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Existing Electricity Infrastructure in NSW

Large conventional coal fired power stations represent 65% of NSW electricity generation capacity; hydro electricity 22%; gas 11%; (including natural gas, coal-seam gas and landfill and sewerage methane).  Other sources, including wind and solar, presently represent less than 2% of installed capacity, although some quite large wind installations are planned/ proposed, the largest being a proposed 1,000MW wind farm near Silverton to cost $2.5 billion.

The actual electricity generated (and delivered) by a given installed capacity differs significantly from one technology to the next. For example conventional coal has a high ‘base load’ capacity utilisation and provides about three quarters of the electricity produced. Intermittent solar and wind capacities need to be divided by as much as 5 to be comparable with other technologies that are continuously available.

A number of the new projects (blue shaded below) are still highly speculative and/or face challenges to financial backing; engineering and grid connection hurdles; and/or local environment/planning/land ownership issues.

There are already around a hundred and sixty feed-in generators in operation in NSW (as set out below) and more than a hundred new generators planned or announced (prior to the recently announced chances to the feed in tariff):

Technology

Locations

Capacity (MW)

%

Planned

Capacity (MW)

Large conventional coal (over 20MW)

8

  12,600

64.7%

6

  6,400

Hydro

17

  4,300

22.1%

27

53.7

Natural Gas

10

  2,033

10.4%

18

  5,649

Coal-seam gas

4

110

0.6%

Landfill and sewerage methane

12

  71

0.4%

Wind

10

149

0.8%

33

  2,891

Biomass (agricultural waste)

38

130

0.7%

13

  173

Distillate

1

  50

0.3%

2

  240

Solar

55

  29

0.1%

11

  120

Geothermal

 

 

 

1

  20

Except for hydro, solar and wind, all of these directly produce CO2.  But those burning methane are disposing of an even more greenhouse active gas and have a positive impact on climate change reduction.  They generally qualify as ‘green technologies’.

Solar and wind are presently exceedingly capital intensive per GWh produced due to their intermittent nature and low utilisation. There is potential for new photo-voltaic technologies (eg on glass or plastic) to lower these costs but such technologies are not yet commercial.  As this capital equipment is very substantially imported, the CO2 produced as a result of manufacturing is released overseas.  But wind, in particular, is responsible for quite significant local CO2 release due to very high transport and installation costs (including the construction of extensive concrete foundations) and ongoing maintenance.

Simply to keep up with growth (and without replacing antiquated plant) NSW needs to add around an additional 500MW of generation per year.  Several of the existing alternatives to coal (hydro, landfill etc) are based on limited resources. It can be seen from the above table that the principal technologies expected to make a significant and immediate contribution, in the quantum required to accommodate growth, are conventional coal fired power and gas (from various sources).

 

 Life cycle CO2 emissions for electricity

 

In practical terms, and notwithstanding climate change or the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme, the short and medium prospect is for a significant increase in CO2 production in NSW due to electricity generation.

 

 

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Spain and Portugal

 

 

Spain is in the news.

Spain has now become the fourth Eurozone country, after Greece, Ireland and Portugal, to get bailout funds in the growing crisis gripping the Euro.

Unemployment is high and services are being cut to reduce debt and bring budgets into balance.  Some economists doubt this is possible within the context of a single currency shared with Germany and France. There have been violent but futile street demonstrations.

Read more: Spain and Portugal

Fiction, Recollections & News

Chappaquiddick

 

 

 

'Teddy, Teddy, I'm pregnant!
Never mind Mary Jo. We'll cross that bridge when we come to it.'

 


So went the joke created by my friend Brian in 1969 - at least he was certainly the originator among our circle of friends.

The joke was amusingly current throughout 1970's as Teddy Kennedy again stood for the Senate and made later headlines. It got a another good run a decade later when Teddy decided to run against the incumbent President Jimmy Carter for the Democratic Presidential nomination.

Read more: Chappaquiddick

Opinions and Philosophy

Losing my religion

 

 

 

 

In order to be elected every President of the United States must be a Christian.  Yet the present incumbent matches his predecessor in the ambiguities around his faith.  According to The Holloverse, President Trump is reported to have been:  'a Catholic, a member of the Dutch Reformed Church, a Presbyterian and he married his third wife in an Episcopalian church.' 

He is quoted as saying: "I’ve had a good relationship with the church over the years. I think religion is a wonderful thing. I think my religion is a wonderful religion..."

And whatever it is, it's the greatest.

Not like those Muslims: "There‘s a lot of hatred there that’s someplace. Now I don‘t know if that’s from the Koran. I don‘t know if that’s from someplace else but there‘s tremendous hatred out there that I’ve never seen anything like it."

And, as we've been told repeatedly during the recent campaign, both of President Obama's fathers were, at least nominally, Muslim. Is he a real Christian?  He's done a bit of church hopping himself.

In 2009 one time United States President Jimmy Carter went out on a limb in an article titled: 'Losing my religion for equality' explaining why he had severed his ties with the Southern Baptist Convention after six decades, incensed by fundamentalist Christian teaching on the role of women in society

I had not seen this article at the time but it recently reappeared on Facebook and a friend sent me this link: Losing my religion for equality...

Read more: Losing my religion

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