Future of the Australian Electricity Market

[Mr Brush]

I was going to suggest goats rather than sheep to keep foliage and weeds down on solar farms, but (a) I've seen how high they can jump - you'd find them on top of the solar panels, and (b) any even slightly exposed wires would be fair game, possibly leading to LEGs (Light Emitting Goats).

[Warb]

I was going to suggest goats rather than sheep to keep foliage and weeds down on solar farms, but (a) I've seen how high they can jump - you'd find them on top of the solar panels, and (b) any even slightly exposed wires would be fair game, possibly leading to LEGs (Light Emitting Goats).

Jumping, yes absolutely.

I never had any problems with goats chewing wires, possibly due to our extensive usage of electric fences - they learnt very young to keep away from the fences! Interestingly, I would see them intensely studying the electric fences from time to time, getting very close but not touching the wires. My conclusion was that they could sense whether the fences were still "live", because why else would they do it? I've never noticed sheep or cattle do the same thing.... Not related to green power, but training pigs to live with electric fences was interesting, because when they got zapped they would jump forward (into the fence) rather than backwards and away from it like everything else. We had to build training paddocks with very solid fences and electric offsets, such that the pigs would bounce off the main fence after getting zapped by the offset and jumping forward! They learnt very quickly, however! Pigs are smart....

[Mr Brush]

Sorry to report that some cattle can definitely sense the electric field around a fence that is live. When we first built about 20 years ago we had cattle on the property and put up electric fence tape just around the house to keep them out. One cow in particular would wander up to the fence, stop to check it out, and if it wasn't turned on at the energiser proceed to walk straight through the tape like it wasn't there. I never saw her get a belt from the fence - it it was on, she always backed off. Somewhere on disc I have a photo of a cow peering through one of bedroom windows of the newly-built house. As you're probably aware, most cattle fancy themselves as electricians, plumbers, etc.... .

[mic-d]

Sorry to report that some cattle can definitely sense the electric field around a fence that is live. When we first built about 20 years ago we had cattle on the property and put up electric fence tape just around the house to keep them out. One cow in particular would wander up to the fence, stop to check it out, and if it wasn't turned on at the energiser proceed to walk straight through the tape like it wasn't there. I never saw her get a belt from the fence - it it was on, she always backed off. Somewhere on disc I have a photo of a cow peering through one of bedroom windows of the newly-built house. As you're probably aware, most cattle fancy themselves as electricians, plumbers, etc.... .

There have been horses at our pony club over the years that seemed to know if it was on, came to the conclusion they could hear the faint tick through the wire after they seemed even more careful of it if there was a slight arc from a short nearby. Most seemed to get one boot and then respect the tape.

[Bohdan]

Had a yearling steer come up to a new electric wire, looked at it, sniffed it and then he went and picked a fight with one of his brothers.

A real head to head shoving match. He slowly maneuvered his brother around and pushed him into the wire tail first. His brother reacted violently.

I don't know if he knew that the wire was live or he was just testing it but you would swear that he just stood back and laughed.

[GraemeCook]

The "lanes" you mention, are you talking about the panels or is there internal fencing? The only solar farm I've been close to (though not inside) looks like one huge paddock. The whole thing becomes far easier if there's internal fencing!

I was careful to note that I have only seen two solar farms, so others may be different.

The panels were lined up like soldiers in nice straight lines, about 100 mm from the ground and at an angle of ~55°. The space between the rows of panels formed the lanes.

Viewed front on and all you see is a wall of panels. Viewed side on and you look straight down the lanes and the sheep are both highly visible and corralled. Each lane could be used as a grazing cell.

[Bushmiller]

One of my biggest criticisms of media reporting is the blatant bias in one direction or another and in an attempt to maintain some degree of minimal prejudice myself I have been researching more on the nuclear question and in particular the SMRs (Small Modular Reactors for newcomers to the thread).

In the past the "Nukes" have been towards the top end of the scale in that once you committed to such a project there was an economy of scale. An individual unit may have been 800MW or larger, which would make even the smaller machines bigger than anything we have in Australia. The SMR design is usually between 30MW and 300MW.

As I have pointed out before, the SMR so casually touted by some as the saviour and real alternative to fossil fuelled power were not in existence and only at best in design stages. That may not have been entirely correct. I chanced upon this article:

What are Small Modular Reactors (SMRs)? | IAEA

However, while not overly glossy in it's reporting, it is not unbiased either.

What I was really trying to find out was where there were SMRs already in active service. Contrary to my earlier beliefs, I had read that there were three plants up and running. One each in Russia, China and India.

This is the Russian one:

Akademik Lomonosov - Wikipedia

While the Russian plant is the first SMR, it is marine based. China has the first land based plant:

World’s First Small Modular Nuclear Reactor Starts Producing Energy in China (interestingengineering.com)

India and Korea are still "looking" at these projects. Argentina is pouring the concrete for it's plant. There may be another plant in Russia. The Chinese installation is the largest at 125MW.

Canada has also been used as an example of a country adopting SMRs. However, it is more of a "plan" at this stage than actual plant:

Canada's Small Modular Reactor (SMR) Action Plan (smractionplan.ca)

As I mentioned in an earlier post, it is important to note the source, who is promoting the concept and whether the idea exists or is a proposal at best or a dream at worst.

Just going back to the first link I made, I took this excerpt, which is probably rather telling seeing as how it comes from the IAEA:

"Though SMRs have lower upfront capital cost per unit, their economic competitiveness is still to be proven in practice once they are deployed."

It is also interesting to note that the developmental and approval processes will still be the same as for their larger brethren. There may, in fact, be no savings to be had on a cost/MW basis and they may be more expensive. It may make a small plant affordable in some situations, but then it comes down to whether it is the best way to spend the money for the electricity budget.

Regards
Paul

Edit: A correction. The Chinese reactor is 200MW. I don't know where I got 125MW!

[FenceFurniture]

One each in Russia, China and India.

Three countries not particularly well known for their environmental conscientiousness.

[Bushmiller]

Three countries not particularly well known for their environmental conscientiousness.

FF

Indeed.

Russia and China in particular. Just have a look at the Three Gorges hydro station and the amount of people displaced there (1.3m ?). A DA is not so much of an issue there if the powers to be support it. However, I did note that the project received one of the lowest approval rates seen.

Strangely to my mind, it is the approvals and safety issues that seem to have hampered India's development in this direction.

Regards
Paul

[GraemeCook]

Three countries not particularly well known for their environmental conscientiousness.

Or the credibility of their reporting.

[Bushmiller]

This is some more information on the Chinese SMRs installed at Shidao Bay by the CHG company, who may be the third largest electricity producer in China with a capacity of more than Australia in total.

Shidao Bay Nuclear Power Plant - Wikipedia

It looks as though initially two SMRs have been installed with eight more to follow, although there is no indication of a time frame. Also contemporaneously, two more conventional large PWR (Pressurised Water Reactors) units of 1500MW each are being built. It may be that the SMRs are a trial to establish how well they can be integrated. My understanding is that CHG are quite open to trialing new technologies and are a large enough company to do this.

The SMRs have only just reached full operational capacity and it has been a journey started back in 2009. It was held up by the implications of the Fukushima debacle for a while.

Regards
Paul

[Bushmiller]

Finally, there has been a successful attempt to create more power in a fusion reaction than was used to generate the reaction:

Nuclear fusion for dummies: The energy breakthrough that could change everything (msn.com)

Unfortunately, the title is a little misleading as all this stuff is a long, long way off. It still has to be economic and it has to be on a much larger scale. One of those times when size matters hugely!

Regards
Paul

[Bushmiller]

One little piece of information I did take from the link in the previous post is that atomic bombs today are in fact Fusion bombs, commonly referred to as H-Bombs. I had not appreciated that. We are not really exposed to such production here in Millmerran.

Just as an aside, where do you think is the best place to be should a nuclear bomb be exploded in your vicinity? Well, really, anywhere where you can still say "What the f@&k was that?" Actually, you probably need to be many times further away than that as the effect ranges from vaporisation at the detonation site, through blast to long term radiation effect: Hmmm...The moon is starting to sound more attractive than it ever was before.

This is a further aside showing an interactive timeline of every nuclear test conducted:

Map of Every Nuclear-Bomb Explosion in History (businessinsider.com)

Apologies for being the harbinger of doom. I think we are at least alright for the rest of the week.....



Regards
Paul

[FenceFurniture]

You'd probably only get up to "What the..." anyway.

[Bushmiller]

You'd probably only get up to "What the..." anyway.

FF

You had just mis-calculated how far away you should have been. It is similar to judging how far away lightning occurs. Roughly five seconds between the flash and the sound for every mile. 4.7 seconds if you wish to be more accurate and 4.69 seconds if you are being pedantic. Speed of sound all depends on altitude and temperature too.

Regards
Paul