I find it rather strange that a country which...
- has such a low population density relative to its land mass,
- has so much uninhabited wilderness / desert,
- has such a high sunshine record,
... isn't totally self-sufficient in solar power. ![Confused :-//](https://www.eevblog.com/forum/Smileys/default/confused0024.gif.pagespeed.ce.5xOqKkq0Co.gif)
Proponents of mass installation of solar electric panels always neglect some 'minor' issues with solar panels: Dust, hail and lightning.
'Dust' (and the cleaning cost) doesn't need an illustration, but for the other two:
http://joannenova.com.au/2018/12/sydney-hail-storm-just-how-hailproof-are-those-solar-panels/ http://everist.org/NobLog/20160504_solar_panels_vs_emp.htm Note that wasn't a direct lightning strike, it was damage from the EMP of a nearby strike. A few houses away I think. Also note that any solution to that 'burned diodes' problem, tends to get quite complicated - and therefore expensive and unreliable.
Another real issue is panel lifetime energy return on energy invested, and how long it takes solar panels to generate the amount of electricity it took to manufacture them. Like all renewables, the EROEI is hard to estimate because product operating life estimates always neglect real world maintenance and failure factors. So tend to be unrealistically optimistic.
While the energy cost of manufacture (and the real economic cost) is obscured due to the panels being made in China (therefore effectively subsidized by political factors such as Chinese Gov control over the exchange rate, and ignoring environmental issues like industrial pollution), and also our local government subsidies for installation and operation.
Btw, for anyone thinking the recent 'heat wave' was anything special:
http://joannenova.com.au/2019/01/forgotten-history-50-degrees-everywhere-right-across-australia-in-the-1800s/Typical:
http://joannenova.com.au/2018/12/new-report-renewables-indirectly-make-electricity-more-expensive-so-abc-tells-australia-the-opposite/Oh, and I see the 'nuclear power is the answer' idea is popping up again. There are two replies to that.
One is, do some research on EROEI estimates for nuclear power plants, over full lifetime of the systems. That includes dismantling the reactors at end-of-life, and storing the waste safely for a few hundred thousand years. Guess what? It's probably negative.
Second answer, and the one that terminates the nuclear fission plants issue absolutely and permanently as far as I'm concerned, is 'natural disasters'. That includes
* Tectonic tsunamis (see Fukushima. Do you have any idea how bad that is? Complete cluster-f*ck, THREE total meltdowns, cores in the ground, right next to the Pacific Ocean, no possibility of stopping groundwater flow to the ocean.
* Subsidence tsunamis See Hawaii Hilina Slump
* Meteorite impacts. Few people are aware how frequent these are historically. Everyone's heard of the 63 million years ago Dinosaur Age terminator impact, but who has heard of these:
Hiawatha crater in Greenland (about 12,000 years ago, wrecked the entire planet, likely the cause of a known human species genetic bottleneck sometime-ish around then. Meaning, we almost got wiped out.
The 12,000 Year old Comet that Landed on TEDTalks…and Erased Ancient Civilization - Greenland Crater
Maybe the same one:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/08/29/younger-dryas-climate-event-solved-via-nanodiamonds-it-was-a-planetary-impact-event/ Younger Dryas climate event solved via nanodiamonds – it was a planetary impact event. 12,800 years ago.
Umm al Binni lake/crater. Around 2200 BCE
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Umm_al_Binni_lake Tunguska, Siberia 1908 Just an airburst meteor. Lucky there wasn't a nuclear plant anywhere in the flattened area.
Kebira crater
https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/images/6351/kebira-crater 100M.y ?
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-03-23/worlds-largest-asteroid-impact-zone-found-in-central-australia/6341408 World's largest asteroid impact zone believed uncovered by ANU researchers in central Australia
New Zealand, 40,000 years ago. On the nth end of the South Island. Something caused a huge tsunami that flattened the Kaori forest right across the island, burying it under many meters of ocean sediment.
Then there's supervolcanoes. Yellowstone isn't the only one, there are several such sites on Earth.
The point being that such mega-natural disasters put a kink in life on Earth each time, but they don't ELIMINATE it. However, add dozens or hundreds of nuclear power plants, weapons and high level nuclear waste dumps smeared across the landscape at the same time, totally beyond human resources to do anything about it, and that very well could end all higher life forms on Earth. Highly raised background radiation level would suck. Even if it didn't kill everything directly, it would shift the genetic defects vs evolutionary error weeding-out balance into the negative, resulting in rapid devolution. And a whole lot of sorrow and tragedy for the human race as they went extinct via birth defects and general ecological collapse.
This is why we MUST NOT USE nuclear fission power. Not on Earth, ever.
Nuclear fusion, if we ever get it working and it can be done without significant long-life waste products, is another matter.