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The fake arguments against 100% renewable energy
By Giles Parkinson on 19 June 2018
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It might be tempting to think that the energy wars are being fought only on the political front, between left and right in parliament and on the front pages of mainstream media, and in the market-place between technologies old and new, dirty and clean.
But over the last few years a furious battle has also been raging in academia between those who say we can and should shift towards a 100 per cent renewable energy grid, and those who say we can’t possibly, that we should stop renewables in their tracks and choose nuclear (or “clean” coal) instead.
The battle between the academic “can’s” and “can’t do’s” over the issue of renewables has become increasingly bitter in recent years, and the coal industry has been watching on in quiet admiration, particularly as the false arguments often dominate the public domain.
The coal industry is satisfied because coal and nuclear share a common lack of flexibility, an attachment to increasingly redundant concepts such as “baseload” and a centralised grid, and until carbon is priced the coal industry reckons it can beat nuclear on cost, and so protect its turf.
But even though much of this academic battle has been fought out behind closed doors, and in academic papers and specialist journals, much of the mischief making has also crept into the mainstream.
It is often the basis of the conservative attachment to the concept of “baseload” as de-facto proof of “reliability” – even when it isn’t – and their complete rejection of “intermittent” sources of supply of wind and solar.
The concept of a “flexible” and “dispatchable” grid is beyond them – either because incumbent business models would be ruined or because of an ideology, based around the refusal to believe that the Greens could not possibly have been right.
The latest salvo has been fired by two UNSW academics, Mark Diesendorf and Ben Elliston – the authors of a series of landmark studies since 2012 on how Australia could shift to 100 per cent renewables, and do so cost effectively.
That theme is no longer considered to be outlandish by most in the energy sector. The network lobby and the CSIRO painted their own scenario for 100 per cent renewables in Australia in 2016, and utilities like Transgrid say it is feasible and affordable. Even AEMO said it could be done.
Their latest paper – “The feasibility of 100% renewable electricity systems: A response to critics”, published in Science Direct – seeks to expose and dismiss the “myths” it says are used by scholarly journals, popular articles, media, websites, blogs and statements by politicians to attack wind and solar.
“The rapid growth of renewable energy (RE) is disrupting and transforming the global energy system, especially the electricity industry,” Diesendorf and Elliston write.
“As a result, supporters of the politically powerful incumbent industries and others are critiquing the feasibility of large-scale electricity generating systems based predominantly on RE.”
Diesendorf and Elliston says it is clear that 100 per cent renewable energy systems – including those predominantly supplied by variable sources such as wind and solar – can be readily designed to meet the needs of reliability, security and affordability.
They say the main critiques of the idea contain “factual errors, questionable assumptions, important omissions, internal inconsistencies, exaggerations of limitations and irrelevant arguments.”
And it has ever been thus, they note, citing this quote below.
“We were once afraid of what would happen when wind energy generation reached 5% of the total consumption. We then worried about approaching 10% – would the system be able to cope? Some years later, we said that 20% had to be the absolute limit! However, in 2016, Danish wind turbines produced more than the total electricity consumption for 317 h of the year, and we barely give this any thought.” – Peter Jørgensen, Vice President Associated Activities, Energinet.dk
Diesendorf and Elliston say that the principal barriers to 100 per cent renewable electricity are “neither technological nor economic”, but instead are primarily “political, institutional and cultural,” and the protection of vested interests.
The head of the world’s biggest utility, China State Grid, has said much the same thing.
The main targets of this study are a collection of papers lead-authored by the likes of Australians Barry Brook, Ben Heard, and Corey Bradshaw, all fervent critics of renewables and advocates of nuclear power in Australia.
It also draws into the raging and bitter battle between Stanford academics led by Mark Jacobsen, who has written extensively of the opportunities for 100 per cent renewables, and another team led by Chris Clack.
“Contrary to unsupported claims by pro-nuclear RE critics that base-load power stations are essential, several of the simulation studies achieve reliability with zero or negligible base-load capacity,” Diesendorf and Elliston say.
They also point to other misconceptions and myths commonly found in the conservative press and media discourse.
This includes a favourite of the pro-nuclear critics of wind and solar, including “biologists Brook and Bradshaw” who insist that each renewable energy power station needs to be dispatchable – a myth readily adopted by the Coalition government in their campaign against high penetration of renewables.
The authors note that both simulations and practical experience show that this is unnecessary for a reliable generating system.
The other defence of nuclear over wind and solar is the assumption of an ever-ballooning demand for energy, which appears to ignore energy efficiency, or the fact that a unit of electricity from wind and solar uses three times less energy to produce than fossil fuels, and EVs half as much as internal combustion engines.
The paper goes on to dismiss the myths that renewables can’t power an industrial society, and criticises technical details such as the absurdly low capacity factors attributed to wind farms, and the false assumption that capital costs of wind and solar farms are ignored, and that large amounts of wind are curtailed in Australia.
Actually, it is little more than 2 per cent.
Diesendorf and Elliston go through the many false assumptions propagated by the pro-nuclear lobby. But they lament that this inadequate understanding of the engineering, scientific and quantitative modelling has found its way through to the political mainstream.
Credit: AAP Image
They cite the Australian Coalition government’s attack of Labor 50 per cent targets – both state and federal – as “reckless”, the UK government’s attachment for nuclear because of the “need for baseload”, and President Trump’s administration defence of coal and nuclear over renewables.
“Clearly political ideology and the capture of governments by powerful vested interests is a major barrier,” Diesendorf and Elliston write. “Critics of RE who misrepresent RE can be seen as part of that political barrier, giving support to politicians who are unduly influenced by incumbent industries.
They compare the campaign to that run by the tobacco industry to sow doubts about the serious adverse health impacts of their product and their (for a long time successful) attempts to delay action.
But they note that the rapid growth and declining costs of renewable energy are weakening the influence of such vested interests, as is the arrival and cost reductions in battery and other storage.
But resistance continues, from market designs that favour fossil fuel technologies, neoliberal economic rhetoric of “leave it to the market”, even in a system where market failure is endemic; and the efforts of utilities to cling to their traditional business models.
And there is also strong resistance from a few older power engineers, who remain attach to the concepts of base-load, intermediate and peak load power stations and … “cannot envisage a system that contains a large fraction of variable RElec and where demand can be modified almost instantaneously.”
“Electricity supply systems, operating on 100% renewable energy with the major proportion from variable renewables, are technically feasible, reliable and affordable for many countries and regions of the world,” the authors write.
“This is even true if future RElec is limited to technologies that are commercially available now. Regions with insufficient local RE resources will in future be able to import RE via transmission line and/or tanker carrying renewable fuels.
“RE’s environmental and health impacts are much less than those of fossil fuels and, within a risk fra- mework that recognizes low-probability high-impact events, nuclear power.
“RE contributes to community development and participatory democracy, and is compatible with a steady-state economy. A 100% RElec system can provide directly, and indirectly via renewable fuels, all future energy use, including transport and heat.
“The principal barriers that are slowing the transition are the poli- tical power of the incumbent fossil fuel, nuclear and electricity in- dustries, bolstered by misinformation disseminated by RE critics, and existing institutions such as market rules that are inappropriate for climate mitigation and discourage RElec and flexible, dispatchable power stations.
“The inertia against change can be overcome by the growing public awareness of the increasing impacts of climate change, the competitive economics of RElec, and positive visions of a cleaner, healthier, more sustainable future.
“However, because time is of the essence, community groups and the population at large must increase pressure on govern- ments to resist vested interests and transition to 100RElec and then 100RE.”
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Australian Federal Government • Community Power • Featured • Governments • Renewables • Solar • Wind
Brendan Laidlaw
Is there a link to the report somewhere not behind a paywall?
Mark Diesendorf
You can download the article free of charge until the beginning of July from https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1364032118303897
Caroline Kelly
Hi Mark, it’s asking for a fee
Mark Diesendorf
Disgraceful! Please email me at m.diesendorf@unsw.edu.au and I’ll send you a free copy. That applies to everyone who is interested.
ZeroEmissionsNoosa
I also went to the link Mark but I couldn’t figure out a way of getting the article by not paying….
Mark Diesendorf
I’ll send a free copy to anyone who emails me at
m.diesendorf@unsw.edu.au
Jamie Blank
an attachment to increasingly redundant concepts such as “baseload”
How stupid do you think your readers are.
juxx0r
Not as stupid as we think you are.
Charles
“How stupid do you think your readers are.”
You’re one of them so the odds aren’t looking good so far.
Simon Jowett
Baseload in not a concept its a fact. It refers to the underlying constant electrical demand. What is changing is where that baseload can come from. Clearly a system solely based on wind or solar pv runs into issues on days of low wind or cloudy days. However, a correctly balanced system with a variety of RE installations in geographically diverse location WILL work. Add to this a distributed source of batteries (as prices also come down) and it becomes simple. The plummeting costs of grid scale PV and wind mean its also now cheaper to install this capacity rather than coal gas and nuclear.
Ertimus J Waffle
Are you serious???? Do you understand transmission losses such as iron losses, copper losses and PF losses reactance, resistance. This argument is ludicrous you cannot transmit power ie electricity very far at all the losses make it totally prohibitive. I wont waste my time but your solution WONT work.
Mike Westerman
Poor little Waffling fake has copied words from Google but has no idea what they mean – there is no such thing as PF losses. Aluminium conductors have no “iron losses” or “copper losses” for that matter. Power is happily transmitted from Cairns to Whyalla in Australia. Losses are well understood with conductors sized to limit voltage drops – you pay a few cents per kWh for transmission losses – negligible compared to retail margins.
Run off an Waffle on a subject you would know well, like squeaky wheels and dog whistles.
Simon Jowett
…sounds like an electrical rant with no facts. Yes, transmitting electricity results in losses – the same losses we have today shipping electrons from QLD to TAS and back again. A more distributed system with behind the meter solar & batteries will end up reducing losses not increasing them. BTW its aluminium used in HV transmission lines not copper, PF is dependent on the end user and nothing to do with the generation but you CLEARLY are not an electrical engineer there not much point continuing
Andy Saunders
You do realise that “baseload” is actually a demand term, not a generation term? So nothing really to do with generation…
Chris Ford
True, and the redundancy lies in its attempted use to support generators with flatter generation profiles, when the leftover demand after the lowest cost generation has been bought up isn’t flat though … oops …
Jamie Blank
“dismiss the myths that renewables can’t power an industrial society”
Showing your true colours. You’re a kaczynskite. You’re a terrorist. Go on ban me.
DevMac
I guess Sanjeev Gupta must be as well.
Jo
yes please (to ban, I mean)
Andy Saunders
Kaczynskite? Maybe you’re a Perovskite…
Hettie
Jamie, you display a mindset that I simply cannot fathom.
An electron is an electron is an electron, whether it has been produced by photovoltaics or by magnets rotated by steam, by wind, or by falling water. Get enough electrons to the place where you need heat or movement, and you can do anything. Steel smelting included.
You remind me of the people who told the Wright brothers that they would never get that thing off the ground.
You are wrong.
Rod
You may have to explain it to me. All I got was:
“Primitivist Hyperstitions and The New Church of Anti-Acceleration”
I would suggest that fits you and your ilk.
Steven Gannon
Our rapidly growing population will need to be factored in at some stage, it might be 40 million by 2040.
George Michaelson
Yes. What’s the last time to build to a growth curve to 2040? It sure isn’t ‘do nothing’ and it might be do incremental things.. like deploy batteries, pumped hydro and more solar.
Andy Saunders
Well, except the increases in energy efficiency roughly cancel out the population growth. So not really a factor.
Rod
Abbott wants to drop immigration to 100,000 per year.
With our birth rate, we would actually go backwards in population. And a few other areas.
RobertO
Hi All, New Zealand’s North Island would not survive with it’s PH system on the Waikato River system. I have always believed that we can go to 100% RE with the correct combo of Wind, Solar, Hydro, Pump Hydro, Batteries and the alternatives supplies of H2 and man made CH4 (both chemical and bio gas, not the stuff out of the ground and this is the last 1%). Demand Management, and Thermal Management (look at all the H2O water heaters that have a Pressure / Temperature relief valve at the top of the tank and drains hot water out, SA has the Pressure Relief valve at the bottom of the tank, and it is worth about 48 kW hr pa) has a sizable role to play as does the interconnects (which I believe some are need for better security). Produce Locally, Use Locally, Store Locally and ship in when shortages occur (last option). Some sites will have stationary FC as backup emergency generators using filtered H2 from the gas network.
Askgerbil Now
And then there is also renewable energy like this: “Geothermal energy produces about 13% of New Zealand’s electricity supply. Most of New Zealand’s installed geothermal generating capacity of about 750 MWe is situated in the Taupo Volcanic Zone..” http://nzgeothermal.org.nz/elec_geo/
Ertimus J Waffle
And last time I was there it was getting less and less that much so that they stopped the local population from tapping into the reservoir and even blocking off a lot of the pipes bleeding steam from the geothermal reservoir. Thermal energy isn’t endless it is finite.
Ertimus J Waffle
What was this a grade four assignment???? I can imagine the control room that would have to balance and run this unbelievable conglomerate of unreliable, uncontrollable and incompatible generation. It would be easier to hook up the warp drive engines on the star ship enterprise and ask Scotty for full power to the warp drive engines please Mr Spock.
Askgerbil Now
100 percent renewable energy for the electricity grid is a modest interim target.
A more reasonable goal is 100% renewable energy for both electricity generation and all transport energy. In addition renewable energy should also replace all of Australia’s energy exports that are presently in the form of fossil fuels – oil, coal and gas.
The renewable energy industry really needs to be more ambitious and stop getting side-tracked with small-minded objectors and their objections.
The nuclear lobby can easily be put off by pointing out that solar energy is sourced from an naturally occurring nuclear fusion reactor.
Only a slight change in perspective is required. The concept of “curtailment” is where the renewable energy industry is looking at the question from the wrong perspective.
Note that with the current electricity system, peaking gas plants that only run for 10 – 15 days a year a rarely criticised as being “idle” for months at a time.
There is little point in leaving a wind turbine or solar system “idle”. The fuel is free.
An obvious solution is replacing the gas peaking plants with reversible fuel cells. Instead of being idle for 350 days a year these can be actively producing hydrogen. On the few days of a year when extra generating capacity is needed, they can generate electricity from either hydrogen or bio-methane.
This addresses the reason Australia has such high electricity costs: the capital cost of a lot of idle gas peaking plants has to be paid for with high electricity prices every day of the year. Reversible fuel cells can produce and sell hydrogen for export when they aren’t needed to generate electricity. There is no “idle” months of overhead to be added to electricity bills.
See for example “sunfire supplies Boeing with largest reversible solid oxide electrolyser/fuel cell system” https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1464285916700022
Cooma Doug
Askgerbil
Great words here.
You are correct in all you say.
Just to add, I have seen some gas plant run only maintenance hours and do well below 1% capacity factor over a year. But they empower the bidding enertia of the owner.
Ertimus J Waffle
Yes but the wind doesn’t blow all the time and the sun only shines for half the day and even then only for a couple of hours if there isn’t any cloud do you get anywhere near the rated output of the solar panels. 100% is a joke.
Cooma Doug
I recall being on shift soon after the carbon tax was introduced.
At lunch we saw Abbott mention the 100 dollar roast. The trader having lunch with me in the control room did the numbers and the average home would have a bill increase of 3 dollars a month.
Andy Saunders
Not having a go at you, but I believe it was Barnaby Joyce with the $100 lamb roast, not Tony Abbott…
Cooma Doug
The lamb roast was on front page of the telegraph with Abbott. Perhaps a hand ball from The Barn.
Rod
There is absolutely no doubt the price on carbon was the most efficient and affordable way to reduce emissions and encourage investment.
It was working and was fully funded for households via tax cuts and pension increases.
Abbott should be jailed for treason for this disaster.
Phil Gorman
The political, corporate and academic denialists’ propaganda is powered by the well oiled machinery developed by the tobacco industry 60 years ago. We don’t have 60 years, or even 6. It’s already far too late to avert catastrophe for millions. We must act now.
john
As I see it
What is needed is about 30 TW of Renewable Energy.
Together with a large amount of PHES all over the Eastern Grid.
Yes Battery Storage which will take out the Frequency Response Ancillary etc.
How to move to this situation that is the question?
Well considering that building a wind farm or a solar farm and being able to sell into the grid at below market prices I do not see a problem.
Just build as many Wind Farms and Solar and Battery back up as will as putting in PHES seems the way to go.
Ken Dyer
This article must be on the right track, it is attracting baseload trolls. Don’t get sucked in people, 100% RE is getting closer. RE powers over 25% of the World as I write, and it ain’t slowing down either.
Ertimus J Waffle
Rubbish
mick
now now polly
Hettie
Another question.
How do the time to build and economics of electrolytic H2 production and back to electeicity production stack up against
PHES, on a MW for MW basis?
Probably poorly expressed, but I’m sure someone will understand what I’m driving at.
Mal
Giles thànkyou for the site i have ans am learning a lot. Hydrogen keeps popping up but often i read that it is to expensive to be useful any chance of an artical on the pros and cons?
Ertimus J Waffle
You really have to laugh at all the ill informed comments here by people without the slightest knowledge of electricity generation and transmission. If you want electricity at
$100 a Kilowatt hour then go ahead and install expensive unreliable wind turbines and batteries . Once the coal fired generation in Queensland starts to shut down and be decommissioned Australia will only have intermittent power supply and all industry will shift to countries with new reliable coal fired power stations using all of Australias coal exports. How ironic the fools here who think you can use 16th century wind power to power a modern country, what a laugh.
Mike Westerman
Won’t that be a joy then, when air heads like your fake self don’t have an internet coz there’s no power!
Roger Brown
Don’t Feed the Trolls , you will never get rid of them. They will hang around like a bad smell .
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