Aidan Morrison
@QuixoticQuant
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Lapsed physicist turned entrepreneur and data scientist. Machine learning, modelling, economics, energy, defence. Energy program @CISOZ.
Sydney, New South Wales
Joined August 2017
This is my best effort to explain the essential truth about Australia's most prominent energy system model, @AEMO_energy's ISP, and the process that created it, in under an hour. Featuring @Bowenchris, @simonahac, @energybants, @clairlemon, @MickdeBrenni
https://t.co/793KZMJOpi
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Tom has relevant experience… in grids, and attempting to engage in debate about the ISP. The thread he shared here is a perfect example of why the ISP must be expunged from debate. We cannot allow fantasy to masquerade as fact any longer.
Sincere good luck establishing productive debate. In my last exchanges on the subject years ago, I'd had enough of personal attacks, badgering & sealioning. Yes, I am a nuclear advocate because I know it works, first hand, as first hand as one can get. https://t.co/TK6qnWPmSv
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Thanks Jae. More people must speak up. And yes, I probably shouldn't have indulged the 'bad-boy' take. I prefer 'footnotes guy'. But whenever you actually look at the footnotes, it forces you to come out swinging harder than most people think a 'nice guy' ever would.
I will be able to speak freely on the detail here in the very near future. And I will be. I have some big projects in the works, but for now I will just say that terms like ‘unbelievable scandal’ are if anything, understating, not overstating, the reality. I want to make three
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The Integrated System Plan from @AEMO_Energy is beyond salvage. It's worse than useless. It tells us NOTHING, other than what a bunch of politicians wish the future would be. It doesn't tell us what's affordable. It doesn't tell us what's reliable. It doesn't tell us what's
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It is depressing to see Simon blindly endorse these disingenuous costing figures from the OCAA, which do not (perhaps intentionally) account for inflation, which had a huge effect during the period many of these plants were constructed. Properly inflation adjusted, the only
.@PeterDutton_MP holds up #ontario, canada as a shining light for #nuclear power… but the simple fact is *every* new nuclear power project in ontario’s history went way over budget.
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Of course… there’s no wind in the flat cleared bits of Queensland near the coast, where the population is. It’s all up in the great dividing range, which makes the economics more marginal, and the environmental impact horrendous. https://t.co/rGqYFPLuEX
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This is new. Why won’t you name it @tanya_plibersek? Which wind farm did you approve? Was it flat cleared ground like your picture suggests? At least the Coalition named where they want to put nuclear sites. This is approved! Where is it??
With Labor, renewables are at record highs. Unlike Dutton’s plan, we’re reducing pollution NOW and transforming Australia into a renewable energy superpower.
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The conclusions are bleak: this is a well known problem - the peak load problem, known about for centuries. It's expensive to fix, and our masterplan doesn't have it covered. We're in for blackouts, or a massive bill shock, if we proceed as planned. 18/
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It's a serious problem. No, we can't re-route QLD gas exports from Gladstone. Already tried that. And yes, it's stupidly uneconomical to build a lot of storage/pipe you only plan to use a few days a year. As I've said before. And the ISP hasn't got this covered. 17/
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Heres' the storage facilities bottoming out. This is bad news. 16/
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But the end result is "significant shortfalls" of gas for peaking demand. So we get blackouts. On many days, in VIC and NSW. The constraints are pipelines and storage. 15/
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Which unsurprisingly costs a lot more than the system we have today. Here's a summary of the capital costs. I haven't done a detailed critique of the precise numbers. I wouldn't be surprised if there's still omissions and generous assumptions. But directionally fair. 14/
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There's quite a bit of discussion about electrification, in particular in Victoria, where gas does a lot of heating. It boosts electricity demand substantially. And makes it more peaky. Very bad for a weather-dependent electricity system. 13/
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And these are some of the key results. In the late 2030s, as the transition proceeds, we need a little less gas overall. But much MORE in a single day. That's the challenge of the firming role biting there. 12/
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And then they turn to analyse the results. Highlight the nub of the issue... industrial and residential demand was somewhat seasonal, but kinda roughly smooth-ish. Our system might not cope with the peaking-role. 11/
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To simplify, the electricity modelling looks (kinda roughly) comparable to ISP style work. But then they add their secret sauce. A similarly serious model of the gas market. 10/
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After a rivetting telling of the policy history of Australia, they get to introducing their main modelling contribution. They do some serious system modelling, using Jsolve, and 40 years of weather. Hourly increments (could be finer) but this is serious. 8/
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Simshauser's analysis of added capacity shows that renewable energy investment peaked before that. But 2023, investors were starting to read the signals that intermitted power wasn't as helpful. And backed right off. 7/
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Note it's very consistent with our own analysis of capture prices. Around 2021, renewables noticeably suppress the spot market price for their own power. And never recover. That's right on 20% 6/
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The introduction spells out some energy fundamentals, and relevant literature. Nice to see a sensible ~20% VRE share called out as being the end of the honeymoon. That's lower than ideas that I'd indulged. Much lower than "north of 90%" which nameless others have said. 5/
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Instead, we've been fed this politically sanitised "Ministerial Response" that can tip-toe around the problem, and graciously suggest improvements. Instead of alarm bells like "ISP assumptions may not be likely or commercially feasible" We get this kid-gloved "try harder". 4/
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