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| WHAT WILL AN ENERGY CRISIS MEAN FOR YOU? |
| Part 1: Base Load Power - A Brief Overview V07 A4 |
| Part 2: Our Essential Electricity System V04 A4 |
| Part 3: Our Existential Climate Crisis |
| Part 4: The Vital role of Nuclear Energy |
| Copies of Australian Electricity System documents are available by e-mailing: realenergystory@yahoo.com |
| Nuclear Mitigation of Climate Change V2A |
| Xylene Power Ltd. |
| Nuclear for Australia |
| In New England wind and solar are 12X more expensive than Natural Gas |
| Rolling Blackouts Plus High Energy Prices.V5 |
| RECOMMENDED YOUTUBE VIDEOS |
| THE REAL COST OF NET ZERO A video showing that the energy path on which Australia is presently embarked will not realize the required CO2 emission reduction, will not provide affordable energy and will not provide reliable electric power. |
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A video showing that Mr. Chris Bowen, a minister in the Australian government, is technically incompetent. Mr. Bowen demonstrates that he knows nothing about: the requirements for climate change mitigation, or AC electricity system: blackstart, stability, cost of seasonal energy storage or nuclear options. |
| A short video setting out common sense issues relating to nuclear power |
| A video titled: The Staggering Cost of Renewable Energy in Australia |
| A video titled: Australia's Nuclear Future |
| A video describing on time and on budget nuclear power in Ontario |
INTRODUCTION:
This web page presents practical aspects of the Australian public electricity system including electricity:
generation, storage, transmission, distribution, measurement, control, dependability and rates.
This web page is dedicated to provision of factual electricity system information for the people of Australia. In recent years the Australian government energy policy has been guided by perceived public opinion rather than by the physics of: AC electricity systems, climate change and nuclear power. The result is a high cost, but increasingly more unreliable public electricity service that still emits large amounts of CO2 per average kWh supplied.
There is an increasing need for the Australian electricity system evolution to be guided by profesional engineers rather than by politicians. These professional engineers typically need 8 to 10 years of post-secondary education plus at least 10 years of relevant work experience. This level of expertise is difficult for most talented young people to acquire in Australia. If they go abroad, they often do not return.
There is wide spread public misunderstanding about both the existing Australian electricity system and the manner in which this system must evolve to meet the present and future needs of the Australian people and to mitigate climate change. These matters are governed by astrophysics, electrical engineering, mechanical engineering, nuclear engineering and nuclear chemistry. These subjects are largely missing from the present Australian education curricula.
At the root of the problem is lack of Australian Government appreciation of the critical importance of development of teams with expertise in these subject areas. That development is even more urgent than is teaching young medical doctors. The funding of Australian post-secondary education should reflect this reality.
Most of the linked files have been written by recently retired senior Australian electricity system personnel who have intimate knowledge of, and experience in, the industry. Links at the top and bottom of this web page connect to other information about electricity systems, climate change and sustainable nuclear power that is available on the Xylene Power Ltd. website.
This web page acknowledges the need for synthetic aviation fuel (SAF) and related fluid transport via pipe lines.
Readers who are interested in the unvarnished truth about climate change are encouraged to study the presentation titled Nuclear Mitigation of Climate Change available in the above link list.
ELECTRICAL TERMS AND DEFINITIONS:
Electricity is electromagnetic field energy that propagates along guiding conductors at close to the speed of light.
Due to future constraints on use of fossil fuels, electricity must become the primary means of efficient medium distance transmission of energy.
Clean electricity is electricity that is generated without use of a fossil carbon fuel.
Sustainable electricity is electricity generated by use of fuels which have sufficent abundance that on the time scale of modern human existence the fuels will never be exhausted. Examples of such fuels are deuterium and lithium which might potentially fuel fusion reactions on Earth, and U-238 and Th-232 which can fuel breeding type fission reactions in nuclear reactors. Hydroelectric generation, wind generation and solar generation are all means of capturing energy from solar fusion reactions.
Fossil fuel generated electricity is not sustainable because this electricity source is energy limited both by existing fossil fuel geologic reserves and by accumulation of CO2 in Earth's atmosphere.
Grid supplied electricity can be divided into two portions, firm power which is dependably available and interruptible power which is only intermittently available.
Firm power should have at least a 99.7% probability of meeting the total consumer controlled electricity load at every instant in time. Firm power is generally supplied by multiple synchronous electricity generators that do not have common mode failure mechanisms.
The main sources of firm power are large: hydroelectric generators, nuclear thermal electric generators and fossil fuel thermal electric generators. Generally, the total available firm power generation capacity should be at least 15% greater than the peak consumer controlled electricity load in order to meet the required electricity supply reliability criteria.
Renewable Energy is energy derived from the sun via hydropower, wind power or solar power. Wind power and solar power are intermittent and hence are unsuitable for supply of firm power. Usually wind and solar electricity generators use asynchronous power inverters that rely on other synchronous machines for frequency control and frequency stability. Smaller hydroelectric sites usually exhibit seasonal intermittency whereas very large hydroelectric storage dams can usually provide firm power.
Interruptible power is electricity which is centrally dispatched to the extent necessary to usefully use the instantaneous clean electricity generation capacity which is surplus to the electricity grid's instantaneous firm power load. The interruptible load should be automatically enabled/disabled in real time by a consumer specific control signal from the LDC (Local Distribution Company) or IESO (independent Electricity System Operator). The interruptible load enable/disable signals should be computer generated to fairly allocate the available interruptible power among the interruptible power customers.
The main uses of interruptible electricity are displacement of fossil fuels in hybrid heating systems, vehicle battery charging, irrigation water pumping and electrolytic production of heavy water, hydrogen andvarious.
In the event of an unplanned generation failure ideally interruptible load enable/disable signals should preferentially provide the available generation capacity to the firm electricity consumers.
The main sources of interruptible electricity are unused clean firm electricity generation. intermittent wind electricity generation and intermittent solar electricity generation.
Firm electricity provides the dependable power required by most existing electricity applications, and should bear a premium price per monthly peak demand kW measured at times when interruptible power is not available to the consumer.
Interruptible electricity provides clean energy at the same low price per marginal kWh consumed as does firm electricity but should bear no peak demand charge.
Interruptible electricity provides consumers clean energy that would otherwse be curtailed (discarded). The benefits of proper use of interruptible electricity include:
a) Reduced overall energy system costs;
b) Reduced fossil fuel consumption;
c) Reduced overall CO2 emissions;
d) Better alignment between electricity rates and electricity system costs.
Energy storage of interruptible electricity provides dispatchable power that is conditional on prior charging of the energy storage. Bulk energy storage needs dedicated transmission and may need additional synchronous capacitors for grid stabilization.. Bulk energy storage is primarily used at locations that have favorable geography for pairs of major hydraulic storage reservoirs that are elevation separated.
Short term (4 hour) energy storage can be achieved with batteries, but that energy storage is insufficent for managing seasonal load variations. In most circumstances it is less expensive to provide dispatchable nuclear power than to provide sufficient renewable generation and energy storage to meet worst case seasonal load variations.
Consumer owned energy storage is mainly used to convert interruptible electricity into more reliable electricity for the benefit of an individual consumers who can afford this energy storage.
In order to fairly distribute interruptible power it is necessary to divide the electricity loads at each interruptible consumer premises into two categories, loads which require firm electricity and loads for which interruptible power is acceptable. Appliances that use interruptible power, such as hybrid heating systems, often need an alternate energy source such as a stored liquid fuel in order to operate during periods when interruptible power is not available to a particular consumer.
The apparatus that measures the consumer's monthly dependable power peak demand in kW actually senses total power but ignores the power measurements made during periods when the control signal from the electricity utility indicates that the consumer is permitted to draw interruptible power without a financial penalty.
Applications of low cost interruptible power include:
a) Displacement of combustion fuels in heating systems;
b) Charging of battery electric vehicles;
c) Charging of thermal energy storage systems;
d) Production of heavy water and green hydrogen by electrolysis of water;
e) Charging liquid metal energy storage for routine daily time shifting of interruptible power generation.
ELECTRICAL UNITS OF MEASUREMENT:
The basic unit of electric power is a watt (W) where:
1 W = 1 joule / second = 1 J / s
The basic unit of electrical energy is a watt-second where:
1 W-s = 1 J
In the case of electrical energy a joule is a unit of directed kinetic energy where:
1 J = 1 kg m^2 / s^2
If this directed kinetic/electrical energy is dissipated as heat it becomes 1 J of thermal energy.
Most electricity billings are expressed in kW of power and/or kWh of energy where:
1 kW = 1000 W
and
1 kWh = 1000 W X 3600 s = 3.6 X 10^6 J
The outputs of large electricity generators are usually expressed in MW of power and MWh of energy where:
1 MW = 1000 kW
and
1 MWh = 1000 kWh
The outputs of large electricity systems are usually expresed in GW of power or GWh of energy where:
1 GW = 1000 MW
and
1 GWh = 1000 MWh
In situations where there might be confusion between units of electric power or electric energy and units of thermal power or thermal energy the subscript e is used to indicate an electrical unit and the subscript t is used to indicate a thermal unit.
COMMON ABREVIATIONS
J joule = a small unit of energy (about 1% of the amount of heat that an adult human emits every second)
W Watt = 1 joule / second, a small unit of power
kW kilowatt = 1000 joule / second
kWh kilowatt-hour = 3,600,000 joules
kWhe = 1 kWh of electricity
kWht = 1 kWh of heat
MWh = 1000 kWh
GWh = 1000 MWh
This web page last updated January 16, 2025.
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