Australian Farmers Switch To Diesel Power As Electricity Prices Soar (abc.net.au)

"As power prices rise, some farmers have been forced to turn off the pumps," reports the Australian Broadcast Corporation. Long-time Slashdot reader connect4 shared their report from the coast of Queensland, where the price of pumping water to sugarcane fields has doubled. Local irrigators council representative, Dale Hollis, says right now, irrigators have two options. "They have to switch off the pumps and go back to dryland [cropping], and that impacts upon the productivity of the region and impacts on jobs" he said. "The second option is to go off the grid and look at alternatives." Another option is solar and there are plenty of farmers installing panels, but many growers irrigate at night and can't afford the millions of dollars it could take to buy battery storage. That's pushing many of them back to a dirtier option. "Right now, diesel stacks up," Mr Hollis said.
The head of farm operations for a sugar producer says it's now 30% cheaper to pump water with diesel than electricity, even before you count the subsidy from the federal government, and they expect to save even more money as energy prices go up.

Comments

Not in America, thank God

[Anonymous Coward]

Drill, baby, drill

Re: Not in America, thank God

[billdale]

How sad to see how blind you are to the realities. Twits such as yourself cannot see any further than the ends of your noses. There are dozens of YouTube videos showing the massive shift in energy use in Saudi Arabia, Dubai, and other oil-rich countries-- where a tank of gasoline is only a couple of dollars. Saudi Arabia has found that, like Beijing today, and Los Angeles especially in the 1970's, their unbridled use of gasoline, and fossil fuels for stationary electric generation, drastically reduces the quality of life. Saudi Arabia in particular has, for about four years now, been installing thousands of acres of solar panels to eventually end their reliance on fossil fuels. LET THAT SINK IN: the Saudis have the CHEAPEST FOSSIL FUELS ON THE PLANET, yet they are switching to renewable resources not only for automobiles such as Teslas, but to power their homes, businesses, hospitals and schools. What is the difference between the Saudis and the U.S.? Here, the oil companies and their lobbyists exert enormous pressure on politicians to assure that, as much as possible, oil will continue to enrich them while reducing the quality of life for everyone else. This is not the case in Saudi Arabia, where there are no such biases. Yes, the Saudis are still horrific tyrants in other respects, but they have nothing to keep them from realizing that solar power is now cheaper than energy from fossil fuels, and continues to drop. (In the 1970's, a watt of solar panel cost nearly a thousand dollars; over the last decades, the cost has dropped to mere pennies per watt, continues to drop, and continues to increase in efficiency per square meter.) Elon Musk, in his customary confidence, has told the Aussies that he can install solar/battery storage systems within 100 days to end their crisis, and if he cannot finish it on time it's free. He has recently powered entire island societies with solar/battery systems, ending their dependence on the crushing cost of diesel power and its disgusting pall of pollution and noise... again, it's all available on YouTube. Fossil fuel is dead, literally and figuratively: long live renewables.

How those solar panels working out for you?

[Anonymous Coward]

Sort of like those mythical windmills—"free unlimited clean energy".

Re:How those solar panels working out for you?

[Streetlight]

Windmills are still being used to pump water in my part of the US - the Colorado Plains and Western Nebraska. The water, though, is not for cops but for cattle watering. For crops, including corn, it seems there's a mixture of motorized pumps and electric I'd guess depending on the availability of electricity.
I wonder why sugar cane is being grown in what I assume is a pretty dry climate using irrigation. The Aussies might want to look at the history of irrigation farming in places like West Texas where wells kept getting deeper and deeper until it was economically unsustainable to pump water from the Ogallala Aquifer thousands of feed down. The destruction of this water supply has had major economic consequences. Of course in Texas, there's something else that can be pumped from the ground: black gold.

Re: How those solar panels working out for you?

[Anonymous Coward]

Queensland, particularly the sugarcane fields, has no lack of water. The article isn't about the difficulty in finding water to pump, it's about the increase cost to move the water to where it's needed.

Re:How those solar panels working out for you?

[Anonymous Coward]

Most of the areas in Queensland where sugar cane is grown get 1,000 to 2,000mm rainfall each year, on average. The southern end of the state is on the lower end and the north is on the high end. It really isn't dry. Irrigation just provides more consistent growing conditions.

Windmills are still used throughout Australia for watering cattle, however, most of them have been replaced with solar powered pumps. The small volume and relative isolation of these watering points makes putting up a few solar panels and a electric pump a worthwhile expense.

Re:How those solar panels working out for you?

[kqc7011]

Are those diesels, water pumps not generators? A 2,000 gallon per minute diesel pump should use under 6 (us) gallons per hour. And rental rate for a pump that size is around $500 (usd) per month. Not that expensive for pumping a large volume of water.

Re:How those solar panels working out for you?

[Pseudonym]

Don't worry, Elon Musk will save us.

Re:How those solar panels working out for you?

[thegarbz]

The irrigators in Bunderberg are using less than 8% groundwater. Most of their supply comes through an irrigation system built between the 70s and 2005 made up of dams, channels, and a shitload of pipelines. The cost they are complaining about is pumping of water horizontally.

Why is it grown using irrigation? Why do we use fertiliser? Yields.
Or why is sugar cane grown in general? Well it has been since the 1800s

But asking Aussies to look to Texas for water management is a bit silly. They are a country hugely dependent on centralised water management and the Great Artesian Basin is one of the most carefully studied ground water supplies in the world and current estimates is that levels will increase rather than decrease in the coming decades.

Re:How those solar panels working out for you?

[Neuronwelder]

And since they get floods every now and then, maybe they could grow a few brain cells while their at it, and build some man-made lake basins. And channel the flood water there. California and Texas is just as dumb. So don't think I'm just picking on Australia.

Re:How those solar panels working out for you?

[Anonymous Coward]

Neuronwelder supergenius...

Re:How those solar panels working out for you?

[Anonymous Coward]

sugar cane is grown is queensland, that typically has very heavy rainfails, a climate similar to florida. Australia does have a large dry interier, but like the US, it is a very large country, with huge variation in climate north to south and east to west.

Re:How those solar panels working out for you?

[Streetlight]

Good point. Not sure if the engines are running a generator that operates an electric well pump. The ultimate source of energy, though, is Diesel fuel. When liquid fuel was very expensive a few years ago I remember a problem with these systems - the fuel was being stolen at night so the farmers needed to go out and empty the fuel tanks when irrigation was finished. I think they typically irrigated during the day.

Re:How those solar panels working out for you?

[Anonymous Coward]

Well he was getting at a different lesson, over-exploitation for profit in the moment can lead to decades or centuries of 'recovery' - if ever. Groundwater is just one resource, think forests, think biodiversity, all of these are massively undervalued in the goal of 'profit' - but in the end that profit has insignificant value by comparison to what is lost.

Ask a cane toad.

Re:How those solar panels working out for you?

[Anonymous Coward]

Er, they're growing sugar, can't they process some to ethanol and fuel their own pumps? Can you make a biodiesel from sugar?

Re:How those solar panels working out for you?

[Anonymous Coward]

Coastal area, fairly high rainfall.

Re:How those solar panels working out for you?

[dbIII]

"The Aussies" are growing the stuff in places where only occasional irrigation is needed.
Droughts happen.

Re:How those solar panels working out for you?

[dbIII]

Good points but wrong aquifer.

Re:How those solar panels working out for you?

[Streetlight]

That's a pretty good rainfall - 40 to 80 inches per year. Perhaps a bit off topic, but for comparison in the US state of Iowa, where my in laws live, the main crops are corn (maize) and soybeans, the rainfall averages 34 inches (plus or minus a few inches) per year, and there is generally no irrigation. Of course, some of that precipitation is in the form of snow. In much of the state the soil is incredibly deep and rich and seems to hold onto its water. Even with that much rain many of the fields I'm familiar with need good underground tiles (French drains?) for drainage because a there's too much water most years. Maybe sugar cane needs more and continuous watering. I didn't realize the sugar cane farmers didn't really pump well water but move it horizontally - a big difference from what goes on in some parts of the Great Plains of the US where water is drawn from wells.

Re:How those solar panels working out for you?

[vtcodger]

Eastern Queensland is tropical. Think Florida with hills. They grow the sugar cane in the river valleys near the coast (or at least they used to). LOTS of water in the Summer rainy season, not so much in their Winter.

Re:How those solar panels working out for you?

[vtcodger]

Trouble is that it's unlimited clean energy 30% of the time. Without vast amounts of cheap storage -- which looks to be 20-40 years away, overdependence on wind and solar power doesn't work very well. South Australia is fast becoming a poster child for why one should not let ideolouges -- right or left -- engineer stuff. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

Re:How those solar panels working out for you?

[vtcodger]

"Er, they're growing sugar, can't they process some to ethanol and fuel their own pumps?"

Good thought. Brazil makes ethanol from sugar refining waste and it is alleged to be a lot less of a economic fiasco than the ill considered US corn ethanol program. The latter turns out (as was predicted at the time it was proposed) to be an elaborate way to turn fossil fuels used for plowing, irrigation, and distillation into roughly energy equivalent amounts a not especially desirable liquid fuel that can't be used full strength in most existing engines

"Can you make a biodiesel from sugar?"

Not easily and not economically. Better to grow some crop that yields an oil that can be used in a diesel engine with little or no processing. Or so I'm told anyway.

Re:How those solar panels working out for you?

[dbIII]

I wonder why sugar cane is being grown in what I assume is a pretty dry climate using irrigation

A map showing where sugar cane is grown in Australia will correct that assumption that appears to have grown from watching Mad Max movies. It's a LOT wetter than Nebraska in those places.

Re: How those solar panels working out for you?

[billdale]

"Of course in Texas, there's something else that can be pumped from the ground: black gold." Ugggh... gold? Far from it... we could liken it more to the ills from Pandora's Box--- and what kind of idiot are you to think that pumping oil is a substitute for pumping water? You are going to irrigate your crops with crude?!? It's that kind of wacko logic that has allowed the oil industry to stave off its eventual death for just a little while longer... fossil fuel is not sustainable... wind and solar is.

Re:How those solar panels working out for you?

[thegarbz]

You can happily run those pumps by pouring Bundy Rum into it.

Re:How those solar panels working out for you?

[thegarbz]

I thought that was the point. No aquifer.

Re:How those solar panels working out for you?

[Zaelath]

Yes. You'd lose too much efficiency running diesel generators for electric pumps.

Re:How those solar panels working out for you?

[dbIII]

There are several along the coast, they are just not the Great Artesian Basin and are very shallow. Since it only makes up a tiny bit of the water used (and is replenished from the rivers anyway) it's not really relevant. Sorry I work with geophysicists and there are maps of this stuff all over the walls so I needlessly nitpicked.

Re:How those solar panels working out for you?

[thegarbz]

Oh right. Got it now. Wires crossed :-)

Not actually sure about the smaller aquifers, I assume those would be managed by government water groups as well, but I have nothing to back that up. Certainly the Great Artesian Basin is no where near Bunderberg.

Re:How those solar panels working out for you?

[mcswell]

I've got an idea. Pour the rum into some people, and have them peddle a bicycle-style pump all day.

Some Solar, with a gravity battery?

[berchca]

Going off the grid always sounds so complete and final, but couldn't they set up _some_ amount of solar panels that pump into raised storage tanks during the day, then irrigate with that water during the night? Seems like any power saved is good for the wallet (and, vs. diesel, good for the planet).

Re:Some Solar, with a gravity battery?

[Anonymous Coward]

Exactly what I was thinking. No efficiency loss either. They literally let the water flow downhill from the tank and into the the crops, no downward pumping required, no using the gravity to spin a generator.

Re:Some Solar, with a gravity battery?

[lgw]

Going off the grid always sounds so complete and final, but couldn't they set up _some_ amount of solar panels that pump into raised storage tanks during the day, then irrigate with that water during the night? Seems like any power saved is good for the wallet (and, vs. diesel, good for the planet).

Because "raised storage tanks" are far more expensive than diesel generators?

Re:Some Solar, with a gravity battery?

[Anonymous Coward]

Probably a short term gap thing. 1000-15000 gallon storage containers are not terribly expensive but not exactly cheap either (1.50 to 3 dollars use per gallon). Labor time involved would eventually push them towards a simpler cheaper solution.

Re: Some Solar, with a gravity battery?

[Anonymous Coward]

Those raised storage tanks would risk storm damage from high winds, lighning strikes and general corrosion. Keeping water in the ground, energy in diesel tanks and using both only when needed is the best strategy. The alternative would be to split water into hydrogen and oxygen using solar power.

Re:Some Solar, with a gravity battery?

[ShanghaiBill]

but couldn't they set up _some_ amount of solar panels that pump into raised storage tanks during the day, then irrigate with that water during the night?

There is no reason to do that. Irrigation does not need to be a continuous process. Just pump the water onto the fields when the power is available, and when there is no power, you stop pumping. There is no rational reason to pump into a (costly) storage tank rather than directly onto the crops.

Re:Some Solar, with a gravity battery?

[sugar and acid]

Night time irrigation reduces water loss from evaporation. Irrigate at night and there is 12 hours or more to soak into the ground and be absorbed by the crops before it gets to the hottest part of the day.

Re:Some Solar, with a gravity battery?

[rgmoore]

There is no reason to do that.

Sure there is. Farmers, especially ones in areas where water is the limiting factor in how much they can grow, are worried about losses to evaporation. Those losses can be minimized by irrigating at night, when it's cooler and water evaporates more slowly. Depending on the economics and the water supply, it may make sense to adopt a more expensive irrigation strategy if it conserves water.

Re:Some Solar, with a gravity battery?

[Barsteward]

they've not got the money to invest in batery storage, how will they fund that sort of development?

Re: Some Solar, with a gravity battery?

[Anonymous Coward]

The problem with any of these big Capital projects is that you have to come up with all this Capital to do it. At the end of the day energy is usually a marginal cost compared to Capital.

Re:Some Solar, with a gravity battery?

[thegarbz]

Good for the wallet depends on the cost of raised storage tanks.

Re:Some Solar, with a gravity battery?

[thegarbz]

Just pump the water onto the fields when the power is available, and when there is no power, you stop pumping.

That's called wasting water. Kind of an important think to watch in Australia of all places. Actually you'll find the water management authorities dictate when you can irrigate and when you can't.

Re:Some Solar, with a gravity battery?

[Anonymous Coward]

Raised storage tanks? We're not talking about your local garden centre here, some of these farms are the size of small countries.

Re:Some Solar, with a gravity battery?

[Anonymous Coward]

it would cost millions to build tanks of sufficient size (used to work with my step father to build the cattle water tanks on feedlots in Aus) and then you would need a significant size solar farm (backed by diesel or grid for cloudy days). Your idea would be exponentially more expensive.

Re:Some Solar, with a gravity battery?

[gravewax]

Watering in day time causes damage to the crops from burning and we are talking queensland, you would get massive water loss from evaporation making a precious resource even more scant.

Re: Some Solar, with a gravity battery?

[Anonymous Coward]

Like a man mad hill with a man mad lake res?

Re:Some Solar, with a gravity battery?

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm no farmer, so I don't know if this applies in the same way to crops, but watering lawns at night is generally a bad idea as it leads to fungus growth.

http://www.hewitts.com/garden-tips/gardening/avoiding-fungus-and-correct-watering-methods/

http://homeguides.sfgate.com/lawn-problems-watering-night-74544.html

Re: Some Solar, with a gravity battery?

[Anonymous Coward]

How mad is the man, mad maximum?

Re:Some Solar, with a gravity battery?

[dkegel]

No need for tanks. They're already using drip irrigation some places, and it's ok to drip irrigate during the day. Problem solved! I think India's starting to do this with sugarcane: indianexpress.com/article/cities/mumbai/devendra-fadnavis-prescribes-drip-irrigation-for-sugarcane-solar-powered-pumps-2979739/

Re:Some Solar, with a gravity battery?

[Anonymous Coward]

the risk exists but Australia is incredibly dry (driest continent on earth), we can't afford to waste water. Secondly we are talking Queensland here, even the nights are hot for much of the year and by early morning all the moisture sitting on the leaves has well and truly dried up.

Re:Some Solar, with a gravity battery?

[Uberbah]

Because "raised storage tanks" are far more expensive than diesel generators?

Of course - if you're only looking at up-front costs. But how much is your monthly diesel cost going to compare to the monthly cost of a loan for farm's little water tower...

Re: Some Solar, with a gravity battery?

[Anonymous Coward]

Burning of crops by day time irrigation is a wives tale, it doesn't happen. There are other legit reasons not to do it though. Fast growing tropical crops like sugar cane are adapted to wet and humid environments so night time watering it is totally acceptable.

Re:Some Solar, with a gravity battery?

[buss_error]

A plastic 10,000 gallon tank costs about USD 6,000. Not sure what a concrete tank would cost these days. The biggest cost aside from labor is the concrete, then the forms. I know of a 100,000 gallon pool built for irrigation and solar plus wind and the cost was under USD 50,000. Solar for the electricity to run control systems (valves and senors), wind to do the actual pumping. As for when the actual irrigation is done (day or night), this system is pretty much impervious to instant power demand. The water is pumped whenever wind is high enough and impounded above grade of the fields, and common car batteries store the electricity to control valves. Gravity does the rest.

I didn't see the reason stated for why power rates are climbing so quickly.

Re:Some Solar, with a gravity battery?

[dbIII]

I didn't see the reason stated for why power rates are climbing so quickly.

The government doing the price regulation owns the generators and benefits as the price goes up.
The results of "running a government like a business" are obvious - citizens get financially screwed over.

Re:Some Solar, with a gravity battery?

[dbIII]

Correct - but they are still paying highly inflated costs for electricity to run those pumps at night.
There has been serious price gouging where somehow some of the cheapest to produce electricity on the planet is sold to the customer at close to the highest prices on the planet.

Re:Some Solar, with a gravity battery?

[quenda]

Australia is incredibly dry (driest continent on earth)

No, Antarctica takes that honour. And not just because snow is dry. Antarctica has far lower total precipitation. It is one big desert.

Re:Some Solar, with a gravity battery?

[FlyHelicopters]

10,000 whole gallons, huh? Sounds impressive... until you consider that they use pumps that move 2,000 gallons of water a minute...

You'd need a thousand such tanks... the farmers are not idiots waiting for Slashdot to save them...

Re:Some Solar, with a gravity battery?

[lgw]

You're off by a couple orders of magnitude, and you're imagining convenient elevation.

Re:Some Solar, with a gravity battery?

[vtcodger]

Trouble is that pumped storage requires moving large amounts of water through substantial vertical distances. My cocktail napkin here says that you need to pump a cubic meter of water (That's a metric ton) up about 100 meters (328 feet) to store 1 kwHr of electricity. And that's assuming 100% efficiency in pumping and subsequent generation. And even when you have water and vertical, finding a place to put the upper reservoir can be very difficult. Much of the Australian interior doesn't have either a lot of water or a lot of vertical to work with.

BTW, pumped storage facilities tend to be major engineering projects with prices appropriate to a major engineering project. Hundreds of millions of USD. They need to be used a lot (daily would be good) in order to cover the up front investment.

Re:Some Solar, with a gravity battery?

[Anonymous Coward]

Really? Because when I was growing up in country Australia lots of farmers had arrangements where windmills (old fashioned galvanised metal ones direct driving a pump) would pump water from a damn/channel up to a tank or damn on top of a rise to be distributed for stock. What the GP is proposing is just this with updated tech, not rocket science. In fact, I might just ask some farmers about this next time I visit my parents.

Re:Some Solar, with a gravity battery?

[dwillden]

Depends on where you live. Live in an arid state (I live in Utah) and you will be strongly encouraged if not legally required to water during the night. In fact in many areas it's illegal to water between 10 am and 6 pm. If you are getting fungal growth you cut back on the amount or frequency, but still water at night.

Re:Some Solar, with a gravity battery?

[Anonymous Coward]

If you are going for solar power then there are other options than just photovoltaic and batteries.
A solar power plant in Nevada uses mirrors to melt salt and then the heat is used like it is in other thermal based plants like coal and nuclear.
Since the salt stays warm after sunset there is no need for batteries. Power can be generated through the night.

Repairing mirrors is also a bit less expensive than repairing photovoltaic panels.

Re:Some Solar, with a gravity battery?

[Anonymous Coward]

If you read the article, they aren't switching to *just* diesel gen sets.

They are swapping over to diesel pumps. Believe it or not generating electricity is still a process with loss. It's more efficient to drive the pump off the motor rather than genset -> run your own grid -> existing electric motor -> pump.

Thus solar makes no sense either as they generally had scrapped the motors. Even if they hadn't, the price of the wire to move power around the property would eat into the ROI pretty darn quick.

Re:Some Solar, with a gravity battery?

[olau]

You don't need to elevate it. You just need a buffer tank and an extra pump. For the tank, you could buy one of those designed for children.

If this turns into a long term problem, I'm sure similar solutions will turn up - diesel is far too expensive in the long run.

Re:Some Solar, with a gravity battery?

[olau]

Oops, sorry, my bad. I see that the problem is not getting the water out of the ground, it's distributing it.

Re:Some Solar, with a gravity battery?

[budgenator]

Solar is not going to provide the energy requirements to operate a modern agricultural irrigation system, the real problem is "Green Subsidies" to promote excess wind turbines has resulted in far dirtier energy sources being less expensive and more reliable.

Re:Some Solar, with a gravity battery?

[vtcodger]

That looks to be the same design as the much larger and seriously underperforming Ivanpah solar facility in California. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

Re:Some Solar, with a gravity battery?

[TechnoJoe]

Yes! And if they kajiggered the clocks for DST, they would have more daylight for those solar panels.

Re:Some Solar, with a gravity battery?

[thegarbz]

Their water doesn't come from the ground, it comes from a surface water irrigation system fed by a whoooping big dam a few hundred km away. They costs here are horizontal pumping and if you looked at TFA you'd see the pumps being talked about are not large, but significant enough that gravity won't do the job.

But really the $6000 USD figure just shows that the issue is not actually understood.

Re:Some Solar, with a gravity battery?

[buss_error]

You're off by a couple orders of magnitude, and you're imagining convenient elevation.

Only stating my personal experience. We were only concerned about 90 and 97 acre fields. Our problem got solved.

On the other hand, one only needs about 3' of headway to distribute water up to 2 miles away given level grade and no need for high pressure.
If you would like more pressure and higher flow rates, then more headway to the impoundment tank would be needed. Don't forget that the level of the impoundment reservoir also adds headway to the system. EG: 3' above grade, 7' deep tank, would yield 10' of headway for the first (top) foot.

Or more simply, it's cheap and easy to make a dirt pile to build your tank on top of. There are folks posting that seem to have an ulterior motive to push one technology over another, while punishing the other technology or denigrating it. I'm not terribly interested in that.

Nighttime watering?

[link-error]

Or, pump the water to an elevated tank during the day with solar?

Re:Nighttime watering?

[Anonymous Coward]

Bath County Pumped Storage Station

Re: Nighttime watering?

[gerf]

That requires a large hill or plateau, and is not for irrigation. It's a battery, the same as Mr. Musk suggested.

Re:Nighttime watering?

[FlyHelicopters]

What do you think it costs to create a tank of 5 million gallons, 100 meters in the air?

Do you think farmers have that much money?

Re: Nighttime watering?

[Anonymous Coward]

OK then, pump water into a pressurised airtight tank!

Why aren't the generators using Diesel?

[AK Marc]

If a home user (including light industrial like farms) can generate for less than the grid cost, why isn't the grid using Diesel and doing it cheaper?

This isn't about "Diesel", this is about the abuses of a privatized utility.

Re: Why aren't the generators using Diesel?

[Anonymous Coward]

Transport cost, transit loss, conversion loss, etc

Re:Why aren't the generators using Diesel?

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

Depending on how far out in the sticks they are, transmission costs probably don't help; nor does the fact that using a diesel pump is going to turn diesel into water-moved-where-you-want-it more efficiently than running a diesel generator, transmission lines to the desired location, and then running an electric pump unless the engine in question is small enough that it can't get even close to the efficiency that larger heat engines enjoy.

Re: Why aren't the generators using Diesel?

[AK Marc]

And there's no transport cost to get Diesel to a remote farm? The cost of moving liquid is higher than moving electrons.

Re: Why aren't the generators using Diesel?

[Anonymous Coward]

They get teleported right? Magically, from the plant to one's home.

Meanwhile, here in the real world, you have to provide multi ton transformers, coolants, , repair them once every x years. Replace the the blown ones regularly. Etc etc. Pay for everybody involved.
All that is under 'transport'.

I'm not saying the electrical company over there in Australia isn't jacking up prices. But your view of the logistical requirements of energy transfer is very naive .

Re:Why aren't the generators using Diesel?

[AmiMoJo]

Cost of building grid scale diesel power stations, environmental protections that don't apply to small businesses etc.

In any case, if you are going to invest in new generating capacity it would make more sense to go for renewables. Cheaper to build, cheaper to run, faster to bring online.

Re: Why aren't the generators using Diesel?

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm not saying the electrical company over there in Australia isn't jacking up prices. But your view of the logistical requirements of energy transfer is very naive.

Slashdot has lots of software types who are used to hardware type things just "magically working." :-)

Re:Why aren't the generators using Diesel?

[HornWumpus]

That's what Australia did. Apparently, it is _not_ cheaper in actual real world cases.

Re: Why aren't the generators using Diesel?

[Anonymous Coward]

You can either be in favor of intermittent renewables or you can understand how the electrical grid works. You can't do both.

Re:Why aren't the generators using Diesel?

[thegarbz]

why isn't the grid using Diesel and doing it cheaper?

Because generating electricity at scale via diesel is by far the most expensive choice. The rising cost in electricity has for a large part been to do with massive changes to distribution management. i.e. they started maintaining shit and gold plating the grid and are pushing the costs to the consumers.

Diesel generators are cheap as chips. At the 200kW+ range small gas turbines are a better option if you have a continuous nat gas supply. But wind doesn't make financial sense until you scale it up to grid level sizes.

Re: Why aren't the generators using Diesel?

[thegarbz]

And there's no transport cost to get Diesel to a remote farm? The cost of moving liquid is higher than moving electrons.

The initial cost is high, the incremental cost is quite a bit lower. The area we're talking about is not as remote as you think and the farmers already have massive supplies of locally stored diesel.

Re:Why aren't the generators using Diesel?

[AK Marc]

Then why do remote towns in Alaska, completely off the grid, use Diesel generation for a grid power, not local generators per house, if that were more economical?

In reality, centralized generation, including Diesel, is cheaper than distributed generation. Distributed generation is only cheaper when land is the expensive part (solar PV, and to a lesser extent, wind).

Re: Why aren't the generators using Diesel?

[skids]

Grids get the short end of the stick no matter what generation technology is politically popular. Getting the public to care about the grid (and cut them some NIMBY slack) is one of the big challenges of the coming decades. Some progress can be made by pointing out things like we shouldn't be losing power to tens of thousands of customers just because it is windy/rains/snows.

That said, I thin it's been pretty well established that a lot of the electricity "crisis" down under is being fabricated by financial departments.

Re:Why aren't the generators using Diesel?

[AmiMoJo]

Because they did it wrong. They need to properly integrate the renewables and build some storage. Drop Elon Musk an email about it.

Look at the mess with renewable heating in Ireland. Renewables are not immune from screw-ups.

Re:Why aren't the generators using Diesel?

[HornWumpus]

I don't want to put words in your mouth. Are you saying the costs will come down if they just spend more?

Re:Why aren't the generators using Diesel?

[iris-n]

GP was being sarcastic: burning diesel is rather expensive, about any other form of producing power is cheaper. And Australia uses mostly the cheapest of all, coal. The fact that it for these farmers it is cheaper to burn diesel than to buy electricity from a power plant shows how thoroughly fucked up the market there is.

Re:Why aren't the generators using Diesel?

[AHuxley]

Been able to turn on any other power generation would take away from spot pricing. That would reduce profits.
This is not some 1930's US plan to help rural locations with power e.g. Rural Electrification Administration (REA) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/....
Think of buying a power grid and generators from the French perspective or as a company in China.
You enter the market and expect a growing return for the power generated every year. No new competition. No new power plants to offer lower prices. That would be unfair given the investment made.
A spot market to ensure maximum profit when demand is up.
The market is just balanced and the cash flows back to the company.
No more power is generated than is never needed and prices are kept at a maximum.
What to tell the locals about such prices as "capitalism" and the "private sector" was to reduce prices?
The environment. The lack of any new generation capacity or having no competition is not the issue.
Its the wind and sun thats at fault. Local political leaders love to talk about the wind and sun and no lawyer can find fault with the suns output in open court.
So a lot of wind and solar was added to the network to keep prices up. Consumers have to pay for their power usage, the upgrade costs to wind and solar and for the grid.
The next cost will be new dams, upgrading the grid to withstand storms or grid upgrades with battery packs.
So buying and driving out tanks of diesel is cheaper than been grid connected.

Re:Why aren't the generators using Diesel?

[AK Marc]

Costs will come down if they spend their money more wisely.

Re:Why aren't the generators using Diesel?

[dbIII]

Even worse - abuse by a government utility that is acting like a private one. Worst of both worlds. Expensive additional layers of private middlemen who do nothing but add up and send out the bills don't help either. It's a fake electricity market regulated by the same government that profits from it. I saw the start of this disaster in 1996 and got out, moving to the resource industries instead.

Re:Why aren't the generators using Diesel?

[dbIII]

Yes, but it's Queensland, so wind is not there at all and large scale solar still hasn't come on line.
It's nearly all coal with gas to cover peaks and a small amount of hydro.
"Green" power sources are not there in amounts that can be noticed apart from private rooftop solar which only has very local effects.

Re:Why aren't the generators using Diesel?

[Anonymous Coward]

"Yes, but it's Queensland, so wind is not there at all"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_wind_farms_in_Queensland

12.5MW online, with 430MW with final planning approval (ie: Ready to start construction).

To put this into perspective, QLD power grid uses:
8.3GW Coal
3.5GW Gas Turbine (natural gas/Coal seam gas/LBO/kerosene/diesel)
191.5MW Reciprocating (landfill gas/natural gas/diesel/coal seam gas/natural gas/sewage gas/coalbed methane)
170.5MW non-pumped hydroelectric
500MW pumped storage hydroelectric (10 hours generation for 14 hours pumping)
361MW biomass based (various methods, most of these are industrial power sources that sell excess generation to the grid) (bagasse, coffee grounds/sawdust, crop waste, black liquor)

That's 544MW of renewable power sources, not including 500MW pumped hydro, and not including the fairly common (highest penetration in Australia) rooftop PV solar capacity* of 1.6GW. That seems noticeable.

* Note capacity and not actual generation.

It should also be noted that Queensland has a relatively large and cheap supply of premium low sulphur and low ash thermal coal.

Re:Why aren't the generators using Diesel?

[cheesybagel]

Due do Thermodynamics. Basically any kind of heat engine will be more efficient with sophisticated cooling, like cooling towers, and those only make economic sense with a large enough installation. Also the less parts a system has typically the less chance one of the parts will fail.

Re:Why aren't the generators using Diesel?

[AmiMoJo]

Not necessarily more, just spend the money they did have better.

Re:Why aren't the generators using Diesel?

[mjwx]

If a home user (including light industrial like farms) can generate for less than the grid cost, why isn't the grid using Diesel and doing it cheaper?

This isn't about "Diesel", this is about the abuses of a privatized utility.

This. The fine article mentions Queensland. in the 00's Queensland privatised much of its electricity infrastructure and pretty much all of the retail. Since then the price of electricity has been pushed higher. I'd be surprised to find that the private electricity providers weren't trying to price rural users off the grid so they can bump up their profit.

I used to live in a mining town, it was cheaper for the company to run their own generators to supply the town as well as the site than to pay for scheme power.

Re:Why aren't the generators using Diesel?

[budgenator]

It's more about a Government's green agenda having unanticipated consequences. I'm hearing about Middle-class Canadians in Ontario with Hydro bills 2 years in arrears, it's less expensive to buy Ontario electricity in New York and Michigan than it is in Ontario.

Re:Why aren't the generators using Diesel?

[Anonymous Coward]

Privatised utility? No, the electricity companies in Queensland are still government owned.

In the 1990s the federal government pushed to establish a national electricity market. Part of this process involved inducing the states to break up their vertically-integrated electricity monopolies into generation, transmission, distribution and retail organisations to allow private investment and competition in various aspects such as generation and retail. Transmission and distribution are natural monopolies, and are tightly regulated in what profits they are allowed to make.

Only the states of Victoria and South Australia completely privatised their electricity sectors, while the other states retained whole or partial government ownership of the companies.

Re:Why aren't the generators using Diesel?

[AK Marc]

What does Ontario and NY have to do with Queensland? Looks like the one here pushing an agenda is you.

Re:Why aren't the generators using Diesel?

[Anonymous Coward]

>Because they did it wrong.

Just like Communism, aye mate?

Why would you use batteries?

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

If you are using electricity to pump water; and want the water at night, why would you use batteries; rather than 'gravity'? You don't need to elevate water much to get it to flow downhill; and storing water a few meters above ground level is cheaper and more mature than battery tech by a substantial margin.

(Now, anyone for a bet on how many years these guys have before 'finding groundwater that still exists' becomes a markedly more exciting challenge than 'pumping it' is?)

Re:Why would you use batteries?

[Kohath]

Why? What's the half-life of ground water?

Re:Why would you use batteries?

[Anonymous Coward]

If you're pumping water, why not use wind, rather than solar in the first place?

Re:Why would you use batteries?

[religionofpeas]

Well, how long does it take to pump out half of the water ?

Re:Why would you use batteries?

[lgw]

Elevated storage tanks aren't free. Perhaps you underestimate the amount of water involved.

Re:Why would you use batteries?

[Kohath]

You mean it's not enough to say "elevated storage tanks" (and then feel smugly self-superior)? They don't just appear, along with the solar cells to fill them, and start operating magically?

Because I'm guessing a farmer can just make a call and rent a diesel generator, and have it delivered to his farm within 2-3 days. And make another call to setup periodic refueling.

Re:Why would you use batteries?

[haruchai]

Perhaps you underestimate the amount of water involved

Tell that to the idiot farmers growing fucking SUGAR CANE in South Australia, the driest state in a famously dry country

Re:Why would you use batteries?

[Falconhell]

Nobody grows sugarcane here in SA, this story is about Queensland, its our Texas, where we keep,the dumbest rrdnecks.

Re:Why would you use batteries?

[Anonymous Coward]

If you're pumping water, why not use wind, rather than solar in the first place?

You mean, like farms have been doing for over a century in the US?

Re:Why would you use batteries?

[Anonymous Coward]

Others could be:
Flywheels, be it cheap "dirtcrete" cylinders, logs or stone, or more expensive metal ones.
Advantage of cheap ones is you can make loads of them, but you need to run them slower and they take up more land. Only useful if you have loads of unused land, or are up for digging deep.
Metal ones take up vastly less space and store way more energy, at the obvious expense of extra initial cost, and harder to add more per unit.

Compressed gas containers underground.
Getting huge containers or pipes, compress air in to it, unleash the power at night.
You can build one of these over a weekend with a small digger and a bunch of metal/cement.
Basically like building an underground nuclear bunker, but deeper and for storing gas.

Dams if you have hilly land, or if you have a river.
You can easily make small dams multiple times down a river rather than huge dams.
This generates a decent bit of energy without the huge destruction to the local area, or require a cavern to dam up.

Trying to think of others, but those are the only ones that come to mind.
While you could use wind power, more so if you are near the ocean, it is still not a good one to rely on for constant power.
Ocean wind currents can provide near-constant wind, but I've seen them regularly be still for long periods on very calm days.
Still need a storage medium there sadly.

Re:Why would you use batteries?

[ShanghaiBill]

If you're pumping water, why not use wind, rather than solar in the first place?

Because Queensland is not very windy. It is located in the horse latitudes, known for becalming ships. However, it has plenty of sunshine.

Re:Why would you use batteries?

[ShanghaiBill]

Tell that to the idiot farmers growing fucking SUGAR CANE in South Australia, the driest state in a famously dry country

1. Queensland is in NORTHERN Australia.
2. It is the WETTEST state.

Re: Why would you use batteries?

[HornWumpus]

Probably comes from delusional views of their own personal importance.

Typed without a tiny hint of self awareness or irony.

Many farmers have 4 year ag degrees and know as much about various plowing methods as the average /.er _claims_ to know about various databases.

Re:Why would you use batteries?

[HornWumpus]

Being that wrong has to sting.

Re: Why would you use batteries?

[Anonymous Coward]

Fuck you buddy

Re: Why would you use batteries?

[Anonymous Coward]

As opposed to random commenter on the internet, who so grounded that he can tell those idiot Farmers how to do their jobs.

Re:Why would you use batteries?

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

Depends on how fast you extract it; but it's a rare aquifer is replenished faster than a bunch of users whose only cost for tapping it is subsidized diesel to drive the pumps will tend to extract.

Re:Why would you use batteries?

[vlad30]

However, it has plenty of sunshine.

For part of each 24 hour period only. Also if solar was cheaper why are there subsidies by the government charged to electricity companies and eventually paid for those who can't get solar (e.g. live in an apartment, renting can't afford the initial installation etc) basically screwing the those at the bottom of the economic pile.

Re:Why would you use batteries?

[thegarbz]

why would you use batteries; rather than 'gravity'?

Using either is a problem to people who are specifically avoiding the capital outlay for new equipment. The diesel makes sense because the infrastructure and gear is already in place. Solar makes sense if the power is used when being generated because it's quite cheap. Add in some convoluted gravity fed system, or large battery storage and it's a non-starter again.

Re:Why would you use batteries?

[thegarbz]

(Now, anyone for a bet on how many years these guys have before 'finding groundwater that still exists' becomes a markedly more exciting challenge than 'pumping it' is?)

Oh and hate to double post but:
a) Ground water is Australia is very carefully managed, and
b) Bunderburg sugar producers do not use groundwater, they are talking about horizontal pumping.

Re: Why would you use batteries?

[HornWumpus]

Double down on delusional. Good plan.

Re:Why would you use batteries?

[Anonymous Coward]

Pivot irrigators on a dairy fed from a nearby river use ~90-110kW of power to pump water at a pressure of ~700kPa. You are unlikely to acquire that volume and pressure by elevating a tank slightly, even assuming you had a small hill with a vast open space for a dam on top (for the ~600 litres per second these things can dump on the ground).

Re:Why would you use batteries?

[cdrudge]

2. It is the WETTEST state

I know nothing about Australian weather, but it seems that if there is a large demand for irrigation in the wettest state for sugar cane, perhaps it's still not an ideal crop to grow in the region.

Re:Why would you use batteries?

[GuB-42]

Looking at the cost of a water tower, it seems that you are right.
Seen in an article : a 2000 m3 water tower, 60m high, costs around $4 million. It stores around 333 kWh of potential energy. That's about $12000 per kWh.
A Tesla powerwall is $3500 for 10 kWh, or $350 per kWh, or 35 times cheaper.

It looks like unless you have a mountain nearby, from an energy storage perspective, elevated water tanks are not the solution.

Re: Why would you use batteries?

[Anonymous Coward]

Presented with experiences with farmers. Can't offer any anecdotes or observations to the contrary, too afraid to actually visit some farmers and find out how they behave, no surprise there, you probably piss upwind as well.

Re: Why would you use batteries?

[HornWumpus]

I don't think you've ever met a farmer. You're just repeating some durp somebody else told you.

Re:Why would you use batteries?

[LynnwoodRooster]

Question: how much pressure does it take to run a typical sprinkler head on a rotary irrigation setup, or to ensure even distribution across 200 meters of pipe with outlets every 10 meters? HINT: It's a lot more than you get from a few meters of elevation...

Re:Why would you use batteries?

[HornWumpus]

I don't live in Queensland, but I've been there.

IIRC most of the cane fields are right near the coast (they were burning them when I was there). There is a range of hills near the coast. But that land is relatively expensive as it doesn't flood in cyclones. Near any cities or towns the hills are full of homes of retired people/pot growers/junkies (Thai genetic buds the size of small children). Further out not so much, but still not likely to be owned by the farmers.

The point isn't pumped storage for energy, it's water storage. As such 3 meters of elevation should be more than enough.

Re:Why would you use batteries?

[Anonymous Coward]

... we keep the dumbest rednecks.

When half the population lives in 2 states, things get done a little differently in the other states, notably Queensland and Western Australia (WA). Queensland is close to the populous states and is belittled for not slavishly follow their policies and ideas, even on something as trivial as daylight saving. To be fair, there is some merit to the complaint since even laws that are meant to be standardized across the states, are different in Queensland. (US-ians note; we don't let our government pull that 'big government' shit on us, they've got 53 duties and everything else is a recommendation.) But no-one notices that distant WA is strange, even by Queensland standards.

... it's our Texas ...

Like US Texas (we also have a town called Texas), Queensland produces a lot more than it consumes, thanks to our medium-size population, a quarter of whom originally lived in the fashionable, populous states.

Re: Why would you use batteries?

[Anonymous Coward]

Sadly, I wish it were only secondhand, but no, the farmers I encounter are far too likely to regurgitate their own self-important blatherskite, bewailing and bemoaning the ills they suffer.

At least none of them have driven their tractors around the Loop.

Re:Why would you use batteries?

[SuricouRaven]

It might be practical were you able to build on a naturally occuring hill. It's just a matter then of digging a big hole, putting down a liner, and adding a pipe for getting the water out again. Unfortunately, this is Queensland. In the ranking of famously flat places, it's not quite Kansas but it tries.

Re:Why would you use batteries?

[HornWumpus]

Unfounded assumption they are using rotary irrigation and sprinkler heads. Ditches and flood.

Re:Why would you use batteries?

[AHuxley]

Its a farm. Power usage might be different given the needs of say a lot of refrigeration.
Fuel taxes in Australia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
"Under these changes, all off-road business use of fuel became eligible for subsidies."
Re 'mature than battery tech"
A diesel pump is easy to service and import into Australia.
Getting batteries needs a lot more currency due to exchange rates. Solar needs workers to drive out and build a system or install batteries.
A large diesel generator has to be found to cover for when the sun is not working as expected for a few days and the batteries get low.
A nice new network is needed to keep the batteries changed, solar working well and to turn the new diesel generator on when needed.

Re:Why would you use batteries?

[Anonymous Coward]

Problem is that Queensland is massively affected by El Nino / La Nina, swinging between drought and floods, with not much in between.

Currently some 80+% of the state is declared to be in drought....
https://www.longpaddock.qld.gov.au/queenslanddroughtmonitor/queenslanddroughtreport/

Re:Why would you use batteries?

[Anonymous Coward]

"2. It is the WETTEST state."

Which is currently 90% drought declared. Hence the reason it is very important to minimise evaporation.
(http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/queensland/nearly-90-per-cent-of-queensland-in-drought-after-latest-declarations-20170312-guwai4.html)

Ironically the wet areas are in the SE, where the majority of the population lives, and where very little farming occurs.

Re:Why would you use batteries?

[haruchai]

Being that wrong has to sting.

I'm embracing all that the Trump era has brought so it's just an alternative fact.
I get that sugar exports bring in revenue but as someone whose has sugar cane farmers among relatives going back 150 years and lived for a decade in a town that sprung up from what was once a large sugar cane field, I'll state that if your sugar cane can't survive without irrigation, you're doing it in the wrong place or you've been doing it wrong for a long time.

Re:Why would you use batteries?

[Anonymous Coward]

It's not ground water.

Re: Why would you use batteries?

[Anonymous Coward]

Upset that all of the examples in GP post are searchable?

I didn't pick them out of a hat. Could have added pesticides, monocultures and cattle feed too.

Re:Why would you use batteries?

[dbIII]

The aquifers in question are sitting directly under very large rivers in areas with very high rainfall (1000mm+). When the rivers run dry the aquifer will dry up. It's probably best if you think of it as pumping directly from the river since these canefields are close enough to the rivers to be in the flood plain.

Re:Why would you use batteries?

[dbIII]

Droughts happen.

Re:Why would you use batteries?

[haruchai]

Droughts happen.

Especially in Australia

Re:Why would you use batteries?

[cheesybagel]

What did you expect? Floodplains agriculture? They still need to pump water from the river to the farms.

Re:Why would you use batteries?

[vtcodger]

"Because Queensland is not very windy. It is located in the horse latitudes [wikipedia.org], known for becalming ships. However, it has plenty of sunshine."

I'm sure you're right. Plus solar most places has the advantage that a string of days without much sun is likely to be cool and rainy and crops won't need irrigation. And yes I'm familiar with coastal California's seemingly endless late spring-early summer marine layer. That's why I said "most".

Re:Why would you use batteries?

[dbIII]

We are not all Brandis and Dutton here (just as you are not all Downer the former member for Woodside*) and South Australia with the current weird Bible group/beer/gay bashing thing wins this weeks redneck prize.

* Yes, I'm being a smart arse, he was paid to work for his electorate but was really working for someone else, especially over the East Timor boundary.

Re:Why would you use batteries?

[swillden]

Unfounded assumption they are using rotary irrigation and sprinkler heads. Ditches and flood.

Basically nobody flood-irrigates from ditches. Certainly nobody who built their irrigation infrastructure in the last few decades. Many of those who built it 50-100 years ago have converted to pressurized systems because they're dramatically more efficient at delivering water where you need it, and not where you don't (evaporation and ground leakage often consume over half of the water put into a ditch network), and because they're actually cheaper to maintain.

Re:Why would you use batteries?

[mjwx]

You mean it's not enough to say "elevated storage tanks" (and then feel smugly self-superior)? They don't just appear, along with the solar cells to fill them, and start operating magically?

Because I'm guessing a farmer can just make a call and rent a diesel generator, and have it delivered to his farm within 2-3 days. And make another call to setup periodic refueling.

A farmer would already be getting fuel deliveries. Tractors dont run on pixie farts you know. Its a simple matter to order a few more litres. Diesel generators are cheap enough these days, photovoltaics are also becoming cheap, most farms have been using them for household use for ages.

Re:Why would you use batteries?

[budgenator]

They video in the article showed long range impulse sprinkler heads irrigating cane fields.

Re:Why would you use batteries?

[LynnwoodRooster]

Suitable for rice, but rarely used for commercial crops... And it doesn't work at all for non-flat farmland (which is more common than you think). Sprinkler/impulse is typically used, either with long fixed pipes and heads every 20-40 feet, or one long rotary system with longer spacings on the heads.

Re:Why would you use batteries?

[Falconhell]

You must be so proud, the only state to have it police commisioner jailed, and its two most famous politicians being raving nut jobs, Sir Joh and Pauline the brainless. Qld has had its own fair share of weird cults, gay bashing and bad beer.
Even the TV commercials are loud and crass.
SA is the home of art and culture, and settled convict free.

Re:Why would you use batteries?

[dbIII]

You must be so proud, the only state to have it police commisioner jailed

He was my local cop at one point, not that I ever saw him since he was always in the city up to drug deals or something.
My negative mention of Brandis and Dutton should have been a bit of a clue that I agree with you about Joh, Pauline etc, but the redneck term doesn't apply to us all just like you are not all rednecks in SA despite the Coopers bible group gay bashing thing.

Batteries?

[Anonymous Coward]

Why not just store the water? I doubt reasonable capacity, while certainly not free, would run into the millions. Especially since you don't have to have 100% capacity, only enough to make solar or wind pay for itself compared to diesel.

Of course it's high

[Anonymous Coward]

Imagine how long the transmission lines are, coming from the mainland and all. 1000s of miles of wire has a toll to pay.

Re:Of course it's high

[AndroidCat]

Do a remake of Mad Max, roaming the center of Australia, looking for a charge for his Tesla.

Re: Of course it's high

[Type44Q]

Sounds good to me, as long as I can pretend that the last one never happened.

Re: Of course it's high

[haruchai]

What do you have against Beyond Thunderdome? :-D

Re:Of course it's high

[Anonymous Coward]

yeah, transporting diesel is free,right ?

Re:Of course it's high

[Anonymous Coward]

And somewhere to recycle his plastic and paper.

Irrigation pump

[Anonymous Coward]

Irrigation pump for a pivot are on the order of hundreds of horsepower. A bunch of solar panels and a battery are not going to cut it.

Re:Irrigation pump

[Anonymous Coward]

Horsepower are irrelevant. Solar panels gives Watts, if you need more, build more. A couple of kW is no problem, certainly not in Australia.

Re:Irrigation pump

[HornWumpus]

Watts are the same thing as horsepower you halfwit.

Using Diesel might increase electric rates more

[Streetlight]

The electric utility might increase prices even more if folks reduce their electricity usage. The company will want to maintain profits if it's a private company or if publicly owned, maintain its current income. If fewer KWHrs are being consumed but fixed costs remain constant, the company will have less income, so will need to raise rates. The size of any increase would probably depend on the fraction of use of these farmers.

Re:Using Diesel might increase electric rates more

[seoras]

Which may be a good thing in the long term as investing in Solar will become more of an economic necessity rather than a ecological statement.

Re:Using Diesel might increase electric rates more

[Anonymous Coward]

Which may be a good thing in the long term as investing in Solar will become more of an economic necessity rather than a ecological statement.

Maybe, but like most things here in the real world, the truth is rather more complicated. The economist had a good article in their recent edition, Clean Energy's Dirty Secret , discussing the economics of renewable energy vs fossil fuels and the electric grids and where there are some interesting pitfalls that all green power advocates need to be aware of if they don't want to see renewable energy adoption start to go sideways.

Re:Using Diesel might increase electric rates more

[Streetlight]

Haven't read the linked article, but there are differences between big systems (solar farms, windmill farms) attached to the grid and roof top solar or household windmills. The economics are likely very different.

How does this happen?

[djinn6]

If a farmer can run a diesel pump, then a power company can run a diesel plant for even less. Either the government's diesel subsidies are too high or they let the power company get too greedy.

Re:How does this happen?

[Anonymous Coward]

Either the government's diesel subsidies are too high or they let the power company get too greedy.

Have you considered the possibility that the government's subsidies of solar, wind and other renewable energy sources are also to high? When the sun shines and the wind blows, the grid is flooded with low cost green power. This makes it harder to justify the expense of running a fossil fuel or nuclear power plant because they undercut the electricity price at those times, but there's a catch. The sun doesn't always shine and the wind doesn't always blow and storage of electricity is still very expensive in most places. So when the sun isn't shinning and the wind isn't blowing you need the fossil fuel or nuclear generator to kick in the missing power, except you already put that guy out of business by chopping up his revenue stream to the point where he cannot run the fossil fuel or nuclear plant profitably over the long run, so he shuts down and he's not there when you need him. This wouldn't be such a big problem except that the government subsidized solar and wind to the point where they're now enough of a percentage of the grid to have a whiplash effect on wholesale electricity prices. This doesn't even take into account the cost of maintaining an electric grid or is everyone supposed to live off the grid? That's whats so interesting about economics. The real world is bloody complicated and there's almost always a subtle trade off or unintended consequence that tends to blindside those who remain ignorant of economic theory and it's practical applications to real world problems.

Re:How does this happen?

[Anonymous Coward]

There is no catch. You very much want there to be one, but there isn't. It's all in your mind.

Re: How does this happen?

[Anonymous Coward]

In the real world, we've found that entities such as Enron, HEPCo, TEPCO, and the lobbying groups in Arizona and Florida lie through their teeth about their conduct, even as they siphon money from the people.

Some of us paid attention to the laws that they tried to pass in Arizona and Florida to disadvantage solar generators, and some of us remember what Enron did.

If you randomly shot executives for power companies, you would probably do more good.

Re:How does this happen?

[thegarbz]

How can this happen? At different scales the cost of power generated changes differently for each source of electricity.

Diesel is incredibly expensive to use as a fuel on a distribution scale, just like you won't see a nuclear power plant in your back yard powering just your home.
Solar is viable if the time is right, but is expensive if you require 100% storage.
Wind is not viable at small yields and is incredibly expensive.
Gas is viable between for medium scales if you have access to a gas pipelines but microturbines are still very expensive in small sizes.

And above all you're missing the obvious: These are farmers, they have a problem now and need a solution now. They have tanks of diesel sitting around and for small dollars can buy generators assuming they don't already have them. We're not talking about large projects with a lot of thought put into front end engineering and design.

Re:How does this happen?

[Anonymous Coward]

...or they let the power company get too greedy.

No water, Crops fail > Farmers claim from their Insurance. X number of farmers crops failing would have a knock on effect and the government would have to sort it out.

Re:How does this happen?

[dbIII]

The latter, prices have been jacked up to 11. Queensland's electricity comes from coal which is vastly cheaper than imported diesel.
The government gets a cut for nearly every kW/h produced so that's why they "let the power company get too greedy". Most of the time they ARE the power company.

Re:How does this happen?

[mjwx]

If a farmer can run a diesel pump, then a power company can run a diesel plant for even less. Either the government's diesel subsidies are too high or they let the power company get too greedy.

With the privatisation of power companies in Australia, this is pretty much it. They don't just need to make a profit, but an increase in profit year on year.

I'd be surprised if they weren't deliberately trying to get rural properties off the grid because even though private corporations now run many of Australia's public power utilities, the govt still caps what they can charge.

However there is also the cost of transportation. It does cost money to transport electricity across the hundreds of kilometres of absolute nothing in Australia. Cost of maintenance as well as losses to resistance. Americans and Europeans just don't get how sparsely populated Australia is. You can drive for 4 hours at 100 KPH and not see any signs of civilisation once you get out of the major cities. In some cases you're running a line for 100 or more KM just to a single property.

Most on grid farms would maintain a Jenny because an outage could take days or sometimes weeks to fix. Its just become cheaper to buy the fuel for the generator than to pay the power companies.

The fallacy of the free market theory

[Anonymous Coward]

How is it possible that electricity is more expensive than diesel (=oil) in a country that has so much Sun, wind, and water (ocean) power? Surely they never told us the whole truth about supply and demand.

Re:The fallacy of the free market theory

[Anonymous Coward]

At least in Ontario, electricity prices have become obscenely expensive recently to try and get people to reduce consumption.

The solution our factories have come up with is to close up shop, lay off their workforces and move to Mexico.

It does reduce electricity use though, so the government is happy.

Re:The fallacy of the free market theory

[Anonymous Coward]

I was waiting for the unintended consequences of your story, and if you didn't mention any I was ready to point some out.
Bravo. I didn't need to.

Re:The fallacy of the free market theory

[cheesybagel]

It also has lots of coal and uranium.

Re:The fallacy of the free market theory

[vandamme]

And you can sell the excess hydropower to New York. Thanks!

Coal Enery

[Anonymous Coward]

Germany in World War II converted coal to gas, I think we need to look at this option now.

Chris
Owner CEL Financial Services Income IRS Registered Tax Preparation
Registered bonded California CTEC Tax Preparer
http://www.taxprepfillmore.com/

Re:Coal Enery

[Anonymous Coward]

you already have the fascist in power ...

Re:Abbos

[Anonymous Coward]

And all you got to feed them is bugs and worms.

A resource that never runs out

[Kohath]

Why don't they just water their crops with utopian idealism? Or they could power their pumps with apocalyptic predictions of the distant future. Since these are the things that matter most, surely they must make crops grow.

Re:A resource that never runs out

[Anonymous Coward]

Farmers must just be too stupid to understand.

Re:A resource that never runs out

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, they are too stupid. They need some American geniuses like Racial Maddow and Hillary Clinton to explain it to them.

Re:A resource that never runs out

[Anonymous Coward]

Or they could use a treadmill powered by morons, plenty of those, just like you?
See? you could post moronic comments in the internet, exercise yourself and power the farm, all in one joined by likewise company bad mounting the liberals and the greens

They should go solar

[Anonymous Coward]

The farmers did not read slashdot. Otherwise they would know that solar is already competitive with fossil fuels. Even without subsidization.
At least, that is what some slashdot stories claimed lately. Or maybe the stories were not true :)

Re: They should go solar

[Anonymous Coward]

I've tried using solar panels instead of carbon fuel, but it seems very expensive and polluting. The glass and metal bits are harder to clean out if my wood stove than the pellets it is designed for. Clearly PV is a terrible idea, just like that "paper toilet" you Americans use. It fills up or bursts when wet.

Re:They should go solar

[Anonymous Coward]

Sadly, the green mythology is pervasive even beyond slashdot. Back here in reality, if wind and solar were economical, they would be used. The trouble is, the artificially low prices touted by greens after gaming the market can't hide the true cost. Including storage and other balancing costs makes renewables hideously expensive by any honest accounting. Obviously more expensive even than diesel in this case.

Re:They should go solar

[quonset]

if wind and solar were economical, they would be used.

You mean like in the Republican-led state of Kansas which generates roughly 30% of its electric needs from wind? Those Republicans must really love spending taxpayer money on all those subsidies.

At the rate wind generated electricity is growing, Kansas may have export electricity in the next decade. How horrible wind is so uneconomical.

Re:They should go solar

[guruevi]

The problem here is that the country DID go solar/wind etc. (green) and forcibly shut down all coal/oil and now these 'green' plants can't supply the demand plus they have to amortize all the costs of building and maintaining an underperforming, green setup, hence the pricing.

Re:They should go solar

[Anonymous Coward]

The problem here is that the country DID go solar/wind etc. (green) and forcibly shut down all coal/oil

Nope. While Australia has shut down many coal plants, they were mostly older and more polluting ones, that provided relatively little electricity to the grid, and certainly not all. And to be accurate, the current government has backtracked on the previous one's plans.

You should really exaggerate less, and given the history of the power industry to lie, I suggest looking around for an Enron in the works.

Re:They should go solar

[stephenmac7]

It might have something to do with "Kansas adopted the Renewable Energy Standards Act in 2009, which required the state’s utility companies to generate or purchase 20 percent of their energy from renewable sources – like wind and solar – by 2020." That is, they forced themselves to do it -- regardless of the price. Not saying it wasn't cheaper, but that they would have switched regardless of whether it were cheaper or not in the end.

The thing is that different energy sources are going to have different prices and efficacy depending on where you are. I'm sure that fossil fuels are still cheaper per kilowatt hour in northern Canada than solar is, and that wind power in San Francisco is going to be more expensive than in Texas.

Re:They should go solar

[iris-n]

Ouch! Facts are so inconvenient, no? If you paid attention to them you would need to change your beliefs instead of just posting bullshit to Slashdot. Too much work, right?

Not that this story isn't of general interest

[93 Escort Wagon]

But I'm not sure I understand why it's on Slashdot.

KingOil still rules

[amightywind]

Invest in big oil.

Re: Burn muslims for fuel

[Anonymous Coward]

you really need to get out more

Market manipulation driving up electricity costs.

[zking]

It's like Enron all over again. Economist Bill Mitchell goes into detail. http://bilbo.economicoutlook.n...

Water Tank

[Anonymous Coward]

Instead of using batteries to store solar power, why not build an elevated water tank? That has to cost less than batteries and might even be less than diesel. I am surprised the article even considers batteries as an alternative considering this low tech storage solution is available.

Re:Market manipulation driving up electricity cost

[Anonymous Coward]

Wow, content rather than snark!?! Where am I? Is this still /.?

Thanks for the link!

Al Gore's Hypocrisy

[Anonymous Coward]

Armed with Gore's utility bills for the last two years, the Tennessee Center for Policy Research charged Monday that the gas and electric bills for the former vice president's 20-room home and pool house devoured nearly 221,000 kilowatt-hours in 2006, more than 20 times the national average of 10,656 kilowatt-hours.

"If this were any other person with $30,000-a-year in utility bills, I wouldn't care," says the Center's 27-year-old president, Drew Johnson. "But he tells other people how to live and he's not following his own rules."

Re: Al Gore's Hypocrisy

[Anonymous Coward]

Of course, that is citing Drew Johnson whose tendency towards bullshit lead to is being fired from his job at a Tennessee newspaper.

And then you learn that Al Gore has moved elsewhere, so you wonder how out of touch you are.

Elon, When Art Tho?

[Anonymous Coward]

Didn't he make promises already for the southern Australia? Create and test an affordable battery for farm use, Tesla. Utilize the marketing synergies from the feel good projects and PR.

Tesla Batteries

[watermark]

Reminds me of this recent story. Tesla wants to install batteries at the Australian utility companies to store power for night.

http://www.reuters.com/article...

Some quick calculations here-

[Anonymous Coward]

Electricity is about $0.50 USD/KWh in Australia (compared to about $0.20 in SF and NYC). For $1 USD you get 2 KWh of energy. A motor turning a pump is about 75% efficient - so you get 1.5 KWh of energy at the water pump.

Diesel in Australia is about $1 USD per liter to farmers who don't pay road taxes. A liter of diesel has about 10 KWh of energy, and a diesel engine is about 45% efficient. So for $1 USD you get 4.5 KWh of energy at the pump - 3x cheaper than electricity.

But if the diesel engine has to turn a generator, which then powers an electric motor for the pump, you probably loose about 40%. So for $1 USD you get about 2.5 KWh of energy at the water pump - still better than buying electricity.

And as someone else here said - it seems the Australia electricity market is under heavy market/political forces - like electric supplies holding back supply when they know that prices will soar and brown/black outs will occur.

Re:Some quick calculations here-

[Anonymous Coward]

umm you might want to check the cost for power in .au. We pay AU 24c/kwh for residential power, or AU 15c/kwh for controlled rate (8 hours per 24 hours, normally at night)

Re:Some quick calculations here-

[Anonymous Coward]

Thank you for some numbers.. This whole story kinda bugs me.. Whos going to listen to my information on some public forum comments... Here in America industrial lead acid storage costs are $0.09KWh with industrial batteries; and quite possibly half that if you consider life outside the warrantied life or don't have a DOD of 80% every cycle.

The farmers would rather pay 10-20x the rate in smaller amounts than 5 years upfront costs for 0.15KWh(AUD)? I donno..

They also have great sun for cheap solar.. Maybe they have regulations in the way preventing them from installing their own solar and are getting screwed in both directions like in Florida..

So say solar is $0.50/watt for a panel, 20 year life. 100 watt panel, for Australia 5 sun hours a day average? 0.5KWh/day * 365 * 20; 3650KWh generated for $50 panel; 50/3650= $0.014KWh ...
Yes theres more too it than that, but usually the costs are from 'professionals' and permits not solar equipment. I just used those figures for easy math, of course you'd buy the cheaper/watt panels that are larger, depending on existing pumps/inverters and more would be needed but sounds like it would still be a lot cheaper than diesel/grid now.

Christ these are farmers, get some farm spirit.. OR! are these corporate owned farms looking for government $ instead of solving the problems themselves.

Re:Some quick calculations here-

[Anonymous Coward]

In Queensland here, I pay A$0.20/kwh, which is about US$0.14/kwh.

Re:Some quick calculations here-

[Anonymous Coward]

WTF? $0.50 USD/kWh? In metro Perth I pay AUD$0.245/kWhr (that is about USD$0.185/kWh). That is for a flat tariff - not time of day adjusted.

Looking at the manual for a 22kVA diesel gen set I purchased recently; it used 3.4 l/hr to produce 10 kW (yes you can not start a 18kW motor with a 18kW generator). Pump price for diesel at the moment in Perth $1.32/l so my cost for power is AUD$0.45 or close to double using the grid - and I still have not payed for the gen set (about AUD$20k) or its maintenance.

Re:Some quick calculations here-

[Anonymous Coward]

and solar is 2x cost effective than diesel using the most conservative figures I know of (lazard, 2015 US residential prices), but more than likely around 4-7x more cost effective than diesel.

Diesel?

[nospam007]

They are farmers, why not use Canola oil, like Rudolph Diesel did when he invented that engine?

Re:Diesel?

[SuricouRaven]

Because you can't just burn a vegetable oil in an engine. Few are flammable enough, they burn at the wrong speed, and they produce some pretty nasty deposits that will gunk up precision parts. They need to be processed first, a process involving catalised reactions with alcohols. It's a rather slow process, which translates to a rather expensive process - plus the cost of growing the vegetable feed, and the cost of not growing something more profitable on that land. If growing fuel were cost-effective, we wouldn't still be running cars on dino-juice.

Re:Diesel?

[Anonymous Coward]

If it wasn't for used restaurant frying oil, biofuel couldn't break even on costs.

Re:Diesel?

[Anonymous Coward]

A stationary engine (for a water pump) does not need to be lightweight like a car engine. So you can make one that runs just fine on untreated vegetable oil. It'll be a big heavy thing with no precision parts to gunk up. Think of a ship diesel engine, it'll run on just about any kind of nasty oil. Ships are not weight constrained, so ability to burn cheap third world fuel is important.

Re:Diesel?

[budgenator]

SVO, Straight Vegetable Oil will run in a petro diesel, but to run well you need to change to special injectors, run at higher injection pressure, use stronger glow-plugs and pre-heating the fuel is helpful. None of that is a show-stopper for a stationary engine. Most modern farm equipment uses diesel fuel, so the farm has an existing diesel infrastructure. It might make more sense to convert to propane than SVO.

Population growing faster than Bangladesh (in %)

[Anonymous Coward]

In Australia the population is growing faster than Bangladesh in %, mostly through legal immigration. Major cities needed desalination plants. The supply of energy is struggling to keep up in some states and energy costs went up 20%/yr for many years to "improve the network".
Housing cost is through the roof (13-14x average salary in Sydney and Melbourne) and salaries are stagnating.
All this is done fo rthe benefit of big interests and screwing the populace.
The populace is itself ignorant about this : none even remotely talks about it. The few that do are immediately shouted down as racist. Quality of life is going down very fast.

Re:Because Aus power doesn't care about cost

[sjames]

Had you read TFA, you would know that the problem is that the charge for use of the transmission lines is the part that's skyrocketing, not the cost of the electricity that is being transmitted. That's why prices continue rising even as actual use falls.

Re: Using Diesel might increase electric rates mor

[Anonymous Coward]

I work in the electric industry, and I can safely say that I have never met a liberal who is well-informed on energy issues. They don't exist.

Nuclear could solve both issues

[zerofoo]

Modern nuclear makes as much electricity as you need - and can desalinate water as well.

Re:Nuclear could solve both issues

[dbIII]

Yes, but you need an entire industry to support it that doesn't currently exist in Queensland. One nuke is only theoretically cost effective when you already have a lot of nukes.

Re: Using Diesel might increase electric rates mor

[Anonymous Coward]

Good article thanks

So basically

[Dunbal]

The power company has priced themselves right out of the market. There is absolutely no way, what with economies of scale, government subsidies, etc. that I as a private citizen should be able to produce electricity cheaper than a power company. But hey, power companies are government enforced monopolies, so it stands to reason that eventually they forget how to make money, keep putting expenses up and keep raising prices. Until this happens. Now they're going to scream for government protection to outlaw diesel generators and force people to pay much more than any sort of fair market value for their energy, just to keep the inefficient power company inefficient. Because jobs, you know...

Re:So basically

[dbIII]

Now they're going to scream for government protection to outlaw diesel generators

I expect they will. However, the only party in Australia that would listen to those screams owes it's only chance to govern to another party that depends upon the votes of farmers.
Price gouging may be driving the utilities into a death spiral of their own making.

Re:So basically

[RivenAleem]

I'm not sure the diesel pump is generating electricity to then be used to drive a pump. It may be turning a pump directly, cutting out that electricity conversion.

Because you need to think?

[thesupraman]

Because you cannot think critically?

Because the cost of electricity contains a lot more than just the cost of generation?

Because the farmers are using diesel is not generating electricity (which is lower efficiency) but running the pumps directly.

Not difficult there, was it.

Re:Because you need to think?

[cheesybagel]

Generating the electricity doesn't cause that much of an efficiency loss. Typically conversion from kinetic energy to electricity is 90% efficient or more. Most losses in such a generating method are actually in the conversion of heat to kinetic energy which can be from 30% to 60%. In the case of small scale diesel generators probably 30% efficient.

Australia is (mostly..) flat..

[thesupraman]

You need to go and look at a topo map of the area.

Due to pipe flow losses, you actually need quite a significant height advantage for gravity fed water to work, and australia is pretty much flat, impressively flat in general.

Plus the infrastructure costs would be LARGE, farmers run on small margins and are cash poor. There is no venture capital swill-trough or 'investment angels' in outback farming.

Re:Market manipulation driving up electricity cost

[HornWumpus]

A quick bit of Googling on Bill leads to this:

William Francis "Bill" Mitchell is a professor of economics at the University of Newcastle, New South Wales, Australia and a notable proponent of Modern Monetary Theory.

Wikipedia: 'Bill Mitchell (economist)

Modern Monetary Theory (MMT or Modern Money Theory, also known as Neo-Chartalism) is a macroeconomic theory which describes and analyses modern economies in which the national currency is fiat money, established and created by the government. The key insight of MMT is that "monetarily sovereign government is the monopoly supplier of its currency and can issue currency of any denomination in physical or non-physical forms. As such the government has an unlimited capacity to pay for the things it wishes to purchase and to fulfill promised future payments, and has an unlimited ability to provide funds to the other sectors. Thus, insolvency and bankruptcy of this government is not possible. It can always pay

Wikipedia: Modern Monetary Theory

Put simply, so you can understand: He is a fucking moron, who should forever be ignored. Unless you get a chance to kick him square in the nuts.

Re:Because Aus power doesn't care about cost

[SuperKendall]

You don't seem to be capable of anything but aping the article so I thought I'd help you actually learn something instead of just parrot what you are told.

All of the costs are interconnected, part of the reason the transmission costs have increased is because most of the money had been funneled into green projects, ignoring infrastructure.

Re: Because Aus power doesn't care about cost

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't trust what this transsexual freak says. Its all an agenda.

It doesn't have to be dirty...

[madcat2211821]

Instead of fossil diesel, they could, for instance, use the kind of fuel that Rudolf Diesel intended his engine design to burn to begin with before the oil moguls got their fingers in: biodiesel.

Re:Because Aus power doesn't care about cost

[godel_56]

why isn't the grid using Diesel and doing it cheaper?

Because Australian politicians deemed the most crucial thing for the power companies to do, was to use green sources of energy.

Even if it can't meet demand.

The government privatized the electrical system for the most money it could get to fix its budget woes, and in return gave the private power companies an almost unlimited rape, loot and pillage license to raise power prices.

Lumo Energy...

[matbury6017]

No mention of Lumo Energy, the private corporation that is charging these prices to its customers. Why is the Australian government standing by while its citizens are being right-royally shafted by Lumo Energy. Didn't a similar thing happen with Enron in California not so long ago?

Re:Lumo Energy...

[dbIII]

No mention of Lumo Energy

Because it's the entire industry doing the price gouging and not just one middleman that is really just a small chunk of Snowy Mountains Hydro anyway.
Blaming one company that doesn't even generate any electricity would be like blaming a single street corner crack dealer for the drug problems of an entire nation.

Why is the power so expensive?

[Anonymous Coward]

So, since we've established that there is plenty of water and plenty of sun, why is electricity so expensive in Australia? We need not look any farther back than 2015, when gov regulations forced a lot of their base load coal to retire for emissions reasons, and now wholesale prices have exploded. Over 40% of power comes from intermittent solar and wind power, and now we see the repercussions ... blackouts, escalating prices and now food shortages.

Re:Why is the power so expensive?

[Anonymous Coward]

In the Donald Trump "red states" electric rates are between 10.5 and 11.5 cents perk kilowatt-hour. In the Hillary "blue states" electricity costs between 50% to 100% more. Think about it before you vote next time.

Re:Why is the power so expensive?

[Bandraginus]

Remember Enron in California? Privatised energy companies deliberately suppressing supply to jack up the prices.

A good example was on display in South Australia during the load shedding in the Feb heatwave. There was spare capacity at the Pelican Point power station that the SA government ordered turned on, but AEMO did not bring it online. AEMO is a private company, btw, as is NEM.

Re:Because Aus power doesn't care about cost

[sjames]

Your link is from 2012 and it's predictions have already failed miserably. How right could it be?

Attention.

[Anonymous Coward]

FYI, I do not care for the Negro race. I do not think they are fully human, but the leftists politicians try to force everyone to believe Negroes are just like everyone else, but with a different paint job. Sorry, but Negroes can't do science or math, but they can shoot hoops. Hooray For Negroes!

signed,

Martin Luther King Kong

Could you place a solar panel.

[Anonymous Coward]

On the other side of the world and send its power as microwaves to use at night?

Re:Because Aus power doesn't care about cost

[aXis100]

Absolute bollocks.

We have very little renewable energy production in Australia and was has been built had to beg for scraps of subsidies. Coal fired plants get more public money.

The ridiculous rise in costs is due to privatization, and infrastructure overbuilds. In many states electric utilities were allowed to build infrastructure and charge the consumers for it, so they turned that into a revenue stream by overbuilding and charging excessively. In some cases whole substations sat idle.

Gold plated power grid

[Anonymous Coward]

Australians in most/all states pay for usage and network fees. By now our entire grid should be gold plated and shiney.

Successive governments in all states have fucked up big time. Let's not even talk about the federal government and their constant and wide ranging ineptitude.

First we had the carbon tax, which apparently pushed power prices up. Then, that cunt Tony Abbott got rid of the carbon tax. This was meant to reset our power bills. It didn't do shit. Abbott lied. Repeatedly.

Now since the carbon tax is gone, power keeps going up and up.

Bigger picture:
SA loses power
Water prices also skyrocket
AEMO warns we will run out of LNG...

All of our politicians, from all sides of politics, need to carry blame for this. Fuck them all with a black aids infected cock.

Captcha: invasion. You can't make this shit up.

Re:Market manipulation driving up electricity cost

[Anonymous Coward]

So, he is an economics professor discussing economics, and your qualifications are...? For the record, his discussion of the present situation seems pretty accurate to me, even though he clearly has an agenda which is not it favour of neo-liberal policies.

Re:Because Aus power doesn't care about cost

[buss_error]

Because Australian politicians deemed the most crucial thing for the power companies to do, was to use green sources of energy.
Even if it can't meet demand.

See: http://www.smh.com.au/business...

So your unsupported supposition is untrue - it's not a problem with producing the power, it's the high cost of a centralized for profit utility that's the problem.

I knew there would be one! It's coal not wind!

[dbIII]

Because Australian politicians deemed the most crucial thing for the power companies to do, was to use green sources of energy.

Epic fail - Queensland runs on coal and Australian politicians are pushing hard for more coal use. They even passed a lump of it around in Federal Parliment a couple of months ago as some sort of political stunt.

Is there nothing that you don't blame on windmills?

Australia could be containing pollution in a handful of large power generation sites,

Not could - are.

Re:Market manipulation driving up electricity cost

[HornWumpus]

You can get economists to say _anything_. It's called the dismal science for a reason.

I'm proud to say I'm not an economist. Which means I know you can't print money forever. Like I say: if you meet that moron, kick him square in the nuts.

Re:Because Aus power doesn't care about cost

[dbIII]

That's a secondary effect. The primary reason is outright price gouging and the government that is supposed to be regulating the price benefiting from the raised price. Most of the utilities are government owned. I left the electricity industry in 1996 when this stupid fake market shit was first coming in.

Moved the headstones not graves

[dbIII]

Worse than that, they only partially privatized it. Every time the price goes up the government wins. Guess who gets to decide if the price is too high?
In Queensland it's close to total government ownership of the entire generation, transmission and distribution systems. The only major exception is the Gladstone power station.

They went coal and still have coal

[dbIII]

The problem here is that the country DID go solar/wind etc

No.
It's Queensland, Australia.
Coal with a bit of gas to cover peaks and one hydro plant of note.

Why spread misinformation about something you do not know about? Are you being a Good Party Komrade or is there something else behind it? My paycheck depends on the coal industry, so maybe you think you are helping me out, but I'd rather not have people pushing stupid lies for the sake of The Party doing it. Why don't you go and "help" someone else on a topic you actually know something about using truth instead of stupid lies?

Re:Market manipulation driving up electricity cost

[dbIII]

Ironically it was another Australian economist from a very small university (Alan Fells from Griffith University at the time) who dreamed up the stupid fake electricity market that has resulted in this price gouging. He's been well rewarded for making some people very rich at the vast expense of energy consumers.

We have a few fucking morons who should forever be ignored among the ranks of Australian economists. The guy that proposed a massive sheep cull to drive up the price of wool (it didn't work - he forgot that cotton exists) is another that should have been ignored (he wasn't - massive rural hardship resulted).

Net metering?

[Anonymous Coward]

Can't they use solar to sell electricity to the grid during the day and purchase it at night?

Half the output of a single 1950s jet engine

[dbIII]

With respect AC, 12.5 MW is fuckall power that is around half the output of a single 1950s jet engine hooked up to a generator set.

Re: Half the output of a single 1950s jet engine

[Anonymous Coward]

1 > not at all

Re: Half the output of a single 1950s jet engine

[dbIII]

A test rig a lot smaller than these that is most likely not actually in production apart from during test runs is so close to zero that it can't be taken seriously.
http://www.powerplantsonline.com/gasturbinegenerator.htm
AC what is your motivation for such ridiculous nitpicking? Do you just want to feel that you are better than somebody else?

Pump to a cistern at night? Use wind?

[Anonymous Coward]

There are ways...

a tropical, wet crop in Australia

[Anonymous Coward]

right; insanity defined
I mean, like golf courses in Arizona, or orchids in New England; just crazy

Abbos with buckets

[Anonymous Coward]

How about Abbos, mate? Loads of 'em. With buckets. Feed 'em worms and bugs.

I think that depends on the type of diesel?

[Anonymous Coward]

The guys who talk about running those "Listeriod" diesels seem to think it would work OK (http://utterpower.com/fuel1.htm), so maybe it's just not as good an idea if you have a more modern/finicky diesel?
Unfortunately for those in the USA, I don't think you can buy any more of these as new/complete engines (thanks EPA - hope Trump fires the lot of you for that), but Australia may be different.

Farm Power Instead

[ninthbit]

If electricity is that expensive, then convert the fields to Wind and Solar and farm power instead. Supply and demand bitches.... that's how this works. If electricity is worth more than the food, then you're making the wrong thing.

Re: How those solar panels working out for you

[billdale]

No, trolll: no one thinks windmills are free and unlimited. They have moving parts which need to be maintained and replaced from time to time. .. but so do the diesel and natural gas generators you apparently tout. The obvious difference, of course, is that wind mills rely on their energy for wind, which IS free, non-polluting, and does not need to be extracted from the earth at great cost. The energy your fossil fuels supply are responsible for the kinds of strife we see in Standing Rock, and the hundreds of pipeline leaks the oil companies are only partially successful in keeping out of the mass media; no, you will not see such horrendous, ugly leaks on FOX, CNN, or other MSM; but the tremendous damage is readily found by googling OIL PIPELINE LEAKS or any other such search criteria. There are an average of more than one such leak daily somewhere here in the country, and the damage is never completely mitigated. No, windmills are not free or unlimited, buy do not try to suggest that anyone says they are, and do not be so asinine as to imply the alternatives are any better or cheaper.

Energy storage

[eric_harris_76]

Maybe I'm missing a key point here, but if solar power isn't practical for night irrigation because of the cost of energy storage equipment, why not pump the water up into a tank (or tanks) during the day, and let it flow out at night?

Is it because the tanks would have to be too big? Too tall, and we're talking a lot of pressure in the pipes. Too wide (a covered reservoir, perhaps) and much cropland is taken out of use.

Those don't seem to be insurmountable problems. Capital-intensive though, and if electric costs may come back down, not practical, perhaps.