Getting on board with the energy transition

Alan Pears gives us his round-up of the main energy issues this quarter.

We are energising our weather
The recent cyclone that hit northwest Australia, on top of other unexpected extreme events, focused my attention on the need for stronger messaging about climate change.

Each degree of temperature rise increases capacity of air to hold water vapour by about 7 percent—that’s real time temperature, not average global heating. Also, the maximum capacity of air to hold water vapour rises rapidly. 80 percent humid air at 25°C can hold 19 grams of water per cubic metre while 30°C air at the same relative humidity can hold 26 grams—37 percent more. That’s a lot of extra water that could fall out of the sky as cold air collides with warm air, driving much worse flooding.

A combination of high temperature and high humidity becomes lethal around a wet bulb temperature of 35°C with 90 percent humidity. Above that temperature is lethal, as our bodies can no longer retain their normal temperature of around 37°C by evaporative cooling (sweating) and other methods, especially if a person is working and generating more heat. This situation is already emerging in some locations. The energy in wind increases with the cube of wind speed. An increase from 60 kilometres per hour to 70 kilometres per hour increases the energy in wind by over 50 percent.

That’s why driving a car at 110 kilometres per hour instead of 100 kilometres per hour or driving faster in a vehicle with larger frontal area and poor aerodynamics, like many SUVs and utes, increases drag and dramatically increases fuel consumption at higher speed. Even driving into a strong headwind, or uphill, or on a windy road can have a big impact on fuel consumption.

The minimum wind speed of a Category 2 cyclone is 154 kilometres per hour, while the minimum speed of a Category 3 cyclone is 178 kilometres per hour—with over 50 percent more energy.

A lot of our infrastructure is designed to cope with a certain maximum wind speed. If wind speed is significantly higher, failures occur. Powerline towers are blown over. Buildings are damaged. Trees fall over, especially if wind comes from an unusual direction, as tree roots on that side may be weaker and heavy rain may soften the soil.

Nature’s systems are not simply linear. And they can multiply each other’s impacts. Many of the indicators we commonly use to frame our perceptions of reality can understate the scale of real-world impacts, as I outlined in a recent article on pearlsandirritations.com.

Combining short duration batteries, existing hydro, pumped hydro, targeted energy efficiency and flexibility to avoid the need for gas-fired electricity generation
I have been puzzled by the ongoing focus on the need for (often relatively small) amounts of gas-fired electricity generation in most scenarios for ‘net zero’ energy futures. This reinforces the gas industry’s agenda for ongoing development of gas fields, even though the amount of gas required would be small. It would also be expensive, as capital and maintenance costs of the gas generators and gas supply infrastructure would be spread across small amounts of electricity sales.

It really comes down to how we meet or reduce the need for dispatchable electricity at times when variable renewable generation is low, demand is expected to be high, or there are infrastructure failures. At these times, spot market prices may be very high unless this market is very competitive and individual or groups of generators and battery owners cannot game the market. Given energy market history, that is a real concern.

What are our options? As usual, the most societally beneficial options of energy efficiency and flexible demand management are mostly ignored. Policy makers seem to silo categories of storage into short and long term. That is a false dichotomy, as we are beginning to see.

In March 2024, Amandine Denis-Ryan and I published an IEEFA paper that showed how Tasmania could combine its hydroelectricity generation, undersea cable, building energy efficiency improvement and mainland batteries to profitably help Victoria cope with periods of low solar generation in winter (see shorturl.at/QGvzV). Other existing hydro generators could take this approach.

A key element of this approach was ‘pumped hydro without the pump’, achieved by using imported Victorian solar electricity over summer to help run the Tasmanian economy, allowing it to hoard stored water to profitably deliver electricity to the mainland in winter. It also included ‘trickle charging’ short duration mainland batteries at times in winter when the cable was under-utilised. This would allow distributed batteries, including behind-meter ones, to provide power at critical times in multi-day periods of low solar generation. This model could be applied by other existing hydro generators.

Andrew Blakers and his ANU colleagues have gone a step further. Their recent research shows that a hybrid model of many low-cost pumped hydro generators could use cheap or negatively priced renewable electricity to store water. These could then trickle charge short-duration batteries distributed around the grid at times of low transmission loads to get through multi-day periods of low solar generation. This could avoid the need for gas-fired generation (see https://shorturl.at/KaaVm).

These supply sources could be utilised for more of the time than gas generators, spreading their capital costs over more generation, as they can play multiple roles.

Hybrid approaches highlight how creative thinking can overcome what seem to be major barriers to change. The ANU team focuses on the supply side, while the IEEFA approach adds targeted energy efficiency.

Southern Australian winter gas demand is two to three times higher than in summer, driven mainly by thermally inefficient buildings using inefficient gas technologies. Even before we ‘electrify everything’, much of it for heating, winter electricity demand (excluding solar) is beginning to exceed summer for daily and weekly peaks and wholesale prices, as openelectricity.org.au shows.

We have a need, and we have the options. All we have to do is drive them. Compared with nuclear power, they are all cheaper and much faster to implement—and much more flexible.

What knowledge and experience in energy transformation has been forgotten?
Over more than 40 years, I and many other people have done amazing work to drive progress on energy and climate action based on fundamental research that challenges groupthink.

In this column, I can’t describe the many amazing things many people have done and researchers have discovered. Many of the real stories are about humanity, courage, sacrifice, confronting powerful forces and managing our own life struggles. One of my colleagues working on biogas in the 1980s had his world-leading project, funded by overseas sources, killed by CSIRO as they focused on coal.

A lot of great work from the 1970s to 2000s has been lost, simply because it was done ‘pre-internet’. You can’t google it. Political decisions and groupthink driving privatisation of energy utilities and research have led to closure of important research facilities and dumping of important documents into landfill. Universities prioritise research that can bring in funding.

One simple example for me is that I based my very useful model of energy losses from outdoor swimming pools on 1970s CSIRO research into solar pool heating. I happen to have a hard copy of their report.

In recent decades we have been swamped with information, so a lot of fundamental achievements are buried by PR, ego-driven leaders and the sheer volume of incremental research papers.

Research funding encourages researchers to burrow down rabbit holes because they can justify funding based on previous work, or to implement projects where they are confident they already know the outcomes.

How do we empower young people?
I recently gave a talk on climate issues to a class of year 7 students at a private school. I agonised a lot about how I could tell them the truth about our climate crisis while not depressing them to the extent that they felt despair.

I told them the truth about our dire situation. But I encouraged them to act on things they could influence. For example, kids are good at haranguing parents, so they could pressure their parents to shift their investments. They could offset their internet use by cleaning the filters of their reverse cycle air conditioners and use tablet computers instead of desktop computers with big screens.

I also pointed out than none of us can influence many issues. When megalomaniacs control Russia, the Middle East and the USA, Australian adults have little influence.

On the positive side, the students were attentive and asked very good questions. We ran over time. They happen to live in part of the earth less likely to face the most extreme impacts of climate change and the global political madness, and many of their parents are wealthy, so they are lucky. I hope they realise how lucky they are, and act in humanity’s interests.