Simon Holmes A’Court would rather chew on broken glass than "site nuclear power stations at Mount Dampier". The guy is another salesperson for the wind/solar scam slush fund. And like all of those crooks he hates nuclear power with a passion, knowing that only nuclear power is capable of replacing fossil fuels and eliminating emissions.
The problem with wind & solar is because they are intermittent & seasonal they require a mirroring fossil/biomass/nuclear/hydro energy source that supplies almost 100% of grid demand during the wind/solar lulls, which often occur when grid demand is highest, i.e. large stable high pressure cell in the winter. So the best wind & solar can do is theoretically replace some fuel when they are operating. But fuel cost is only about 1/10th the electricity price you pay. Most of the rest is grid costs. So to have that meager fuel savings you essentially have to have two parallel grids operational at all times. To add misery to madness induced cycling and economic inefficiencies in the buffering fossil/nuclear generators mean in reality negligible fuel is actually saved by the wind & solar. Even if the Wind Turbines or Solar Panels were free they would still be far too expensive to be practical except in areas on diesel generation (very expensive fuel) and with a large reservoir Hydro resource or for off-grid homes.
There is a linear price relationship between wind/solar grid penetration and price of electricity. See Ken Gregory, P.Eng, graph Euro/kwh by country 2019: Conclusion: European Wind Plus Solar Cost 6 Times Other Electrical Sources:
End result is after spending over $4 trillion worldwide on wind & solar total, World Primary energy supply is unchanged at 90% combustion fuel as it was 10yrs ago. In spite of improved efficiency of replacing conventional coal with supercritical coal, OCGT with extreme efficiency CCGT, coal/gas with hydro, LED lighting, substantial improvements in transportation efficiency, improved building insulation, heat pumps. Wind/solar hasn't even nearly been able to cover the growth in fossil consumption never mind actually replace fossil. Wind/solar has already been a dismal failure in Europe, leading to high energy prices, electricity & heat supply shortages and steep price increases, dependence on Russian energy & energy blackmail.
As further evidence, a survey of 68 nations over the past 52 years done by Environmental Progress and duplicated by the New York Times shows conventional hydro was quite successful at decarbonization, nuclear energy was also very successful and both wind and solar show no correlation between grid penetration and decarbonization. In other words wind & solar are not replacing fossil, they are a complete waste of money. They only succeed in increasing energy prices which does reduce emissions only by creating energy poverty.
I agree with you on a few points such as that solar and wind have made no inroads into total energy consumption and in fact that the % share of fossil fuels is increasing and forecast to continue to increase by the fossil fuel companies. And that solar and wind do seem to be inefficient (although their proponents claim not) when introduced at scale. And that nuclear looks to be potentially one of the few base load suppliers of energy (but personally I don't want it on our shaky isles).
I'm not going to agree completely though as there may be a case for solar or wind at a much smaller scale either off-grid or feeding excess into the grid. All possibilities need to be on the table as even if you don't believe in climate change the fact is that fossil fuels are getting harder to extract and have a limited timeframe of availability especially at current rates of extraction.
Oh and Simon would drop any opposition to nuclear in a jiffy if there was money in it for him. That was my point. I know that he's currently opposed.
Simon Holmes A’Court would rather chew on broken glass than "site nuclear power stations at Mount Dampier". The guy is another salesperson for the wind/solar scam slush fund. And like all of those crooks he hates nuclear power with a passion, knowing that only nuclear power is capable of replacing fossil fuels and eliminating emissions.
The problem with wind & solar is because they are intermittent & seasonal they require a mirroring fossil/biomass/nuclear/hydro energy source that supplies almost 100% of grid demand during the wind/solar lulls, which often occur when grid demand is highest, i.e. large stable high pressure cell in the winter. So the best wind & solar can do is theoretically replace some fuel when they are operating. But fuel cost is only about 1/10th the electricity price you pay. Most of the rest is grid costs. So to have that meager fuel savings you essentially have to have two parallel grids operational at all times. To add misery to madness induced cycling and economic inefficiencies in the buffering fossil/nuclear generators mean in reality negligible fuel is actually saved by the wind & solar. Even if the Wind Turbines or Solar Panels were free they would still be far too expensive to be practical except in areas on diesel generation (very expensive fuel) and with a large reservoir Hydro resource or for off-grid homes.
There is a linear price relationship between wind/solar grid penetration and price of electricity. See Ken Gregory, P.Eng, graph Euro/kwh by country 2019: Conclusion: European Wind Plus Solar Cost 6 Times Other Electrical Sources:
friendsofscience.org/index.php?id=2550
End result is after spending over $4 trillion worldwide on wind & solar total, World Primary energy supply is unchanged at 90% combustion fuel as it was 10yrs ago. In spite of improved efficiency of replacing conventional coal with supercritical coal, OCGT with extreme efficiency CCGT, coal/gas with hydro, LED lighting, substantial improvements in transportation efficiency, improved building insulation, heat pumps. Wind/solar hasn't even nearly been able to cover the growth in fossil consumption never mind actually replace fossil. Wind/solar has already been a dismal failure in Europe, leading to high energy prices, electricity & heat supply shortages and steep price increases, dependence on Russian energy & energy blackmail.
As further evidence, a survey of 68 nations over the past 52 years done by Environmental Progress and duplicated by the New York Times shows conventional hydro was quite successful at decarbonization, nuclear energy was also very successful and both wind and solar show no correlation between grid penetration and decarbonization. In other words wind & solar are not replacing fossil, they are a complete waste of money. They only succeed in increasing energy prices which does reduce emissions only by creating energy poverty.
I agree with you on a few points such as that solar and wind have made no inroads into total energy consumption and in fact that the % share of fossil fuels is increasing and forecast to continue to increase by the fossil fuel companies. And that solar and wind do seem to be inefficient (although their proponents claim not) when introduced at scale. And that nuclear looks to be potentially one of the few base load suppliers of energy (but personally I don't want it on our shaky isles).
I'm not going to agree completely though as there may be a case for solar or wind at a much smaller scale either off-grid or feeding excess into the grid. All possibilities need to be on the table as even if you don't believe in climate change the fact is that fossil fuels are getting harder to extract and have a limited timeframe of availability especially at current rates of extraction.
Oh and Simon would drop any opposition to nuclear in a jiffy if there was money in it for him. That was my point. I know that he's currently opposed.