Could it be the beginning of the ending for gas power?

[gazza2006au]

We are usually 10 to 20 years behind the USA in technology but this whole electric power replacing fuel powered engines is up there with the USA its like everything electric is getting fast tracked, i think fuel will be around for a long time to come phasing out fuel powered engines wont happen over night but we are moving so fast mepersonally i'd love to charge up the boat at home, get 100kms to a charge if it works out cheaper than fuel lets say $60 unleaded for 100kms distance if i can recharge at home for say $15 i would love that kind of saving there would be no petrol on your hands so no worries of not catching fish, the boat would be silent in operation u could sneak up on fish

Just the only down sides i can see are weight of the battery and if u sink electricution

[Noelm]

Saving money is not the point, it's easy to save money, buy a smaller boat, don't go out st all, charging at home doesn't solve the biggest issue, burning fossil fuel is what "we" are trying to stop, charging at home requires a power station, that power station is burning coal.

[ranmar850]

Aww Ranmar, you went and spoiled it by doing in the last paragraph what you were commenting on in the previous ones.

Chernobyl was run by idiots and was self inflicted. They may as well have pressed the "Never, ever, ever press this button" button.
Fukushima was built in a geologically unstable area and some bright middle manager decided to move the backup cooling power generators under the flood line. It actually scrammed immediately as designed....it just needed cooling for a few days after that but the diesels drowned in the tidal wave so the dead reactor overheated. So self inflicted also.

Australia
- millions and millions of geologically stable hectares thousands of kilometers from population centres.
- plenty of fuel in the ground
- plenty of places to store the low level waste (and it is low level waste)

We are an absolute prime canditate for nuclear power.
If it wasn't for the anti nuclear brigade, we'd be carbon neutral now.

Hey, I'm with you. Maybe I should have explained my last sentence, re the two infamous names, but I thought I'd already gone on long enough--yes, Chernobyl was caused by incompetence, and there was doubtless a massive litany of maintanence failures, etc. The human factor . As for Fukushima, as you said, the actual failure really came to one thing---the backup generators flooding. They were just not well enough protected for the size of the tsunami. No back-up power, hence an overheated runaway reactor. It was that simple. So perfectly avoidable. But I don't think any politician wants to touch it anymore, due to those two names. Not to mention that the conservatives in this country are deeply influenced by Big Coal. Not the worker's jobs in the industry, that's just a sideshow to them, it's all about the corporations.

[Noelm]

Nuclear is the future, if we can convince the tin foil hat people that it's not going to create Zombies.

[gazza2006au]

Saving money is not the point, it's easy to save money, buy a smaller boat, don't go out st all, charging at home doesn't solve the biggest issue, burning fossil fuel is what "we" are trying to stop, charging at home requires a power station, that power station is burning coal.

I thought a majority of Sydneys electricity came from the snowy river electric hydro power station? Which is just gravity fed water thru the turbines

[stevej]

I thought a majority of Sydneys electricity came from the snowy river electric hydro power station? Which is just gravity fed water thru the turbines

Hell no
coal coal coal and more coal for the majority of the base load and especially overnight and in weather extremes

https://www.aemc.gov.au/energy-syste...ration-mix/nsw

[Noelm]

I did read about a project under way to use big solar powered pumps to pump the water back "up the hill" during daylight to use again, making it kind of more renewable than a simple once off downhill run, if you ever get the chance, the Snowy Hydro station is pretty impressive to tour, and a feat of engineering considering it was done in the '50s and '60s, there is huge pipes carrying water and you can hear it even in the pipe.

[Cobbo1]

Not sure it's the beginning of the end, I think a more accurate statement would be the beginning of a new era, I think petrol/diesel will always have it's uses, the question should probably be more directed towards how many of these uses will electricity supersede...

In regards to fuel prices I think this will come back to simple supply and demand, while the demand is there the suppliers will supply it at their choosing, when there's no demand, it will be supplied at whatever they can get for it

[gazza2006au]

I did read about a project under way to use big solar powered pumps to pump the water back "up the hill" during daylight to use again, making it kind of more renewable than a simple once off downhill run, if you ever get the chance, the Snowy Hydro station is pretty impressive to tour, and a feat of engineering considering it was done in the '50s and '60s, there is huge pipes carrying water and you can hear it even in the pipe.

When i was 15 i stayed with my dad for a couple of months living at hes place in Tumut a little town near the lowest snowy dam called blowering dam while there my dad took me up on the dam wall and into the turbine section where u can walk around the turbines back than i had no education so had very little knowledge of or interest in the electricity side of the dam however we did do some trolling in the dam and caught a tiny rainbow trout

[TheRealPoMo]

Splityard Creek dam above Wivenhoe was built in the mid 80's to do that but the intent was to use off peak grid electricity to pump the water up and then release it through the turbines at peak load times.
Was working for the Irrigation and water supply as a young fella then (when we still built dams). Dunno if they still do this.
Could use a big solar array to do the same through the day and release through the night.
Could use nuclear too....

[gazza2006au]

I think we have had a scare or two at the Lukes Heights neuclear reactor i dont think we will move forward on that approach, building huge solar yards is still a costly exercise

I think the best way forward would be to make solar panels cheaper in mass govenment buying than on selling them to home owners at really cheap prices, if each house could support there own use by solar panels and stored power there would be little or no domestic demand

[disorderly]

if each house could support there own use by solar panels and stored power there would be little or no domestic demand

But thats the whole problem with sun and wind power Gazza...

Because it doesnt work 24/7 Its the cost of storing that power till its needed that just is not affordable any time soon..

I have 15 kws of solar panels on the roof and 2 x 6kw inverters so on a sunny summer day I make 5-6 times the power I need but I get a low cost for the power I feed back into the grid but it costs me nothing to use power at night...so far we are always in credit..

I would love to be off grid and have battery storage for the excess but its still way too expensive...so the only option right now is to use the grid as a "battery"...

Domestic energy self sufficiency is still quite a ways off I think...

[Noelm]

I think we have had a scare or two at the Lukes Heights neuclear reactor i dont think we will move forward on that approach, building huge solar yards is still a costly exercise

I think the best way forward would be to make solar panels cheaper in mass govenment buying than on selling them to home owners at really cheap prices, if each house could support there own use by solar panels and stored power there would be little or no domestic demand

Been to Lucas Heights many times, there's bugger all there to be scared about, the place has been there for fifty years or there abouts, Nuclear is clean, safe and reliable, but, the very name makes people cringe.

[gazza2006au]

Yeah i dont know how safe the plant is but i think if it was to be targetted or have a natrual disastour sweep thru in some kind of way it deconstructed the plant it could potentioally wipe out hundreds of thousands of people, look at fukashima probably not spelt right, they were worried the radiation wouldleak into i think the ocean than migrating fish like tuna would bring the radiation to australia its really scary stuff

The potentioal to leak radiation is catastrophic im only 28-30mins from lucas heights

[gazza2006au]

Couldonejust buy 20x 12v 100ah deep cycle boat/camp batteries and a management system to run 20 @ 12v for 240v dc 2000ah cost of each battery $200 surely no one could use 100% of the bank 2000amp hours is a hell of alot of power