In Australia the Leftist, Loony, save the earth politician and bureaucrat seems to be running the show for almost everything. For instance ‘The Federal Coalition’s ‘plan’ to power Australia with gas-fired power plants it has yet to build, with gas supplies it does not have sounds more like palliative care than a cure for its self-inflicted power pricing and supply calamity.
Having wrecked our once reliable grid by subsidising chaotically intermittent wind and solar, it seems it’s time to resuscitate the hopes of dispatchable power plants. It’s a bit like choking the patient, and then putting them on a ventilator.
The junior Coalition partner, the Nationals – who remain a force to be reckoned with in regional NSW and Queensland, where numerous coal mines and coal-fired power plants still operate – are less than amused that PM, Scott Morrison and Energy Minister, Angus Taylor are talking up a future for gas-fired plants, when the country has been scrounging for gas for domestic purposes over the last decade – thanks to the several States that have banned the exploitation of gas and even exploration for it.
Assuming the Feds can find the gas and get the States to allow them to get it out of ground, it won’t be fuelling efficient Combined Cycle Gas Turbines. Instead, it will be chewed up by a few new Open Cycle Gas Turbines (fast-start ‘peakers’) and dozens of Wartsila 50DF reciprocating engines with a capacity of 18MW each (see above).
The key benefits of using what are giant ship engines, is that they can run on either gas, diesel or bunker fuel – and be fired up to reach their peak load within about five minutes. Ideal for responding to routine wind and solar power output collapses of the kind that have plagued South Australia for years, and that now threaten the entire Eastern Grid.
Of course, the only reason Australia has been reduced to importing dozens of Finnish built ship engines is the market chaos that has been delivered by the Federal government’s Large-Scale Renewable Energy Target.
A flurry of criticism from the Nationals, among others, followed the PM’s claim that ‘gas will save us’, after which he was forced to back-pedal and acknowledge the critical importance of coal-fired power.’https://stopthesethings.com/2020/09/21/quiet-achiever-while-pm-keeps-talking-about-gas-coal-just-keeps-on-powering-australia/
Genesis 8:22 While the earth remaineth, seedtime and harvest, and cold and heat, and summer and winter, and day and night shall not cease.
