Government Policies First of all, a couple of new questions. What about geothermal, wave energy, hydrogen etc and the regular one, is coal cheaper than wind? Geothermal has not proved effective in SA, despite many attempts and hundreds of millions … Read More
Energy
SA Elections – Energy (other) Part 3
Additional Energy So we have renewables with storage backed up by gas, but can we do better? Connect to Interstate We currently have two electricity interconnectors to Victoria (Heywood and Murraylands) and these were a major part of the breakdown … Read More
SA Elections – Energy (Renewables) Part 2
So we only produce small amount of oil and have to import it, we have no good quality, easily accessible coal but we have plenty of gas. Why don’t we just use gas for everything? We could generate electricity, … Read More
SA Elections – Energy (Fossil Fuels) Part 1
With the elections coming up in South Australia, energy issues are a big ticket item with politics obfuscating informed knowledge. I will attempt a non-political review of the options for SA and their pros and cons. Many of the basics … Read More
Virtual Power Plant
South Australia’s planned Virtual Power Plant appears to be largely misunderstood, as these things always are. It is basically a system that creates an energy supply from solar and batteries which is tied together by software. This allows the … Read More
Nuclear(Con)fusion – 024
Just over a hundred years ago, Albert Einstein came up with the notion that mass and energy are equivalent in his theory of Special Relativity. About twenty years later the idea that the sun was a nuclear reactor and provided … Read More
Energy Storage – 023
Energy Storage Energy storage and power generation are two separate issues that appear to be getting muddled by politicians and journalists. For example hydro power is essentially energy from the sun and therefore renewable. The solar energy lifts water into … Read More
Biofuel Crops – 022
Byogy Renewables announced recently that they are looking at setting up a $10 million test site to convert ethanol to gasoline. In Australia this could be from sugar cane or biomass from the grain industry and the site is likely … Read More
Biofuels – 021
I have just returned from a great month travelling in Far North Queensland, an area that is both very environmentally conscious and conservative. Bob Katter, a local MP is strongly pursuing an increase in ethanol production to improve the lot … Read More
Geothermal -017
Geothermal is an energy source that does not originate from the sun (along with nuclear) although the sun probably helped originally. The majority of the planet is very hot, molten rock with a thin, cool, solid crust. We can access … Read More