Biggest power plant in coal-reliant Australia to close early

[Eugene]

Source: BBC

Biggest power plant in coal-reliant Australia to close early

17 February 2022

Australia's largest coal-fired power station will close seven years earlier than planned, as its operator says it is increasingly unable to compete with the "influx of renewables".

The 2.88 gigawatt Eraring plant is located in the Hunter region north of Sydney and operated by Origin Energy.

The plant will now close in 2025 and be replaced by a large-scale battery.

It adds to a long list of coal plants forced shut by the growth of cheap wind and solar energy in the country.

-snip-

Read more: https://www.bbc.com/news/business-60411622

[riversedge]

1. Good news. Need more of this

[NNadir]

2. Bullshit. Batteries and "cheap" renewable energy have very little to do with it.

When the wind doesn't blow, they'll burn more coal, just like they do in Germany.

As of this writing, 7:25 PM Sidney time (3:25 AM US), 2/17/22 using the Electricity Map the New South Wales wind industry is operating at 12.91% capacity utilization, providing 2.13 GW of power.

The shutdown and restarting coal plants wastes energy and increases admissions. It also raises the cost, in particular in terms of wear and tear on any power plant forced to shut down by popular stupidity connected with the public view that the sun always shines, the wind always blows and that the mining of endless piles of rare metals to make batteries is "green."

In theory, Australia needs none of this popular shell game that represents an on going disaster, with the pig's lipstick cheered by a scientifically illiterate set of journalists. Australia has huge reserves of both uranium and thorium. They could in theory produce clean and reliable energy, but instead they rely on marketing horseshit as represented this news article.

Of course, we've been seeing this "wind and solar as an alternative to coal" nonsense from the media for decades, while the rate of increases in carbon dioxide concentrations accelerate year after year. The world will burn more coal than ever in 2022, despite half a century of mindless cheering for so called "renewable energy." This cheering, and this mass delusion is the reason that we saw concentrations of more than 421 ppm of carbon dioxide this past week.

February 15: 419.88 ppm
February 14: 421.59 ppm
February 13: 420.83 ppm
February 12: 417.64 ppm
February 11: 417.63 ppm
Last Updated: February 16, 2022

Recent Daily Average Mauna Loa CO2 (Accessed 2/17/22)

[Finishline42]

3. Again, where would we be if we weren't getting contributions from renewables?

The shutdown and restarting coal plants wastes energy and increases admissions. It also raises the cost, in particular in terms of wear and tear on any power plant forced to shut down by popular stupidity connected with the public view that the sun always shines, the wind always blows and that the mining of endless piles of rare metals to make batteries is "green."

Pointing out your mistake so you can edit - think you meant 'emissions'

Increasing cost is the direct result of renewables cutting into the need for power produced by coal, nat gas and nuclear. The cost for those plants to produce electricity continues to increase as the cost for wind, solar and batteries gets cheaper and better which makes the case for increasing their use.

You might want to take notice of South Australia producing at 119g on Feb 17 at 5pm. They made a decision 10 years ago to build out wind and solar and now get most of their power from those sources.