Critical limitations of the main sources of electricity generation

Comparative Costs and General Utility

Whatever political spin you hear or like, coal is the cheapest source of electricity. That is why we use it, as well as it being dispatchable. Emerging economies will prioritise their development over concerns of greenhouse gases, with major use of fossil fuels.

A lot of the numbers that are put forward concerning solar and wind (weather-dependent intermittents) and nuclear fission are dodgy. They reflect the bias and vested interests of the persons presenting them, whether it be for intermittents or nuclear.

A more reliable way to make general comparisons is to observe performances to date. Denmark and Germany have the highest electricity consumer costs in the EU and also have the highest proportion of 'renewables' in their grids. France has over 60% nuclear in its grid. It does not have the highest consumer cost in the EU. Also, France exports electricity to Germany when the weather is not favourable to German electricity production, indicating the crucial importance of dispatchability.

These simple observations have more validity than numbers out of the air. It is reasonable to assume, on this basis, that solar and wind are generally a more expensive source of electricity than nuclear. More to the point, they are not dispatchable, making an all-renewable grid not fit for purpose, even if it were 'the cheapest form of energy'. Just to say 'one day we will have battery storage' is just wishful thinking. There is no guarantee of that and no electricity utility should be built on this premise. That would be a Russian roulette style of gambling.

Conclusions

There are no immaculate solutions, currently that are generally applicable, to the world's demand for electricity and so the use of fossil fuels will persist, at least in the short to medium term.

Neither fossil, nor sun and wind, nor nuclear fission can immaculately provide sustainable electricity for Australia's and the rest of the world's needs, and the need keeps on increasing exponentially, nearly 9 times globally in the last 70 years, an exponential growth of some 3% per annum. The reasons for limitation vary among sources.

An inconvenient truth for many is that the clean, green, cheap energy revolution based on sun and wind is not happening. This revolution is an illusion, a trip into feel-good fantasy land for the comparatively rich who do not suffer privation. The poor, and there are many more of them than the rich on the planet, are more concerned with staying warm and having food on the table than 'saving the planet'. Fossil fuel consumption, globally, and greenhouse gas accumulation, are at record highs. Atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide does not lie. This is despite more than a decade of large-scale experiments and trillions of dollars spent on large-scale solar and wind projects. The reason is simply that the energy conversion based on diffuse energy from sunbeams and breezes are not dispatchable (unreliable) and ruinously costly (as well as creating 3-dimensional graffiti on prime, productive rural land and pristine coastal marine areas) and it is making the rich world poorer and the rest of the world cannot afford it. Coal is still King and we export it to pay for our solar panels made in China with coal as the energy source for their manufacture. This is classic hypocrisy for the purpose of virtue signalling, and is not in the interest of the Australian taxpayer, who is footing the bill. We are still dependent on coal whether we admit it or not. We find nuclear submarines acceptable but say no to nuclear for electricity.

Nuclear fission is a dispatchable generator and can be fitted to existing coal-powered sites, resulting in less disruption and environmental damage and also provides economies resulting from the existing transmission systems. However, nuclear is only an interim measure for dispatchable electricity, as is gas (gas emits but not as much as coal) at this time. Permanent storage of highly radioactive waste is a formidable challenge, not yet solved, and perhaps never will be. It is in the same unknown category as economic storage batteries at scale for electricity utilities based on solar wind powered grids. The only economic megabatteries, currently, are mythical ones.

Society wants reliable, 24/7, the most affordable and carbon-free electricity with minimal environmental damage and change. Fossil, sun and wind, and nuclear all have critical shortfalls in meeting these requirements. They all constitute formidable challenges. Ideological blind optimism is just a futile fantasy. The laws of nature will prevail over blind ideology and laws of parliaments.

At the present time there are no immaculate, sustainable solutions to the world's electricity demand. Nuclear fusion would be, if the reaction could be controlled. The way forward in electricity generation depends on R&D, not on ideology, political propaganda nor vested interests, nor the opinion of the privileged, pampered elites, who never have experienced privation and who have little understanding in what electricity generation entails technologically, economically and environmentally.