Alternatively Labor may take a lesson from Spain and Portugal and realize that to go over about 70% renewables on the grid leads to instability and that Black out Bowen my also realize that his 82% by 2030 is not only unobtainable but that the instability blackouts (Spain and Portugal style) will undermine the grid. The latest Alcoa statement that they will get out of Australia by 2035 unless they can get both cheap and stable electricity by 2035 may have some bearing.
IMHO not all Labor are fools - they understand that Nuclear is the long term grid (zero emissions) option for firming (i.e about 30%) but that the irrational fear of nuclear was a weapon that they could use against the LNP (i.e it was just a tool to undermine the LNP - Labor are still behind AUKUS). IMHO the likelihood is that Labor will reluctantly acknowledge that 82% renewables by 2030 can't be done but will insist that they need to close down coal power and thus bring in gas (probably combined cycle gas) to fill the gap caused by coal closure and leave renewables at about 70% (which is probably just about stable for the grid). The problem they face is that the inverters on pretty well all our renewables (both wind and solar - including roof top solar) are of the wrong type (see
HERE). Currently we have Grid following inverters which control current and depend upon another external source (turbines) to synchonize to - see
HERE) these collapse when the grid goes out of frequency synchronization due to a disturbance) and need to go to GFM inverters which control output voltage and can make their own waveform. These new inverter types are needed to go much higher than 70% renewables - it will be massive task to change at least 25% - 30% of the inverter software in Australia (for older inverters the hardware will need to be changed - most rooftop solar) to go to higher levels of renewables. Even if we do attempt to go to higher levels of renewable we will still need generation at night and in wind droughts - this is "firming" and needs gas generation or nuclear. IMO the long terms answer has to be nuclear (we will not get to net zero without it) The obvious answer is to replace our coal with gas generation (thus reducing emissions) and wait until the mid 2030's when SMR nuclear should be proven (and with a known cost) - to me the obvious long term option is something like the Natrium SMR (see
HERE) which is nominal 346Mw but flexed from 100mw to 500mw (using molten salt storage) - this will not be proven until mid 2030's. To me the interim needs to be gas generation which will need a gas reservation policy on the east coast (and then drill baby drill to find more - probably fracking).
From a political standpoint this allows Labor to save face on it's current nuclear scare and by 2035 younger Australians will have infiltrated the system who are more rational over nuclear (and SMR's will have advanced in matrurity) and in the interim to use gas to replace coal and then replace gas later from about 2040 to 2045 onward with SMR's. In the meantime we also need to look at our inverters but will also then need to move to the more advanced type of inverter (the STATic synchronous COMpensator - STATCOM - see
HERE) for the future.
(20min delay)