The stampede of Green lemmings: No country on Earth relies entirely on wind and solar energy, but Australian politicians aim to achieve this miracle

No country on Earth relies entirely on wind and solar energy, but Australian politicians aim to achieve this miracle.

They are leaders in the Stampede of the Green Lemmings.

Solar energy has a huge problem. Even on sunny days, almost nothing is generated to meet the demand peaks around breakfast time and dinner time — the solar energy union only works a six-hour day, goes on strike with little warning, and takes quite a few sickies.

So, for at least 18 hours of every day, electricity must come from somewhere else. Then, around noon, the millions of solar panels pour out far more electricity than is needed, causing electrical and financial chaos in the electrical grid.

Naturally, our green "engineers" see wind power as filling the solar energy gaps. But wind power has a union, too, and they take lots of sickies when there is no wind over large areas of the continent. And they down tool in storms, gales, or cyclones in case their whirling toys are damaged.

So the green planners claim that batteries can solve these intermittent problems of the green energy twins.

They will need humongous batteries.

Batteries are just a crutch for a crippled generation system. And with fierce lithium battery fires reported regularly, who wants a humongous fire-prone battery over the back fence or in the basement?

A battery is not a generator of electricity. Every battery (including Snowy 2) is a net consumer of electricity. Batteries are very expensive, most lose capacity as they age,

can’t people just do the math?

X = how much energy is used by Australia per year
Y = the avg output of a single wind mill per year
x / y = the number of wind mills they will need to provide enough energy

as of today:
X == 265,232 gigawatt hours (GWh)
Y == ~6m kWh for onshore units, or 6k mWh or 6 GWh

X/Y == ~44,200 windmills required to generate that much energy

as the number of windmills currently installed in Australia isn’t readily available, we can go on the energy being produced by the wind farms they have.

as of today, the 101 wind farms in Australia produce 6.3 GWh of energy.

while this is a respectable number... to cover energy needs for the entire country will require 42,000 TIMES more wind farms.

Check your math. You end up concluding that Australia has 1 windmill producing 1 hour of electricity per year.

Australia has 17 GW of solar power, counting only rooftop solar. Not GWh, GW. Presuming that 1 GW max produces only about 8GWh per day, that works out to 50,000 GWh (~8 * 365) per year, or about 19% of needed capacity already achieved. That’s just with ROOFTOP solar.

for at least 18 hours of every day, electricity must come from somewhere else.

This isn't even close to true. And Australia has a chance to get close - they will not get all the way there - because it has a small population and large desert areas and reasonable latitudes.

Some places in the world can go a long way with solar - and yes I probably know the downsides better than anyone.

Also LiFePO4 batteries are pretty much just inert rocks.

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