r/climatechange • u/Economy-Fee5830 Trusted Contributor • Jul 19 '26
CSIRO: Solar and wind remain "backbone" of least-cost future grid, as batteries squeeze gas to a fraction of the mix
https://reneweconomy.com.au/solar-and-wind-remain-backbone-of-least-cost-future-grid-as-batteries-squeeze-gas-to-a-fraction-of-the-mix/•
u/Lejga_Unga_tmle_gre Jul 19 '26
Graham says gas will retain a limited but important firming role, contributing an estimated 3-7% of generation by 2050 as battery costs keep falling and gas costs keep rising.
Translation; We will continue burning fossile fuels for an undetermined amount of time and by 2050 we will get on the level of France today.
Bridge fuel narrative in full force.
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u/sg_plumber Jul 19 '26
3-7% is rarely-used backup, not "bridge".
And it could very well be carbon-neutral e-fuels instead of fossil gas.
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u/Lejga_Unga_tmle_gre Jul 19 '26
By 20-fucking-50 making it a bridge fuel. Yeah, I'm sure you'll be using hydrogen anyday now.
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u/sg_plumber Jul 19 '26
The phaseout of fossil fuels will be much sooner than 2050.
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u/Lejga_Unga_tmle_gre Jul 19 '26
Mhm, that's why world leaders in renewables are also building gas peaker power plants while convincing you they will totally switch to four times as expensive hydrogen any day now. I checked, Australia is building several large scale gas peaker plants.
The same people will then tell you nuclear is too expensive and takes too long while projecting burning gas for at least another 25 years.
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u/Skippysilly Jul 19 '26
Do you think gas plants are on 24/7? They can get turned on and off within 2 minutes and a large capacity is required even if you rarely use them in rare cases of low renewable output like south australia recently had. Its like saying someone with a generator is killing the planet when its only on during a storm.
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u/Lejga_Unga_tmle_gre Jul 19 '26
Someone with a generator IS killing the planet. He is adding co2 that was sequestered in the ground back into the atmosphere raising global levels causing the shitshow you are seeing now.
Large reserve capacity is required because of renewables that can not produce power on demand. In order to have renewables you need to also have an extensive gas grid and, like you said, have it provide power when renewables can not.
The end result is a someone with a diesel generator producing emissions while pretending they're 'green'. When prodded as to how a diesel generator is 'green' he replies that he will start running it on 'green hydrogen' in 30 years time and he's only using it every other day anyway!
Obviously people will be telling you that batteries will completely solve this issue. They just can't tell you when nor can they explain why capital intensive and costly gas peaker plants are being built to the tune of billions of dollars which are multi-decade investments.
The end result is they'll start talking about green hydrogen. produced from the excess renewable energy, that will repalce gas by 2050 (Germany). In other words, at least 25 more years of fossile fuel dependence.
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u/Economy-Fee5830 Trusted Contributor Jul 19 '26
Someone mining uranium with a diesel tractor pretends they are green. When prodded as to how a diesel tractor is 'green' he replies that he will start running it on 'green hydrogen' in 30 years time and he's only using it every other day anyway!
Nukecels are so tiring.
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u/Lejga_Unga_tmle_gre Jul 19 '26
The mining for uranium is a fraction of that needed for anything else so you'll end up losing that argument as well.
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u/Economy-Fee5830 Trusted Contributor Jul 19 '26
The burning of the gas is a fraction of that needed for anything else so you'll end up losing that argument as well.
Nukecels are so tiring.
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u/sg_plumber Jul 19 '26
Dunno why you keep conflating hydrogen with natural gas, but gas peakers/backup is definitely not the same as continuous or even frequent generation.
Stop lying. Everything is cheaper/faster to build than nuclear.
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u/sammybeta Jul 19 '26
I don't really understand if you're for or against battery deployment.
I personally felt the battery, especially with sodium which CATL and BYD both provided a rather firm mass production timetable, will unleash the energy storage potential we have with renewables.
The development of the renewables have beaten the estimate of the most optimistic scenarios, and the battery is the next item to be changed radically.
But CSIRO need to sound neutral. They need to make the future of the fossil fuel future sounds better to survive next coalition government.
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u/Lejga_Unga_tmle_gre Jul 19 '26 edited Jul 19 '26
I'm not inherently against batteries or renewables but for all the talk about 'fossile fuel companies' talk you guys refuse to see how they're playing you.
By going the path of renewables the fossile fuel companies ensure dependence on fossile fuels for decades to come and manage the energy transition to their suiting. That's the 'fossile fuels as a bridge-fuels' strategy they are pursuing and one that was adopted by countries like Germany.
The question you should be asking is "Why is the state and private companies conducting multi-decade investments worth billions of dollars into gas peaker plants if batteries are going to do their job?" Answer; They wont or it will take decades more to get there and actually deploy them. Result: The entire grid remains reliant on gas even if gas consumption decreases over time.
Do you think the fossile fuel companies don't see the two paths they have? One is nuclear, with minimal input from them, and the other is renewables where they ensure gas dependence for literally decades more.
That's why they lobby against nuclear so aggresively, because nuclear power is a direct competitoter to that narrative. With nuclear power you don't need an extensive gas back up grid and burn large amounts of fossile fuels when you can't meet demand to keep the grid operational. You essentially lock out the fossile fuel companies from the electricity generation market.
We can look at real life examples, like France, that essentially nearly decarbonized its grid by 'accident' when they nuclearized over their dependence on oil im the 70's and 80s! Do you think the fossile fuel companies missed that lesson?
The current plan is to switch from natural gas to hydrogen produced from the excess generated by renewables. Hydrogen, much like gas, can be stored and then burnt on demand to generate power. One problem is that hydrogen is more expensive than gas and another that the hydrogen infrastructure has to actually be built out too and that also costs money.
Worse yet, that's planned down the line in the 2040's and 2050's. So, 20-30 years. Meanwhile the same people will tell you going nuclear 'takes too long' and 'costs too much'. France did it in 15 years meanwhile the current energy transition in Germany is not only taking longer, costs more but also Germany somehow remains the worst polluter in western Europe while remaining reliant on LNG imports from Norway and the US!
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u/Economy-Fee5830 Trusted Contributor Jul 19 '26
Summary: Solar and wind remain "backbone" of least-cost future grid, as batteries squeeze gas to a fraction of the mix
CSIRO and AEMO's final GenCost 2025–26 report confirms that solar PV and onshore wind remain the lowest-cost pathway to net zero for Australia's electricity sector, supplying 93% of generation in the least-cost scenario through 2050. Average generation costs are expected to keep falling, from $104/MWh in 2025 toward $80-90/MWh over the next three years, down from a 2022 peak of $189/MWh.
CSIRO chief energy economist Paul Graham notes that growing battery deployment, both grid-scale and residential, has reduced Australia's reliance on gas and insulated the electricity sector from the effects of the US-Israel-Iran conflict, unlike in previous global shocks. However, that same conflict continues to strain global supply chains and inflation, keeping most costs elevated except for solar PV and batteries, which continue to fall due to Chinese manufacturing scale.
Gas turbine costs, meanwhile, are rising for a fifth consecutive year, driven partly by surging global demand for data centre power generation. The report finds this makes gas a slower option for powering new data centres in Australia than in the US, given three-to-four-year turbine wait times versus a renewables-and-battery development pipeline that's already largely shovel-ready.
For 2050 modelling, CSIRO shifted from its draft approach to rely on market data for 2030 costings, applying its new system levelised cost of electricity (SLCOE) method only to 2050 projections. This analysis found no new-build generation technology, fossil or non-fossil with firming included, costing under $100/MWh. A net-zero-consistent generation system based mainly on solar, wind and batteries is projected to cost around $125/MWh on average (excluding transmission), rising to $141-152/MWh including firming and transmission costs. Coal's projected new-build costs by 2050 range from $107-182/MWh.
Graham says gas will retain a limited but important firming role, contributing an estimated 3-7% of generation by 2050 as battery costs keep falling and gas costs keep rising.