This solar mirror with thermal storage idea has already been tried in the USA and didn't go all that well.

It instantly cooks any birds that fly near the center!!!  There is massive maintenance of cleaning the dust off the solar mirrors.

And what use is a tiny 150MW with a full load of some 3000MW ? Just a piddle in the pond!!!!

So the defunct technically obtuse SA Labor Govt is throwing more good money after bad with yet another white elephant.

And their already highest electricity prices in the world will go up thru the stratosphere. SA is indeed the laughing stock of the whole world. The ignominy of their technical catastrophe should turn Australians off Labor for ever.

The con merchants are queuing up to try to sell the absurd SA "govt" some more white elephants!!!

The SA election should be rather amusing especially if there is a blackout!!!!




World's Biggest Solar Thermal Power Plant Just Got Approved in Australia. It's so beautiful!
DAVID NIELD 16 AUG 2017

http://www.sciencealert.com/images/articles/processed/crescent-dunes-solar_1024.jpg
Crescent Dunes near Las Vegas, the blueprint for the new plant. Credit: Solar Reserve

The onward march of renewables continues: an Australian state government has greenlit the biggest solar thermal power plant of its kind in the world, a 150-megawatt structure set to be built in Port Augusta in South Australia.

As well as providing around 650 construction jobs for local workers, the plant will provide all the electricity needs for the state government, with some to spare – and it should help to make solar energy even more affordable in the future.

Work on the AU$650 million (US$510 million) plant is getting underway next year and is slated to be completed in 2020, adding to Australia's growing list of impressive renewable energy projects that already cover solar and tidal.

"The significance of solar thermal generation lies in its ability to provide energy virtually on demand through the use of thermal energy storage to store heat for running the power turbines," says sustainable energy engineering professor Wasim Saman, from the University of South Australia.

"This is a substantially more economical way of storing energy than using batteries."

Solar photovoltaic plants convert sunlight directly into electricity, so they need batteries to store excess power for when the Sun isn't shining; solar thermal plants, meanwhile, use mirrors to concentrate the sunlight into a heating system.

A variety of heating systems are in use, but In this case, molten salt will be heated up – a more economical storage option than batteries – which is then used to boil water, spin a steam turbine, and generate electricity when required.

The developers of the Port Augusta plant say it can continue to generate power at full load for up to 8 hours after the Sun's gone down.


The Crescent Dunes plant in Nevada will act as the blueprint for the one in Port Augusta, as it was built by the same contractor, Solar Reserve. That site has a 110-megawatt capacity.

Renewable energy sources now account for more than 40 percent of the electricity generated in South Australia, and as solar becomes a more stable and reliable provider of energy, that in turn pushes prices lower.

Importantly, the cost of the new plant is well below the estimated cost of a new coal-fired power station, giving the government another reason to back renewables. The cost-per-megawatt of the new plant works out about the same as wind power and solar photovoltaic plants.

But engineering researcher Fellow Matthew Stocks, from the Australian National University, says we still have "lots to learn" about how solar thermal technologies can fit into an electric grid system.

"One of the big challenges for solar thermal as a storage tool is that it can only store heat," says Stocks. "If there is an excess of electricity in the system because the wind is blowing strong, it cannot efficiently use it to store electrical power to shift the energy to times of shortage, unlike batteries and pumped hydro."

Authorities say 50 full-time workers will be required to operate the plant, using similar skills to those needed to run a coal or gas station. That will encourage workers laid off after the region's coal-fired power station was closed down last year.


Solar thermal has been backed to the tune of AU$110m ($86m) of equity provided by the federal government.

And as renewables become more and more important to our power grids, expect to see this huge solar thermal plant eventually get eclipsed by a bigger one.

"This is first large scale application of solar thermal generation in Australia which has been operating successfully in Europe, USA and Africa," says Saman.

"While this technology is perhaps a decade behind solar PV generation, many future world energy forecasts include a considerable proportion of this technology in tomorrow's energy mix."

http://www.sciencealert.com/the-world-s-biggest-solar-thermal-power-plant-is-being-built-in-south-australia

Poor Liar is just writhing in shame as labor show her mob the pathway to the future. ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D

This Solar thermal would have to be the ultimate hypocrisy of the evil Greenies as they instantly cook birds.

Nearly as bad as the bird chopping windymills!!!




Horror at the world's largest solar farm days after it opens as it is revealed panels are SCORCHING birds that fly over them
By Daily Mail Reporter Published: 18:16 +11:00, 16 February 2014 | Updated: 01:05 +11:00, 18 February 2014

The Ivanpah Solar Electric Generating System, the world's largest solar plant of its kind, recently switched on
The plants is located on five square miles of the Mojave Desert, near the California / Nevada border
State energy officials have released photos of bird with singed feathers from flying into the hot 'thermal flux' around the towers, which can reach 1,000 degrees Fahrenheit
The plant is made up of three generating units surrounded by more than 300,000 reflecting mirrors
At full power it produces enough electricity for 140,000 homes but is still attracting controversy over environment


Environmentalists have hit out at a giant new solar farm in the Mojave Desert as mounting evidence reveals birds flying through the extremely hot 'thermal flux' surrounding the towers are being scorched.

After years of regulatory tangles around the impact on desert wildlife, the Ivanpah Solar Electric Generating System opened on Thursday but environmental groups say the nearly 350,000 gigantic mirrors are generating 1000 degree Fahrenheit temperatures which are killing and singeing birds.

According to compliance documents released by developer BrightSource Energy last year, dozens of birds were found injured at the site during the building stage.

State and federal regulators are currently conducting a two-year study of the Ivanpah plant's effects on birds, with environmental groups questioning the the value of cleaner power when native wildlife is being killed or injured.

http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2014/02/16/article-2560494-1B890C5200000578-469_964x718.jpg
'Tower-power': Heat emanating from the Ivanpah Solar Electric Generating System, the world's largest solar farm of its kind, has allegedly killed and injured dozens of birds and other wildlife in the Mojave desert


http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2014/02/16/article-2560494-1B890C5600000578-57_964x576.jpg
Injured wildlife: Environmentalists say there is growing evidence the technology is scorching birds that fly through the intense heat surrounding the towers, which can reach 1,000 degrees Fahrenheit


Read the rest of this distressing environment vandalism here

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2560494/Worlds-largest-solar-farm-SCORCHING-BIRDS-fly-it.html#ixzz4pxE58A3N

Wow, how desperate will Liar get in befence of this incompetent coalition "ship of fools". ;D ;D ;D ;D

macman wrote on Aug 17^th, 2017 at 7:05am:

Poor Liar is just writhing in shame as labor show her mob the pathway to the future. ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D

Mal has renewables on his roof  ;D

And the Big Mac doesn't even understand what the topic is about. But then what's new ?

And LW sitting on his armchair waving the arms about has a pot shot at the passing parade and misses as usual.

And the model for SA's next white elephant has already conked out.




Original solar thermal plant shut down for eight months
David Washington Adelaide Wednesday August 16, 2017

The company which will build a giant solar thermal power plant near Port Augusta has experienced an eight-month outage at its similar facility in the US - the first to use its "molten salt" technology at such a scale.

https://indaily.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/large-1-768x455.jpg
SolarReserve's Crescent Dunes solar thermal plant was shut down for eight months. Photo: SolarReserve

Premier Jay Weatherill announced this week that California company SolarReserve would fund and build a $650 million solar thermal plant for the state, with the backing of a Federal Government concessional loan and a 20-year contract to supply the State Government’s power needs.

The mainstream electricity generation industry has warned that the technology is relatively new and may face issues in its initial phase, but SolarReserve insists it has learned the lessons from the troubles at its Nevada plant.
Advertisement

US media has reported that SolarReserve’s $1 billion Crescent Dunes facility in Nevada went offline last October and only started generating electricity again late last month due to a structural fault.

Crescent Dunes is touted by SolarReserve as “the first utility-scale facility in the world to feature advanced molten salt power tower energy storage capabilities”.

The same technology, with a larger output, is planned for a site 30km north of Port Augusta.

The technology uses thousands of billboard sized mirrors to concentrate sunlight on to a central receiver at the top of a 220-metre high tower. That process heats molten salt to 565 degrees celsius with the heat used to generate steam, drive a turbine and produce 150 megawatts of electricity, even when the sun doesn’t shine.

The 110MW Crescent Dunes facility started generating power commercially in 2015, but had to shut down in October last year, due to a leak in a tank that holds the molten salt.

According to the Las Vegas Review-Journal, the company played down the problem in December, insisting the plant would be back online and operating at full capacity in January.

Instead, the facility remained offline for another six months.

SolarReserve’s vice president of global communications, Mary Grikas, confirmed to InDaily that the outage was caused by a leak in one of the salt tanks.

She said the lessons from Crescent Dunes would be applied to the 150MW Port Augusta project.

“The leak was due to a construction defect and was repaired with measures taken to mitigate recurrence,” she said.

“The project is back in operation, delivering energy to the grid, utilizing our storage technology to meet high demand periods that extend after dark.

“The Crescent Dunes facility has provided the SolarReserve team with real-world know-how that has led to innovations toward higher efficiency and performance, while simultaneously reducing capital cost – which will be applied to our Aurora project in South Australia.”

South Australian Energy Minister Tom Koutsantonis said the Government was aware of the Crescent Dunes shutdown and he was confident the company would learn from the problems.

“This was a construction execution issue and had nothing to do with the technology or the design of the plant,” he told InDaily.

“It also had no impact on the Crescent Dunes’ power supply contract.

“The State Government is confident in Solar Reserve’s learnings from that project and the measures put in place to prevent it happening again.”

Matthew Warren, the chief executive of the Australian Energy Council which represents major electricity businesses, said he welcomed low emissions technology but warned solar thermal was still relatively new.

“We need to remember this technology is still developmental,” Warren told InDaily.

“It may not be operating all the time as it beds down, and it’s still a relatively small station in a large grid.”

https://indaily.com.au/news/2017/08/16/original-solar-thermal-plant-shut-eight-months/

Geez this has set the Lefties scurrying about somethin' awful!!! Paw soals.

Is it a fair guess that the SA solar thermal white elephant will spend more time off than on ?

Who will clear the dead cooked birds away ? The lying hypocrite Greenies ?




Salt leak shuts down Crescent Dunes Concentrated Solar Power plant

A small leak in a tank filled with molten salt has shut down a $1 billion solar plant in Central Nevada touted for its ability to generate electricity day or night.

The Crescent Dunes Solar Energy Plant outside Tonopah, 225 miles northwest of Las Vegas, has been offline since late October and is expected to remain so until January.

The plant’s owner and operator, Santa Monica, California-based SolarReserve, played down the problem, which occurred less than a year after the facility began generating power.

“There really isn’t much of a story here,” company spokeswoman Mary Grikas said in an email Friday. “Dealing with issues such as these are typical in any newly constructed power plant project (or any new industrial project, for that matter).”

http://en.cspplaza.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/223.jpg
Crescent Dunes uses more than 10,000 mirrored heliostats, each with the square footage of a small house, to focus sunlight on a 640-foot-tall central tower and heat the molten salt inside to more than 1,000 degrees. The molten salt is then used to boil water, creating steam that drives generators to produce power day or night.

SolarReserve says its patented storage system can deliver electricity on demand like a traditional coal or natural gas power plant but with zero emissions, little water use and no hazardous waste.

The leak was discovered along a welded seam in the tank where the super heated salt is stored. There was no significant spill associated with the leak, just “a small amount of salt visible around the skirting of the … tank,” Grikas said.

She said the repairs are “not significant,” but they are time-consuming because the tank must first be drained and cooled down.

“Luckily, December is our month for scheduled plant maintenance, and we had planned a shutdown in December to prepare for 2017 operations,” Grikas said.

The 1,600-acre solar array built on public land over four years entered commercial operation in November 2015, when it began delivering electricity to NV Energy, its sole customer under a 25-year power-purchase agreement.

Grikas said Crescent Dunes has spent the past year gradually ramping up to its full, 500,000-megawatt-hours of annual power delivery, something that was expected to happen in January 2017. “We’re still on track for that,” she said.

The plant is the first of its kind in the world, and it took significantly longer to construct than company officials initially predicted. It was backed by $737 million in federal loan guarantees.

The small leak that shut the facility was discovered just days after SolarReserve CEO Kevin Smith, U.S. Sen. Dean Heller, R-Nev., and Deputy Energy Secretary Elizabeth Sherwood-Randall gathered at Crescent Dunes on Oct. 11 to unveil plans for as many as 10 more of the solar arrays in Nevada.

That $5 billion endeavor, known as project Sandstone, would rank as the world’s largest solar energy facility with an output of 1,500 to 2,000 megawatts. That’s enough to supply about a million homes, putting it on par with a nuclear power plant or the Hoover Dam.

SolarReserve has not announced exactly where it hopes to build the 16,000-acre project, but in October Smith said two potential sites, both on federal land in Nye County, had been identified.

Construction probably won’t start for another two or three years, Smith said. When it does, he said, the solar arrays and towers will be built one or two at a time, creating about 3,000 jobs over seven years or so.

Source:http://www.reviewjournal.com

http://helioscsp.com/salt-leak-shuts-down-crescent-dunes-concentrated-solar-power-plant/

The smartest thing the coalition should do is start pork barrelling Barnaby's electorate in the hopes of being re-elected after being kicked out of parliament.

Hmmm... this post seems bit different to the thread... Oh well, nothing special - seems the norm for lobster mobster supporters.

And distant rumbles are faintly heard issuing from the abandoned derelict catacombs of the dead and dying world of Lefty political correctness.

But I digress, so back to the topic of SA Labor "Govt" white elephants.

The solar furnace idea is already being abandoned as too complex and difficult to maintain and it is more expensive than straight solar panels.

So the technically obtuse SA Labor "Govt" has been flogged outdated technology in other words just another white elephant!!!!

Sort of reminds one of Labor's other technical disaster the NeverBuiltNetwork.

It is no surprise that SA is the laughing stock of the whole world.




A Huge Solar Plant Caught on Fire, and That’s the Least of Its Problems
Sarah Zhang science  05.23.16 07:00 am

https://media.wired.com/photos/5926f9ecf3e2356fd800b115/master/w_582,c_limit/13235190_1737179096496020_1070227433710732891_o-crop.jpg
San Bernardino County Fire Department

*Update: On Wednesday, May 25, Ivanpah's operator, NRG energy, confirmed the fire was indeed caused by mirrors that did not track the sun properly, which focused sunlight onto the wrong part of the tower. NRG spokesperson David Knox estimates the plant would be back online within three weeks. *

Ivanpah, the world’s largest solar plant, is a glittering sea of mirrors, concentrating sunlight into three glowing towers. It is a futuristic vision rising out of the Mojave desert. But from the day the plant opened for business in 2014, critics have said the technology at Ivanpah is outdated and too finicky to maintain.

The latest problem? A fire at one of the plant’s three towers on Thursday, which left metal pipes scorched and melted. As the plant dealt with engineering hiccups, Ivanpah initially struggled to fulfill its electricity contract, and it would have had to shut down if the California Public Utilities Commission didn’t throw it a bone this past March. “Ivanpah has been such a mess,” says Adam Schultz, program manager at the UC Davis Energy Institute and former analyst for the CPUC. “If [the fire] knocks them offline, it’s going to further dig them in.” On top of the technical challenges, the plant has had to deal with PR headaches like reports of scorched birds and blinded pilots from its mirrors.

Ivanpah’s biggest problem, though, is hard economics. When the plant was just a proposal in 2007, the cost of electricity made using Ivanpah’s concentrated solar power was roughly the same as that from photovoltaic solar panels. Since then, the cost of electricity from photovoltaic solar panels has plummeted to 6 cents per kilowatt-hour (compared to 15 to 20 cents for concentrated solar power) as materials have gotten cheaper. “You’re not going to see the same thing with concentrated solar power plants because it’s mostly just a big steel and glass project,” says Schultz. It can only get so much cheaper.

Photovoltaic solar systems also have the advantage of scaling up or down easily. You can have one panel on your roof or the airport can have 100, and electricity can be made where it's used. But for concentrated solar power plants, you need a huge tract of empty land. Ivanpah has 173,500 garage door-sized sets of mirrors spread over 3,500 acres. Each mirror has a motor controlled by a computer, which angles the reflective surface to track the location of the sun.

All those moving parts make Ivanpah more challenging to maintain than static solar panels. There’s the 173,500 sets of moving mirrors, and then there’s also the towers, where the concentrated sunlight superheats steam to generate electricity—each with their complicated plumbing systems. “The sheer size of these plants make it easy to overlook one little flaw,” says Tyler Ogden, an analyst at Lux Research.

The fire department suggested the fire on Thursday was the result of misaligned mirrors that concentrated their death ray on the wrong part of the tower. David Knox, a spokesperson for Ivanpah’s operator, NRG Energy, said it was still too early to tell the cause of the fire. “We are assessing the damage and developing a repair plan,” says Knox.

https://media.wired.com/photos/5926f9eef3e2356fd800b117/master/w_289,c_limit/AP_16141036577647.jpg
San Bernardino County Fire Department/AP

Theoretically, concentrated solar power’s advantage is its ability to smooth out energy production. Solar panels produce energy when the sun is shining, and they’re basically roof decorations when they’re not. At Ivanpah, the water in the towers take time to get to electricity-producing temperatures in the morning, but the towers can continue to produce electricity into the early evening—when electricity consumption is coming off its peak. Plants elsewhere, like Crescent Dunes Solar Energy Project in Nevada, have mirrors that concentrate energy into tanks of molten salt instead of water, which can store the energy much longer.

In the US, for now, photovoltaic power is winning out. No one is looking to build more concentrated solar power plants here. But a huge concentrated solar power plant is going up in Morocco, and smaller scale installations in the US have used a curved mirror configuration to generate heat but not electricity. Knox says there may yet be uses for concentrated solar power, and the lessons learned at Ivanpah will chart the path forward. That’s unless those lessons end up being cautionary ones.

[url]https://www.wired.com/2016/05/huge-solar-plant-c

The technically obtuse SA Labor "Govt" is certainly a soft touch for the floggers of white elephants.




Obama-Backed Solar Plant Could Be Shut Down For Not Producing Enough Energy
Michael Bastasch 4:35 PM 03/17/2016

https://timeecocentric.files.wordpress.com/2013/06/20130323_zaf_w66_011adjusted.jpg
Ivanpah solar plant

California regulators may force a massive solar thermal power plant in the Mojave Desert to shut down after years of under-producing electricity — not to mention the plant was blinding pilots flying over the area and incinerating birds.

The Ivanpah solar plant could be shut down if state regulators don’t give it more time to meet electricity production promises it made as part of its power purchase agreements with utilities, according to The Wall Street Journal.

Ivanpah, which got a $1.6 billion loan guarantee from the Obama administration, only produced a fraction of the power state regulators expected it would. The plant only generated 45 percent of expected power in 2014 and only 68 percent in 2015, according to government data.

And it does all this at a cost of $200 per megawatt hour — nearly six times the cost of electricity from natural gas-fired power plants. Interestingly enough, Ivanpah uses natural gas to supplement its solar production.

These disappointing results at high prices could be the solar plant’s undoing. California Energy Commission regulators hoped the plant would help the state get 33 percent of its electricity from green sources, but now the plant could be shut down for not meeting its production promises.

Ivanpah — which is owned by BrightSource Energy, NRG Energy and Google — uses more than 170,000 large mirrors, or heliostats, to reflect sunlight towards water boilers set atop 450-foot towers that create steam to turn giant turbines and generate electricity.

The plant was financed by $1.6 billion in loan guarantees from the Department of Energy in 2011. When the solar plant opened in 2014, it was hailed as a great achievement by Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz.

“This project speaks for itself,” Moniz said when the project went online in early 2014. “Just look at the 170,000 shining heliostat mirrors and the three towers that would dwarf the Statue of Liberty.”

“Ivanpah is the largest solar thermal energy facility in the world with 392 MW of capacity — meaning it can produce enough renewable electricity to power nearly 100,000 homes,” Moniz said.

Moniz’s optimism aside, the project faced huge problems from the beginning. NRG Energy asked the federal government for a $539 million federal grant to help pay off the $1.6 billion loan it got from the Energy Department.

NRG Energy said the plant had only produced about one-quarter of its expected output in the months after it opened. The company needed an infusion of cash to help keep the project afloat.

That was only the beginning of the company’s problems. Environmentalists quickly attacked the project for killing thousands of birds since it opened. Many birds were incinerated by the intense heat being reflected off Ivanpah’s heliostats.

The Associated Press cited statistics presented by environmentalists in 2014 that “about a thousand… to 28,000” birds are incinerated by Ivanpah’s heliostats every year.

“Forensic Lab staff observed a falcon or falcon-like bird with a plume of smoke arising from the tail as it passed through the flux field,” according to a U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service report from 2014.

“Immediately after encountering the flux, the bird exhibited a controlled loss of stability and altitude but was able to cross the perimeter fence before landing,” FWS reported.

Pilots have also reported seeing a “nearly blinding” glare emanating from Ivanpah while flying over the solar plant. The Sandia National Laboratory reported in 2014 Ivanpah was “sufficient to cause significant ocular impact (potential for after-image) up to a distance of ~6 miles.”

“At distances greater than ~6 miles (10 km), a low potential for after-image exists from the heliostat glare as a result of the reduced retinal irradiance and subtended angles,” Sandia reported. “It should be noted that two of the authors who were in the helicopter qualitatively confirmed these results after observing the glare. The pilot acknowledged that the glare was very bright, but he also stated that it did not impair his flying ability since he was aware of the glare and avoided looking in that direction when flying over [Ivanpah].”

Update: California regulators announced Thursday that Ivanpah would have until the end of July to produce more power or face shut down.

http://dailycaller.com/2016/03/17/obama-backed-solar-plant-could-be-shut-down-for-not-producing-enough-energy/

juliar wrote on Aug 17^th, 2017 at 11:45am:

The technically obtuse SA Labor "Govt" is certainly a soft touch for the floggers of white elephants. California regulators may force a massive solar thermal power plant in the Mojave Desert to shut down after years of under-producing electricity — not to mention the plant was blinding pilots flying over the area and incinerating birds. The Ivanpah solar plant could be shut down if state regulators don’t give it more time to meet electricity production promises it made as part of its power purchase agreements with utilities, according to The Wall Street Journal. Ivanpah, which got a $1.6 billion loan guarantee from the Obama administration, only produced a fraction of the power state regulators expected it would. The plant only generated 45 percent of expected power in 2014 and only 68 percent in 2015, according to government data. And it does all this at a cost of $200 per megawatt hour — nearly six times the cost of electricity from natural gas-fired power plants. Interestingly enough, Ivanpah uses natural gas to supplement its solar production.

Just like the one the socialists want for SA.

Yeah good luck with that.  :) :)

juliar wrote on Aug 17^th, 2017 at 7:01am:

The onward march of renewables continues: an Australian state government has greenlit the biggest solar thermal power plant of its kind in the world, a 150-megawatt structure set to be built in Port Augusta in South Australia. As well as providing around 650 construction jobs for local workers, the plant will provide all the electricity needs for the state government, with some to spare – and it should help to make solar energy even more affordable in the future.

Oh. Only for the state government. What about all the power for the workers?

The full size 300Mw will only occupy 800 Hectares.

https://www.aussierenewables.com.au/directory/bungala-solar-project-307.html

lee wrote on Aug 17^th, 2017 at 12:13pm:

The full size 300Mw will only occupy 800 Hectares. https://www.aussierenewables.com.au/directory/bungala-solar-project-307.html

8 sq kilometres: so what! This is Australia buddy  ;D

Gosh, you can almost hear the Lefties' squabbling above the sound of the white elephants trumpeting in SA.

What would be absolutely hilarious if there is a blackout during the SA state election!!!!!!

Got a white elephant to flog ? A TESLA perpetual motion generator ? Then go to SA - they will buy anything.

SA is certainly the laughing stock of the whole world.

juliar wrote on Aug 17^th, 2017 at 5:33pm:

Gosh, you can almost hear the Lefties' squabbling above the sound of the white elephants trumpeting in SA. What would be absolutely hilarious if there is a blackout during the SA state election!!!!!! Got a white elephant to flog ? A TESLA perpetual motion generator ? Then go to SA - they will buy anything. SA is certainly the laughing stock of the whole world.

Juliar will always be ashamed of the capital "L"iberal party  :D

Solar thermal is a con, i see the dopey dim wits are ignoring all the problems with it.

google.com.au/search?source=hp&q=ivanpah+solar+plant+problems

Well it took a while for firearms to out perform bows and arrows

Constant Improvement of system is the industrial revolution in a nutshell!

juliar wrote on Aug 17^th, 2017 at 7:01am:

[b][i] And what use is a tiny 150MW with a full load of some 3000MW ? Just a piddle in the pond!!!!

This is the dumbest argument I have ever seen. By that logic there is no point building any power plants unless they are large enough to cover total demand.

Or building any railways unless they connect you directly to any destination you want to get too...

The utter absurdity of the gross incompetence of the SA Labor "govt" disaster is seen in their buying diesel generators to prop up their shaky wobbly unstable electricity network mess that is permanently on the verge of collapse.



South Australian Labor locks in $111m diesel power fix
MICHAEL OWEN SA Bureau Chief Adelaide The Australian 2:53PM August 12, 2017

http://wa2.www.skynews.com.au/content/dam/skynews/news/politics/sa/2017/08/09/skynews_818393524.jpg/_jcr_content/renditions/skynews.img.600.372.jpeg
South Australia Labor Premier Jay Weatherill the Master of Disaster.

Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull says South Australia’s energy plan id an “experiment” that should have been conducted privately.

Mr Turnbull today addressed the South Australian Liberal Party ahead of a state election in March, where energy will be a hot-button issue.

He told the annual meeting that the plan was based on ideology and idiocy.

“You really have in South Australia, of course, been subjected to an experiment by (Premier) Jay Weatherill. People really should conduct these experiments, as dangerous as that, privately somewhere in expert company rather than inflicting it on an entire state,” the prime minister said.

Mr Turnbull said Labor’s approach to energy was a combination of ideology and politics, compared to the Liberal focus on economic and engineering. “But on reflection, I think I’ve been too kind to them. It’s actually ideology and idiocy in equal measures,” he added.

Meanwhile, the Weatherill government is finalising contracts worth more than $111 million for diesel generators to prevent blackouts this summer.

While electricity companies believe the best way to cut prices is increasing supply, the federal government is hoping tough ­action against retailers if they fail to give consumers greater control over their power bills will provide some short-term relief.

South Australia’s Labor government yesterday confirmed it would spend $111.5m as part of a $550m go-it-alone energy plan on leasing hybrid generators to ensure the lights stay on before voters go to the polls.

Nine generators, currently being shipped from Europe to South Australia, will run on diesel at two sites to provide up to 276 megawatts of power for the next two summers. They will then be moved to one site and be switched to gas as a permanent power plant.

A parliamentary committee inquiring into last year’s statewide blackout yesterday was told an “option to buy” lease for the generators was in place at 13 months.

During that period, $111.5m would be spent as “establishment costs ... to have the temporary generation in place”.

Energy Plan Implementation executive director Sam Crafter said after the 13-month period, there was an option to extend the lease for a further 12 months. There also was an option to walk away at the end of 25 months.

“The plan at the moment is the purchase option at 13 months, and have them in place at a permanent location post the second summer, so they will be up and running,” Mr Crafter said.

“All of the planning work is ­beginning to achieve that outcome. But in the nature of the contract there is optionality that you go through a second lease ­period and not buy them.”

On Thursday, Mr Crafter and other power executives told parliament’s public works committee the generators would use 80,000 litres of diesel an hour.

Protocols of when and how to turn the generators on were still being discussed by the Australian Energy Market Operator and privately owned electricity distribution company SA Power Networks, but Mr Crafter said the objective of the generators was to prevent load shedding rather than reducing the cost of power.

South Australian Opposition Leader Steven Marshall said the $111m cost of leasing “dirty” diesel generators for just 13 months was an appalling waste of money.

“Had Jay Weatherill kept the Port Augusta power station operating, South Australian taxpayers’ would have saved $100m in a single year,” he said.

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/mining-energy/south-australian-labor-locks-in-111m-diesel-power-fix/news-story/6d7f69c584dc20ae0d91aba63b12c942

COMMENTS

rog 4 DAYS AGO
SA you are the laughing stock of the country!  I Just hope you implode before the other states follow you down the gurgler!

Roger 4 DAYS AGO
Resign your commision, Weatherill. Labor came to power before fifteen year old South Australians were even born. It's time for a change.

daniel 4 DAYS AGO
What will be the CO2 emissions of those diesel generators? 

Gerard 4 DAYS AGO
@daniel Particulates are the problem with diesel. CO2 is plant food.

Stuart 4 DAYS AGO
The problem right around this country is that unqualified people are making decisions on high impact or high cost engineering.  Whether that be transport, power or telecommunications.  It seems as though it is more important to make the science fit in with policy rather than have policy respond to scientific reality.

Jay Weatherill is a prime example that he has surrounded himself with staff that are so intent in regulatory change  that they have failed to examine the science that will make the systems work.  Take the SA power problem, if Jay had been able to see  the truth, that the closing rather than upgrading to the new coal technology.

Raymond 5 DAYS AGO
If you must travel within SA, a personal generator would be an ideal accessory!

Moriaty wrote on Aug 17^th, 2017 at 8:35pm:

juliar wrote on Aug 17th, 2017 at 7:01am: [b][i] And what use is a tiny 150MW with a full load of some 3000MW ? Just a piddle in the pond!!!! This is the dumbest argument I have ever seen. By that logic there is no point building any power plants unless they are large enough to cover total demand. Or building any railways unless they connect you directly to any destination you want to get too...

That's our juliar  ;D

It is easy to see why I have The GreenyTrainWreck on IGNORE.

With Hazelwood out of action I wonder if the Vic govt should do something similar?

Real answer is a lot more renewables with nuclear power as the non–intermittent power source. Renationalising the privatised parts of the grid and bringing them back up to specification would also be good.

Never believe anything a Lefty or Greeny says. They make it up as they go.

But I digress so back to the TOPIC.



New sauce of energy for SA - hamster wheel with a mini-generator ?

And this is all paid for by Western Australian GST. It's time to build a wall. A great big wall.

South Australians' didn't get the government they deserved because the SA gerrymander is worse than Qld's under Joe Bjekle Petersen.
The electoral boundaries have bee tightened recently but if the Libs can win in 2018 they will smartly redesign the political landscape.
Walking softly is not an option.  SA needs a major overhaul and the Libs need to find the cohones to do it.
If they squb it Cory Bernardi's Famiy First-Australian Conservatives merger will triumph .... and that is curtains for Turnbull and the Libs Federally !!

Anyone who votes for Weatherill and Labor next election deserves the high electricity prices and continual blackouts heading their way.

The trouble is the opposition is so hopeless. The state is full of olds, welfare recipients and unemployed who do you reckon they will vote for? Mate the state is stuffed for about the next 20 years. Before there can be a renaissance there has to be ground zero - not there yet but on the way.

You could say that about Mal Hombre's govt policy as well.
They say that they want to 'marry' climate ideology with the reality of coal-fired plants. A marriage that transcends the bounds of any rational behavior.
Their disengenuous knows no normal bounds.

Jay is safe, the coal fired 520 MW Northern Power station was blown up & now the Glenside Mental Hospital is now also in the demolition phase.   Everyone that drives past it will note the wreckers have moved in there too.  No spare beds there anymore!

Jay Weatherill is spending $111,000,000 on fixing electricity problems facing his state. The COALies are spending $122,000,000 on a non binding survey to calm the infighting of their party. Who is the bigger fraud?

Jay Weatherill is like the guy drilling holes in the hull of the Titanic - at least he is doing something.

By the way John I will give you a tip shares in coal mining companies in Aust. Are on the way up. Soon as the 122 coal fired power plants under construction in India are commissioned and the other hundred or so in China are finished Aussie coal will be a big export (still)).

What this all boils down to is that Whatadill  is going to build base load power stations after all - just choosing the most expensive and inefficient way to do it, using the wrong fuel.  He's got stacks of the right fuel in his own back yard.

Yes, wind energy, provided free of charge - care of Mother Nature. He's chosen to harness some of it too.

We're all still waiting on Josh Frydenberg to commit to a clean energy target to provide some certainty for electricity investment so a whole lot more capacity can be built.

Diesel is just a stop gap measure until the federal government gets it's act together on climate and energy policy.

A stop gap measure - yep that sounds like SA Build half a freeway to save money then build the next half at three times the cost of the first half.

It was the carbon tax that set the whole thing in motion. Frydenberg is trying to clean up the mess left by the previous incompetent government but has no way of getting anything useful through the senate.

As for Weatherill, he is taking the easiest way out to ensure the pending state election is not about energy.

Government in this country has lost all vision regardless of their political colour.

We are on a downhill slope and there is no stopping us from a pending mess we deserve.

juliar wrote on Aug 17^th, 2017 at 11:58pm:

It is easy to see why I have The GreenyTrainWreck on IGNORE.

juliar you couldn't ignore me if you tried!

juliar wrote on Aug 18^th, 2017 at 12:27am:

Never believe anything a Lefty or Greeny says. They make it up as they go.

Never talk to a libbo voter or they will start telling you that man is going to the moon to get moonrock to create fusion so therefore nothing matters because it will all be solved when man goes to the moon and starts mining moonrock to create fusion...

juliar wrote on Aug 18^th, 2017 at 12:27am:

But I digress so back to the TOPIC. New sauce of energy for SA - hamster wheel with a mini-generator ?

Might be time to invest in a new dictionary....

Or the source of your sauce may not be as obvious...

Typical Labour education victim...  :o

Too far below the Tropic of Capricorn...

MoreArty,

displays the common glaucomic inability of a Lefty to see the forest for the trees.

Anything to change the subject - so simplistically obvious and ineffective.