Governor Brown has California on same “dark ages” renewable energy path as South Australia
Guest essay by Larry Hamlin
The entire state of South Australia suffered a complete power black out on Wednesday September 28 plugging it’s nearly 1.7 million residents, communities and businesses into darkness.
Loss of available power from transmissions lines feeding the region from other states coupled with South Australia’s ill-considered climate change energy policy of forced shutdown of the states operating coal plants to promote heavy use of renewable energy created this latest power debacle.
Last July the state barely averted energy black outs when reduced outside electrical energy supplies forced huge and costly purchases of needed power to restore electrical system reliability.(http://theconversation.com/south-australias-electricity-price-woes-are-more-due-to-gas-than-wind-62824)
The forced shutdown of operating coal plants and mandated increased use of renewables had significantly increased energy costs to consumers by eliminating production from low cost power plants while increasing use of more costly renewable energy which also requires the operation of higher cost natural gas power plants for reliability backup with these backup costs hidden from consumers. (http://www.smh.com.au/business/renewables-shift-brings-threat-to-power-supply-20160921-grl0bs.html)
The September 28 state wide black out is clearly creating challenges to the governments climate change policy initiative which is responsible for these power availability and high energy price debacles and which has jeopardized the power supply of the entire region. (http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-09-25/sa’s-power-price-spike-sounds-national-electricity-alarm/7875970)
Unfortunately Governor Brown has California on the same path as the state of South Australia where the present and future reliability of the states power supply is dependent on huge imports of power from adjacent states which provide 1/3 of California’s electrical energy.
Unlike a decade ago where use of this imported power was driven by considerations of lowering energy costs today this imported energy is absolutely essential for sustaining the states electrical system reliability.
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As the ‘renewable’ policy proceeds, South Australia will become increasingly dependent on an “interconnector” with adjoining Victoria for base load (40%) coming mostly from brown coal (probably the largest deposit in the world —oh the ironing), however the left-green government wants to follow S A down the ‘renewable’ road to nowhere.
Anyone with half a brain can see where this is heading.
As a Victorian I can say this: that this situation has the potential to provide enormous entertainment in years to come; adding to the absurdity is the fact is that these idiots think they are leading the world to the bright sunny uplands of a fossil-fuel-free future.
http://orig02.deviantart.net/d01e/f/2016/010/9/2/the_teletubbies_windmill_by_mracrizzy-d9ng05y.png
and of course Victoria is now seeing coal plants starting to shut down, happily emulating SA
You left out the dead birds.
The governor of the California Gray Davis was dismissed in the year 2003 because of the blacks out.
His successor Anold Schwarzenegger didn’t do better anything of.
This is due to the ideological position of the population that living in an evolved state for the scientific search also wants to believe in the energy of the panels PV and of the windmills.
Hence Californians can soon enjoy the Sacrament of Blackouts.
Tis what happens when folks let those with a PPL degree determine the well being of their country.
Going to be a long difficult road back to reality.
Looks like another point of evidence that Eleanor Denny is right: Adding too many renewable energy sources leads to grid destabilization and a negative ROI. The cost of keeping CCGT plants idle but ready to provide instant power to offset the inability of renewables to provide base load is astronomical (and not counted in the cost of renewable energy!) Even so, nature has its way with you every so often (through weather or other forms of applied chaos theory), and grid crashes are the result. Renewable-caused grid crashes are only going to become more frequent with such misguided energy policy and deliberate attacks on cost effective base load generating capacity.
Well… There is one nice thing about an electrical blackout, it is INCREDIBLY SUSTAINABLE, you can keep one going for years and years and years, it takes no effort, and costs\emits nothing…..
Maybe that was the plan ?
sarc off
We Normans called ‘renewable energy’ back in the Middle Ages ‘peasants.’
With all that rains that fell, contrary to the predictions of Tim Flannery, perhaps South Australia could invest in hydroelectricity for power generation. At least Adelaide’s dams will fill, as well as Canberra’s, Sydney’s , Hobart’s and Melbourne will get a nice dose from this system. I am waiting for the “climate change” social warriors to be out in force.
Meanwhile, I am watching the dam level updates and smirking about how utterly wrong the “science” based forecasts of dams running dry are. Obviously, the hypothesis that underpins all the predictions of damns running dry is flawed. Meanwhile, the taxpayers subsidise the Green madness in South Australia.
Sometimes politicians, and the public that supports them, have to learn the hard way.
Sometimes?? Methinks ‘always’ is closer to reality. Politicians like to think they are Gods. Every once an a while reality brings them up short, VERY short.
Yes, the Climate Council has just issued a statement claiming this is a portent of climate change….
Please bear in mind that the Climate Council and Climate Institute are PRIVATE groups. They have nothing to do with government. The opinions are their own (propaganda.)
Just for scale, South Australia is 1.5 times the size of Texas.
SA weather: No link between blackout and renewable energy, experts say
Nick Stokes
September 28, 2016 at 4:36 pm
“SA weather: No link between blackout and renewable energy, experts say”
There’s a nice laugh for my morning 🙂
Hey, don’t, whatever you do, let the truth get in the way of your bias. I know, it hilarious that anyone might know more about this than you.
Nick , if SA had no reliance whatsoever on power from other states , had all their coal power stations going how much of SA would have been blacked out ??
That’s right, in fact the storm would have been 40% worse without the 40% ‘renewables’ already operating in the state.
If you actually want to know what is happening with SA power, this report from the Grattan institute on recent volatility is a good place to start. They are not a bunch of greenies. And it is the author of that report who is quoted thus:
“But the report’s author, Tony Wood, said the blackout was as a result of a particularly violent storm and it was usual for a system to shut down to protect itself from further damage.
“My understanding, at least at the moment, is there’s no evidence to suggest these two issues are related,” Mr Wood said.”
“There’s no evidence to suggest this was caused by too much wind power, or the dependence on wind power, or anything else, or would’ve been any different if any of the power stations that had been shut down earlier this year had still been operating.
“If you’ve got a wind farm or a coal-fired power station at the end of a transmission line, and that system either is taken out by a storm or is forced to shut down to protect itself from a storm, it doesn’t matter what the energy source is.”
There are two interconnector power lines between South Australia and the eastern states, but Mr Wood said there was no indication having more links would have prevented the issue.”
My bold. It was a failure of transmission, not supply.
Tony Wood — would that be the Tony Wood who “… from 2009 to 2014 … was also Program Director of Clean Energy Projects at the Clinton Foundation, advising governments in the Asia-Pacific region on effective deployment of large-scale, low-emission energy technologies …”?
“There’s no evidence to suggest this was caused by too much wind power …” (Tony Wood).
Well he would say that wouldn’t he.
Nick Stokes
September 28, 2016 at 5:33 pm
“If you actually want to know what is happening with SA power, this report from the Grattan institute on recent volatility is a good place to start. They are not a bunch of greenies.”
Not a bunch of greenies?
“Grattan staff are encouraged to
Take a proactive approach in protecting the environment, and sharing environmentally friendly ideas with others
Provide comments on Grattan’s Environmental Policy at any time
Participate in Melbourne University’s Sustainability Forum and Staff Environmental Advocates programs
Learn more about Melbourne University’s Sustainable Campus initiative ”
https://grattan.edu.au/about-us/environmental-policy/
Tony Wood. He was for a long time an executive at Origin Energy (one of our main gas and elec firms). He did also advise governments via the Clinton Foundation while working there and at Grattan.
But he actually knows about this stuff, and I can’t see comparable sources of knowledge here.
If SA still had reliable LOCAL electricity supplies, they would not need to rely on the interconnects.
Now, why has the LOCAL energy production been shut down, Nick ???
The good old “appeal to authority” argument – sounds familiar
I had no idea you were an Aussie, Nick Stokes. Yet another to add to our roll of shame
“I had no idea you were an Aussie”
Even a Footscray supporter (who remembers 1954).
Failure of transmission not supply, really? Why then a day later they are still not game to put wind powere back on the network? Gas and diesel running flat out.
http://www.smh.com.au/business/south-australia-pays-the-price-for-heavy-reliance-on-renewable-energy-20160928-grqq9k.html
A single storm should not take out a state.
The wind was to windy so they turned off the wind turbines
The storm dropped part of the grid, this combined with the lack of location generation caused a significant change in frequency. Safety kicked in – dropped the interconnect.
This is designed to work this, every time there is a major storm, this is a significant risk.
The wind was about 40 knots according to BoM. That is less than a category 1 cyclone whuch might cause minor damage to a house. Yet here it has blown over towers. Says more about the towers and planning than about any alleged extreme weather event.
J. Exactly. And the political dunderheads do not comprehend how fast that can happen. Trip offs are timed to ~ zero voltage for very good physics reasons, which happens twice per AC cycle. So 1/2 of 1/50 second in Europe and Australia, 1/2 of 1/60 second in North America.
https://twitter.com/hipstergeddon/status/781085257600684032/photo/1
+100000000000000000.97
nick go the doggies best of luck also hope less rain your way and here near Mooroopna
Clipe, thanks, I am glad keyboards are cheap and I have a few spares for this kind of comment!
HAHAHA – Love it! Fortunately I had just finished my coffee. 🙂
Certainly the human mind is capable of making excuses to shift blame ad nauseum. In fact, once they have run out of ways to shift blame, there is a hard core of believers who maintain, using the present example, South Australia’s grid is doing just fine, couldn’t be better. Now maybe this blackout would have occurred even with more dispatchable power in the mix, but Schumpeter made a point pertinent to this when he said “Socialists would be happiest eating bread baked by socialists, even were it riddle with mice.”
Stupid, blind socialists.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/image/7887068-3×2-940×627.jpg
It’s equally as flaccid as their overall energy policy.
They just need to fly John Holdren down from the White House Science office to declare that climate change caused too much wind and the shutting of the wind turbines and the power power outage. Therefore it was indeed climate change that caused it. He will not be available for science references afterward. It should work in Australia anyway.
Hi Christopher, you missed one, from SMH, no less.
http://www.smh.com.au/business/south-australia-pays-the-price-for-heavy-reliance-on-renewable-energy-20160928-grqq9k.html
Nothing to do with heavy reliance on renewable energy! 🙂
“At that time, the state government brought pressure to bear on a local power company for an idled power station to be restarted to avoid potential disruptions, following a lack of electricity generated from wind and solar sources at a time when it was unable to “import” sufficient supply from Victoria.
But Wednesday’s event will trigger renewed debate over the state’s heavy reliance on renewable energy which has forced the closure of uncompetitive power stations, putting the electricity network in South Australia under stress.”
http://www.smh.com.au/business/south-australia-pays-the-price-for-heavy-reliance-on-renewable-energy-20160928-grqq9k.html
Well, if you look at the top of that story, there is now a caveat:
“This analysis was written in the immediate aftermath of the blackout. For more recent updates, please click here “
And if you click, you find:
“The storm took down three transmission lines, nine towers and forced the electricity connection with Victoria to shut down. Lightning also struck a power station.
“This is a catastrophic natural event which has destroyed our infrastructure,” he said. “There is no infrastructure that can be developed that can protect you against catastrophic events that take out not one, not two, but three pieces of infrastructure.”
Political recriminations have begun with federal Energy Minister Josh Frydenberg and other MPs questioning the state’s increasing reliance on renewable energy despite assurances that the switch to cleaner energy sources was not to blame.”
Nick, why didn’t NSW and/or QLD have TOTAL state-wide blackouts during the huge east-coast low that went through 12-18 months ago? Many towers, poles and lines went down during that storm and yet there was only wide-spread ‘localised’ blackouts, some areas were not even affected, I for one was without power for 6 days (and roof mounted solar panels don’t work when the grid goes down)!
Wonder if those huge, fossil-fueled power stations we have here in the Hunter Valley had anything to do with it?
Strange how the usual Suspect$, defender$ of climate model$, are here defending renewable$.
Connect the dot$.
Typical how the usual suspects and so called sceptics are here, in flagrant disregard of the evidence, blaming renewables.
OK, the evidence points to global cooling. Satisfied?
Photos show power lines down but I am wondering how all those wind turbines are doing?
They tell us “decentralized” renewable energy is good. So why does South Australia need an interconnector to Victoria to keep its grid running? If “centralized” (AKA dispatchable), fossil and nuclear plant is now “bad”, how come it’s impossible to blackstart the broken grid without sources of large dispatchable power?
There’s so much garbage put about by renewables advocates. They can’t distinguish myths they echo to each other from what’s real or fantasy.
Yep, somehow the renewables advocates can maintain a chinese wall between these 2 conflicting ideals. It’s even more disparate when they talk about domestic solar PV, batteries and microgrids and complain about “gold plated” grids yet they then demand more interconnectors to decouple wind farms across the nation.
True deniers, the lot of them
It was a meridional jet stream that transported this deep low pressure system from deep in the Southern Ocean. Parts of the jet stream were originating in Antarctica. Wild jet streams have been affecting the weather right across the Australian continent in the last year or so. Hopefully Australian governments will recognize that these are caused by long-term cyclical changes in the sun and scrap their renewable energy policies. If they don’t then our insurance bills will soon be rising as fast as our electricity bills.
It is a pity that most of today’s politicians don’t have any knowledge of history. If they did then they would recognize that the current weather patterns across the world have similarities to those that existed 200 and also 400 years ago. Even reading Charles Dickens the reader would get an appreciation of what the weather was like in the UK 400 years ago and see the similarities to what is occurring now.
+ many! I see the same patterns in historical Dutch weather reports. They include paintings from the Middle Ages. and those in the early 1800’s and none of the those were government “reports”. The same historical reports are in Sagas and other “tomes” from those eras. We really should pay way more attention to them.
Interesting, although I don’t recall Charles Dickens writing about the 17th century. His work is usually fairly topical.
I quote:
“The September 28 state wide black out is clearly creating challenges to the governments climate change policy initiative which is responsible for these power availability and high energy price debacles and which has jeopardized the power supply of the entire region.”
Don’t count on them changing their climate change policy. True believers do not give up their religion – they try to justify it by deceiving the masses about the cause of the problem. The people who just passively accept it have been brainwashed by their incessant propaganda that they are trying to save the world from a coming Armageddon. Their propaganda is fueled by the billions they say are needed for climate research. They cheat it out of numerous states, localities, and even individuals, and use it instead to fuel a world-wide propaganda machine Their trump card is having brainwashed the ruling cliques of western society, including some billionaires with soft brains, who now augment their propaganda machine. With governments doing their bidding they are now well on the way to taking us back to the stone age. All for nothing because the greenhouse effect that is supposed to cause an Armageddon works only in a laboratory test tube and fails in the atmosphere. That is because carbon dioxide is not the main greenhouse gas in the atmosphere – water vapor is. It constitutes 95 percent of all the greenhouse gases in air. Water vapor and carbon dioxide make up a joint absorption window for infrared radiation in the atmosphere. If you now add more carbon dioxide to air, CO2 will start to absorb in the IR, just as we are told. But this will increase their joint absorption window. And just as soon as it happens, water vapor will begin to diminish, rain out, and the original absorption window is restored. But removal of water vapor has the effect of lowering total IR absorption. And as a result of this the greenhouse warming no longer works and Armageddon is cancelled. This has been known since 2007 when Dr. Ferenc Miskolczi introduced it but knowledge of it has been vigorously suppressed by the IPCC. It is time to speak up and tell everyone that the Armageddon is not coming. And those who gave them money, get your money back if you can.
Trivia: the City of Adelaide, capital and main of South Australia, was founded and laid out by a gentleman named Colonel Light:
Badda-boom-tish!!
O/T but. a story just in. Wikileaks have released emails showing George Soros bribed Al Gore to exaggerate global warming.
http://www.thepoliticalinsider.com/hacked-emails-expose-really-behind-al-gores-global-warming-campaign/
It’s sort of related (Julian is Australian)
I don’t think Al Gore needed any “bribing”. But it is interesting to know just how many pies George has his fingers in.
The failure cascade is a direct function of the supply mix, according to this article: http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-09-29/rushing-to-renewables-risks-sector's-reputation:-uhlmann/7888290
The money shot:
“….a diabolically tricky engineering problem. For an electricity network to function, demand and supply have to be kept in the perfect harmony of 50 hertz every second of every day. If the frequency gets out of tune, the system identifies a fault that could destroy it and that trips the shutdown switch.
This electrical harmony is called synchronous supply, and thermal power is very good at delivering it to the grid.
Wind power is asynchronous — its frequency fluctuates with the breeze and it has to be stabilised by the give and take of other sources of demand and supply.
South Australia has a unique energy mix, with 40 per cent of its electricity generated by wind and a high uptake of rooftop solar panels. The reduction in demand, driven by rooftop cells and coupled with the low price that subsidised wind farms can bid into the electricity market, has shut down all the state’s coal-fired power plants. It now relies on three sources for power: wind, gas and coal-fired power imported from Victoria through two interconnectors that are its lifeline to the national electricity market.
The fragility of South Australia’s electricity supply with the rise of renewables is an open secret.
… The reason why a cascading failure of the remainder of the South Australia network occurred is still to be identified and is subject to further investigation.
And that is the crucial question.
What is not in doubt is the next problem, rebooting the system. And that cannot be done with asynchronous power. To get the system online again, the energy market operator ordered the gas-fired power generator at Pelican Point to fire up, and then set about restarting the system bit by bit.”
good points, and note now more than a day after the incident the State is powered by gas and diesel. The last thing they want back online at the moment if fluctuating wind power.
Yes, but note that ‘black start’ can easily and quickly be provided by battery systems – the Germans already have one in operation…
http://www.younicos.com/europes-first-commercial-battery-will-provide-black-start-capability-2/
“First stationary battery storage system to restore grid after blackout”
and a battery system start up almost instantly – quicker than a gas plant…
I say BS on this!