Comments by "John Woodrow" (@johnwoodrow8769) on "‘No clue’: Peter Dutton has ‘no plan of action’ to reduce energy prices" video.

No, "the current power generation and transmission landscape" is a function of what was possible to get past the Senate. Labor, The Greens, and Independents holding the balance of power in the Senate are responsible for "the current power generation and transmission landscape".
4
@Whoisthis1111 I was responding to Kerry Savas original comment regarding keeping the current system 'not being difficult'. I was pointing out it is difficult as renewables are relatively quickly destroying our existing coal generators, something that rarely gets discussed. It's made out the reason they experience a lot of outages is because they are just old. The real reason is, due to government policies, they are being forced to operate in manner they were never designed for.
3
If Australia had followed Sky 'plan' over several years .... Australia would have constructed and commissioned several new state of the art low emissions coal fired plants. The removal of 'green tape' would mean there was now an abundance and cheap domestic gas. AND... the nuclear power plant would just about be operational. There would also be far LESS wind/solar as the massive government subsidies to this sector would have been killed off. Sky presenters have consistently advocated for the above over the several years I been a subscriber. They have been 100% correct and their 'plan' should have been followed.
3
It actually is difficult. The intermittent nature of wind and solar, often having priority in generation to that of coal/gas when the sun is shining and the wind blowing, forces our aging coal fired generators to be run in stop/start manner. They were never designed to be run that way. They were designed to run essentially continually at a somewhat constant load. The result is increased rate of failures in the coal generators due the metal fatigue as the plants are continually fired up and down. Increased operating costs, increased failures, increased downtime. Basically the current wind/solar generators are destroying our aging coal fired plants and significantly shortening their life. Point being, just tying to keep the existing generators going is a major challenge due to lack of planning, and just banging in 'renewables' without adequate understanding of (or just deliberately ignoring) the technical challenges.
2
@info88w11 Here's a good one on Snowy 2.0. Apparently it will ever only in practice be able to generate 1/10th of its promised capability. This assessment came a VERY credible independent engineering source. All to do with the size of the receiving dams, and that the major receiving dam is already being used as a feeder dam for an existing pumped hydro scheme (so it always needs to have a lot of water already in it). Basically there is no where to actually put the water so it can be pumped back up hill again. You can't make this stuff up.
2
@craigjames4258 So you're saying there is no such thing as a HELE coal fired plant. Think you need to revise who is promoting "fake news". And regardless, step back to first principals. How much will the temperature of the planet drop if Australia completely closes all its 16 coal fired power plants? On second thoughts don't bother, as I already know the answer. It's ZERO!
1
@info88w11 Are you sure solar and wind contribute "next to nothing into grid" at night when the wind dies right away???? I keep being told the ACT runs 100% on renewables, and they don't experience complete blackouts most nights. Only possible explanation is all those solar panels double as 'moon panels' that can generate electricity in the dark. Has to be it.
1
@info88w11 Here's another limitation of Snowy 2 I just found. Apparently Blowering Reservoir must be the very bottom dam in the broader Snowy scheme. When it is full, as it has been for the past 14 months from all the rain, the amount of water that can be discharged through BOTH the conventional and pumped hydro systems becomes VERY constrained. The reason, Snowy are only permitted under licence to discharge water out of Blowering Reservoir into the Tumut River at a rate as if the whole snowy scheme never existed. If Bowering Reservoir has no capacity to dump water into, major drama. It can't simply be drained to allow water to flow into it by dumping vast quantities of water out into the Tumit River and flooding the whole river system. "During wet periods, Snowy 2.0 will only be able to generate a fraction, and sometimes none, of the potential energy stored in its upper reservoir (Tantangara). As demonstrated by this current wet period, of over a year and not yet finished, such operational constraints can apply for a long time."
1