#Official Energy Thread

[AtD]

urban, gas is just another fossil fuel like oil and coal. It's not renewable.

[rhino]

Not in Australia, as far as I know. Oil companies seem to strike gas in Australia a lot more than they strike oil.

[urban]

urban, gas is just another fossil fuel like oil and coal. It's not renewable.

Aware of that but it appears a better short term solution for base load energy than either coal or nuclear until the renewables sector can overcome their shortfalls.

[AtD]

rhino: Uh...?

[urban]

The current energy debate appears to be should we replace our coal powered electricity stations with Nuclear power or renewable sources. Conservatives say the renewable sources can't provide the response to demand required by industry and homes because the sources of renewable energy are unreliable and located too far away from where the demand is. Greenies say Nuclear power has the potential to be too dangerous and we are stuck with the wast for centuries. Both are realistically 10-20 years away from meeting our needs. So if we need to increase our generating capacity or take coal powered stations off line what do we do in the next 10-20 years?

Origin appear to doing the sensible thing building a gas plant so why is Gas missing from the wider debate?

[AG]

urban, gas is just another fossil fuel like oil and coal. It's not renewable.

Aware of that but it appears a better short term solution for base load energy than either coal or nuclear until the renewables sector can overcome their shortfalls.

Combustion of natural gas is certainly cleaner than that of coal or oil, but it's nowhere near as efficient in energy than those two other forms. It takes a lot more storage space to store the amount of gas that contains the same amount of energy than for oil or coal.

[urban]

Cheers AG

[rhino]

rhino: Uh...?

My comment was in reply to Urban's question about a severe shortage of gas in Australia. You posted your answer while I was still typing mine.

[Ho Really]

...a severe shortage of gas in Australia...

If you take it (methane) from cows it isn't...

Cheers

[rhino]

AGL wants to build a new wind farm in the Burra-Hallet district.

From Friday's ABC News On-Line:
AGL to provide second wind farm

Australia's biggest retail energy provider AGL has bought the rights to develop another wind farm in South Australia.

The 71-megawatt farm will be located just 20 kilometres from AGL's Hallett Hill wind farm being built in the state's mid north.

The company aims to put 34 wind turbines on the new site, which could be up and running by 2009.


Personally, I think this is great news!
Two thumbs up!

[rhino]

What is Solar Cube Technology?

From today's Advertiser:

Chance to invest in SA's $30m solar farm
OLGA GALACHO
May 15, 2007 02:15am

PLANS for a private $30 million, 15-megawatt solar farm in one of the state's most arid regions are likely to be signed off today.

The public will be able to invest in the solar farm in a similar way investors buy units in forestry companies.

Chief executive of Green and Gold Energy, Greg Watson, will today meet government electricity officials to put the finishing regulatory touches to a project he says will save domestic users more than 50 per cent off their power bill without having to instal expensive solar panels on their roofs.

"I am confident there will not be any issues," he said.

Mr Watson, inventor of the award-winning SolarCube technology, said the 200,000 sq.m. facility was likely to be located at either Leigh Creek, Woomera or Roxby Downs.

[urban]

This is the link to the company's website. It seems to simply be a tracking system with diffusers (or concentrators?) above the pv cells to maximise efficiency. Sorry for the vagueness bat as you can probably tell I'm no scientist.

http://www.greenandgoldenergy.com.au/

[rhino]

Santos is thinking about hosting the world's biggest Carbon Dump in the Cooper Basin.

Is this good for SA or just a money-maker for SANTOS?

From today's Adelaide Now:

CAMERON ENGLAND, CHIEF BUSINESS REPORTER
September 18, 2007 02:15am

THE world's biggest carbon dump being planned for the state's Outback could hold up to one billion tonnes of greenhouse gases.
This is more than twice the capacity first planned.
Adelaide-based oil and gas company Santos believes a billion tonnes of carbon dioxide could be stored in its depleted oil and gas reservoirs in the Cooper Basin, compared with an original estimate of 400 million tonnes.
In June, The Advertiser revealed Santos had applied to the Federal Government for $275 million in funding as part of an estimated $714 million first-phase investment, to demonstrate storing greenhouse gases underground worked.
That project was based on eventually pumping 20 million tonnes of CO2 underground per year, for 20 years, from as early as 2010.
This would make it by far the largest carbon sequestration project in the world, but Santos spokesman Matthew Doman said yesterday it could now be even bigger.
"It comes from several things – the existence of aquifers below the Cooper Basin which could also be used to inject and store carbon . . .the other is the fact that as you use CO2 to pressurise the field and get more oil out, the removal of that oil creates more space in the oil field itself so that increases by about 20 per cent the capacity of the oil field storage beyond our initial estimates," he said.
The Federal Government is considering the proposal and does not comment on proposals under consideration.
But both Foreign Affairs Minister Alexander Downer and Finance Minister Nick Minchin have said they were interested, paving the way for a possible pre-election funding announcement.
The demonstration phase would inject about 1 million tonnes of CO2 underground per year, equivalent to taking about 250,000 cars off the road per year.

[Ho Really]

I think it is good for both SA (and Australia) and SANTOS. Need more details though.

...But both Foreign Affairs Minister Alexander Downer and Finance Minister Nick Minchin have said they were interested, paving the way for a possible pre-election funding announcement...

Mmmh...

Cheers

[omada]

Interesting, is this the first geological carbon sequestration project in Australia? I'm not even sure how tested this process is on a worldwide basis, although apparently CO2 has been injected into declining oil fields for over 30 years to increase oil yields.

Although I think more money should be spent on legitimate renewables, from what they say, significant reductions in atmospheric carbon will be achieved, which is all good by me.