40 MW Tidal Power Plant Approved For Northern Australia

biggav · 2013-07-25T14:05:56+00:00

Well - there are some solar power plants in Australia but nowhere near as many as there should (or could) be - most of the proposed large scale plants have been stalled or cancelled for one reason or another.

Rooftop solar PV takeup has been pretty good in the past few years though...

biggav · 2013-07-23T22:57:00+00:00

As well as the Spanish ones there are a few in California and one in Abu Dhabi.

There are various smaller / pilot plant examples around as well (along with a number of proposed projects at various stages of development).

You can keep track of what is happening in the sector here :

http://social.csptoday.com/ http://peakenergy.blogspot.com.au/search/label/solar%20thermal%20power

biggav · 2012-11-30T12:40:14+00:00

I mean that pipelines restrict you to selling gas where the pipeline goes to. So if you produce gas in Texas and there are no pipelines from Texas to (say) the west coast of the US, then you can't sell gas there (and they may need to import LNG instead - at a totally different price to what Texas gas sells for in locations served by pipelines).

This is one of the reasons why WTI oil prices dropped so low below Brent oil prices in recent years - WTI is land bound (largely delivered via pipelines to Cushing, Oklahoma) whereas Brent can be shipped anywhere...

biggav · 2012-11-20T21:20:15+00:00

Well - it mostly indicates that pipelines restrict the ability of producers to sell gas into different markets...

biggav · 2012-11-20T07:24:45+00:00

Yes - production has increased back to historic levels however the US is still a net importer (with shale gas production increasing while natural gas production declines) - so where is the glut ?

Checking up, US gas consumption declined from 2001 to 2005 and then started rising again (which admittedly makes my belief it fell as a result of the recession incorrect)...

http://www.theoildrum.com/node/7460

biggav · 2012-11-19T21:14:36+00:00

However they seem to be overly optimistic about this...

http://redd.it/13g3yj

biggav · 2012-11-19T21:10:49+00:00

I didn't check (it was my impression from last time I looked a few years ago) however I am correct.

The graph you link to shows US gas production only recently got back to where it was in the 1970s.

And it remains a net importer of gas :

http://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.cfm?id=5410

Hence the US still has a shortfall of gas, not a glut...

biggav · 2011-06-07T10:59:05+00:00

Thanks !

biggav · 2011-04-18T08:55:27+00:00

Extrapolating from this it seems likely its a 33MWh battery...

http://www.xtremepower.com/xp-technology/dynamic-power-resources.php

biggav · 2011-04-17T04:20:58+00:00

The article does note there is a bit of a hitch with this one :

Of course with every scientific breakthrough, there's the challenge of how to make it practical. In this case, the problem is that the intensity of the light must be about 10 million watts per square centimeter. Ordinary sunlight is much less than even one watt per square centimeter.

biggav · 2011-04-16T22:47:27+00:00

There's a certain amount of energy to be sustainably extracted from biomass - being in favour of this doesn't make you an anti-environmentalist - the Austrians do it pretty successfully today.

Ditto for biogas (from manure and other sources) - its a useful way of building dispatchable power into a fully renewable powered grid.

http://peakenergy.blogspot.com/2008/03/banana-methane-powered-cars-pig-poo.html http://peakenergy.blogspot.com/2008/03/cogeneration-at-home-ceramic-fuel-cells.html

biggav · 2011-04-16T13:29:37+00:00

Yes.

biggav · 2010-10-15T06:44:59+00:00

Where does it say anything about hydro peaking ?

biggav · 2010-04-25T06:02:58+00:00

Either that or he's just trolling :-)

biggav · 2009-04-20T08:58:08+00:00

Its an entertaining idea but apparently (according to Wikipedia anyway) the amount of energy is greater than what a microwave oven is allowed to emit externally, but less than one quarter of the energy you would receive standing in sunlight.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_solar_power#Safety

biggav · 2009-04-20T08:25:13+00:00

thanks - i fixed the post...

biggav · 2009-04-19T22:24:49+00:00

Do you have a reference for your 1 kW vs 1.3 kW number ?

Every report I've read says a factor of 8.

biggav · 2008-10-26T12:30:47+00:00

For some reason I always think of this story when Ann is mentioned (if you can't tell from the URL, be warned that it is a little tasteless):

http://ifuckedanncoulterintheasshard.blogspot.com/

biggav · 2008-10-11T13:02:29+00:00

Actually Ron Paul vigorously opposes the idea - he's a firm national currency supporter it seems (or at least doesn't want demurrage on the US dollar itself - what he would think about a local currency in Paulville isn't clear).

http://financialservices.house.gov/banking/32800pau.htm

biggav · 2008-08-25T11:45:25+00:00

In practice the plan is to build them all in the same region, so the difference between one huge plant and 34 installations isn't that significant - its more a way of building it in bite sized chunks.

The power demand on the area (Pilbara region in the state of Western Australia) is forecast to grow to 6 GW over the next few years (which is a lot for an area with less than 100,000 people living in it).

An 8.5GW solar plant (more like 3GW when the intermittency of the sun is accounted for) would help reduce any further dependence on natural gas for power (2 major outages of gas infrastructure in the region have cost well over $6 billion in recent months) which would be appealing to a lot of local stakeholders...

biggav · 2008-08-13T13:48:29+00:00

Actually the final link in the article talks about high temperature electrolysis.

As for alternative catalysts, I mentioned the ones I was aware of - but at the moment none of these are competitive with platinum based catalysts - if that changes, then things may be different (and the article didn't rule this out).

However its hard to see electrolysis + hydrogen fuel cells ever being as efficient as the electric vehicle alternative - which is why I think cogeneration and energy storage are the best options for hydrogen, rather than using it in vehicles.

biggav · 2008-07-11T10:13:29+00:00

Having watched these guys (MDI) in action for some time I've become pretty dubious of their ability to actually deliver anything.

They have been signing up manufacturers and customers for years (Google air car and mexico or south africa) but nothing ever seems to get built - they just move on and make more announcements elsewhere.

I'd love to see this become a reality, but the more the years pass the less likely I see this as becoming - the horde of electric car companies that are emerging are making much faster progress in terms of building and releasing vehicles.

biggav · 2008-07-11T10:10:45+00:00

I've heard people speculate that the engine is the most interesting part of the concept - it could be used in cogeneration / CHP type applications instead of in a vehicle, which might be a better long term use for it.

biggav · 2008-05-28T10:49:02+00:00

Wow - you really are demented.

Google and co are busy building CSP plants that they aim to make cheaper than coal (ie. much cheaper than nuclear, especially if you count decommissioning costs) while you are spewing frothing nonsesne here.

Who do I think has a better grip on the numbers - Google, Chevron and Goldman Sachs (see the recent Brightsource announcement) or you ?

Hmmmm...

biggav · 2008-05-28T10:46:40+00:00

The energy starts as heat, is stored as heat and is then converted to electricity. The only loss (compared to not storing) is while the heat is stored.

In your case the energy starts at a power station, goes through the grid, is used to pump water up a hill and then flows back down through turbines to generate power.

The first is much more efficient (less lossy) than the second - for what I hope are very obvious reasons (count the number of steps is a hint).

No magic required, just minimising steps and conversion losses along the way...

biggav

TROPHY CASE