G'day All Hit the nail on the head there, Unmutual. The solution is the problem. We simply need to plan for and manage all of humanity's needs from Earth's resources on a bioregional scale. An early (1994), but still very valid account of how bioregionalism and permaculture compliment each other. Cheerio, Markos
been looking for an answer to what happens to all that off demand period renewable power in australia. seems best answer is get all aussies to change their use from current early AM an evening peak use to a lunchtime or midnight peak use?? this is while nearly all are at work or school. bit whishy washy hey. len
To fully use the power being generated during the day(with solar) is easy enough. Just have manufacturing and other businesses open during daylight hours only. Wind is a little trickier, but for some reason I like the pumping water uphill idea(could even pump it up to irrigate agricultural land and allowing the excess to generate power...kill 2 birds with 1 stone so to speak).
pumping water uphill for gravity feed still uses same power, just for farmers they pump at special tariff that others can't access, so it is a weighted benefit. visited an organic farmer out gatton way once actually did B&B in a heritage cottage he had on site, that was his forte, pump water up hill to dam on cheap subsidised tariff then then gravity irrigate all night long, what is needed to grow spuds in qld out of season. don't think he is organic farmer anymore organic certification has no common sense and all certifier's different apart from what they charge maybe? so doing that won't help the bottom line fro the lower socio economic set. so if splitting people work agenda's is teh saving saught, then shifting peak power use from morning/evening and having industry on renewable power(pushing them off shore and prices to the sky), won't work. so the farmer is not using excess power (solar does not work nights)he sues power that needs to be made to sell cheaply to him, this of course will be under stress when renewable's are vogue. like we toyed with gravity pressure tank, but out of the question building a tower to carry enough water for some days use, needing bigger pump to fill it. false economy len
Currently the snowy power scheme uses brown coal to pump water into a high dam that is released to produce hydro electricity during peak demand Pumping it up hill by solar or wind makes economic and environmental sense. The dam is the battery of stored energy. Lots of smaller localised versions of these could be utilised to do the same across the country to store energy until energy was needed.
Or just look at better solar energy storage design - although I didn't really like the ingredients they used it does show a way forward.
ok ngcomm, all things show a way forward but where are we situated forsaking the planting of forest in favour of windmills, most renewable power generated! what? goes to waste, like one grid connected lady said she thought there was a swimming type pool some place in the grid to store all the energy so she could use it when she gets home in the evening. the worshipers of renewables got the cart before they horse, that won't work. and i though hydro' power plants needed plenty of water dammed up high, now i hear the snowy scheme which ruined the snowy river and did little for the murray system used affordable coal power to pump water back up hill, and now the pundents want it to use expensive renewable power to do same then call all that power use storage. if nothing else it isn't sustainable, like the farmer using cheap power that others pay through the nose for then they pay premium for his produce, the real gain would be if no coal was burnt to provide that cheap power or provide it to everyone and bring the cost of living down. what do we do with that power? waste it of course. len
Most of that has nothing to do with the topic. What is wrong with providing irrigation for farmers at the top of the hill plus storing unused energy at ~70% efficiency while you're at it? What does the method of farming have to do with anything? You're looking for a radical change without actually having a radical change, that's not possible. That's the point of pumping water up hill with excess solar power. You release this water at night, or on cloudy days, through water turbines. You're basically storing this energy at the top of the system...it's right out of Mollison's Permaculture Designer's Manual. New technology starts off expensive and then slowly drops in price and also gets better(usually). If you're looking for an immediate fix, you're not going to get it, period. Making the rich pay won't happen. Making politicians care about the people that voted them in won't happen. It is pretty grim, there's no denying that. The poor are still nothing better than slaves. The middle class may end as quickly as it started(~600 years if you include the bourgeoisie). Democracy is a joke. Large scale solutions are failing. To turn this around you're going to have to work with what you have locally. Stream = electricity. Sun = electricity. Wind = electricity. The ultimate power source is the sun. Like stone axes and bronze knives went by the wayside, maybe it's time to find something better than electricity and just call the industrial revolution a very bad practical joke.
do all hydro dams in tassie do this as well? i was drawing conclusions but no worry. the extra power if there is any should be used to reduce power costs for the people not find ways of using it then claim it is storing power??? anyhow that'll do me getting shunted around. so what is there to find? get it in operation and then sell it. maybe industrial revolution was a bad thing? i dunno waht would teh weralthy manipulators ahve done without it and they started it, another bad idea now is venice. so plenty of them out there but we don't have the option to start again now do we! still not sold like very very many len
“A reduced peak demand reduces the need for more investment in new substations or increasing the capacity of existing substations and powerlines and this takes the pressure off rising power prices.” https://www.solarchoice.net.au/blog/queenslands-solar-pv-system-owners-help-reduce-peak-demand/
To me this looks like a bunch of dispersed systems taking the load off at peak demand would potentially eliminate the need for new coal,gas or nuke plants. So all these small solutions add up to a big solution reducing high energy costs for poor folks on the grid.
Honestly, we, a planetary we, need to take the example from the people of Germany, not its government, and stop looking to our government and do it ourselves. From passive solar buildings, to every other way. Show others, and move on. We can talk all day about how a government should do this, that & some other things, however it doesn't help. We all need to act locally, in zone 0.
grasshopper and paka' of course reduced peak will help but you can't move the peak to say midday and have work places only open in daylight hours, and no matter how o view it using excess to do an action like pump water uphill is dog chasing its tail stuff, that is not reducing production nor keeping power affordable. and as for passive homes forget it, aussies won't build anything different outside the indoctrinated mcmansion mould. we build homes that are comfy without heating, cooling and one desk lamp illuminates the whole house, if the permie set wanted to get real they would admit that living in extremes of temp like down south is not sustainable. walked the streets of melbourne backwards so those westerlies don't peal the skin off me face with all the sand whipped up off flinders st wherever. i ahve said it again so again i will say it when there is an alternative power supply that delivers and is affordable in complete form tell us about it, and unless house design is grasped all the building that's gone on and going on will be inefficient. does any one know how many new dwellings(houses) become available on the market place each year in total (aus') or state by state? north lakes north of brissy just one development massive amount of dwellings and shops, no yard space no room for a garden. len
I can just imagine that picture! Would be a cheap way to get a facial done rather than paying for one of those fancy chemical peels!
If you concern is price of power and lack of peak storage of solar or wind as you constantly go on about. It would work for pre existing dam that currently rely on brown coal to do the same thing. Continuing to demand we rely on fossil fuel is like chasing your tail so hard you stick your head up your own bum.
Im sorry, but you have literally no idea what you are talking about other then generalities. Earthships landed in Australia, and obviously some people want to change your generalities. Stop being so negative, its impacting your health.
opposition in the form of attack against opposition sounds very political, answer my questions(they never get answered). aus' only contributes less than 2% of the atmospheric CO2(is Co2 heavier than air a real o-zone depleting gas, when it may never get above 60k feet up?). so without all this slandering and red necking we are in a perfect position to not put the cart before the horse, do it right for all aussies benefits and set a real example to the world, all this could be done in the timeline being promoted by others. i am not negative and leave my health out of it, it has nothing to do with anyone except me and my wife. anyhow len
Len, I have written you some detailed responses asking you some important questions. These questions were as much for me to understand your point of view as to put forward mine and then to discuss together how things might change. But you said you didn't have time to read and answer them. So it's a bit rich for you to say your questions never get answered. I'm not even always sure when you are asking questions, because much of the time you seem to be stating undeniable truths with rhetorical questions thrown in, rather than truly questioning things. I'm happy to answer your questions and would love for you to answer mine. That would then be a conversation.
Carbon dioxide reduces natural ozone depletion, which isn't good. Back to the dam being used for energy storage. First you need to stop reading energy=electricity, because it doesn't. There are many forms of energy and a fair amount can be turned in to electricity or vice-verse. For example: Photovoltaic panels collect the energy from the sun and turn it in to DC electricity. This electricity is then either used because of consumer demand or pretty much wasted. To store the unused electricity for later use you would either have to 1) build really big batteries which would be prohibitively expensive on a commercial scale OR 2) turn that electricity in to a form of energy that can be stored for later use. If you use the excess electricity to run a series of pumps to get water to a higher elevation, you have changed electricity in to potential energy. The potential energy comes from the water and gravity. When this water is released through a valve, the potential energy becomes kinetic energy regardless. To turn this kinetic energy in to a form we can use, we need to run that water through an electrical turbine generator. When that generator turns, we are now back to energy in the form of electricity. Since we can control the opening and closing of the valve that releases the dammed water, we can control when to release it and turn that potential energy in to kinetic energy and then in to electricity on demand. The dam, water, gravity and turbine have effectively become a battery to store electricity during off peak hours by using the unused electricity from the photovoltaic panels during off peak loads. I hope this helps.
yep unmutual know or have heard all that before. now to remove the fog again, they are using brown coal fired power to pump water up hill on the notion this is wisdom? instead of talking futuristic talk actual, where in aus' has a community of at least 100k population been removed from the grid and totally running on renewable's? that includes a storage system for excess power, for the low times? and reducing this carbon is not going to change the climate back to what it was pre-industrial revolution days of sucking up the worlds resources by the wealthy chopped down too many forests. like those 2 wealthies on TV one building a 2nd "titanic" and the other wanting to send a honeymoon couple on a space flight to mars(they can have that jaunt all to themselves). now these 2 t least and of a special very many club have the money to do what they like, tax evasion would also have helped, people wanting to pay $1m for a cruise fare, but hey! no thought of returning anything back for their rape of the planet. so instead of picking on me get those heavies up the top echalon of perma-c and greens to front these blokes and set up renewables in a town of that capacity even up to 2k population then there would be real help to show a few their folly or the masses the benefits. bite the bull........it imagine the boost to permaculture and the lagging greens, free best publicity. now over time that is what most of you seem to call negative, think outside the square and comfort zone. len
