There are currently 3,365 turbines proposed for Qld delivering name plate capacity of approx. 22,874MW. This excludes the wind farms that I know are planned but don’t have turbine quantities for. The proposed Proserpine Wind Farm for example will have over 200 turbines so safe to assume there are over 4,000 turbines thus far. Considering a capacity factor of say 25% then we will need to double this number of turbines to say 6,600 turbines to keep lights on at night in summer if there is wind. If we have a few nights of no wind and the proposed theoretical Eungella Pumped Hydro is built then we can keep lights on for a few hours here and there. To achieve true Net Zero (removing carbon from agriculture and transport fleet) then pick a number above 20,000 turbines required and if no wind start building a fleet of gas plants. If we want theoretical hydrogen add another 10,000 – 25,000 turbines again if you can find any more land where there is wind.
There are some wind farms down south of the state that I am unfamiliar with and seem to be on either cleared or mostly cleared land. I have ground truthed many sites from Gladstone north and many are in very high biodiverse areas due to their untouched rugged and remote topography.
I’ve left Chalumbin WF on my animation because it will no doubt come back in some form or another depending on who gets the available capacity first in the transmission.
Enjoy 3 years of data collection showcasing the future destruction of some of our best high elevation refugia forests (north of Gladstone).
H/T observa
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The Green Blob does not apparently care about the environment. So much for “save the whales” or saving koalas.
Very well put together. As a Queensland resident, I am gobsmacked by this.
Somehow, all Queensland residents need to be made aware of this.
Remember, people are needed to install this environmental devastation.
What happens if the people, the truck drivers, the workers, the cement factories etc just say ..
NO! we won’t do it !.
They won’t. Same reason Joe Biden’s minders do not tell him to pull out of the 2024 presidential race. They need their job.
Queensland could aptly be named the State of Hypocrisy. Sending vast amounts of coal to China so it can be converted into wind turbines in China that are sent back to Queensland to reduce the consumption of coal in Queensland. And the real silly part is that no wind turbine in Queensland can actually contribute to reducing coal consumption because they would need to last 10 times longer to produce more energy than the energy from the coal that was used to make them.
Economists and politicians are baffled by the persistent inflation. The interest rate lever is not working. What they are yet to realise is that NetZero is where the western world is headed. It is spiralling up its collective a-hole by putting ever more energy into stuff that does not get more energy out than goes in. The whole NetZero illusion can only keep going while China continues to burn vast amounts of coal. No developed country is willing to burn coal in their country to make the wind turbines.
Manufacturing in the USA has just taken another hit from Biden by increasing tariffs on Chinese made metals coming in through Mexico. US heavy industry has about 10% productivity of Chinese heavy industry so tariffs might support the inefficiencies in the USA but it is highly inflationary for the US economy as a whole.
But only Trump causes inflation. Just ask the Dems.
Does this need a /sarc for the first sentence?
The attitude of windmills promoters –
” refugias – we doan need no stinkin’ refugias”
Wind and solar are not a substitute for fossil fuel and nuclear. Fire up all fossil fuel and nuclear. Build new fossil fuel and nuclear. Remove all wind and solar from the grid. Maintain the grid to a very high standard.
Sort of like Vietnam, where you had to destroy the village to save it from the Cong. Didn’t end well
Here, you have to destroy Queensland to save it from climate change. Won’t end well.
“Here, you have to destroy Queensland”
Queensland is bigger than Texas. Three times bigger. 3365 turbines is about 2 per 1000 sq km. That is not going to destroy Qld.
Qld has 52 coal mines. They are big and look like this
Coal mines have not destroyed Queensland.
and they WORK.
On demand
Coal mines get restored to grazing land. Wind factories will leave massive, useless foundations embedded in the ground for millennia to come.
And the real dumb thing is that they do not reduce the consumption of coal. Making them takes more coal than they save in their pitifully short operating life.
If wind turbines were actually useful in saving coal, China would be keeping them all for themselves because their coal reserves are being depleted at record rate.
Queensland will ship out 35,000 tonne of coal to pay the $4.8M for a single 2.5MW turbine installed excluding land acquisition and financing charges. That turbine could generate an unsubsidised revenue of $235k per year. So after 20 years of operation it achieves break even on its capital cost or the 35,000 tonne of coal traded for it.
The 35,000t of coal burnt in Queensland would generate $5M in revenue at the $43/MWh that wind currently gets.
You might think this sort of balances out but you would be wrong. Because the coal fired power station will still burn coal to stay warm so it can keep the lights on when the wind stops.
The biggest threat to the madness is the people using their rooftops to generate electricity and going off grid. Rooftops are eroding the available demand that grid scale WDGs can serve. More wind factories just reduces the capacity factor of existing ones.
“Coal mines get restored to grazing land.”
Maybe. As you see, the amount of restoration needed is huge. Those are big, deep holes.
But as soon as one runs out, they dig another one. The mine I showed, Tarong, is getting too expensive. The owner wants to open another near Kingaroy.
Here is the coal mine they dug for the Hazelwood Power station. This was closed in 2017 and promptly demolished. No sign of rehabilitation. They have let water in to prevent fires, but that’s it.
The condition of existing coal mines is irrelevant. Because coal mining in Australia has to go on The coal still has to be dug up anyhow either for trading for WDGs or firming their operation. The wind turbines and solar panels do not save coal. It has to be mined in Australia; some sent to China for conversion to the WDGs and those returned to Australia for their feeble contribution to the electricity supply. But coal or gas still has to be burnt in Australia to firm the WDGs.
You are deluded if you think WDGs save coal. They accelerate consumption because they are energy consumers not energy produces.
China’s coal consumption keeps hitting new records to support the developed world’s fantasy. The only transition is shifting manufacturing to China.
“The condition of existing coal mines is irrelevant.”
So when will this wonderful restoration ever happen, if the coal mine can just go on existing?
The power station has been demolished. It is a brown coal mine, so the coal will not go anywhere else.As you see, the mine has been allowed to flood. What is the use of your restoration claim if it’s irrelevant while the coal mine exists?
Rehabilitation of mined land has been occurring for centuries. The Hazelwood mine closed in 2016. It is now the site of a big battery. The rehabilitation strategy for that particular mine is still being developed and implemented:
https://www.australianmining.com.au/latrobe-valley-mine-rehabilitation-kicks-off/
This explains the planned work in more detail:
https://media.caapp.com.au/pdf/mvl761/b08f8d15-848d-458b-9ce4-95ad9c2046dc/Hazelwood%20project%20factsheet%20July%202023.pdf
Disposing of the toxic batteries at the end of their life will be a greater task. Same issue for disposing of the spent blades on useless wind turbines. These are the real polluters not the void. Queensland is importing a lot of junk from China that will never be removed. It will rot where it is and become an environmental nightmare for centuries.
A hole in the ground makes a very useful water catchment. Something Australia can never have a enough of.
The mined mineral sand regions along the northern NSW and southern Queensland coast line are now the most sought after residential locations in Australia.
Abandoned wind factories are already an environmental disaster:
https://www.bibliotecapleyades.net/ciencia/ciencia_energy67.htm
The other issue is this. Once the solar and wind factories have reached their use by date, the land holder receives no financial support to rehabilitate the land.
Now I assume this fact would be in a clause within a legal agreement signed between the land holder and the entity responsible for said solar or wind factory.
What happens to what one assumes becomes ‘redundant transmission infrastructure’? Is that also a future scenario created by retiring renewable machines?
“Once the solar and wind factories have reached their use by date, the land holder receives no financial support to rehabilitate the land.”
Nor should they. Nor should extractors with overdue asset retirement obligations.
Too many are still stuck in the extractive mindset.
The world over, renewable sites are valuable for the nondepletable energy source, not what’s under foot. Yes, they might not be competitive with SMR nuc in the future. Yes, better sites might be found. But otherwise, viable current sites will remain so, pretty much into perpetuity, They will be improved, right sized, and negotiations will always go on w.r.t. how to keep them cleaned up. But it is in the interests of both the land owners and the land users (whether the same or different) to do so.
OTOH, the world over, extractive sites get depleted, and then the depleters use all of the powers they can bring to bear to worm out on the asset retirement obligations that they almost always assumed on paper at the get go. Africa, the FSU, North America, all of the extractive resources, past, present, future. The evidence is on and in the ground, for all to either see and/or glean from subsurface surveys. Just a fact of life that we need to keep in mind and fight against, every day.
I see now BOOB, you WANT the landowner to be responsible to remove the turbines, poles and bases with his own money and let the developers or turbine owners keep the profits made from subsidies/rent seeking and just move on to the next crony capitalist endeavor?
This mind set is why the wind builders were so furious with Iowa (IIRC) requiring all new wind scams to provide bond to remove their crap when they stop working. THEY will not remove their crap unless forced to.
Now start with your big oil BS. Pumpjacks are being removed ALL OVER THE COUNTRY where they have outlived their usefulness, wind and solar crap, not so much.
BTW: During my last cross country trip a month ago I saw, in the same couple of miles of interstate travel, 3 generations of pumpjacks, from small from the 60s, to medium from later intervening years to NEW larger ones, many of the oldest and not NEW ones were PUMPING. And they take up so little space. And crude OIL is biodegradable and does NOT ruin the soil forever.
1/2
“I see now BOOB, you WANT the landowner to be responsible to remove the turbines, poles and bases with his own money and let the developers or turbine owners keep the profits made from subsidies/rent seeking and just move on to the next crony capitalist endeavor?”
No, which is why I did not say that. I said the it is everyone’s interest to keep the site clean. For once, read for comprehension. The responsibilities are spelled out ahead of time, and it’s customary for them to be borne by the land user. These are the agreements mostly shirked by the extractors.
“This mind set is why the wind builders were so furious with Iowa (IIRC) requiring all new wind scams to provide bond to remove their crap when they stop working. .”
No problem there. FYI, US fossil fuel producers are now bonded for pennies on the $ of their current obligations. Most of those will be trickle down communized upon the rest of us.
“THEY will not remove their crap unless forced to.”
Nope. Read what I wrote.
“Now start with your big oil BS. Pumpjacks are being removed ALL OVER THE COUNTRY where they have outlived their usefulness, wind and solar crap, not so much.”
Oh, you child…
https://carbontracker.org/asset-retirement-obligations-aro-faqs/
And this doesn’t cover the tens of thousands of recent high angle, hydraulically incompetent, hard to re-enter mulitlaterals. Many needing high $ tractoring to even begin to properly plug out. High 6, low 7 $ figures each.
2/2
“BTW: During my last cross country trip a month ago I saw, in the same couple of miles of interstate travel, 3 generations of pumpjacks, from small from the 60s, to medium from later intervening years to NEW larger ones, many of the oldest and not NEW ones were PUMPING.”
Low volume, vertical strippers – mostly with inadequate P&A bonds, BTW.. The shut in wells in Trumpian YUGE fields, like Midway Sunset in California, outnumber them by an order of magnitude.
” And crude OIL is biodegradable and does NOT ruin the soil forever.”
Hundreds of toxic/carcinogenic non biodegradable chemicals. And tons of dissolved, naturally occurring radioactive material, in both the oil and the water production. Not the kool aid you drink, but others.
You and most others also don’t realize that US oil producers lift mostly water with a sheen of oil coming with it. We don’t call it the universal solvent for nothing, and it ends up doing the most damage.
https://inis.iaea.org/collection/NCLCollectionStore/_Public/30/018/30018811.pdf
Whoops. I rang the bell too soon. Class is still in session.
“I saw, in the same couple of miles of interstate travel, 3 generations of pumpjacks, from small from the 60s, to medium from later intervening years to NEW larger ones, many of the oldest and not NEW ones were PUMPING.”
A beam pumping unit (the actual oilfield term) can last over 50 years and can deplete over a dozen wells in that time. They are dismantled, trucked to the next site, and reused. Wellheads, tubulars, sucker rods, tubing anchors, not as many repeats, but all routinely pulled from shut in wells. refurbished, reused. What’s left to see? A welded on casing cover, soon weeded over. G’luck finding them, while doing 60+ on the interstate! So, for every “pumpjack” going up and down, there are many, many more of these unplugged, often hydraulically incompetent, wells around it, with casings and liners corroding away.
Economics will determine if that is true. I doubt you are right.
With respect to your references –‘extractives’, I assume you are referring to drilling, mining etc. for FF. Are you aware of the colossal increase in mining or ‘extractive industry’ as you refer, that is required if the world continues on the path to the unachievable ‘de-carbonization’.? The mining to extract resources, specifically minerals to electrify all energy via renewable generation is on a scale unprecedented.
We can all agree, ‘green’ energy is not carbon free.
The realities of physics, engineering, and economics of energy systems are simply not dependent on any beliefs about climate change.
“Economics will determine if that is true. I doubt you are right.”
My claim is that, since inflation adjusted oil and gas finding, development, operating costs, per barrel of oil equivalent are already rising precipitously – for about a half dozen boring geological and petroleum engineering/economics reasons – while renewable costs are going the other way, the paths will cross if they have not already.
Want to whine about “subsidies”. Line forms behind me. Lose them all, and see renewables compete even better.
“We can all agree, ‘green’ energy is not carbon free.”
Yes. Relevance?
“The realities of physics, engineering, and economics of energy systems are simply not dependent on any beliefs about climate change.”
Yes. The costs of it are mostly externalized on to those least able to bear them. OTOH, the benefits of extraction – of any kind – largely trickle up.
The biggest ‘subsidy’ renewables receive is not monetary, indeed the very existence & viability of the renewable industry depends on it.
It is the unadulterated religious belief in climate change and that human emissions of Co2 into the atmosphere is a direct threat to the future existence of life on earth.
The renewable industry exists only due to a hypothesis relating to the earth’s climate.
Well, you said:
“Coal mines get restored to grazing land.”
But now we see the reality. They are going to fill it with water. Some day.
The money measure of coal sold or wind electricity sold is not a measure of energy. It might be a measure of raw economics or some such if it wasn’t controlled by fiat at various places but both coal energy lost through export and wind generated electricity can only be expressed in joules, or any other unit of energy measurement, if you want to find out whether or not energy used balances with energy produced.
Nick,
You know that mined areas, tiny as they are, are by law rehabilitated to the extent that they are barely different to pre-mining condition.
As you know this, is it not a trifle dishonest to not say so?
Geoff S
Well, Geoff, what do you say about the Morwell mine, which leaves the hole in the ground and just fills it with water?
Coal mines are not tiny areas. The soil was removed by huge and expensive equipment like draglines. I’ll bet no-one is going to employ a dragline putting it back. It will be on to the next hole.
Have you ever driven past Tarong Nick?
Except for the steam from the cooling tower and stack, you would not even know it was there. It certainly has a very low visual impact.
Total land area of Queensland = 1,727,000 square kilometres
If you spaced windmills evenly there’d be one visible every 22 km, plus the roads and high tension connector lines.
You’d see them from wherever you stood in the state. It doesn’t leave any sense of wilderness, does it?
“If you spaced windmills evenly”
which they don’t. Iowa is less than a tenth the size of Queensland. It has over 6000 turbines. That’s about 20 times the density proposed for Qld. Iowa is not crushed under turbines.
Nick is an interesting character.
He supports absolutely every aspect of the climate change story. The concept, the accuracy of the records, the interpretations, the alarm warnings, and any and all proposed solutions.
One would imagine there may be some aspects of it all that an individual may question, as we see with arguments and discussions within the skeptical sites.
To have an unwavering belief in every single aspect shows a religious zeal which can only be explained by complete brainwashing, or otherwise by a very thorough job description.
India has recently upgraded its coal reserves because they realise they are going to need a lot of it to fully electrify India. It is common practice in mining to undertake resource estimates. Details are here:
https://coal.gov.in/en/major-statistics/coal-reserves
So what is the wind resource globally?
How long did it take to wind up?
What is the wind resource along coastal Queensland?
How much energy can be removed from the wind over Queensland before it causes desertification of the coastal lands?
Mangos grow well in Bowen because it is actually a dry location where the net of precipitation and evaporation tilts heavily toward evaporation. This is just the result of coastal geography. What happens to the rest of Queensland when coastal air flows are robbed of their energy thereby diminishing the advection of moist air from ocean to land?
There are always consequences. I am certain that there are limits to how much wind energy can be extracted before there are dire consequences.
The warm pools producing the Hadley cells that drive air circulation convert thermalised sunlight at a Carnot efficiency of 19% to produce mechanical power of 55W/m^2. Only 12% of the ocean area reaches this power limit. So the main engines driving the dominant air circulations have a limited output.
And the crazy part is that no wind turbine operating in Queensland will reduce global coal consumption. It just shifts the coal consumption to China where all the junk gets made by burning vast amounts of coal. And the cycle needs to e repeated every 20 years. The turbine structures and foundations have a limited fatigue life so none of that can be reused. Over generations, these wind factories will leave massive concrete blocks embedded in the ground that effectively sterilise the ground from other activities.
So putting in the Maintenace roads into these remote and rugged areas is all on the up and up? Would think getting repair teams in and out might be a trick if those aren’t kept up.
With all these roads in back country, the ATV crowd will descend in droves to explore this wilderness area.
And then double or triple it.
Around 30% of the primary energy consumption in Australia is for transport and the percentage would be similar for greater in Queensland.
There are over 4 million vehicles registered in Queensland many clocking up high or very high annual kms or miles.
At the same time coal coke and briquettes were by far Queensland’s most valuable commodity export category making up roughly half of the total as well as a major source of government revenue through royalties and a major employer.
Like the federal and other state governments the current government of Queensland have lost their minds.
The cognitive dissonance is palpable by the green climate sycophants. You can continue to export coal for other countries to burn it, but we destroy our own coal fired energy generation. That apparently to the vacuum of intellect that is the green coalition is ‘Climate Action’ – Laughable.
In exactly what way is this unprecedented wind development “renewable”? They keep using that word. It doesn’t mean what they think it means…
They also use the words “free”, “sustainable”, and “cheapest”
It’s quite renewable. The wind stops. The electricity stops. The wind starts up again and electric generation is renewed.
renew, v.: resume (an activity) after an interruption.
renewable, adj,: capable of being renewed.
Now, in the Climate Syndicate dictionary:
renewable, not depleted when used.
Sunlight not reaching the soil or rocks because of an intervening solar array IS depleted when used.
Wind pushing the turbine blades is depleted when used. Lateral kinetic energy is converted to angular motion to drive the generator. Taking the kinetic energy out of the air is depletion.
Control the language, control the ideas. K. Marx
I posted this link in a prior story. I’ll do it again here.
This is the latest – June 2024 – Integrated System Plan from the Australian Energy Market Operator (A.E.M.O.). In this document you will see the proposed Optimal Development Path (ODP) – via a ‘Step Change Scenario’. This pathway ends at net-zero, with a ‘fully de-carbonized’ Australian nation’, facilitated by ultimately 100% renewable generation of electrical power.
You can download the document here >> AEMO ISP
Here is a summary from the document
———————————
Under the forecasts for the Step Change scenario, the ODP calls for investment that would:
Triple grid-scale variable renewable energy (VRE) by 2030, and increase it six-fold by 2050. –
About 6 GW of capacity would need to be added every year, compared to the current rate of around 3 to 4 GW. Wind would dominate installations through to 2030, complementing installations of rooftop solar systems, and by 2050 grid-scale solar capacity would be 58 GW and wind 69 GW.
Focus grid-scale generation in Renewable Energy Zones — REZs, Selected to access quality renewable resources, existing and planned transmission, and a skilled workforce. REZs will support better grid reliability and security; reduce transmission, connection and operation costs for individual assets; and promote regional expertise and employment at scale.
Almost quadruple the firming capacity from sources alternative to coal that can respond to a dispatch signal, using grid-scale batteries, pumped hydro and other hydro, coordinated consumer energy resources as VPPs, and gas-powered generation. This includes 49 GW/ 646 gigawatt hours (GWh) of dispatchable storage, as well as 15 GW of flexible gas.
Support a forecast four-fold increase in rooftop solar capacity reaching 72 GW by 2050,
highlighting the impactful role of consumer energy resources in the energy transition.
Leverage system security services and operational approaches to ensure that the National Electricity Market – NEM – stays reliable and secure even as the renewable share of generation approaches 100%, as identified in AEMO’s Engineering Roadmap to 100% Renewables
————————————–
I also draw your attention to page 15 of the document. Here you will see a map of the proposed REZ’s & associated transmission infrastructure across the eastern states of the continent, from Tasmania to Nth Queensland.
Of course it doesn’t as electricity accounts for only around 25% of primary energy consumption, even if what is proposed were remotely possible.
Their cost-benefit analysis is full of gobbledygook and acronyms, one looks particularly ominous, DSP, as in:
Costs associated with demand reduction due to changes in voluntary load curtailment (through demand side participation (DSP), and involuntary load shedding costs, valued at the value of customer reliability.
Whatever all that means.
Absolutely Chris
These modelled scenarios and pathways to a ‘de-carbonized nation are pipedreams.
Indeed, it is interesting, to achieve their net-zero fantasy businesses and consumers are included in ‘the mix’ with respect to both mandated electrification of appliances and transport, load ‘harmonization’ and the expectation of >70% of households running a VPP Virtual Power Plant. Without these consumer and business inputs to the grid, even more wind and solar factories are required on top of what is already proposed in the current REZ’s outlined in the ISP.
Unfortunately for the renewables enthusiasts the identified risk of ‘social license’ is proving to be a much bigger problem than anticipated. Well, colour me surprised, you mean all the uneducated deplorables don’t want all this unnecessary renewable wind &solar factories, storage and transmission smeared all over the east of the country & in the oceans! Correlating to that observation, is the absence of the prior proposed offshore wind factories off the coast of NSW in the current ISP? These have been included in prior ISP’s.
Add to that the federal opposition’s introduction of nuclear power into Australia’s energy future, it’s not good news for the solar/wind and battery factory enthusiasts.
Central planning, what could possibly go wrong!
I recommend all to read this document closely to see exactly what is being proposed.
Central planning is at the core of Socialism.
Fragmenting society into warring factions is at the core of Identity Socialism.
Unless you get rid of all life forms, no area can be fully decarbonized.
Respiration emits CO2.
Decay emits CO2.
This deliberately ignores the inorganics that also emit CO2 under various conditions.