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A model for exploring oil boom & bust cycles

A model for exploring oil boom & bust cycles Economics 101 starts with a stylised depiction of a supply and demand curve. The price is determined by the intersection of the curves. This implies that there is no such thing as an ‘oil supply gap’ since a shift of...

The NRDC baseload twitter storm

The NRDC baseload twitter storm The release of a Brattle report by the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) resulted in a Twitter storm and much commentary over the meaning of ‘baseload’. Mark Diesendorf had pushed back against the term more than 10 years ago. But...

The rigour of the Jacobson et al. RE plan

The rigour of the Jacobson et al. RE plan UPDATE: 26 August 2017 – A response to Jacobson et al.’s response has been published with further detail here. Completely decarbonising energy systems is a difficult and complex problem. Wind and solar have the...

Synchronous grids and inertia

Synchronous grids and inertia The Australian NEM spans five states and 4,500 km and has around 260 registered generators, all of which, when online, are synchronous machines spinning in near-exact synchronization at close to 50 Hz across the network (the island state...

Australia's strategic oil reserve

Australia’s strategic oil reserve With the current political debates in Australia around energy and climate policy, it’s easy to neglect the sleeper of Australia’s energy policy – the lack of an oil strategic reserve. The IEA was established in November...