Posted on 09/24/2020 8:11:26 AM PDT by Pining_4_TX
Australias obsession with chaotically intermittent wind and solar has left it with a power pricing and supply calamity. Its a disaster that was as predictable, as it was avoidable.
To date, the Federal Liberal/National Coalitions feeble attempts to resolve it provide a study in practised inertia, mixed with a series of pointless Band-Aid solutions.
Last week, the PM, Scott Morrison announced a raft of policy initiatives aimed at purportedly unlocking Australias gas reserves (locked up by recalcitrant State Premiers) and using that gas to fuel new power plants.
(Excerpt) Read more at stopthesethings.com ...
With all that desert, they really ought to consider LFTR or at least pebble bed reactors. Would solve their water and power problems at the same time.
“the benefit of which is that they can reach their peak load within about five minutes of start-up.”
Not the best for reliability.
3rd generation nukes are reliable and safe. We should build a few here too.
Neither of those designs are in commercial use.
Aussie voters are nuts for putting up with the BS from their politicians.
But they’ll always lecture us about our “lax gun laws”.
Oz is going fascist over COVID anyway. Look up Victoria State.
The politicians are just going along with what the Media/Academy/Leftist/green complex has been indoctrinating the whole country with for two generations.
The politicians are just a symptom of the lack of opposition to the complex.
Last week, the PM, Scott Morrison announced a raft of policy initiatives aimed at purportedly unlocking Australias gas reserves (locked up by recalcitrant State Premiers) and using that gas to fuel new power plants.
Australia is the worlds largest exporter of LNG so the claim that its gas is or has been locked up is a hard sell.
However, their situation is absurd: companies exporting gas from Australia sell it to countries like China and Japan cheaply but charge domestic customers several times more, enough to send them out of business, and there are/were plans by foreign investors to build LNG import terminals in Australia to supply its domestic market with cheap imported gas.
IMO they need to fix the severe mismanagement of their resources before worrying about increasing the supply, otherwise any extra will also be diverted offshore to benefit others while they send themselves broke.
Somebody’s gotta be first. Why not Aussies?
Expense and technical risk are the usual reasons for not being first. And Australia would be better served by a conventional nuclear power program so as to develop the basis for quick nuclear weapons if they get in a bind and suddenly need them.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.