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We have a long history here in SA of being the first people in the world to do stuff, and it nearly never (I mean this literally) works out well. For once, I'd

We have a long history here in SA of being the first people in the world to do stuff, and it nearly never (I mean this literally) works out well. For once, I'd love it if our ever changing State Government would just spend its limited budget on tried and tested solutions rather than pissing money up the wall on things that may or may not work.

pascalo 9y ago
When it comes to power generation, tried and tested also means to rely on something like gas or coal fired power plant. Do not want.
- synicalx 9y ago
  Or hydro, or nuclear, or wind etc etc
Lxr 9y ago
Examples?
- bigger_cheese 9y ago
  I'm not from SA but I think the Desalination plant they built to supply drinking water to Adelaide was a pretty infamous example.
  - mphillips 9y ago
    SA certainly wasn't the first to build a desalination plant, and it appears to have been working as designed for quite a while now ("Water production to date (to end of June 2017) = approximately 138 billion litres" [1]). I think the infamy was unearned, and mainly due to people not understanding that it was never intended to run all the time, but is insurance for a time of crisis (which we will certainly have again at some point). So, not a good example. [1] https://www.sawater.com.au/community-and-environment/our-water-and-sewerage-systems/water-sources/desalination/adelaide-desalination-plant-adp https://www.sawater.com.au/community-and-environment/our-wat...
- Untit1ed 9y ago
  Allowing women to both vote and stand in parliament is the classic example.
perilunar 9y ago
It's not exactly first or untested - Tesla recently build an 80 MWh battery farm in California. I'm pretty sure they know it will work.
daveytea 9y ago
There's also a long history of tall poppy syndrome and cutting down innovative ideas to keep the status quo. Things that were first done/discovered in SA: - military tank - sunscreen - hills hoist - early version of wifi (controversially) References: http://www.abc.net.au/local/stories/2014/07/23/4051703.htm http://www.abc.net.au/local/stories/2014/07/23/4051703.htm http://insidesouthaustralia.com.au/5-amazing-south-australian-inventions/ http://insidesouthaustralia.com.au/5-amazing-south-australia...
nl 9y ago
When are we ever the first to do anything (since we gave women the vote anyway. Maybe Don Dunstan did some stuff.. in the 1970s)? Batteries are well proven technology now. Here's the Tesla one in California: https://arstechnica.com/business/2017/01/a-look-at-the-new-battery-storage-facility-in-california-built-with-tesla-powerpacks/ https://arstechnica.com/business/2017/01/a-look-at-the-new-b.... Batteries are very much the tried and tested solution now. This is just a bigger set. Our wind-farms are nothing special. We get much less power from them than most places in Europe. Even the eviro-nuts (/sarcasm) in Texas get up to 23% of their power from wind (https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-rise-of-wind-power-in-texas/ https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-rise-of-wind-...). SA gets around 33%. Pretty much all of SA's problems are because of geography. We don't have many people (~1.5M, almost all of whom are in Adelaide) and we are a long, long way from anywhere else. That makes taking part in the national market difficult.
ridgeguy 9y ago
There aren't many tried and tested solutions for grid energy storage. Pumped hydro is probably the best known and longest used. It's reliable and low risk. It's only practical if geography includes two adjacent large bodies of water with significant altitude differential. This isn't exactly rare but it's unusual, so pumped hydro isn't often a solution. Other than p.h.? Thermal (molten salt)? flywheels? These are rare and early in development. Each has its own reliability issues. If grid-scale storage is needed, it seems like Li batteries are the best understood, lowest technical risk option for now.

pascalo 9y ago

When it comes to power generation, tried and tested also means to rely on something like gas or coal fired power plant. Do not want.

synicalx 9y ago
Or hydro, or nuclear, or wind etc etc

Lxr 9y ago

Examples?

bigger_cheese 9y ago
I'm not from SA but I think the Desalination plant they built to supply drinking water to Adelaide was a pretty infamous example.
- mphillips 9y ago
  SA certainly wasn't the first to build a desalination plant, and it appears to have been working as designed for quite a while now ("Water production to date (to end of June 2017) = approximately 138 billion litres" [1]). I think the infamy was unearned, and mainly due to people not understanding that it was never intended to run all the time, but is insurance for a time of crisis (which we will certainly have again at some point). So, not a good example. [1] https://www.sawater.com.au/community-and-environment/our-water-and-sewerage-systems/water-sources/desalination/adelaide-desalination-plant-adp https://www.sawater.com.au/community-and-environment/our-wat...
Untit1ed 9y ago
Allowing women to both vote and stand in parliament is the classic example.

perilunar 9y ago

It's not exactly first or untested - Tesla recently build an 80 MWh battery farm in California. I'm pretty sure they know it will work.

daveytea 9y ago

There's also a long history of tall poppy syndrome and cutting down innovative ideas to keep the status quo. Things that were first done/discovered in SA: - military tank - sunscreen - hills hoist - early version of wifi (controversially) References: http://www.abc.net.au/local/stories/2014/07/23/4051703.htm http://www.abc.net.au/local/stories/2014/07/23/4051703.htm http://insidesouthaustralia.com.au/5-amazing-south-australian-inventions/ http://insidesouthaustralia.com.au/5-amazing-south-australia...

nl 9y ago

When are we ever the first to do anything (since we gave women the vote anyway. Maybe Don Dunstan did some stuff.. in the 1970s)? Batteries are well proven technology now. Here's the Tesla one in California: https://arstechnica.com/business/2017/01/a-look-at-the-new-battery-storage-facility-in-california-built-with-tesla-powerpacks/ https://arstechnica.com/business/2017/01/a-look-at-the-new-b.... Batteries are very much the tried and tested solution now. This is just a bigger set. Our wind-farms are nothing special. We get much less power from them than most places in Europe. Even the eviro-nuts (/sarcasm) in Texas get up to 23% of their power from wind (https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-rise-of-wind-power-in-texas/ https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-rise-of-wind-...). SA gets around 33%. Pretty much all of SA's problems are because of geography. We don't have many people (~1.5M, almost all of whom are in Adelaide) and we are a long, long way from anywhere else. That makes taking part in the national market difficult.

ridgeguy 9y ago

There aren't many tried and tested solutions for grid energy storage. Pumped hydro is probably the best known and longest used. It's reliable and low risk. It's only practical if geography includes two adjacent large bodies of water with significant altitude differential. This isn't exactly rare but it's unusual, so pumped hydro isn't often a solution. Other than p.h.? Thermal (molten salt)? flywheels? These are rare and early in development. Each has its own reliability issues. If grid-scale storage is needed, it seems like Li batteries are the best understood, lowest technical risk option for now.