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OT: BZE 21-Apr-2011 At 9:01:09 AM evanbb

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I won't say too much on this cos I'll fly into a rage or something, but I'll just address the Baseload myth for a sec.

Baseload as a goal for generation technology is driven by the thermal plant notion that plant runs best if it runs flat out all the time. Govts realised coal was cheap, so built gigantic burners, sitting on top of piles of coal.

The peak demand window is from about 8am to 6pm, plus a couple of hours after that. Demand is at a minimum from 12am till about 4am, so Off-Peak electricity water heating was introduced to suck the power out of the coal plants, these use separate meters which switch the power on over night. The nature of our plant has created an overnight demand problem that wouldn't have existed before.

So, baseload as a goal of generating technology is old thinking; what we actually need is despatchable power. Generating technology that can follow load and a network that can respond to generation when it is cheapest. The current model is based on the notion that it is everyone's right to request as much power as they want, whenever they want it. A better solution would be to provide incentives for loads to come and go when energy is most available and technology that stores energy during times of plenty.

Mark Diesendorf has written a diatribe on just this topic if you've got the stomach for it
http://www.sustainabilitycentre.com.au/BaseloadFallacy.pdf

And rather than a picture of a submarine, I offer you an outdated control room from a big coal plant in Queensland.