Antinuclear

  With appropriate policies, Australia could have substantial contributions from both wind and PV, and even a few gigawatts of CST, by 2020, while it’s unlikely that it could have any contributions from CCS or nuclear by then.

There is sufficient experience with wind, PV, biofuelled gas turbines and CST to make reasonable projections of their future costs under very large-scale mass production. For example, the reportby the California Energy Commission on ‘Comparative Costs of California Central Station Electricity Generation’ projects that nuclear power commissioned in 2018 could be as expensive as large-scale PV. Contrary to Grattan, all low-carbon alternatives are not equal in uncertainties about future technical and economic potential.

Grattan makes a case for government intervention in the market, beyond a carbon price, to assist the development, demonstration and early deployment of low emissions technologies. While its case is valid, it could be strengthened by recognising that the transformation of the energy system in the face of climate change means giving temporary support to the roll-out of safe and effective renewable energy technologies that are not necessarily the cheapest at the margin. We should be planning for the whole period 2020-2050, not just 2013…….

Grattan overlooks the research showing that current prices of fossil fuels are too low because they don’t take into account the environmental, health and economic damage produced….. current market prices of energy technologies are less important than future projections, taking into account externalities and relative risks. What would be the costs of insuring a nuclear power station properly against a rare but catastrophic accident such as experienced at Chernobyl or Fukushima? The Japan Center for Economic Research estimates the partial costs of the Fukushima disaster at $US71-250 billion, yet TEPCO was insured for only $US1.5 billion.

It’s surprising that, in considering the scale-up of new technologies, Grattan omits to cite, let alone discuss, the two studies that suggest that 100 per cent renewable electricity may be technologically feasible for Australia.

In 2010 the ‘Zero Carbon Australia Stationary Energy Plan’ found that 100 per cent renewable energy is technically possible for Australia. The core of this study is a single hour-by-hour computer simulation of Australian electricity demand in 2008 and 2009. The principal renewable energy sources chosen were CST with thermal storage and wind power. While I take issue with ZCA’s claim that the transition could be made in a decade and several other assumptions, this ground-breaking work deserves to be acknowledged……

Based on scores of simulations and extensive sensitivity analysis, our research finds that it would have been technically feasible to supply 2010 electricity demand by 100 per cent renewable energy with the same reliability as the existing fossil fuelled system. …..

Our second peer-reviewed paper (Elliston, Diesendorf & MacGill, Energy Policy, in press) explores an even cheaper solution than lots of gas turbines or excess CST: namely a revitalised residential energy efficiency and smart grid program to reduce peak electricity demand on winter evenings.

Both the ZCA and UNSW simulations refute the notion that renewable energy cannot replace base-load coal-fired power….. The important result is that renewable energy mixes can give the same reliability of the whole generating system in meeting demand as the existing polluting fossil-fuelled system. Similar results for the US were presented at the Solar 2011 conference by David Mills and Weili Cheng. http://www.climatespectator.com.au/commentary/peak-australias-energy-future