100% Wind Solar Water study attacked by NAS - so what about Australia's 100% renewables studies?

[Eclipse]

So Leonardo Di Caprio and Mark Ruffalo (The Hulk) both raved about this Jacobson study, but the NAS identified it was flawed and overestimated the potential for hydro storage by 100. If that's the case, no wonder I have plenty of questions about the Baldwin, Blakers and Stocks Sept 2018 which recommends pretty much the same thing: wind, water, and solar for Australia. Until recently, I used to be concerned that the energy costs of building all those pumped hydro batteries were too high based on the Weissbach EROEI study. But friends here spent some time showing me how that study is based on some really old data and the EROEI of solar PV has improved remarkably since that data was collated. OK, I am taking all that in and learning to accept it — it's a big step for me. However, if the EROEI isn't a concern, what about the cost? Even the pro-renewables authors like Ken Caldeira have stated that for renewables to get to 100%, the cost of electricity storage would have to drop 100 fold! Why does off-river pumped hydro in Australia cost so much less than in America? Baldwin, Blakers and Stocks Sept 2018claim the cost of the hourly balancing the NEM (grid for the Eastern States of Australia, including South Australia) is $5/MWh to 50% renewable penetration, up to $25/MWh for 100%. (Snowy 2.0 pumped hydro can do most of the backup for 50% renewables.)

Just find two basins a good height apart (300 to 600 meters) in a non-national parks or bio-sensitive area, build hydro dam infrastructure, and then a pipe from a nearby river. Pipe in the water and there's your battery. Done. Why doesn't America have enough potential off-river pumped hydro resources to do the same thing?

[Ken Fabian]

Much as the NAS papers - which greatly differ in their conclusions - are about the intersection of technical capabilities and economics as energy production approaches 100% low emissions, this argument simply drives the debate into the same old ruts where nothing gets decided.  For some players in this, doing nothing (which is actually the continuation of doing planet altering unconstrained emissions) is a desirable outcome.

A link to the NAS evaluations would have been better than the link to Shellenberger's take on the NAS evaluations; frankly I'm not convinced he or his Ecomodernists are sincere enough about the climate problem to be even handed and look unlikely to ever switch from being relentlessly critical of Environmentalism and renewable energy - a theme which has the support of pro-fossil fuels conservatives - to being relentlessly critical of climate science denialism and the continuing amnesty fossil fuels enjoy with respect to externalised (climate) costs, which does not.

Shellenberger does not strike me as any kind of non-partisan player - and when push comes to shove, I think he will support the fossil fueled status quo, with economics as justification, rather than commit to emissions reductions by means that he does not support. Nor does he offer a path to actually doing emissions reductions by the means he does support, primarily with nuclear - and so long as climate science denial has it's insidious hold over the imaginations of conservatives (who like nuclear) the main block of existing political support for nuclear will not be mobilised to displace fossil fuels. Taking pro-renewables Environmentalists out of the political game - and I think that is what Ecomodernism seeks to do - will not, in my view, lead to any genuine, new commitment to doing emissions reductions with nuclear. It's the same old renewables versus nuclear fight, yet again and that is a great distraction from the main game of renewables and nuclear versus fossil fuels. 

Frankly I think anyone who thinks they know how we will manage the end game of reaching very low to below zero emissions and how much it will cost is kidding themselves first, along with everyone else; making those projections or predictions the basis for our near term choices for the interim targets - getting to 50% or to 80% - can become quite limiting of our options.

There are now firm plans for pumped hydro installations as well as a lot more RE projects that include "firming" via batteries; we should see how well they play out. Let our experience of them in practice guide our future decisions. Certainly South Australia's recent experience with large batteries has been very successful, and they are already moving past 50% renewable electricity.