Original Document
Letter to the Editor to a regional newspaper, published in 2009.
Included as a submission to 2012 Senate Inquiry "The Social and Economic Impact of Rural Wind Farms".
Text:
https://stevej-on-misc.blogspot.com/2022/06/climate-change-denier-letter-to-editor.html
Long Response: Long Response
Summary response
What a hoot this letter is. Reminiscent of "Grampa" on the Simpsons, an angry old man shouting incoherently at the sky.
The author confuses 'area' and 'volume', more than once,
- doesn't understand how "Power" and "Energy" are related and why that's important. Ask a truck driver.
- confuses "Furnace Efficiency" with energy conversion efficiency of the whole Power Station,
- quotes a "Heat Rate" (Energy IN to Energy OUT) in British Imperial units,
failing to understand it disproves his case (34.12% efficiency, not 96%), - then tangles with the maths in a complicated & convoluted example - while repeatedly dividing by irrelevant factors.
It's the Maths ability & understanding of Science and Engineering I'd expect of someone who left school at 15 to 'get a trade'.
Which doesn't mean he's uneducated or isn't good at many jobs:
he's passing off opinions as fact, not based in knowledge, logic or evidence.
His letter is laced with attacks, snide remarks and put downs and short on evidence and logic.
This implies two things:
- he's quite convinced he's right and everyone else wrong
- and he's not even fully convinced by his own arguments.
If you provide compelling evidence and bulletproof logic, there's not need to attack & ridicule the other side: your arguments stand by themselves.
Everything he talks about, all the numbers and examples cited, are from the 1960's.
His arguments made sense only in that era and his conclusions on economics & financial viability were correct then, for the technologies of that era, not nearly so now.
He's seemingly not researched current generations of technology in any depth.
Nor is he aware of the fundamentals of running Power Stations:
- they don't sell their potential to deliver electricity (Power),
- they earn money from delivering Energy.
Every truck driver understands, intimately, the difference between "Power" and "Energy".
A large semi might have a 500 HP motor ("Power" is measured in kilowatts or Horsepower) but what matters for drivers is how much fuel ("Energy") is consumed per a trip. What it costs per task.
Bigger is not always "Better" when it comes to "Power Generation".
Every type of Power Station, especially Thermal Coal, has a minimum output level.
For Coal fired plants, this is often as high as 30%.
Larger power stations have to shutdown units much earlier than smaller.
They either have to shutdown the unit, with all the inherent problems and non-billable costs, or deliberately waste the excess power waiting for demand to pick up.
The NEM, AEMO and Dept of Energy (energy.gov.au) all report on Energy consumed, in a metric unit, PetaJoules (PJ).
1PJ = 1,000,000 GigaJoule (GJ) = 1 billion Joules.
A MegaWatt for 1 hour, MW-hr, is 1MJ for 3600 seconds = 3.6GJ.
A kilogram of crude oil contains around 35MJ/kg of energy.
A kilo of Black Coal (thermal, not coking or 'metallurgical') is 24MJ/kg, slightly behind Ethanol (Alcohol) at 27MK/kg.
Alternatively, a tonne of Coal, 1,000kg, contains 24GJ of energy.
40kg of Coal contains 1GJ, allowing price comparison with other fuels, such as Natural Gas. (1GJ = 1000 MJ / 24 MJ/kg = 41.66kg)
Are there any clues why the author would be concerned enough to write about his "frustration" at the public debate on Climate Change and Carbon Dioxide build-up?
For the majority of his working life, he owned and ran a small business, "Terry's Marine Centre".
The letters' closing comment on (reducing CO2 output & adopting renewables) claims it would
"Cripple and even closing some smaller business".
Which is exactly wrong.
Adding renewables to power generation will reduce power prices, to everyone, not just large companies.
As of Jan 2022, there are around 3M households, 30% of houses, with Solar PV installed - all enjoying lower power prices, with a locked in price.
https://www.energy.gov.au/households/solar-pv-and-batteries
The cheapest power available today is from Renewables, especially large wind farms and Rooftop Solar.
Australian households have understood renewables on their own roof are cheaper than buying Grid power from Coal fired Power Stations and "Done the Maths" for themselves, regardless of their views on CO2 and Climate Change.
As the whole world discovered in the first half of 2022, and yet again (after the first oil price shock, the 1973 OPEC crisis),
not being exposed to international Coal, Crude Oil and Natural Gas markets markedly improves National Energy Security,
and provides stable, predictable energy prices, removing Business Risks due to 'volatile' prices, uncertain & unpredictable fuel supply.
The Ukrainian war increased prices for Gas and Coal in Australia in 2022.
Even in 2009, the benefits to all business and the national Economy of certainty in fuel and electricity prices was known and obvious. "Energy Security", along with Food & Water Security is basic to our Economy and underlies "National Security".
Renewables are the only path to National Energy Security, as Europe is discovering to it cost after Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022.
The March of new Technology, improving price-performance of transistors 10-fold every decade for 60 years, changing everything. This rate of improvement is replicated across many fields.
New technologies build on previous work and, like cumulative interest on savings, grow exponentially.
At some point, all technologies mature and the rate of increase slows to a crawl.
In 1960, a single transistor sold for ~$10.
In 2022, I can buy a trillion (million million) transistors, as Flash Memory, for under $100 in shops, not wholesale.
This "plateau" happened with Thermal/Steam Power Stations around 1950.
Improvements became slower to arrive, coming at the cost of increasing plant size, rapidly increasing project costs, complexity, lower service life and decreasing reliability.
Ageing Thermal/Steam plants, built on the current leading edge of technology, wear out after 25-30 years and start to break-down frequently, even if "nursed" and not run at full power, like those in NSW.
This is the fate of the ageing 'fleet' of Australian coal fired power stations, they die slowly.
Aged & unreliable machinery is the reason in June 2022, 25% of their nominal capacity failed due to break downs for an extended period.
Renewable technologies, even since 2009 when the letter was penned, continue to dramatically improve - both from higher manufacturing volumes and by improvement / invention.
The price per installed watt of PV Solar has been halving around 3-4 years for some time and large Lithium-ion batteries are halving in price around every 5-6 years.
There is a strong argument that could've been made in 2009 for a fossil-fuel technology:
Gas Turbines (jet engines).
They are small & cheap compared to the billions for large Thermal power units, come in many sizes, can run on many fuels and are comparatively quick to install. GE even offer a truck based unit, that can be up and running in hours, not years.
The economics of Gas Turbines are far better with the lower per-unit cost & fast returns greatly lowering the business risk and providing cash-flow much more quickly than a decade long Coal fired project.
Gas turbines are also up to twice as efficient as the 1960's power station used as a reference in the letter.
For the same amount of heat put in, twice the electrical power comes out. That's a very convincing argument for me.
Gas Turbines have many operational advantages, not just financial & efficiency, over massive coal-fired power stations:
- losing one turbine isn't a disaster, they're cheap enough to buy a spare or two,
- multiple units can be clustered in one place allowing output to match demand very well,
- they can be started, from cold, in 5 minutes or 20-30 seconds if 'hot',
- and shut down quickly and easily when not needed.
Australia has large reserves of Natural Gas, 'conventional' (deep fields, on-shore and off-) and 'unconventional' (coal-seam gas), which costs about $1/GJ to get out of the ground.
In WA, gas is delivered to Industrial customers at $5.50/GJ, despite being piped thousands of kilometres from the North-West Shelf.
In 2009, the absolute winner for cheap, reliable and accessible power was Gas Turbines, fuelled with natural gas. This was before foreign companies starting exporting most of our East Coast gas.
Gas Turbines are currently the technology of choice for "Peaking" power generation - making up the shortfall in electricity production for short periods of time and available for longer-term use in Emergencies, such as June 2022.
Natural Gas on the East Coast was cheap and plentiful in 2009.
The Curtis Island (Gladstone) Liquified Natural Gas export terminals started exporting in 2014, changing the economics of the Australian Gas Market forever.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/rural/2014-12-23/lng-milestone/5985532
The Federal Government failed to follow the WA Government, who in 2005 had insisted that exporters "reserve" 15% of production for domestic use. There is no "domestic reservation" of Australian gas on the East Coast.
In June 2022, due to a cold snap and multiple thermal power station break-downs, pushed natural gas prices to $40/GJ and peaked at $800/GJ - while WA prices stayed at $5.50/GJ.
https://asiatimes.com/2022/06/why-gas-prices-went-from-10-to-800-a-gigajoule/
There were also multiple record floods on the East Coast in early 2022, flooding coal mines and interrupting fuel for Thermal power stations.
All of these complications and problems were well known and predictable in late 2009 as the author penned his letter.
He refused to believe "the rubbish being put forth about carbon dioxide emissions" by experts, scientists and economists.
Arguing his nearly 20-years of experience in the 1960's & 70's made him better informed & more knowledgable than practising experts in multiple specialities.
Recent events in 2022 should convince all but the most biased "deniers" and self-styled "sceptics" that, even if Climate Change is not yet 'settled' in their eyes, there are very sound and pressing economic reasons to move away for fossil fuels, especially imports, and rapidly invest in Renewables.
What price "Energy Security" for Australia?
Our daily lives and national economy depend on supply of fuel & power, at predictable prices.
Steve Jenkin, Wed 29 Jun 2022.
Addressing Specific Claims
008 Carbon Dioxide emissions and what it is supposedly doing to our planet.
'supposedly' - this is not "sceptical", this is "denial" pure & simple
There are huge amount of very high quality weather & other data covering most of the planet.
Real science cannot pick and choose which data to use & what to ignore.
015 First coal fired power stations do NOT send 60 to 70% of the energy up the chimney. The boilers of
016 modern power station are 96% efficient and the exhaust heat is captured by the economisers and
Advanced Ultra-supercritical Coal 42.5%
vs Combined Cycle Gas Turbine 60%
021 Coal fired Power Stations are highly efficient with very little heat loss and can generate massive
022 amount of energy for our needs. They can generate power at efficiency of less than 10,000 b.t.u. per
023 kilowatt and cost wise that is very low.
Note: confusing Power [kW] and Energy [kW-hr or MJ]
10,000 BTU per kilowatt-hour = 34.12% efficiency
024 The percentage cost of mining and freight is very low. The total cost of fuel is 8% of total generation
025 cost and does NOT constitute a major production cost.
Australian Thermal Coal Power Stations are built with conveyor belts to a local mine - too costly by truck or rail
no data on this, not even in AEMO reference study
038 The maximum size wind generator is 3 Megawatts, which can rarely be attained on a continuous basis
041 for 45%-65% of the time, mostly well below maximum capacity. They cannot be relied for a 'base
042 load' because they are too variable. And they certainly could not be used for load control.
Capacity Factor of Wind estimated at 40% by AEMO.
Considerably larger wind turbines are available in 2022.
4MW Wind Turbines for on-shore use
9.5MW wind turbines for off-shore
043 The peak load demand for electricity in Australia is approximately 50,000 Megawatts and only small
Ignores total energy (PJ) generated: this is what people pay for, not the size of the generator.
NEM Generation, 2022:
59,599MW existing, 4,680MW announced withdrawal
from 1,835 PJ Total Thermal Power Input
Electricity Output:
654 PJ Net Thermal to Electricity
Electricity Renewables:
204 PJ
Total Electricity Supply:
858 PJ
050 Based on a average generating output of 1.5 megawatts (of unreliable power) you would require over 33,300 wind generators.
To generate 50MW (Power) from Wind. Ignores total energy (PJ) of generation
Nobody has suggested we'd run Australia solely on Wind power, but a mix of Renewables & Storage
AEMO analysis has multiple generating & storage technologies, including PV, Batteries & Hydrogen
An 'straw man' argument, hence invalid
055 Any clean, cheap energy is obviously welcomed but they would NEVER have the capability of
056 replacing Thermal power generation. So get your heads out of the clouds, do some basic mathematics
057 and look at the facts not going off with the fairies (or some would say the extreme greenies.)
Assertion, not fact, no references. Snark & sarcasm undermines his arguments, emotional attack.
Large, centralised power stations of any sort create "single points of failure" and massive reliability problems, especially as they age they also require very large, expensive transmission networks to distribute the power
Last Coal fired power station built in Australia was in 2007.
Not considered 'economic' by investors for a very long time
- Gas turbines, liquid or gas fuel, are fast-start, moderate capacity, high efficiency and quick to install
- using multiple turbines allows good load matching and redundancy gives reliability
- Turbines can be distributed throughout the network, close to demand
- Battery Hydrogen Storage or Pumped Hydro can be distributed throughout the Network,
- lowering transmission costs and improving reliability / redundancy
June 2022 Grid problems due to 25% of Coal generators failing & going "off-line"
061 Here are some facts that will show how ridiculous this financial madness the government is following.
062 Do the simple maths and see for yourselves.
Investors have "done the maths" for themselves & stayed away. No Coal fired power stations built for 15yrs. They're uneconomic.
063 According to the 'believers' the CO2 in air has risen from .034% to .038% in air over the last 50 years.
snide & sneering use of "believers" - personal attack & deriding without purpose
shows the intent of the piece is to attack, not explain nor inform. Completely biased.
1980 = 340PPM, 2004 = 380 PPM.
See https://www.co2levels.org
065 If you had a room 12 ft x 12 ft x 7 ft or 3.7 mtrs x 3.7 mtrs x 2.1 mtrs, the area carbon dioxide would
066 occupy in that room would be .25m x .25m x .17m or the size of a large packet of cereal.
An irrelevant & unclear example
Confuses 'area' and 'volume' - elementary concept apparently not grasped
None of the units or size is a common unit of measure or ordinarily in use.
12ft x 12ft x 7ft = 1008 cu ft
0.82ft x 0.82ft x 0.557ft = 0.373 cu ft
250mm = 10in, 170mm = 6.67 in
071 Assuming this is correct, the world CO2 has increased in 50 years by .004 percent.
072 Per year that is .004 divided by 50 = .00008 percent. (Getting confusing - but stay with me).
073 Of that because we only contribute 1% our emissions would cause CO2 to rise .00008 divided by 100 = .0000008 percent.
- This is complex and confusing. The numbers quoted are also incorrect.
- 24 years, not 50 years
- Doesn't matter what Australia contributes - everyone on the planet shares the same air
- Arguing for doing nothing isn't doing our Fair Share - it's bludging off others, taking a Free Ride
075 Of that 1%, we supposedly emit, the governments wants to reduce it by 20% which is 1/5th of
076 .0000008 = .00000016 percent effect per year they would have on the world CO2 emissions based on
077 their own figures.
078 That would equate to a area in the same room, as the size of a small pin.!!!
again, doesn't understand 'area' and 'volume'.
still pursuing the line of argument "it's almost nothing",
implying, "therefore we don't have to do anything"
Carbon Dioxide is measured in PPM because its such a powerful absorber of heat
Expert Scientists & Engineers use PPM because its accurately reflects the effect of CO2.
079 For that they have gone crazy with the ridiculous trading schemes, Solar and roofing installations,
080 Clean coal technology. Renewable energy, etc, etc.
Why are the schemes "crazy" or "ridiculous"? Attack based on Denial, not on any facts, evidence or logic.
081 How ridiculous it that.
More snark, sneering and attack.
If he'd thought he'd presented a powerful & convincing argument, he wouldn't resort to vilifying & name calling.
082 The cost to the general public and industry will be enormous. Cripple and even closing some smaller business.
Assertion, no evidence or logical argument provided.
The presumption is "Nothing is Cheaper than Coal", which the NEM production figures show is false.
Renewables are the cheapest source of power when on-line, not coal.
The 80-fold increase in gas & electricity prices in June 2022 underlines the incorrect assumption made.
"The price of fossil fuels is steady & predictable".
Ever since the 1973 OPEC Oil Price shock, fossil fuel prices have varied wildly & unpredictably, creating savage inflation at times, lasting decades.
Something omitted from the letter is the on-going, rapid reduction in the cost of renewable power.
Renewables & Storage are constantly being improved and new discoveries made: thermal power hasn't changed much in 100 years, static since 1960.
Coal fired power is only getting more expensive, meanwhile renewables are getting cheaper, faster.
Jurisdictions using more renewables are seeing their power prices drop, unlike Coal and other fossil fuels.
The last sentence gives away his real concerns: Moving to renewables might affect his business.
I wonder if his arguments are persuasive after the record 2019 fires and 2022 floods, followed by the June 2022 explosion in whole gas & electricity prices and rolling blackouts, then AEMO 'intervention'.
Paying a little extra for power to avoid weather disasters sounds like good insurance.
But what is really going to happen is electricity prices will fall as we convert to renewables, not rise as presumed.
Other Issues
There are three problems with how the Letter is written:
- The absence of References, explanation of technical terms ('Heat Rate') and "fact free" assertions linked by sloppy logic or confusing, misleading argument.
- The absolute confidence of the author, providing many assertions made without evidence.
- Obscure & misleading arguments & text. There's no clear and concise examples. The letter does not Inform or Educate, but Confuses & Bamboozles.
There's also confusing use & mixing of units and unclear, even incorrect examples.
The "Heat Rate" quoted is a simple concept:
"Energy IN, Energy Out" or "Heat IN per Electricity OUT"
but is not explained in the letter, nor presented in consistent units.
Quoting Heat Rate as "10,000 BTU per kilowatt-hour" might be common within operations, but not presenting it in consistent and common units
appears to only have two causes:
a lack of understanding,
or a desire to confuse, mislead, or overwhelm the reader.
This mixed unit formulation is as confusing as saying, for distance:
Furlongs vs KPH-minutes
BTU, British Thermal Units, are an archaic imperial unit.
10,000 BTU is 10.55 MegaJoules, MJ.
Every householder who gets a power bill is used to seeing "kilowatt hour".
A kilowatt is 1,000 Joules / second
making a "kilowatt hour" = 1,000 Joules / second x 3600 seconds = 3,600,000 Joules = 3.6 MJ
If the Heat Rate wasn't stated as "10,000 BTU per kilowatt-hour"
but with common units, such as Mega Joules (MJ), the letter author would write:
"10.55 MJ input per 3.6MJ output"
Two things would be immediately obvious:
- the power station conversion of heat into electricity is nothing like "96% efficient",
only 34% of input heat energy makes it to the output (so where's the rest?)
- the author is either attempting to disguise facts or is ignorant of what they're writing.
There's also a very long-winded & complex discussion of atmospheric CO2 concentrations, not presented in standard form, PPM (parts per million), but as percentages.
The website https://www.co2levels.org is readily accessible and shows historical values and the (alarming) overall trend - exponentially increasing CO2 levels.
In 1980 we hit 340PPM, 24 years later in 2004, not 50 as claimed, we hit 380 PPM.
A simple straight-line says (380 - 340) PPM = 40 PPM change in 24 years = 1.5 PPM / year.
Which is wrong.
A glance at the CO2 measurements show change is accelerating - it's now increasing much faster than the average rate and getting worse, faster.
We went over 410 PPM in under a decade from 2009, when the letter was published.
The letter then goes on to claim Australian CO2 emissions are only 1% of global - which is strange as we're 2% of the global economy and the largest sea borne exporter of Coal and first or second largest of Natural Gas.
The argument is that we contribute only 1% of 40 PPM, or 0.4 PPM, then somehow divide that by 50 years and it's effectively nothing - an argument that we don't have to do anything, while other people are working hard.
There's an implication that "percentage" is the correct unit of measure for CO2, not the standard PPM.
PPM is used specifically because CO2 is such a powerful absorber of heat. Tiny increases in CO2 create very large increases in captured heat, the "greenhouse effect".
Not only are the figures quoted incorrect, the year range almost twice that of the real data and the arithmetic highly suspect & misleading.
There's no questioning of why science and politicians count CO2 in PPM, or justification for using percentages.
Everyone who takes medication understands the potency of chemicals in very small amounts - milligrams (1/000th of a gram) - can be deadly in a human weighing 50kg - 100kg.
"Percentage" isn't a universal & applicable Unit of Measure.
Links
NEM Generation Information - June 2022
https://www.aemo.com.au/energy-systems/electricity/national-electricity-market-nem/nem-forecasting-and-planning/forecasting-and-planning-data/generation-information
Fuel - Technology Category
Capacity in MegaWatt
Summary Status Coal CCGT OCGT Gas other Solar Wind Water Biomass Battery Storage Other Total
Existing 22,701 2,985.066 6,844.993 2,013.501 5,896.5543 9,728.583 7,992.139 612.02 619.56 205.821 59,599.2373
Announced Withdrawal 4,380 180 0 120 0 0 0 0 0 0 4,680
Existing less Announced Withdrawal 18,321 2,805.066 6,844.993 1,893.501 5,896.5543 9,728.583 7,992.139 612.02 619.56 205.821 54,919.2373
Upgrade / Expansion 90 0 165 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 255
Committed 0 0 1,070 0 3,564.175 986.989 2,290 0 139.5 24 8,074.664
Anticipated 0 0 123.2 0 850.4 1,080.9 0 0 1,026.8 0 3081.3
Proposed 990 207 4,417.85 1,957.005 35,966.499 68,703.643 10627 342.2 27,294.31 226.8 150,732.307
Withdrawn 500 0 361.2 153.143 0 0 0 0 0 0 1,014.343
Australian Energy Flows 2019-2020 (PJ)
https://www.energy.gov.au/sites/default/files/Australian%20Energy%20Flows%202019-20_0.pdf
Thermal Power Stations
- 1,156 PJ Coal
- 588 PJ natural gas/ethane
- 46 PJ refined product imports
- 17 PJ Wood
- 13 PJ Bagasse
- 15 PJ biogas/biofuel
= 1,835 PJ Total Thermal Power [Input]
Electricity Output
= 657 PJ Thermal Electricity
-3 PJ to Refinery & Other transformation
654 PJ Net Thermal to Electricity
Electricity Renewables
= 204 PJ
Total Electricity Supply
= 858 PJ
Thermal Power Own Use / Losses
- 1,538 PJ conversion plants own fuel use & losses and transmission losses
= 297 PJ Net
vs 657 PJ generated
Total Own Use / Losses, all sources
= 1,747 PL
Primary Energy + Imports - Exports - Stocks Change & discrep
= Primary Energy Supply - Own use & losses
= Final energy consumption
20,055 PJ + 2,244 PJ - 16,290 PJ - 4 PJ
= 6,014 PJ - 1,747 PJ
= 4,267 PJ
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