It's an interesting article but it's a bit silly talking about solar for somewhere that north. That is hardly the ideal model.
It could be an argument for nuclear in that area but then he should include an example of wind power in that area or even HVDC bringing in solar and wind from further south.
I'm not sure when that article was written but his numbers are out a bit. I guess it's because of technological improvements ?
I make it as roughly 28 million panels at 330w each. So, that's a reduction of 7 million. Still a lot of course but you see my point. Then there's the 20 year lifespan. Another point that's likely to change.
Then there's the redundancy issue.
He talks about the number of panels that need to be changed and that's a fair enough point. But, that's after 20 years or more. The very little amount of maintenance in the 20 years leading up offsets that significantly. Don't forget that nuclear and fossil require daily round the clock maintenance. Fossil requires a 24/7 mining operation to keep running. How does that compare to daily solar panel replacement ?
Arguably, with technology improvements, regularly changing out panels isn't a bad thing.
Firstly, recycling of panels is getting a lot of focus now. So, the waste will be reduced to a very small amount and the materials can be used for the new panels thus reducing mining ( and the emissions with that ) considerably.
People complain about jobs being lost in coal ? Those jobs will be replaced by jobs in recycling and replacing panels. As the recycling industry expands, that technology spills into areas outside renewables. All those composites in the world that haven't been recycled in the past will be able to be recycled in the future thanks to renewable recycling advances. That should create plenty of other job/business opportunities.
When the car replaced the horse, employment opportunities increased massively.
As renewables replace fossil and nuclear and power becomes cheaper and more flexible forever, many, many business opportunities will appear. The current ( pardon the pun ) example I like to use is the Sundrop farms site at Port Augusta. This farm simply couldn't exist without renewable technology. Period. It is providing the opportunity to grow food in areas that can't normally grow food.
Imagine that technology used in the third world or even very remote places in Australia ? It's an absolute game changer.
https://www.sundropfarms.com/Secondly and probably more importantly, solar panels are still improving. Not just in overall efficiency but in specific design for specific areas. So, as those panels are changed out, which is a super simple process, we will be getting a considerable efficiency gain . The solar ' power station ' will effectively be evolving and improving constantly rather than keeping us stuck will decades old technology that is very disruptive, expensive and time consuming to achieve with fossil or nuclear.
Finally, old mate claims that nuclear runs 95% of the time.
Yep, that was true once. But, not now. Nuclear and fossil have to compete with renewables. As we know, we have the daily solar duck curve that competes with the traditional forms of power generation. So, the big baseload power stations have to throttle back on a regular basis. There is no way they will achieve the uptimes that they were based on in the past.
So, as technology evolves and as renewables expand, the market is changing. While old articles are interesting, there's a fair bit of relevant information that has been left out.
Could be just a coincidence I suppose ?
