{"id":6489,"date":"2016-06-27T15:46:12","date_gmt":"2016-06-27T06:16:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.solarquotes.com.au\/blog\/?p=6489"},"modified":"2017-04-18T18:01:05","modified_gmt":"2017-04-18T07:31:05","slug":"keith-de-lacy-not-right-solar-wind-power-not-not-anywhere","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.solarquotes.com.au\/blog\/keith-de-lacy-not-right-solar-wind-power-not-not-anywhere\/","title":{"rendered":"Keith De Lacy Is Not Right About Solar And Wind Power – Not Here, Not Anywhere"},"content":{"rendered":"
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A response to Keith De Lacey’s article in the Australian last week.<\/p><\/div>\n

The Australian<\/em> recently published an opinion piece by the Director of an oil shale company and former Chairman of Macarthur Coal, entitled, \u201cSolar And Wind Power Simply Don’t Work – Not Here, Not Anywhere<\/a>“.<\/p>\n

This was surprising because the solar panels above my head are producing electricity right now.\u00a0 And since I know exactly how much I paid for them I know they are definitely economically worthwhile. Also, because I know exactly how much the STCs I received as part of Australia’s Renewable Energy Target<\/a> were worth I know the rooftop solar system would still pay for itself even without subsidy.<\/p>\n

The 26% or so of Australians who have installed rooftop solar might also have been surprised to learn their systems don’t work.\u00a0 But don’t worry, it is the author of the piece, Keith De Lacy, who is confused, not you.\u00a0 A properly sized rooftop solar system is still the cheapest source of electricity available to most Australians, and this can still be the case even without subsidy.<\/p>\n

De Lacy is convinced it is impossible to meet Labor’s target of 50% renewable electricity<\/a> by 2040 as he wrote,<\/p>\n

“On the basis of evidence everywhere we could easily double the price of electricity and get nowhere near the 50 per cent target.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I find that to be quite a bizarre statement which makes me think he should get his eyes checked because he appears to have a massive blind spot preventing him from seeing that South Australia already meets 40% of its electricity consumption<\/a> from rooftop solar and wind power.\u00a0 An achievement that demonstrates Australia can meet a 50% renewable electricity target quickly and cheaply.<\/p>\n

Queensland Treasurer, Coal Chairman, Oil Shale Director<\/h2>\n

One fact the article\u00a0got right is Keith De Lacy was once Labor Treasurer of Queensland.\u00a0 Twenty years ago.\u00a0 But for some reason it\u00a0doesn’t mention his possibly more relevant current employment as Director of Queensland Energy Resources<\/a>, which is a shale oil company. That is, a fossil fuel company that wants to extract oil from rocks. They also neglected to mention he used to be Chairman of Macarthur Coal<\/a>.\u00a0 A piece of background information I think would have been useful to know.<\/p>\n

De Lacy’s 1% Figure For Solar And Wind Is Too Small<\/h2>\n

One reason Keith De Lacy is not impressed with new renewable energy is because he says wind and solar provide less than 1% of Australia’s primary energy use, which includes all energy use including heating and transportation. But the Australian Government does not agree with him on this.<\/p>\n

The Department of Industry and Science reported<\/a> that in the 2014-2015 financial year Australia obtained 1.16% of its primary energy from wind and solar and this amount has only increased since then.<\/p>\n

It is possible to get the figure for 2014-2015 below 1% by leaving out solar hot water<\/a>, but it would be plain\u00a0wrong\u00a0to leave out a source of solar thermal energy when comparing wind and solar to Australia’s primary energy use because primary energy use consists almost entirely of thermal energy and not the more valuable electrical energy that wind turbines and solar PV<\/a> generates.<\/p>\n

Markets Determine How Much Electricity Is Worth, Not De Lacy’s Opinion<\/h2>\n

De Lacy says solar and wind provide low value power. But we have a method of determining the value of electricity in Australia that disagrees with him on that.\u00a0 The method is called an electricity market<\/a>.\u00a0 One would think a former Treasurer of Queensland would know this. According to Australian electricity markets power from wind or solar within a pay period is worth exactly as much as electricity from any other source.<\/p>\n

De Lacy may not approve of using markets to determine the price of electricity. Maybe he has a better method in mind. But he had his chance to turn Australia into a communist utopia back when he was in politics, so it’s a bit late to try to change how electricity is valued now.<\/p>\n

Oil Shale Provides 0.00012% As Much Primary Energy As Solar And Wind<\/h2>\n

De Lacy did get the percentage of Australia’s electricity that solar and wind generate correct. For the financial year before this one.\u00a0 He says we could shut down that 6.1% of generation and,<\/p>\n

\u201c…it would make no difference to supply.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Personally, I do think it would make a difference. But do you know what we could shut down right now and it would make absolutely no difference what so ever? Oil shale<\/a>. It only provides around 0.0000014% of Australia’s primary energy use. So clearly De Lacy must think it is completely useless.<\/p>\n

After all, oil shale exploitation in Australia began all the way back in 1865 and it still doesn’t even provide anywhere near 1% of our primary energy. The government subsidized shale oil production for 35 years but after all that time it still wasn’t able to support itself and when subsidies were removed shale oil production stopped after 1952 for decades before a tiny amount of extraction started up again.<\/p>\n

If De Lacy thinks solar and wind power are useless because they have gone from providing a small fraction of 1% of our electricity 10 years ago to over 6.1% today, then logically he must believe the prospects of oil shale are completely hopeless because after 150 years it still supplies an insignificant amount of Australia’s energy. In order to remain logically consistent I expect him to immediately announce that Queensland Energy Resources have been completely wasting their time and will immediately cease all oil shale production.<\/p>\n

But of course I don’t expect him to make this announcement over the internet because not that long ago less than 1% of people had the internet, so obviously nothing ever came of that.\u00a0 The same goes for mobile phones, television, radio, landline phones, and literacy.\u00a0 Clearly none of them could ever have amounted to anything since they all provided less than 1% of our primary communication at some point. I expect him to make the announcement through grunting and possibly interpretive dance.<\/p>\n

South Australia’s Electricity Is 40% Rooftop Solar And Wind<\/h2>\n

De Lacy wrote,<\/p>\n

\u201cOn the basis of evidence everywhere we could easily double the price of electricity and get nowhere near the 50 per cent target.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

And I honestly don’t know what the hell he is talking about. It is not that De Lacy and I have a difference of opinion on this matter, we have a difference of reality. I have three\u00a0words to say to him \u2013 South bloody Australia.<\/p>\n

Around 40% of South Australia’s electricity consumption comes from wind and rooftop solar and the new renewable energy capacity did not cause electricity prices to double.\u00a0 While grid electricity prices have greatly increased in Australia this decade, they have gone up in all states regardless of their amount of wind and solar capacity.\u00a0 And because wind and solar have no fuel cost and always produce electricity when the sun is up or the wind is blowing they have lowered South Australia’s wholesale electricity prices below what they would otherwise be.<\/p>\n

South Australia Shows 50% Renewable Electricity Is Easily Achievable<\/h2>\n

It took South Australia 10 years to go from next to no renewable energy to obtaining 40% of its electricity from rooftop solar and wind power.\u00a0 This process put downward pressure on wholesale electricity prices and required no increase in the need for spinning reserve to keep the grid stable.<\/p>\n

The cost of renewable energy is now much cheaper than when South Australia started expanding its capacity, so we know it is quite possible for the nation to quickly and cheaply reach 50% renewable electricity within the next 13 years.<\/p>\n

As the other states already get an average of around 15% of their electricity from renewable resources, if they expand their renewable capacity at the same rate South Australia did 10 years ago the 50% renewable target could be reached in around 7 years.<\/p>\n

Australia has “Zero Tolerance” For Hydro And Nuclear Power?<\/h2>\n

De Lacy says Australia can reduce fossil fuel use in electricity generation with hydroelectricity and nuclear power. But he says we are not doing that because we are intolerant of these two forms of power.<\/p>\n

That is a very odd thing to say about a country that has utilized almost every economically viable hydroelectric source it has. I suppose it would always be possible to squeeze 180 megawatts out of the Franklin River, but I really doubt it would be worthwhile given today’s low cost of rooftop solar and wind power.<\/p>\n

De Lacy Thinks Australia Can Build Massive New Hydroelectric Capacity<\/h2>\n

Ever since the Renewable Energy Target was introduced back in 2001 under Liberal Prime Minister John Howard, new hydroelectricity has had exactly the same incentive to be built as wind power. Small scale hydro has been constructed as a result, but nothing large because there are no good sites available.<\/p>\n

As examples of nations with plenty of hydroelectricity, De Lacy gives Canada with 60% and Switzerland with 54%. Can you spot the differences between those two countries and Australia? I’ll give you a couple of hints. Imagine dry. Double it. Imagine flat. Now double that. Combine the two and you get Australia, the driest, flattest continent there is. The only reason we have as much hydroelectricity per capita as we do is because we have a lot of space and we don’t have many capitas.<\/p>\n

So I wonder if De Lacy thinks that if Australians had more tolerance towards hydroelectricity it would cause rainfall to increase and mountains with good hydroelectric sites to rise up from the continent’s ancient bedrock? Because that’s not what tolerance does.<\/p>\n

De Lacy Says Nuclear Is A Workable Alternative For Australia<\/h2>\n

De Lacy also says we don’t have nuclear power because we are intolerant of it. But I think the reason we don’t have nuclear power is because Australians are capable of telling if one number is bigger than another number.<\/p>\n

We were going to have nuclear power in Australia<\/a>. Back in 1969 the government decided the country should have a nuclear power station. Work was even started and you can still see the hole they dug at Jervis Bay on Google maps. But in 1971 they performed a cost analysis, looked at the result and said, “No thanks”. Things have not gotten better for the cost of nuclear power since then.<\/p>\n

Let’s\u00a0look at my motherland, the UK.\u00a0If the Hinkley C nuclear power plant goes ahead the electricity produced will cost around 18 Australian cents per kilowatt-hour<\/a>. And that is not the retail cost of electricity, that is the wholesale cost. As a comparison, wholesale electricity prices in Australia average around 4 cents a kilowatt-hour.<\/p>\n

Unfortunately, the high cost of new nuclear power in Britain is not an exception. It has also turned out to be very expensive in other countries including the USA, Finland, and France \u2013 all countries with existing nuclear power industries that wouldn’t be starting from scratch as Australia would.<\/p>\n

Nuclear power can supply safe, low emission energy, I know this intimately because my first job was a Control Engineer at\u00a0Heysham 1 Nuclear Power Station. \u00a0But there is no point in building nuclear where\u00a0renewable energy can do the same at a much lower cost.<\/p>\n

Future reactor designs may\u00a0be so cheap that all they’ll require to light up your world is a bottle of cheap wine and a packet of crisps, so I’m all for Nuclear R&D. \u00a0Just be sure to let me know when the first one is in operation and beating renewable energy on price. But be sure to tell me right away because I don’t think this old body of mine is going to last for much longer than a couple hundred more years.<\/p>\n

De Lacy\u00a0Needs To Check His Facts<\/h2>\n

Anyone can look up how much a rooftop solar system costs<\/a>, how much subsidy<\/a> it receives from the Renewable Energy Target, and then work out if unsubsidized solar can pay for itself. But he did not appear to do this despite living in a state where over 30% of households<\/a> have rooftop solar.\u00a0 He doesn’t even seem to be aware that an entire Australian state gets around 40% of its electricity from rooftop solar and wind power, which is something he claims simply doesn’t work.<\/span><\/p>\n

I find it hard to understand how the Director of an oil shale company could get so much wrong about renewable energy. I mean everyone makes mistakes. But for Christ’s sake, not this many.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Australian recently published an opinion piece by the Director of an oil shale company and former Chairman of Macarthur Coal, entitled, \u201cSolar And Wind Power Simply Don’t Work – Not Here, Not Anywhere“. 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