throttled back and forth?
| Panzer04 wrote:
| It's presumably not practical to find a multi-GW load to test
| with aside from the grid. The plant probably had arrangements
| in place if things didn't work out.
| whatshisface wrote:
| Why isn't this transition happening in the United States - or is
| it?
| worik wrote:
| Money.
| adrianN wrote:
| There is a lot of gas in the US.
| jamincan wrote:
| The Navajo Power Plant near Page, AZ closed a few years ago
| largely due to economic reasons.
| throw234234234 wrote:
| Australia, despite being often equal largest gas exporter and
| massive coal importer (an energy super power) has the highest
| gas and electricity prices charged to its citizens compared to
| the US/UK/etc. IMO a lot of it is due to local corruption of
| politicians.
|
| As an example there is a nice trade for Asian gas importers at
| the moment where they buy Australian gas and Australian's
| import it by from them (the surplus they don't use) and they
| take an arbitrage profit. The stuff they do use powers a lot of
| manufacturing from what I understand. Australia is even
| building gas import terminals right now to take pressure of
| local energy prices because the global market has better
| pricing than locally (despite being one of the cheapest places
| to produce and/or mine energy). A massive government policy
| failure; unlike Norway and other energy sovereigns.
|
| This high price has the silver lining of making a renewable
| transition viable as gas power in particular becomes extremely
| expensive despite Australia having one of the most lowest cost
| gas and coal production globally. Of course its people are
| paying for that in their cost of living, and decline in
| manufacturing due to high energy prices.
|
| I wouldn't look to Australia for anything w.r.t energy policy
| and what you should do. With the energy abundance they have
| (rivaling some oil states) - a lot of commentary locally there
| stating that if Australia just had its energy policy adjusted a
| little bit before now they could of been one of the richest
| countries per capita globally. They've royally screwed things
| there IMO.
| rdevsrex wrote:
| I don't know why, from the start, we haven't used nuclear power
| more for baseload.
|
| China is already building between 6 to 8 nuclear power plants a
| year and plans to expand that number to 10 a year.
|
| It's nothing compared to all the other sources of power they are
| creating, but it seems to me that rather than investing in mass
| battery storage, a few dozen modern nuclear power plants would be
| a good idea.
|
| Assuming, of course, you can actually get costs down and cut
| through red tape like China can.
| ViewTrick1002 wrote:
| China finished 1 reactor in 2023 and are in track for a massive
| 3 finished reactors in 2024.
|
| On the other hand they are building enough renewables to cover
| their entire electricity growth.
|
| Even China has figured out that nuclear power is not
| economically viable.
|
| https://reneweconomy.com.au/chinas-quiet-energy-revolution-t...
| threeseed wrote:
| You're basically just talking to yourself.
|
| Because no one cares about nuclear whilst the costs are so
| high, return on investment questionable and there aren't simple
| solutions for dealing with the waste. Plus for better or worse
| the politics of it are terrible.
|
| Meanwhile every year solar and batteries are getting cheaper.
| And we may see a future with lots of EVs capable of being used
| as grid batteries.
| Panzer04 wrote:
| Agreed. Nuclear is cool but beaten in so many ways by the
| current renewable revolution. Distributed, low risk, cheap
| energy generation backed by batteries seems strictly superior
| to nuclear generation.
| jabpattern7 wrote:
| Backed by batteries is doing a lot of heavy lifting there.
| Batteries required to make them viable are never included
| in the LCOEs for renewable, because it'd make them
| ridiculously more expensive than nuclear. The problem is we
| need power now, all the time. It's much easier to develop
| new technologies when the lights are still on.
| adrianN wrote:
| Lazard had figures that include a couple of hours of
| storage for years. https://www.lazard.com/research-
| insights/2023-levelized-cost...
| threeseed wrote:
| It's not true that batteries are required to make
| renewables work.
|
| In Australia solar is popular because it produces power
| at the same time it is needed for A/C, computers,
| manufacturing etc.
|
| There really isn't the need for huge amounts of baseload
| power. Hence why batteries are used.
| Panzer04 wrote:
| Even backed by batteries renewables are still winning.
| How good things look depends on how much battery you
| decide to include, but fortunately we don't need that
| much battery, especially while we still have some legacy
| dispatchable generation.
|
| It "helps" that nuclear is just so slow and expensive to
| get going that everything else just ends up looking
| pretty good. If it were cheap, fast and safe that would
| have been great, though.
| pfdietz wrote:
| > I don't know why, from the start, we haven't used nuclear
| power more for baseload.
|
| Because it was too expensive and took a long time to build. At
| least one utility in the US was forced into bankruptcy due to
| nuclear builds when power demand growth suddenly slowed during
| the long construction time.
| stevage wrote:
| Lots of reasons, but in Australia it's pretty simple: because
| nuclear power is prohibited by law.
| adrianN wrote:
| Nuclear plants are not a replacement for batteries. You either
| have enough nuclear plants to cover peak demand, in which case
| you don't need any renewables at all, or you need batteries (or
| rather, storage, batteries are not the only option). Economics
| seem to favor storage and renewables over 100% nuclear.
| jabpattern7 wrote:
| The difference being nuclear only needs something to cover
| the peak, whilst renewable needs capacity to cover 100% of
| production because of wild variability.
| adrianN wrote:
| The difference between minimum and maximum demand is not
| that far from 100%.
| pyrale wrote:
| Well, if you believe that 25-33% isn't that far from
| 100%, then you would be right.
|
| - CAISO forecast for today [1]: peak 28.8GW, low 21.5GW
|
| - France forecast for today [2]: peak 52.7GW, low 35.5GW
|
| [1]: https://www.caiso.com/todays-outlook [2]:
| https://www.rte-france.com/eco2mix/la-consommation-
| delectric...
| adrianN wrote:
| You shouldn't consider just one day, you should at least
| look at a time frame comparable to the construction time
| of your power source of choice.
| pyrale wrote:
| How about you give me one day where low point is close to
| 0% as you claimed.
| ViewTrick1002 wrote:
| Which when simulating a carbon neutral Danish grid leads to
| nuclear power needing a cost reduction of 85% to even enter
| the picture.
|
| https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S03062619
| 2...
| nothercastle wrote:
| It makes sense to run coal for another 5-10 years if you can to
| transition to batteries. This will likely put more stress on the
| parts and the plant will become unserviceable sooner but that's
| better then retiring it now
| worik wrote:
| > It makes sense to run coal for another 5-10 years
|
| No, it does not. It is a bad idea.
|
| We are better to do without the electricity.
|
| Inconvenience, or climate meltdown. Take your pick
| ars wrote:
| Do that and all support for the environment goes completely
| out the window.
|
| Do this and that's pretty much the end for any kind of green
| transition.
| immibis wrote:
| Is this a valid generic political argument? Do the bad
| thing or the bad people will support your bad opposition
| and do the bad thing anyway? No wonder there's so much bad.
| 7952 wrote:
| The problem is that there is no agreement on what bad
| actually is. An individual may consider that a loss of
| their job is worse than global climate change. The
| environmental sphere is full of arguments that would
| ideally be a false dichotomy but are not.
|
| Politics is the mechanism we have for deciding what is
| bad. It isn't very good but it is the best we have.
| nothercastle wrote:
| Absolutely extreme environmental policy alienates most
| moderates. Shut it down and have poor people freeze or
| die from heat isn't going to win a lot of moderate
| support
| nothercastle wrote:
| The pollution doesn't go away it just happens somewhere else
| with fewer regulations and less filters like China or
| Bangladesh. All that happens is that Australia uses more
| expensive nat gas power and the coal gets exported elsewhere.
|
| Also keep in mind that there is pretty extensive pollution
| created by manufacturing a power plant in the first place.
| It's often more environmentally sound to use up existing
| facilities even if they are a bit dirtier than to build
| brands new ones
| worik wrote:
| > Delta, the Czech firm that owns the aging Vales Point coal
| plant near Lake Macquarie, reported that it had been unable to
| get the financial backing of any major bank in Australia
|
| It is very good news that the banks are refusing to finance the
| fossil fuel greed heads and vandals.
| alex_duf wrote:
| The section of the article that says "Now comes the bad news"
| actually sounds like a good news.
|
| More pressure from banks, insurances and legislation to limit the
| development and usage of coal to produce electricity? I can
| understand there's going to be job losses, and that's never good,
| but for the benefit of the rest of the world it's a pretty good
| news. Finally a change in attitude towards carbon intensive
| energy production.
| AxelLuktarGott wrote:
| Lots of good news in the article
|
| > But, more and more, base-load coal plants have been squeezed
| out of the market as ever more renewable energy - particularly
| solar power - flooded the system.
|
| And so the coal power plants needed more money to stay afloat,
| but:
|
| > But Delta, in a letter written to the body that makes the
| rules in the market, said none of the 15 banks it had met had
| been willing to provide it the necessary coverage because of
| environmental concerns.
|
| And so
|
| > "The coal-fired generation is going to go out of business in
| Australia over the next 10 years," he said.
| thedrbrian wrote:
| > And so the coal power plants needed more money to stay
| afloat,
|
| Green energy is great. Going really well in the uk. Super
| cheap with all those subsidies.................. I mean
| contracts for difference we pay for it.
| Cthulhu_ wrote:
| It's an investment in the future, just like the coal power
| plants and grid received for as long as electricity has
| been a thing.
| pjc50 wrote:
| CFDs are a "collar trade". They pay the difference between
| the market price and a "strike price". If the market price
| is _above_ the strike price, the CFD is a refund. So the
| CFDs have been returning money to the taxpayer lately.
|
| https://www.current-news.co.uk/cfds-set-to-pay-
| back-10-5bn-a...
|
| Unlike natural gas, which has been made much more expensive
| by the war.
| Propelloni wrote:
| It may surprise you, but all energy production is or was
| heavily subsidized at one point or the other in virtually
| all states. I'm sure I don't have to spell out where
| nuclear power would be today if not for the billions of
| subsidies.
|
| Just visit the Wikipedia page for Hinkley Point [1], read
| the section on economics, and weep. That's your money at
| work. And it has been the same for coal, oil, gas, and now
| solar and wind energy, all over Europe and the US.
|
| On a level playing field without subsidies, where we can
| build solar and wind power generators at scale like today,
| they would pummel all the other energy sources on costs
| alone (just think of all the raw material you don't need to
| burn to make your turbines turn).
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hinkley_Point_C_nuclear_p
| ower_...
| pyrale wrote:
| > On a level playing field without subsidies
|
| On a level playing field without subsidies, we'd be in
| underdevelopped shitholes. The idea that a modern economy
| can grow without some agency being brought in somehow is
| utopia.
|
| > where we can build solar and wind power generators at
| scale
|
| How do you build those, without the decades of subsidies
| to ramp up production and decrease costs?
|
| > they would pummel all the other energy sources on costs
| alone
|
| They would collapse the existing grid. There's a reason
| why Germany is investing EUR450bn in its grid to support
| continued growth [1]. Batteries could make up for it, but
| scaling batteries won't happen without subsidies.
|
| [1]: https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/germany-
| rejigs-sprea...
| Kerb_ wrote:
| On a level playing field where both are equally
| subsidized, solar and wind would still outcompete coal.
| Their point seems to be applicable to the degree to which
| harmful power generation is subsidized relative to
| regular power generation, not just the subsidies
| themselves.
| pyrale wrote:
| I wouldn't bet on it.
|
| If your accounting model is "build some production, plug
| it to the grid and let someone else worry about the
| details", sure, you're right. But if you factor in grid
| development costs, the picture is different.
|
| For instance, you lften hear about Germany importing lots
| of energy, and usually there's always someone to say "But
| they export a lot, too". Well, these imports & exports
| require lines to happen, and these lines aren't cheap.
| The EU mandates that countries should develop
| interconnexion to facilitate the market, but this ruling
| mostly helps intermittent energy sources.
|
| Another example in France, where the south-western region
| has a lot of solar, and not many industrial consumers. To
| make things worse, that region is close to an
| interconnexion with Spain, which has a lot of solar
| production. In order to move all that power to places
| where it can be used, new lines have to be built.
|
| These costs are not factored in if you only price new
| production, but they're also significant.
| ViewTrick1002 wrote:
| This is also not factored into France utilizing ~10 GW of
| neighboring flexible fossil fueled flexibility to not
| have to turn down their nuclear reactors as much during
| the night.
|
| The French grid would be even more uneconomical without
| the interconnections.
|
| https://www.rte-france.com/en/eco2mix/cross-border-
| electrici...
| pyrale wrote:
| > to not have to turn down their nuclear reactors
|
| They are reducing production almost daily these days, but
| usually around 12-14h, due to solar production.
| bonzini wrote:
| I wonder if that wouldn't be served better by storing the
| excess solar production into a flow battery, or similar
| storage dimensioned to serve a city.
| ViewTrick1002 wrote:
| Which means the economic prospects for new nuclear power
| is laughably bad.
| potato3732842 wrote:
| Shipping got containerized without a significant
| amount[1] of tax breaks or handouts for that purpose.
| Rail standards were developed without significant
| preferential treatment as were the early electrical
| standards. Without subsidies of specific tech we'd likely
| see more balkanization and partial standardization of the
| grid. Perhaps the grid would have remained less reliable
| longer. In all likelihood things would "mostly" be the
| same on a medium-long timeline.
|
| Remember, prior to the 1960s and 1970s expansions of the
| federal bureaucracy the government didn't really get as
| proactively involved in this sort of thing as they are
| now. Though there were several cases in which they lit a
| pile of money on fire and kept feeding it until they got
| the results they wanted (I can't think of an example of
| this that wasn't directed at defense tech though).
|
| I think it would likely be a lateral move, or close
| enough to lateral that we can't really say with a high
| degree of certainty whether it would have turned out
| better or worse. I think it's very possible that without
| tax breaks we'd have gotten more solar earlier but with a
| slower adoption curve after that if none of this stuff
| was subsidized.
|
| [1] I know of none but I don't want some nit picker to
| find some case where someone got a $2k research grant in
| 1961 and act like that invalidates the point here.
| ahazred8ta wrote:
| Federally funded US hydroelectric dam projects were a big
| thing in the 20s and 30s. But your point stands. https://
| en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tennessee_Valley_Authority#His...
| lukan wrote:
| "but scaling batteries won't happen without subsidies"
|
| Why not? There is a worldwide and increasing demand for
| them.
| pyrale wrote:
| > Why not? There is a worldwide and increasing demand for
| them.
|
| That demand is created by the variations in prices
| created by renewables, which are themselves subsidized.
| In a world with coal, gas, nuclear or hydro, there simply
| is not enough demand to develop batteries.
|
| So, in a world with no subsidies, how do you pay for
| batteries, not good ones but bad ones for decades until
| the industry ramps up? It simply doesn't happen.
|
| It's not an indictment either. Subsidies are simply the
| way heavy industrial investments work, and in the
| electricity sector investments are so massive that
| without subsidy, barely anything happens.
| lukan wrote:
| "So, in a world with no subsidies, how do you pay for
| batteries, not good ones but bad ones for decades until
| the industry ramps up? "
|
| A world completely without subsidies would indeed work
| different, but still would have demand for batteries.
| kalleboo wrote:
| There's lots of demand when the payback is very quick and
| easy. Batteries being built right now make tons of money
| on grid stabilization services. But once those easy gains
| have been taken, making the less certain investment
| scaling up the batteries to handle that cold snap that
| happens a few days a year etc will not happen in the free
| market.
| lukan wrote:
| In a free market, where everyone is free to ignore
| consequences, coal would be the obvious solution - but if
| the climate change costs are priced in - then batteries
| do become attractive. Lightweight ultrapower batteries
| are high tech. A simple batterie for the grid, that can
| be big, is not and quite simple to build.
|
| We started to price in the CO2 externalities - and demand
| is skyrocketing.
|
| Subsidies are more of a geopolitical/welfare thing in
| this context.
| Propelloni wrote:
| I see where you are coming from and I could have been
| clearer. So let me put things straight.
|
| I'm not arguing against subsidies, I'm arguing against
| ignoring the subsidies we provided and provide for older
| forms of energy generation while lamenting that we
| subsidize new forms.
| jillesvangurp wrote:
| The good news here, and the big picture, is that coal is
| increasingly less financially sustainable.
|
| It's being squeezed out of the market because of cheaper
| alternatives. Banks don't want to give loans because they see
| those loans as risky. Coal companies might go out of business
| and default on their loans. The risk of that is relatively
| high with coal. Which is why banks and investors are looking
| elsewhere for more lucrative or safer investments. It's hard
| to argue with that.
|
| And the circumstances that make coal increasingly financially
| unsustainable are only going to get worse. Cheaper solar,
| wind, and battery means even coal plants that may still be
| profitable now aren't going to stay profitable much longer.
|
| That seems to be true around the world. Even China is
| projected to reach peak coal in the next few years; after
| which it is projected to shrink there as well. World peak
| coal usage was last decade already. A lot of countries are
| pretty far done getting rid of it completely. Australia is
| late to that party.
| heavenlyblue wrote:
| > Banks don't want to give loans because they see those
| loans as risky
|
| Banks may be easily not lending because the industry is not
| "green" and gives bad name to their brand. And since the
| industry may be getting smaller it's less of an issue for
| them. However it doesn't mean we may not need coal, since
| we still need peak energy production.
| jiggawatts wrote:
| A right-wing argument against climate change policy is to
| "let the market forces" do the driving.
|
| "No! Not like that!" I bet they're screeching right now as
| _megacorps_ refuse to tie their cart to a dying horse.
| deskr wrote:
| Let's hope countries like China and India will put the same
| pressure on their industry. Otherwise we're just offloading
| work to them even further.
| samarthr1 wrote:
| Atleast in india, we have good subsidies on residential
| solar, and need to bring as much capacity (blue,green,black,
| whatever) online for a country whose electricity demand is
| growing rapidly (most villages now have access to
| electricity)
| pjc50 wrote:
| https://climatecooperation.cn/climate/china-issues-action-
| pl...
| dalyons wrote:
| China installed more wind and solar in 2023 than the rest of
| the world combined. They're going to decarbonize well before
| the US.
| misja111 wrote:
| You should tell the full story, it was also responsible for
| 95% of the world's new coal power:
| https://www.carbonbrief.org/china-responsible-for-95-of-
| new-...
| cassepipe wrote:
| If you want the fullest story you might want to say that
| a lot of China's manufacturing energy needs was to supply
| the rest of the world
| ViewTrick1002 wrote:
| Mostly replacing old inefficient plants with modern
| plants with better load following capacity. Essentially,
| ensuring the energy security while banking on renewables.
|
| The latest news is that China is likely to enter
| structural decline on their emissions since the renewable
| buildout exceeds the electrical demand growth.
|
| https://www.carbonbrief.org/analysis-chinas-emissions-
| set-to...
| dalyons wrote:
| yeah, they seem to be planning on using them like gas
| peaker plants (because they have little gas). For backup
| and filling in load gaps. If their renewables keep
| growing like they are today, the coal peakers will barely
| ever be used. They wouldn't make sense economically in
| the west, but they dont have to in china - the single
| state apparatus can socialize the cost without
| consequences. A dictatorship fears disruption, so they
| build them as a backup.
| asdefghyk wrote:
| The base problem I see is how energy is provided when extended
| periods of no renewables ( no solar or wind ) . batteries are not
| suitable for extended periods. The abc article e even admits this
| problem ... ie ..." opened up the possibility of coal plants
| being left on care-and-maintenance after they retired from full-
| time service - of using them as back-up generators when the
| system needed the help."
| h0l0cube wrote:
| > batteries are not suitable for extended periods
|
| Yet. It's just a matter of capacity. Yearly growth in grid
| storage is increasing at a rate even greater than solar.
| Crucially grid storage isn't limited by energy density, which
| leaves room for cheaper options - like sodium ion - which don't
| have the scaling bottlenecks of li-ion.
| pjc50 wrote:
| Something like 35% of Australia is desert. There's no good
| reason for solar to not work on almost every day, so all you
| need is overnight coverage not a full seasonal battery.
| fghorow wrote:
| Australia is HUGE and mostly empty. You need some mechanism
| for getting that energy from source to sink.
|
| Transmission lines are relatively few and far between. The
| eastern states have an interconnected grid. Western Australia
| is not only isolated, but its internal grid doesn't even
| reach the northern part of the state.
|
| There was a ~GW scale geothermal development in the Cooper
| Basin in the late '10s. The (pilot) plant was in and
| operating demonstrating the feasibility of (so-called)
| Engineered Geothermal Systems. The entire operation died on
| the vine because the geothermal site was 600 line-km from the
| nearest transmission line, and the company that developed the
| geothermal field was counting on the government to fund that
| connection. It didn't.
| rswail wrote:
| On the other hand, there is active development of the grid
| now in the Eastern states.
|
| Plans for extensions of the transmission network in
| Victoria to support offshore wind as well as to a
| renewables zone, plus new interconnectors to NSW.
| Ghaenergyyy wrote:
| The problem is the amount of people not willing to invest into
| energy storage.
|
| If we would now buy a lot more EVs and make bi-directional
| charging mandatory, we would have a lot more capacity available
| 'out of the box'.
|
| Additional investment into grid storage batteries would also
| add to economy of scale.
|
| But noooo we are to slow, to careflu, we don't like it, we <add
| your excuse here>
| rswail wrote:
| Pumped hydro is a battery, Snowy 2.0 for example [1]
|
| > Snowy 2.0 will provide an additional 2,200 megawatts of
| dispatchable, on-demand generating capacity and approximately
| 350,000 megawatt hours of large-scale storage to the National
| Electricity Market. To provide context, this is enough energy
| storage to power three million homes over the course of a week.
|
| Every EV is a battery. V2H (Home) and V2G (Grid) standards are
| evolving to allow them to be managed as part of the grid/mesh.
|
| [1] https://www.snowyhydro.com.au/snowy-20/about/
| asdefghyk wrote:
| There is lots criticism of this project , including its
| rising cost, currently $12 billion. My point is there needs
| to be large amounts of storage , KEPT IN RESERVE for
| unexpected weather events that last several days. Then there
| needs to be the (to be constructed) network capacity to get
| it to where energy is needed. ( At present , most just assume
| a infinite copper grid) Then there needs to be excess
| generation capacity to recharge the storage after its use.
| (Hopefully no back to back extreme renewable droughts) The
| present electricity supply system has evolved over several
| decades. Completely re engineering the electricity grid over
| a relatively short time , like a decade, is bound to have
| lots expensive problems leading to high electricity prices
| and un reliable grid supply. Every EV as a battery ,
| skeptical about that, sounds good, I can see implementation
| problems.
| passwordoops wrote:
| Every news article that touts a nation phasing out coal should be
| forced to mention China _increased_ its coal mining capacity by 1
| billion tons to 3.4 billion tons (1), not even counting imports.
| Then go on to express the peak consumption of the nation everyone
| is celebrating as a fraction of total Chinese output (e.g.,
| Australia consumes 3.4% equivalent of China 's total coal output
| of 3.4 billion tons (2)).
|
| Congratulations on phasing out your margin of error... Now are
| your trade and foreign policy divisions going to get serious, or
| we content patting ourselves on the back here?
|
| 1. https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/china-has-more-
| than-...
|
| 2.https://www.worldometers.info/coal/australia-coal/
| ZeroGravitas wrote:
| Some would consider just saving money and not poisoning their
| children to be reward enough in itself.
| pjc50 wrote:
| The relative populations are 26,639,000 and 1,410,710,000, so
| Australia has 1.8% of the population of China. Which compared
| to that 3.4% of coal output implies that per capita coal
| consumption of Australia is twice that of China.
|
| (or you conclude that it's Australia itself which is the
| rounding error?)
| Ghaenergyyy wrote:
| Soooooo you think we should stop doing anything just because
| someone else still outperforms us in this aspect?
|
| This is a very cheap excuse and i can't hear it anymore after
| hearing this stuipid argument for so long.
|
| Look at all the graphs we have, from ocean temperature graph
| going up, to co2 going up, to amazonas tree coverage going down
| etc. etc.
|
| Btw. China does the same thing as every other country: They
| install more and more solar.
|
| "China continues to lead the world in wind and solar, with
| twice as much capacity under construction as the rest of the
| world combined"
|
| China will have the same pressure or problem as australia has
| it.
|
| Yes we are patting our backs here because its good news.
|
| Should we continue pushing for more? Yes.
|
| Do we need to spin everything good into anything negative? No.
| otikik wrote:
| Words that the author uses to associate with coal:
| "extraordinary", "celebrate", "quintessential", "a feat",
| "flexibility", "savings"
|
| Words used in the article in association with cleaner energy
| production: "squeezed", "flood", "forcing", "waste", "pressure",
| "plight". An the fact that banks are no longer financing coal is
| "bad news".
|
| > "It's exacerbated in Delta's case because they are very
| unashamedly totally pro-coal"
|
| Yeah, well, so is the article's author.
| akdor1154 wrote:
| The author is a regular on the ABC, and I have never noticed or
| suspected any bias from him. He covers energy matters well,
| particularly for a mainstream media outlet.
| otikik wrote:
| Well what can I say. Perhaps he wanted a bigger house.
| grecy wrote:
| In general the narrative in Australia is extremely pro coal and
| anti renewable. Going back after 20 years away felt like almost
| nothing had progressed. Kind of sad really.
| asdefghyk wrote:
| Reasons for "...the narrative in Australia is extremely pro
| coal and anti renewable...." Its said that the cause of this,
| is the big increases in electricity prices due to lots
| expensive renewable projects
| jiggawatts wrote:
| If you look at the numbers, it's government policy that
| pushed prices up. E.g.: misplaced incentives that resulted
| in excess infrastructure construction.
|
| Source: the horse's mouth, having worked at an energy
| company and asking pointed questions from the people
| involved.
|
| PS: Because of these policies I was installing network
| equipment with capacity to switch _an entire city_ of
| Internet traffic... for five people.
| btbuildem wrote:
| Am I reading this right? "Yay, we've found a way to keep burning
| coal for a little while longer despite it being economically
| prohibitive and ecologically destructive" is the good news?
|
| Hopefully soon their profits will dip low enough they won't be
| able to buy (excuse me, "lobby") politicians, and the whole
| industry will just collapse. Kids can go urban exploring in the
| behemoth ruins in a couple of decades, it'll be great.
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