Essay by Eric Worrall
If storms are getting worse, how can fragile renewable energy infrastructure survive the superstorms of the future?
After a weird summer of floods and heatwaves, scientists explain why weather extremes are ‘on steroids’
By climate reporter Jess Davis
When winds as high as 260 kilometres per hour tore down transmission towers in South Australia in 2016 and plunged the state into an electricity void, it took people by surprise.
The sight of high-voltage transmission lines, crumpled on the ground was almost surreal.
Eight years later, as fierce storms broke over Victoria, images of wilted towers were again causing consternation.
…
Storms get more intense
What climate scientists do know is that with more energy in the atmosphere, storms are becoming more intense.
“When you have events like squall lines or cyclones, tornadoes, thunderstorms, they have more energy available to them,” director of the Monash Energy Institute Roger Dargaville said.
Dr Dargaville said he was surprised wind could knock over transmission towers back in 2016, but that’s no longer the case.
“It’s now a very real possibility and will probably occur many times in the future,” he said.
…
Read more: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-02-28/global-warming-effect-on-extreme-weather-events/103471564
Professor Dargaville also recently argued for more renewables;
Monash expert: Wild weather aftermath – the security of Victoria’s energy grid and the need for renewables
Monash University
14/02/2024
Associate Professor Roger Dargaville, Director Monash Energy Institute, Resources Engineering, Faculty of EngineeringMonash University experts are available to comment on the power blackout and related aftermath as a result of wild weather in Victoria yesterday, and how our energy grids could be made more resilient in the future.
…
The following can be attributed to Associate Professor Dargaville:
“On Tuesday afternoon, a severe storm belt with wind gusts over 100km/h, extreme lightning and torrential rain caused havoc across Melbourne. Amongst lots of localised power outages due to low voltage power lines being damaged was the destruction of several towers supporting the parallel 500kV lines between Melbourne and Geelong. The effect of losing that vital infrastructure was to ‘trip off’ the Loy Yang A power station.
…
“Distributed renewable energy systems offer both more vulnerability due to more infrastructure spread over wider areas, but also additional resilience as losses of individual power lines don’t have the same impact of losing large centralised power stations.
…
Read more: https://newshub.medianet.com.au/2024/02/monash-expert-wild-weather-aftermath-the-security-of-victorias-energy-grid-and-the-need-for-renewables/37361/
Even if we assume for a moment this super storm claim is true, Professor Dargaville’s position does not make sense.
Consider these alternatives propositions for future energy generation:
- Build an energy system which depends on vast acreages of fragile sheets of glass and machines designed to catch the wind, along with vastly enlarged power grids to capture this dispersed energy, which you know will be massively vulnerable to the raging superstorms of the future.
- Build a set of compact nuclear reactors encased in thick steel and concrete armour, located at a sufficient elevation to eliminate the risk of flooding, utterly invulnerable to any possible storm, located as close as possible to energy end users, to minimise the risk of supply disruption caused by storm damage to distribution networks.
Why is Professor Dargaville advocating for the option which he admits is will increase vulnerability to storm damage, and not even mentioning the nuclear option, which offers near total climate resilience and a steady supply of reliable and dispatchable zero carbon energy?
Fragile, weather dependent renewable energy systems are not fit for purpose, and will never be fit for purpose. They don’t make sense today, and they would make even less sense in a future filled with climate superstorms.
Don’t think for a moment I take the claim of future superstorms seriously, why should the current crop of alarmist climate predictions be any different to the previous 30 years+ of failed climate predictions? But Professor Dargaville’s advocacy of renewable energy does not make sense, even in the context of his own claimed position on future climate disruption.
Obviously went with the lowest bid.
If CC is knocking down power pylons why rebuild OH?
ANOTHER big lie from NPR, coal use is going way UP….don’t look behind the curtain. “story tip”
https://www.npr.org/2024/02/26/1233128242/coal-renewable-energy-west-virginia-inflation-reduction-act-climate?utm_source=pocket-newtab-en-us
Down vote for what’s in the link, not for your commentary. Sad to see even West Virginians being suckered into thinking wind is “cheaper” than coal.
Perhaps Australians should just build stronger towers?
Or engage rational engineers to design and build electricity generation facilities and transmission grids.
You know, people who are experienced in thinking things through in a practical way, unencumbered by rank ideology.
Or stop increasing the load on aging pylons that are reaching the end of their projected lifespan and weakened by 50-60 years of ordinary weather.
Denis: You can say that again. I 100 km/h wind gusts are bringing them down they’ve got a real problem. That’s only 62.5 mph which is a slower than a typical gust in a spring thunderstorm here in the mid-west US. The minimum design wind speed for single story buildings is 70 mph. Critical infrastructure with heights of over 100 feet should be well over 100 mph (160Km/h).
Just as a point of information the load generated by wind is proportional to the square of the velocity. These towers should be able to survive a direct hit from a tornado IMHO.
Maybe instead of spending $$$$$ bucks on wind and solar and researching ways to make them an actually reliable power source for the grid AFTER they’ve be installed, they should leave the proven reliable sources alone and just work to supply each household with a “Mr. Fusion”?
Wind and solar often are built far from where the energy is needed so more towers and lines are required. By nature of the energy source, high power lines need to placed in high wind areas increasing risk of being destroyed by high winds.
For that matter, wind turbines need to be placed in high wind areas, increasing their risk of being destroyed by high winds as well.
So is the next oil or gas well, coal mine, nuc plant.
Wrong.
But the generation can be built adjacent to the coal bed and transmission lines ran underground from there. Coal, Gas and Nuclear Generation are unaffected by inclement weather. Wind only works in the goldilocks zone of 9-50mph. Lower and insufficient energy to turn the rotors, higher and breaking kicks in to preserve the generator
“But the generation can be built adjacent to the coal bed and transmission lines ran underground from there. ”
But they are usually not. If for no other reason than that the assets are depleting and the generators don’t want to pickup and relocate. And of course what does that “generation” need to be used by the populace? A grid.
FYI, in Texas almost all electricity, no matter if from ff or renewable sources moves from west to east. But the renewable sites are much more likely to endure for centuries, so the number of new lines to access them over time will be lower.
“Coal, Gas and Nuclear Generation are unaffected by inclement weather.”
Untrue for both coal and gas. In fact, ERCOT has 2 reports from 2 different extreme weather events that back me up. Yes, solar and wind don’t perform in those parts/thousand X events. You know it, you prep for it, and in the case of gas, you gird up the natural gas to electric infrastructure to compensate for it, and reap the benefits of extending the life of a finite volume of a vital bridge fuel..
Endure for centuries!!
That’s a good one Sponge Bob!
He lives in his own little world, doesn’t he 🙂
Right! Turbines lifespan of 20-30 years.
But wind and solar sources themselves can be destroyed by high winds or dark days while such might only damage the transmission lines of reliable sources of power.
The SOURCE of “Green” energy is flawed. It is not reliable.
Downed transmission lines are a problem common to both “Green” and reliable sources of power. Wind and solar lines are spread out over a wide range. The real stuff requires far fewer lines since the sources are more concentrated. Fewer downed lines are more quickly repaired.
No one builds electricity generation at the oil/gas well site or fissile material mine, that would be absurd. Coal is usually built at or near the mine site as it is large scale base load power generation that will operate for many decades at that site, producing a significant amount of power. That would depend on the distance from the coal mine to large population centers that the power would be supplied to though, If a coal deposit was found in the middle of Western Australia, it would likely be transported by train to somewhere more practical to produce power, if that was economically feasible. But more likely, it would not be used as the cost of transportation of the energy would be too high. Renewables do not avoid the cost of transportation of energy (Ohm’s law applies to them and power is lost through transmission lines, in addition to the capital and operational costs of building and maintaining transmission lines). It is just that the “authorities” currently choose to ignore these costs. They will continue to ignore these costs, but they will not be able to ignore the consequences of ignoring these costs (eventually). Unfortunately, that may well impoverish the next generation, for no benefit at all.
Oil, gas and coal is more easily transportable to power plants nearer to the consumer, nuclear can be built nearer to the consumer. Wind turbines need to be built where there are ideal wind conditions, often far away from the consumer.
There’s no way to EVER make them “reliable power sources,” they can “research” until the Sun goes Red Giant.
Now that’s the only time solar might work, if the sun is red giant and swallows the earth…no more night time
True.
There is a “niche market” for both wind and solar, but it ain’t powering The Grid!
(I had to scroll up to see what comment I made you were replying to!
Probably can’t practically, economically be done but, maybe the timestamp can be included in the “reply to ..”?
It’d be nice but I suspect it probably can’t be done easily.)
I’m down with Mr Fusion
There will probably never be a commercially viable fusion power plant, but certainly not for at least another 70 years. Lots of money will be wasted chasing it though. And it will be just around the corner forever and ever.
Fusion is nothing more than Climastrology’s version of your reward in heaven. Suffer in energy poverty, carry your cross. Persevere and you will one day live in a land flowing with milk and honey. Maybe not for your children, or your grandchildren, but think of your great-great-grandchildren!
Unless, of course, if someone stumbles over the proper tuning to attain the process while looking for a different application.
Once we find a source of dilithium crystals and a way to collect and contain antimatter there won’t be a need for fusion. I’m betting neither will be producing unlimited energy this century.
They must leave reliable sources alone. It is called “backup”.
“Distributed renewable energy systems offer both more vulnerability due to more infrastructure spread over wider areas, but also additional resilience as losses of individual power lines don’t have the same impact of losing large centralised power stations.”
Simply stating the obvious (to anyone capable of critical thought), that when you build into your electrical system, undependable distributed resources, we are naturally less dependent on them and may not even notice when they are not contributing (except in our energy bills of course). We will still be leaning heavily on concentrated, reliable and affordable traditional spinning reserves. And making a spider web of widely distributed power lines resilient to the norms of weather is far more difficult and expensive than just getting it right for a relatively short and concentrated corridor of transmission. The people (taxpayers) who suffer from all this bad planning and policy need to get off their backsides and go visit the idiot policy-makers in large numbers and frequently. Perhaps purchase a diesel tractor to be parked in the street as is becoming fashionable in many locations.
How often do nuclear, coal and gas powered stations suddenly stop producing power? Maybe once or twice a decade.
How often do wind and solar suddenly stop producing power? Daily, sometimes many times per day.
For solar, every day after 2pm and before 10am
I’ll take: “What is a passing cloud?” for 0kW output, Alex.
😂 😆 😅 😉 😁 😁 😁
Spraying the offending Eco-Nazis with lots of 💩💩💩💩💩💩 seems to be an excellent way to get them the message.
And unlike fine works of art being defaced by the climate foamers, the politicians aren’t worth anything anyway.
Morning here in Australia
Coal and gas providing 82% of electricity in NSW, 89% in Qld, 71% in Vic and gas providing 75% in SA
COAL IS KING !!!
Even the AEMO doesn’t know what happens when the decrepit coal plants keel over, but they’re trying to gently hint it might be a problem.
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2023/09/03/aemo-east-coast-aussie-states-are-failing-or-about-to-fail-energy-reliability-standards/
They might have SA wrong.. It is a small demand, that is proven to be able to run purely on their gas and diesel gensets.. Time will tell.
Tasmania also a rather small demand, should be ok so long as they don’t drain their reservoirs selling electricity into Victoria, then have a low rainfall year.
But there are almost certainly going to be major issues in the other states when the next big coal fire power station is forced to close… either through legislation or old age / lack of maintenance..
Good collection of Reality Checks by Eric. The Millennials appear to be liberal free-thinkers without any discipline or curiosity. For example, the Techie Marvels who launched odyssey to the moon, where it landed without assistance from the primary Lidar, trying to utilize a patched-in NASA experiment, and therefore tipped over, FORGOT TO TURN OFF A PROTECTIVE SWITCH ON THE LIDAR during the pre-launch protocol. Checklist? That’s for old people who have bad memories. NOT. The CAGW crowd is a collection of fools in a hurray led by corrupt enablers. Not going to end well.
That’s hilarious. Perhaps they should reconsider letting employees smoke medicinal weed while performing launch prep?
Obviously we should go back to the good old days when NASA crashed satellites into Mars because it used the wrong system of units. The metric system is clearly something only for Millennials and the French.
Ouch 🙂
Mars has its own set of units? And they’re wrong? You sound horribly Zena-phobic, there, bud.
Would that be the Barsoom Cubit?
Izaak is just a nasty USA hater, and haters gonna hate.
Cant believe you didn’t mention the Hubble mirror grind mistake.
Or Apollo 13 blowing an OX tank.
Or the Mars copter crashing. (After lasting 50 times the expected.)
Or Voyager 1 and 2 apparently losing contact, HOW FAR AWAY AND HOW MANY YEARS LATER??
Mistakes happen.
BUT at least the first two are mistakes, not intentional false “science” that Izaak claims as undeniable truth due to “consensus”.
To clarify, after today’s NASA/IM press conference.
1) Yes they could not bypass the safety due to a missing wire in the the wiring harness for the LIDAR.
2) The NASA LIDAR actually did NOT assist the landing. There was a setting somewhere in the software that needed an input (1) to actually send information to the flight computer. It did not provide any information.
3) The lander landed with its OPTICAL landing system only, and was unable to use its mapped elevation information without the LIDAR.
4) Due to that, it landed at an area of higher elevation thus earlier than was intended. When it landed, one or more of the legs broke and the engine apparently actually directly contacted the surface.
5) It is actually at 30 degrees from the horizontal, not fully on its side.
6) IM will definitely add cameras for the next craft.
7) The big issue is that the only transmitting antenna is small and not pointing directly at the Earth so that the only time they get much download is when the large antenna in Australia is pointing toward the moon, for about 8 hours a day.
8) There will definitely be a different arrangement of antennas on the next craft.
SO, due to the Aus. antenna, it appears that they got a LOT of information from the lander. It was actually a useful landing and the IM president, as you would expect, expects the next lander to perform at 100%, as does his chief engineer.
Not a failure, but not perfect.
Missing wire, oh well, this stuff happens. The important thing is that the trans woman responsible for the wire was never misgendered and their muslim outreach went perfectly.
We always learn more from mistakes than successes. The next lander will have improved systems to cope with the problems found on this lander.
By definition, expecting climate alarmists to be rational is irrational. Pointing out that they aren’t is rational.
Rational, but futile.
True.
Very nice Erik.
“Why is Professor Dargaville advocating for the option which he admits is will increase vulnerability to storm damage, and not even mentioning the nuclear option, which offers near total climate resilience and a steady supply of reliable and dispatchable zero carbon energy?”
The answer to your question is that professor Dargeville has an agenda, a little thing like the truth is not going to stand in the way of him achieving his agenda.
I’m hoping sooner or later more of these people will crack. I mean, did they really get into science so they could spout the party line, or did they want to be scientists? Maybe he genuinely believes all this, but sometimes even the most ardent believer takes a look in the mirror, and realises they don’t like the look of what is staring back at them.
They have, they did. Unfortunately the ones that have cracked appear to be worse – more irrational and doom-laden than the others with a strong streak of self-destructive martyrdom thrown in.
“advocating for the option which he admits is will increase vulnerability to storm damage, and not even mentioning the nuclear option”
Wow you are going for the nukular option. You deniers are going to be the death of….
vast amounts of grift.
nobody really believes a 60mph breeze is gonna blow over a 100kV+ line of pylons do they.
They were badly designed, badly engineered and badly installed.
And just like Hinckley is being driven into a ditch by anti-nuclear saboteurs on-site, were deliberately badly maintained by anti-coal sabotage
attached is from a station on the coast near Alberton, about mid-way ‘tween Melbourne and the YingYangWotWentWong Power Station
the wind speed graph is in km/h, so just before the power went off, it was hit by a 100km/h (60mph) gust and a peak average speed of 70km/h (43.5mph)
and that took down a 132kV power line – who are you trying to kid
Actually probably not – it may be that they are carrying more than the original design was intended for and are aging quite badly.
More to the point. How many much more catastrophic blackouts are going to result when you have not just transmission and distribution lines destroyed by a storm, but also the power PRODUCTION infrastructure.
Not to mention making ourselves dependent upon our geopolitical adversary for the needed replacements!
‘What climate scientists do know is that with more energy in the atmosphere, storms are becoming more intense.’
Nonsense. All GCMs ‘say’ that more warming will take place at the poles, hence a reduced temperature gradient between the poles and equatorial regions, means that storms should become weaker.
Alarmists like Dargaville need to be called out when they front conflicting physics.
Widely accepted around here: few, if any, predictions of AGW, whether from climate models or “expert opinions”, have come true. Therefore, why use some, or any, of those predictions to claims failures of other claims?
The power lines for Wind Turbine power sources are built at the lowest possible standards to keep embarrassing on-costs for ‘renewable’ power low and make the power from wind turbines seem as cheap as possible. This makes the towers minimal in structure and fragile. One gust and they go down. Then they have to be rebuilt and this is hidden in general expenditures. It is a familiar Green Fraud.
You know this from what source? It seems likely that there are minimum legal requirements for transmission towers, as there are for many other constructions.
Putting lines underground has to be vastly more expensive than above ground, most especially for very high voltage lines like the long distance transmission lines. In many places it would be an essentially impossibly expensive engineering project. Somewhere cost benefit analysis has to come into play or like so many lottery winners who never learned to manage money, the system ends up in impossible debt.
Yeah. Actually no – not even close, in fact so far off you appear to be on another planet. These pylons were built in the 50’s and 60’s to transmit power between the two regions. Unless you’re accusing the Green fraudsters of using a time machine then you’re definitely barking up the wrong tree, mate.
Always the same: the climate is changing, and records will be broken and there will be a new normal.
So let us invest billions of your money on wind turbines based on historical wind data.
“When you have events like squall lines or cyclones, tornadoes, thunderstorms, they have more energy available to them”
Do they really? According to thermodynamics, it is the potential difference, not the absolute temperature that matters. Does raising earth’s temperature by 1 degree increase the potential difference? The “energy available to them” is NOT the absolute temperature.
Neptune has an average temperature of 72K (-201 C) and winds that range up to 2,200 km/h. Clearly, temperature isn’t everything.
Do we really think raising earth’s temperatures from 287K to 288K is going to make storms worse? That’s 3 tenths of one percent.
Why doesn’t Professor Dargaville mention nuclear? The answer is money and power (political) just like other alarmist/warmists he will only support positions put forth by the U.N., IPCC, WEF and Communist Party of China. Positions that are designed to take down the western countries, and particularly the U.S., so that a Globalist Commu-Facism can take their place and save the CCP from having to wage an actual war to do so!
Eric, I do like you title for this: “If Climate Change is Knocking Down Power Pylons, Why Build More Renewables?”
But as many here have missed the important point, its not the science or the fact most pylons are already OLD..
But it is the “VIBE” as per Black Out Bowen and associates in the Greens and Teals.
“VIBE” rules above all else..
Is this VIBE something like found during séance?
It helps to read the analysis of the similar event at Cressy, Vic, in 2020 when several 500 KV pylons were toppled, ostensibly by strong winds. Here are 2 reports. Following extracts are from them.
https://aemo.com.au/-/media/files/electricity/nem/market_notices_and_events/power_system_incident_reports/2020/final-report-vic-sa-separation-31-jan–2020.pdf
https://www.aer.gov.au/system/files/AER%20-%20Determination%20-%20AusNet%20Services%20-%20Transmission%20Tower%20Collapse%20Cost%20Pass%20Through%20-%20September%202020.pdf
“The Bureau of Meteorology (BOM) produced a report on the meteorological aspects of the thunderstorm activity in the vicinity of the towers that failed, confirming the severity of the weather conditions. The failure of the transmission towers on this day is the only tower failure ever experienced on this or any other 500kV line in Victoria.34
“Analysis provided by the BoM indicates that a severe convective downdraft event6 occurred, resulting from thunderstorm activity in the area of the failed transmission towers. Wind speeds of up to approximately 119 km/h were recorded 30 km away at the Mount Gellibrand weather station. Further independent expert analysis commissioned by AusNet Services concluded that in the area of the damaged towers there were likely wind gusts in the range of 138-150 km/h near ground level and potentially up to 185-201 km/h at an altitude of 70 metres above the ground. Destructive wind speeds of this magnitude were not forecast by the BoM.
“AusNet Services has advised AEMO that:
· The failed transmission towers were designed between 1978-80 and built in 1981-83.
· The towers were designed to withstand synoptic wind speeds of 43m/sec7 , which met the applicable Standard of the time. (Note: 43m/sec equals 155 km/hr – GHS).
· All the towers failed in a similar manner and in line with the wind direction.
· All towers had been inspected and maintained in accordance with the applicable standards and no defects had been identified.
· There were no outstanding maintenance issues at the time of the event.”
…………………………
It now appears that a similar event happened nearby in Feb 2024.
Here we have several decades of these big pylons performing, until winds knocked some down in 2020 and more in 2024.
By 2020, either the state of the pylons changed, or the state of the weather changed. Which was it?
The BOM stretched it a bit to claim winds of “potentially up to 185-201 km/h at an altitude of 70 metres” indeed did happen.
Question – Were these a novel weather event, or had they been measured and observed before?
Actually if you cast your net a little wider you’ll find that these failures happen fairly regularly going back 20-30 years in several different countries, not just Australia. I think it’s down to age and increasing the load beyond what was originally intended.
Richard,
Note my holding about this being the only known failure on the 500 kvV system. Sure, there have been recorded failures of small towers, as these reports note in passing. Geoff S
Is it just me or is the obvious solution to install the cables underground like pipelines? I know it’s more expensive but then farming etc. can continue unaffected.
Price goes way up, depending on the terrain. There is the cost of clearing a wide path, digging the trenches as well as the conduit. Finally, there is maintenance of the path, which includes keeping the path clear of large plant growth.
You mentioned farmland, so clearing and trenching may not be that bad. In the area where I live, trees have to be removed and boulders have to dynamited for removal. All while fighting tricky (steep, rugged) terrain. Underground works great in urban areas where buildings are tightly packed.
Ask California (USA) where they put power lines through mountainous, forested areas subject to high winds, earthquakes, and lightning. They seem to find it cheaper to pay off the lawsuits.