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pxi | 4 years ago

It's possible to run a large region (almost) entirely from renewable's, here's the proof:

https://opennem.org.au/energy/sa1/?range=7d&interval=30m

But Nuclear could still an excellent option depending on various metrics. I rather see some 'risky' nuclear options being considered before any of the geo-engineering ideas take hold (as they will if we don't get a move on).

discuss

0xy|4 years ago

South Australia is building brand new gas peaking plants, and the state says further investment in gas is necessary. So it seems this isn't correct. [1]

Gas is not renewable, and it's nearly as bad as coal.

It's also worth noting their batteries to store renewable energy are not renewable either, not to mention the huge societal impacts on relying on child slavery to prop up your grid (lithium and cobalt mining have a big child labor issue).

Especially worth noting South Australia's battery manufacturer Tesla has an extremely poor record when it comes to supply chain environmental management. Some of Tesla's suppliers have dumped toxic wastewater into water systems, as well as utilised child slaves in the Congo to source rare earth materials. [2]

Green energy indeed!

[1] https://www.murrayvalleystandard.com.au/story/6607101/650m-g...

[2] https://fortune.com/2021/09/30/tesla-ipe-environmental-viola...

pxi|4 years ago

Interesting... thanks for the links. SAPGen is a private company so what ever they build will need to compete with all that wind and solar. Also did you look at the graph from Tasmania? - too bad they are doing other unrelated environmentally bad things.

For frequency control, it seems like the Tesla batteries now have some competition in the form of synchronous condensers. For storage there seems to be several better alternatives than lithium.

halikular|4 years ago

Nuclear power is one of the safest means of electricity generation, but it's very costly due to over regulation. Contrast this to commercial aviation which is tightly regulated and in turn very safe, but it's not over regulated that it becomes too expensive or regulations with diminishing returns that only put unnecessary road blocks.