18 November 2008

Windmills for all - cut us off the grid.

| richardh9935
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Can the people of the ACT reduce their CO2 contributions? Yes, and here’s a plan.

Firstly, what are the sources of CO2? They are:

1. Electricity generated for us, for our goods, for our services, and for our jobs. That’s about 80%.

2. In winter, another chunk comes from our heaters.

3. Then there’s a bit from biology – us, our rubbish dumps, our pets, our compost bins. Plus a bit from our vehicles and gas stoves.

How can we affect this production? Very easily, with the following rules.

  1. Convert coal-fired power stations to gas, at least, and Thorium at best.
  2. Choose used goods – NOT NEW. eg a new aluminium boat may weigh 90 kg, and that’s probably responsible for several tonnes of CO2. The USED aluminium boat has paid its carbon tax, and is no longer responsible for any CO2.

And with these two simple rules, you will also save a lot of money, because price is proportional to CO2 production.

We in the ACT rely on the NSW power grid, with its coal-fired power stations. They are responsible for about 80% of our greenhouse gas production. (Coal companies claim 38%, and they are often 100% wrong…. so 80%!) We need to cut ourselves off the grid, so that we’re not responsible for that CO2.

We could change to gas-fired power stations – that would halve the CO2. However, even though the technology and the chemistry is the same as our own domestic gas stoves, and there’s no health threat from a gas stove, there are spoilers who will prevent their construction. People who would rather continue poisoning many other people, in the mistaken belief that they are not poisoning themselves.

Assuming the selfish anti-gas fired power station people win, I insist we cut our connections to the national grid. This will force each household to seek its own energy. We will innovate.

I will install a windmill. It will be about 50 metres high, with 25 metre radius blades. I think I can tune it to generate enough electricity for me. I’ll also need a much bigger water tank, a significant header tank for water pressure, and several solar collectors for hot water.

Canberra will be a different place, and the technologists will survive.

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lets just ban carbonated drinks….

there’s 1.4lt of compressed CO2 in every can of soft drink.
Coca Cola (for example) sell 4,000,000,000 cans (not to mention bottles) of Coke a year…
If you multiply that by all the other brands and flavours, then add Sparkling water, Beer, etc. and you get a helluvalot of CO2 entering the atmosphere…

Cordial is the green alternative 😉
and Green Cordial would have to be the best 😛

dexi said :

“How you solve the transport problem (40% of global emissions) is another matter.”

There is some interesting research going on around the world with algae, to produce diesel. It is carbon neutral, in that it absorbs carbon when growing and then releases it when burnt. It may hold more potential in biomass conversion, than land crops.

Yeah, I’ve read that too – still waiting for it to develop though. Whether you’re talking about turning algae into biodiesel or cellulose into methanol, that’s all fine and dandy. My point is more subtle. Depending on the reserves under the Arctic, and depending on the speed with which new infrastructure can be built, the world is at or past peak oil and it is going to start running short in the next decade. The world currently consumes about 85,000,000 b/DAY (31,000,000,000/yr!!!), and there are over 1,000,000,000 IC engine vehicles on the planet, and growing fast. Algae/Cellulose to biodiesel/methanol is all well and good, and we SHOULD be getting into both in a massive way, but we’re talking about replacing a huge quantity of fuel, and I just don’t see us ramping up production to meet the impending post-peak decline in oil production. And that’s without considering the implications of the ridiculous rate of growth in energy consumption. I’m with you, let’s do it, but I don’t see it happening quickly enough.

Gerry-built – totally agree. Good thermal performance in housing is EASY, yet we don’t do it! Orientation, thermal mass, insulation, appropriate glazing and ventilation, landscaping – do those things properly and you need you can reduce the energy consumption of a house by 50+%… yet we don’t require it! Absurd.

Gungahlin Al – I like your idea.

Viper – you may be right. I think I was confusing the thorium cycle with 4th generation pebble bed reactors… something I read years ago. Will go look it up! 🙂

I think you’ll find that the Thorium fuel cycle produces far less plutonium. In fact, it actually eats weapons grade plutonium and produces an isotype of plutonium that is no good for weapons.

While radioactive, thorium is not fissile in and of itself.

Australia also sits on the worlds largest reserves of the stuff.

Note: Someone smarter may wish to check such facts themselves, as I haven’t exactly done physics since first year uni.

http://blogs.princeton.edu/chm333/f2006/nuclear/05_fuel_fabrication/new_types_of_fuel/

http://www.eoearth.org/article/Thorium

Gungahlin Al9:21 am 19 Nov 08

Indeed Gerrybuilt: which is why I have been promoting the idea of mandatory energy star ratings on land blocks at the point of sale.

This market mechanism would lead to developers of new estates putting more thought into the design of blocks.

Something that only occurred to me now is that it might also slow the push towards smaller blocks a bit, as too small makes passive solar design near impossible – a problem raised recently by SEDA.

Whilst developers and builders continue to build houses poorly oriented, with 50 year old building technology in a so called “sustainable village” (ie wander around Macgregor West), I see no point in pursuing alternative energy technologies on a large scale!

Better to start with improved thinking/planning at user-end, conserving energy where possible using good design principles; solar mass, orientation, solar stacks, cross-ventilation, insulation etc.

Do for building what Water Restrictions have enforced on water usage…

It’s not April Fools Day is it?

Gungahlin Al12:47 pm 18 Nov 08

I think this whole post is just some right winger’s idea of a wind up.

ABC has a report that says that Australians will accept nuclear power. While this may be true, I would point to the fact that they currently accept coal fired power, so they can’t be trusted.

Once again, hope you’re not serious. Yeah, that was a joke.

However, at the moment we are still stuck in the coal paradigm and not enough action is being taken. Exactly. and while I feel for people that might have their lives interrupted by a disappearance of the coal fired power industry, the fact is it will take 10 or 20 years if we are incredibly lucky, and there will be a lot of jobs building all the wind turbines, solar plants, and rocket for firing plutonium into space…

….with algae, to produce diesel. lots of potential to reduce energy expenditure on production related costs over land crops to, like ploughing and harvesting.

“How you solve the transport problem (40% of global emissions) is another matter.”

There is some interesting research going on around the world with algae, to produce diesel. It is carbon neutral, in that it absorbs carbon when growing and then releases it when burnt. It may hold more potential in biomass conversion, than land crops.

Who will pay, RnR? The same people that always do – us. Either as consumers or taxpayers (indeed as both) we’ll be paying. Not that I mind in the context of your particular example…

radonezh said :

Hot rocks is a good technology, but unfortunately for Australia, the really good hot rocks are out in the middle of desert where the transmission losses from the power station to any population centre would make it useless. Same goes for constructing nuclear power plants in the middle of the desert..

HOWEVER, if you were to build that remote power plant in the desert and use the power to make millions of cheap photovoltaic sliver cells out there in the desert, which could then be transported in vast numbers to the cities for use, then that’s a different story. It would boot-strap solution which would get around the problem of PV cells being so energy-intensive to manufacture (coz you have to melt silicon to make the substrates). The trick is to build the power plant somewhere where there’s lots and lots of sand or quartz deposits for the silicon.

The point on geothermal, not true – sure, there are distance losses, but they don’t obliterate all of the power, otherwise Geodynamics would not be developing its plant out there. The bigger issue is who will pay for the 500km of HV lines to the grid.

p1 said :

Ever notice that there is NOT ONE long-term high-level nuclear waste storage facility in the world yet?

Put it on a rocket and fire it into space…

Once again, hope you’re not serious. Not only would it take huge quantities of energy to do that, but in risk management terms it’s a disaster – one mistake (see, shuttle, space) and you spread radioactivity over a vast area.

BTW, my thought experiment above was just to show how a real effort could be made with wind alone – if you work on geothermal, mini-hydro and solar PV/thermal at the same time, with say 10% targets, and lengthen the timeline out to 20 years, we could conceivably have 50% of our electricity grid renewable by 2030. However, at the moment we are still stuck in the coal paradigm and not enough action is being taken.

How you solve the transport problem (40% of global emissions) is another matter.

Oh, and land clearing HAS TO STOP. Not only does that produce large quantities of CO2, it also reduces the environment’s ability to assimilate the stuff. We need to save the forests of Indonesia/PNG/Brazil at all costs as they are huge carbon sinks.

Growling Ferret10:41 am 18 Nov 08

What ever happened to the 1km tall solar tower proposed for Mildura?

jimbocool said :

Not forgetting hot rocks which has theoretically limitless generating capacity. It’s clean too – unless of course they rupture the very fabric of the Earth by exploiting them, burying us all in ‘liquid-hot-magma’.

Hot rocks is a good technology, but unfortunately for Australia, the really good hot rocks are out in the middle of desert where the transmission losses from the power station to any population centre would make it useless. Same goes for constructing nuclear power plants in the middle of the desert..

HOWEVER, if you were to build that remote power plant in the desert and use the power to make millions of cheap photovoltaic sliver cells out there in the desert, which could then be transported in vast numbers to the cities for use, then that’s a different story. It would boot-strap solution which would get around the problem of PV cells being so energy-intensive to manufacture (coz you have to melt silicon to make the substrates). The trick is to build the power plant somewhere where there’s lots and lots of sand or quartz deposits for the silicon.

If the Maralinga tests taught us anything it might be that Australia’s interiors aren’t as uninhabited as we like to think.

Pollution that lasts tens or hundreds of thousands of years can spread a pretty long way if not well contained you know. And what have you got against lizards?

jimbocool said :

Thorium? Thorium is the key ingredient in the Russians’ Doomsday Machine!

Russian Doomsday Machines are now available in environmentally friendly models that are 99% Thorium-free.

Er… uninhabited means no locals, Ruffn, other than some lizards and Godzilla was fiction, you know.

Ever notice that there is NOT ONE long-term high-level nuclear waste storage facility in the world yet?

Put it on a rocket and fire it into space…

15,000/10yrs=1500 towers a year to meet the 20% of grid in a decade target.

Some how I image that it will be cheaper just to keep pumping coal through the existing coal power plants. With your plan to reduce the increase in demand (which I like), there will be even less money in the market to support the building of new infrastructure, while the existing plants (mostly coal) are still running.

Now if it cost companies money to pump out all that carbon pollution, then things might change. I wonder if anyone has thought of something like that?

Or we could just deny global warming is wait to see what happens…

Oh, and Deano, 50% efficiency from solar? PV gets about 15% at the moment…

Deano said :

10GW = 15,000 2MW towers.

The same power could be generated by a 20 square km solar collector (assuming 50% efficiency and 30% capacity factor) – much more acceptable than 15,000 wind turbines.

Except that wind is much cheaper at the moment, and that this solar collector (are you talking thermal or PV) you refer to isn’t currently even on the radar, whereas 1500 wind towers a year is actually possible. Why are wind towers less “acceptable”? Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for solar, but price, and the manufacturing base necessary to construct the infrastructure, is the issue – least cost and available comes first.

Jimbocool – geothermal should be going full-steam ahead, but it seems stalled (probably by the need to construct at least 500kms of HV power lines to the Cooper Basin). Hell, there are geothermal resources in the Hunter, and I have no idea why no-one is exploiting them.

seekay said :

Er… you ever noticed all that uninhabited desert out in SA, WA, the NT, Ruffn?

Yes, and once we have constructed the multi-billion dollar facilities necessary to completely isolate from the environment waste that will still be dangerous in a millenium, and when you’ve got the locals who will be host to the dump on-side, let’s talk. Until then, it’s a powder keg waiting to explode.

Ever notice that there is NOT ONE long-term high-level nuclear waste storage facility in the world yet? Yucca mountain in Nevada has been under development for 20 years, but has recently found to be vulnerable to groundwater infiltration – not a selling point for storing radioactive waste. The Swedes are building the first real facility, and the Finns following suit.

Ever notice that condescending to someone who researches the issues isn’t such a great way to look smart?

Not forgetting hot rocks which has theoretically limitless generating capacity. It’s clean too – unless of course they rupture the very fabric of the Earth by exploiting them, burying us all in ‘liquid-hot-magma’.

10GW = 15,000 2MW towers.

The same power could be generated by a 20 square km solar collector (assuming 50% efficiency and 30% capacity factor) – much more acceptable than 15,000 wind turbines.

VYBerlinaV8_the_one_they_all_copy said :

RuffnReady – thankyou for injecting some sense and science into what is normally a load of emotive bollocks.

Thanks. 🙂

I have been studying sustainability issues for most of this decade, and it annoys the shit out of me that people spout all sorts of crap without actually looking up the FACTS.

Anyone need any sustainability training or auditing, I’m open for business.

The cat did it10:02 am 18 Nov 08

Maybe we should go easy on richardh9935- his rant suggests he’s just coming back to reality after some serious pharmaceutical recreation. At least, I hope that’s the explanation, because otherwise it’s the kind of loony rave that gives green technology a bad name. Rather than posting drivel on RiotACT, he should have a munchies-curing fridge raid, then sleep it off.

Wide Boy Jake said :

Oh, come off it! Carbon is an essential building block for life. It is not a form of pollution. Plants breathe in co2 and we breathe it out. Where did this myth of “carbon pollution” originate? It merely shows that all the greenie arguments about so-called “global warming”, “climate change” and “carbon pollution is total BS and completely false.

You are kidding, right? I hope you are referring to this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7sGKvDNdJNA

…courtesy of Big Pollution (aka the Competitive Enterprise Institute).

If you aren’t kidding, carbon pollution is not a myth, it is supported by every major scientific institution in the world. The problem is that we are vastly altering the natural carbon cycle by dumping billions of tonnes of the stuff into the atmosphere every year THAT WOULD NOT OTHERWISE BE THERE (ie. is not part of the natural cycle because it has been locked underground for hundreds of millions of years) – that is why what humans are doing is “pollution”. We are doing the same thing with phosphorus, another building block of life, which is getting into our waterways and causing algal blooms, and into the ocean and killing coastal ecosystems like the Great Barrier Reef. Just because something is a building block of life does NOT mean that it cannot become a pollutant.

Oh man, WBJ, are you going to get seriously flamed 😉

Nah, he’s obviously taking the p1ss. Nobody could be that stupid in real life.

Thorium? Thorium is the key ingredient in the Russians’ Doomsday Machine!

Er… you ever noticed all that uninhabited desert out in SA, WA, the NT, Ruffn?

Wide Boy Jake9:50 am 18 Nov 08

Oh, come off it! Carbon is an essential building block for life. It is not a form of pollution. Plants breathe in co2 and we breathe it out. Where did this myth of “carbon pollution” originate? It merely shows that all the greenie arguments about so-called “global warming”, “climate change” and “carbon pollution is total BS and completely false.

VYBerlinaV8_the_one_they_all_copy9:49 am 18 Nov 08

RuffnReady – thankyou for injecting some sense and science into what is normally a load of emotive bollocks.

seekay said :

Guys… the solution is easy. We can break away from dirty coal power.

There’s that little bit of the ACT at Jervis Bay that already has the foundations for a nuclear reactor in place.

Generate clean, green nuclear power at Jervis Bay send it up the wires to old Canberry.

And what exactly are you doing with the waste? Until there is a real solution for the waste, forgeddaboutit.

BTW, wind is about the same price as nuclearpower per MWh, and that assumes a mature nuclear industry, which we do not have.

Our focus should be on conservation and efficiency first (which we are actually doing very little about! They are least-cost and yet we largely ignore them), then wind, geothermal, biomass (crop wastes), solar thermal, solar PV and mini-hydro. There is more than enough clean energy out there, we just have to commit to building the infrastructure… oh, and we need people to realise that energy is precious and that we should all use it more responsibly (sadly, a difficult task in our spoiled, me me me society).

It’s sixties, John. Retro. Cool.

OP, if only you had a clue… try doing some research before you spout next time. You entirely forgot the transport sector, which is responsible for roughly 40% of GHG emissions, not “a bit”. Electricity is another 40%, and the rest comes from agriculture, landfill, and off-grid power generation.

You also forgot that it is essential to site wind farms properly, but that’s okay because there are 10 farms in various stages of development across the Southern Highlands.

There is one good idea in there though, namely buying used (or repairing) things, which does indeed save on the resources necessary to make the object again.

BTW, “price is proportional to CO2 output”/energy content – no it’s not! It should be, but it’s not. And you are wrong about the threats from gas – a gas-fired pp produces lots of nitrous oxides (which trigger asthma and other respiratory problems), and also carbon monoxide.

As for thorium breeder reactors, they are yet to be used commercially and produce lots of plutonium. Have to wait a decade or two to see how that one turns out.

If you’d actually like to look at a real proposal, yesterday I did a little calculation in my head about what we would have to do to significantly add renewable power generation to the grid. Since wind is the cheapest, let’s start there:

*Denmark runs 20% of its grid off wind, so let’s aim for that – 20% of the grid in a decade.
*Current grid capacity is 47.4GW, expanding at about 4%pa. The first thing we have to do is level out this ever-increasing demand for power (roughly DOUBLING EVERY 20 YEARS!), so let’s assume we do that (through conservation, efficiency and pricing) and the grid levels out at 50GW capacity – thus, we need 10GW of wind farms in a decade.
*The big towers produce 2.1MW (for ease, let’s say 2MW) and have a capacity factor of about 1/3 (ie. they are producing about 1/3 of the time).
So, 10,000MW/0.33=30,000MW of towers necessary to produce 10GW at all times.
30,000/2=15,000 2MW towers.
15,000/10yrs=1500 towers a year to meet the 20% of grid in a decade target.

If we were serious about going renewable this could be done, but it would take a real commitment from government and the private sector, and people would have to accept that their power will be a bit more expensive.

I highly suggest that anyone who wants to spout off about energy/water and other sustainability matters actually does some RESEARCH before doing so, because then you actually know what you are talking about rather than looking like a crackpot.

seekay said :

Guys… the solution is easy. We can break away from dirty coal power.

There’s that little bit of the ACT at Jervis Bay that already has the foundations for a nuclear reactor in place.

Generate clean, green nuclear power at Jervis Bay send it up the wires to old Canberry.

A 1970s reactor foundation would be worse than useless for a 2008 reactor design. They’ve moved on a long way.

This won’t be the most bizarre rant until someone suggests mining our own poo for the methane.

Oh, hang on.

Guys… the solution is easy. We can break away from dirty coal power.

There’s that little bit of the ACT at Jervis Bay that already has the foundations for a nuclear reactor in place.

Generate clean, green nuclear power at Jervis Bay send it up the wires to old Canberry.

VYBerlinaV8_the_one_they_all_copy9:06 am 18 Nov 08

That is… that 20% of the effort gets 80% of the result. (Maybe I should have put more than 20% of myself into that post).

VYBerlinaV8_the_one_they_all_copy9:05 am 18 Nov 08

I’m a firm believer in the 80/20 rule, that is, that 20% of the effort gets 20% of the result, and vice versa. I think we need to be applying this approach to environmental management. What are the few big things we could do that would significantly improve our environmental impact? As opposed to some of the microscopic measures people take that make zero real difference.

What an odd little rant.

Though, I think it’s not a bad idea for Canberra to pursue some of its own energy generation capacity. Not to mention the bit opposing the whole anti-powerstation nimbyism (which I’ll probably get flamed for mentioning).

I’m assuming the tongue is firmly within the cheek in this article…

Wiki: Thorium (pronounced /????ri?m/) is a chemical element with the symbol Th and atomic number 90. As a naturally occurring, slightly radioactive metal, it has been considered as an alternative nuclear fuel to uranium.

WTF?

50m by 25m windmills would present problems in some new developments as the blades would have to be perfectly timed in their rotation so as to avoid clipping each other.

I’m trying to imagine Canberra with backyards full of 50m by 25m windmills, vast watertanks (mainly empty as there is insufficient rain to fill them) and CO2 exempt boats.

I can’t imagine Margaret being happy . . .

Here’s a thought, numpty. Cut yourself off from society and live by your own socialist paradigm.

Never mind cutting ACT off from national grid will cripple the economy.

Never mind the link between CO2 and global warming is tenuous at best, and temperatures haven’t risen in nearly 10 years.

Never mind any action in the ACT will have 0.000000% effect on global CO2 output.

Freak.

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