It's being used for "frequency regulation" and to help smooth over the intermittency problem caused by unreliable wind and solar, not for significant energy storage.
Let's do some arithmetic:
Australia uses about 10 MWh electricity / capita / year.
population = 24,130,000
So total energy consumption = a bit over 240,000,000 MWh/yr
This battery stores 129 MWh (actually they probably avoid full discharge, to increase longevity, but let's use that number).
(129/240,000,000) × 60×60×24×365 = 17 seconds. So it stores enough energy to keep the lights on for about 17 seconds.
You are right. Since the 1906 earthquake sea-level at San Francisco has risen at 2.0 ±0.2 mm/year (7.1 to 8.7 inches per century), and there's been no "acceleration" in rate, at all.
The claim that higher CO2 levels cause significantly accelerated coastal sea-level rise is falsified by the measurement data.
Here's a graph showing sea-level measured at San Francisco juxtaposed with CO2 level:
That includes both global sea-level rise (about 1.5 mm/yr) and local subsidence (my guess is about 0.5 mm/yr, though Prof. Richard Peltier estimates 0.32 mm/yr [ICE6G/VM5a] or 0.42 mm/yr [ICE5Gv1.3/VM2]).
As you can see from the graph, CO2 level has no perceptible effect on the (minuscule) rate of sea-level rise.
The rate of sea-level rise at San Francisco is slightly higher than average (because of subsidence), but the lack of acceleration is typical. Most sites have seen little or no sea-level rise acceleration since the 1920s or earlier. Coastal sea-level is rising no faster now, with CO2 level at 407 ppmv, than it was nine decades ago, with CO2 level 100 ppmv lower.
Although the Earth's climate has warmed modestly, the increase in CO2 level and the resultant warming have had no detectable effect on the rate of sea-level rise.
You are certainly right that 2mm/yr is a great big nothingburger -- just 6 to 7 inches by 2100. But it is possible for earthquake-prone locations to experience a huge rise in sea-level (though not from climate change, of course -- that's just leftist superstitious nonsense).
I give you Seward, Alaska, which experienced a full meter of sea-level rise in one day:
Right. At the current rate of sea-level rise there, which is only 2.0 ±0.2 mm/year (7.1 to 8.7 inches per century) since the 1906 earthquake, with no "acceleration" (increase in rate) evident in more than a century, just the height increase from occasional resurfacing of the runways will far outstrip sea-level rise.
Yeah. Here in NC, the legislature has been mandating wind+solar, so our electricity prices have been going up. We're around $.11 / kw-hr, retail, now. So in 20 years that 20W panel would produce about $77 worth of electricity, valued at current retail price.
But, of course, the true value of intermittently supplied electricity is actually much LESS than the WHOLESALE value of reliable electricity.
Also, the panels diminish in output over their lifetime, AND they probably won't last 20 years, AND they don't include installation costs, AND they don't include the expensive inverter (which also won't last 20 years), NOR the extra expense when it comes time to replace your roof (if you mount the darn things on your roof), etc., etc.
The bottom line is that solar is nowhere near as cost effective as wind, which is nowhere near as cost effective as gas and coal fuels.
In Germany, where they now get 20% of their electricity from wind & solar, the extraordinarily high cost has driven the price of electricity there up to three times what I pay here in North Carolina. (Well, it also doesn't help that Merkel is shutting down their perfectly good nuclear plants.)
The truth is that the intermittency problem with wind and solar is so severe that when you get more than a few percent tied into the grid it actually has negative value. It is only "crony capitalism" (government mandates, tax incentives, etc.) which make wind & solar competitive with coal and gas except in very special circumstances.
Diverting resources to wind and solar boondoggles impoverishes people, not just in West Virginia, where huge numbers of them are now out of work, but also everywhere that it inflates the cost of energy. It causes people living "on the edge" to sometimes have to choose between eating and staying warm.
Either choice can be deadly. In Europe, where there have been enormous price hikes for energy because of "renewables" scams, "energy poverty" is killing tens of thousands of mostly-elderly people:
What's more, most of the energy used to PRODUCE solar panels, and much of the energy used to produce wind turbines, comes from soot-belching, coal-fired power plants in China, and most of the energy REPLACED BY these devices would have been produced in clean power plants with state-of-the-art "scrubbers" in North America, Europe & Australia.
So, Chinese workers get emphysema, American workers get to collect unemployment (until it runs out), and American & European environmentalists get to feel self-righteous.
Slashdot Mirror
It's being used for "frequency regulation" and to help smooth over the intermittency problem caused by unreliable wind and solar, not for significant energy storage.
Let's do some arithmetic:
Australia uses about 10 MWh electricity / capita / year.
population = 24,130,000
So total energy consumption = a bit over 240,000,000 MWh/yr
This battery stores 129 MWh (actually they probably avoid full discharge, to increase longevity, but let's use that number).
(129/240,000,000) × 60×60×24×365 = 17 seconds.
So it stores enough energy to keep the lights on for about 17 seconds.
You are right. Since the 1906 earthquake sea-level at San Francisco has risen at 2.0 ±0.2 mm/year (7.1 to 8.7 inches per century), and there's been no "acceleration" in rate, at all.
The claim that higher CO2 levels cause significantly accelerated coastal sea-level rise is falsified by the measurement data.
Here's a graph showing sea-level measured at San Francisco juxtaposed with CO2 level:
https://www.sealevel.info/MSL_graph.php?id=san+francisco&boxcar=1&boxwidth=3&c_date=1906/5-2019/12
That includes both global sea-level rise (about 1.5 mm/yr) and local subsidence (my guess is about 0.5 mm/yr, though Prof. Richard Peltier estimates 0.32 mm/yr [ICE6G/VM5a] or 0.42 mm/yr [ICE5Gv1.3/VM2]).
As you can see from the graph, CO2 level has no perceptible effect on the (minuscule) rate of sea-level rise.
The rate of sea-level rise at San Francisco is slightly higher than average (because of subsidence), but the lack of acceleration is typical. Most sites have seen little or no sea-level rise acceleration since the 1920s or earlier. Coastal sea-level is rising no faster now, with CO2 level at 407 ppmv, than it was nine decades ago, with CO2 level 100 ppmv lower.
Although the Earth's climate has warmed modestly, the increase in CO2 level and the resultant warming have had no detectable effect on the rate of sea-level rise.
You are certainly right that 2mm/yr is a great big nothingburger -- just 6 to 7 inches by 2100. But it is possible for earthquake-prone locations to experience a huge rise in sea-level (though not from climate change, of course -- that's just leftist superstitious nonsense).
I give you Seward, Alaska, which experienced a full meter of sea-level rise in one day:
https://www.sealevel.info/MSL_graph.php?id=seward&boxcar=1&boxwidth=3&c_date=1964/2-2019/12
Right. At the current rate of sea-level rise there, which is only 2.0 ±0.2 mm/year (7.1 to 8.7 inches per century) since the 1906 earthquake, with no "acceleration" (increase in rate) evident in more than a century, just the height increase from occasional resurfacing of the runways will far outstrip sea-level rise.
Yeah. Here in NC, the legislature has been mandating wind+solar, so our electricity prices have been going up. We're around $.11 / kw-hr, retail, now. So in 20 years that 20W panel would produce about $77 worth of electricity, valued at current retail price.
But, of course, the true value of intermittently supplied electricity is actually much LESS than the WHOLESALE value of reliable electricity.
Also, the panels diminish in output over their lifetime, AND they probably won't last 20 years, AND they don't include installation costs, AND they don't include the expensive inverter (which also won't last 20 years), NOR the extra expense when it comes time to replace your roof (if you mount the darn things on your roof), etc., etc.
The bottom line is that solar is nowhere near as cost effective as wind, which is nowhere near as cost effective as gas and coal fuels.
That's why Germany and Denmark, which have the highest wind+solar energy investments, have such affordable electricity. Oh, wait...
http://www.euanmearns.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/europeelectricprice.png
In Germany, where they now get 20% of their electricity from wind & solar, the extraordinarily high cost has driven the price of electricity there up to three times what I pay here in North Carolina. (Well, it also doesn't help that Merkel is shutting down their perfectly good nuclear plants.)
The truth is that the intermittency problem with wind and solar is so severe that when you get more than a few percent tied into the grid it actually has negative value. It is only "crony capitalism" (government mandates, tax incentives, etc.) which make wind & solar competitive with coal and gas except in very special circumstances.
Diverting resources to wind and solar boondoggles impoverishes people, not just in West Virginia, where huge numbers of them are now out of work, but also everywhere that it inflates the cost of energy. It causes people living "on the edge" to sometimes have to choose between eating and staying warm.
Either choice can be deadly. In Europe, where there have been enormous price hikes for energy because of "renewables" scams, "energy poverty" is killing tens of thousands of mostly-elderly people:
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/fuel-poverty-killed-15000-people-last-winter-10217215.html
What's more, most of the energy used to PRODUCE solar panels, and much of the energy used to produce wind turbines, comes from soot-belching, coal-fired power plants in China, and most of the energy REPLACED BY these devices would have been produced in clean power plants with state-of-the-art "scrubbers" in North America, Europe & Australia.
So, Chinese workers get emphysema, American workers get to collect unemployment (until it runs out), and American & European environmentalists get to feel self-righteous.
Such a deal.