old man emu

Dangerously exceeding load capacity. Rig out one of these big vehcles, not matter what the power source is, and you are overweight, or need to be a fly-weight to drive them.

Unintended consequences. Prior to Trump's excursion into Iran, tankers were sailing from the Gulf countries through the Strait of Hurmuz to the oil refineries of the United States. These tankers are slow. It takes them weeks to make the journey. This week, the last tanker out of the Gulf arrived in the USA. The ones that had been filled after it are stuck in the Persian Gulf because of the closure of the Strait. Think of this. If the Strait was opened today, it would take six or more weeks before the first tanker arrived at a US port to unload. Then thee is the time it takes to refine the oil and distribute it. In the meantime, fuel becomes scarce and economic knowledge tells us that the price will skyrocket to somethng around $US7.00 per US gallon for rteh American consumer. Experts predict that if teh Strait opened today, oil prices would remain at these very high prices until the middle of 2027. Even if the Democrats sweep the mid-term elections and oust Trump, Americans will be out of fuel well into 2028.

My son has a BYD Shark PHEV. I've been looking at some Australian-made videos on Youtube made by 4WD influencers, and most of what they present is positive. However there are a few things that have got me thinking that the design concept of the vehicle is wrong. First, the vehicle is a 3-tonne dual cab. It is a tall vehicle, meaning that one has to climb up into it. Why so big? It has a Gross Vehicle Mass (GVM) of 3,500 kg and a payload of approximately 790 kg. That 750 kg paylod has to include the weight of five persons plus luggage and other junk. Don't forget that if the vehicle is used to tow a caravan or other type of trailer, the towball weight has to be taken from the 750 kg. I wonder how useful it would be as a tradie's ute. How much do a tradie's tools weigh? And how often do five tradies travel in the one vehicle? Next I don't see it as an off-road vehicle. A lot of the videos show it being used off-raod, but I think this is a mistake. I think people might not understand that although each wheel of the vehicle is driven by its own motor, it does not, to my mind, equate to the traditional 4WD. While each motor delivers maximum torque immediately, off-road driving requires that the torque from an ICE or EV power plant should be controlled. I think that the correct application of an EV motor is through a gearbox if one wants to drive through mud, sand and climb mountains. BYD has been honest in stating that the battery-only range is 100 km. That is sufficient for daily running around the local area. They have been honest to say that for longer distances, the 1.5 litre ICE engine must be used. This engine is basically an onborad electrical generator which uses about 7.5 litres/100 km at highway speed without towing. Towing a medium sized caravan or horse float can blow that out to about 20 litres/100km. One advantage of teh BYD battery system is that it has outlest which can provide 240 volts. That would be useful for a tradie to run chargers for cordless tools. Why do I think the design concept is wrong? Around my way, the most popular style of work vehicle is the Toyota Hillux in single or dual cab. The vehicle weighs about 2 tonnes with a load capacity of about 900 kg. This design suits the needs of farmers and tradies. It is available in 2 or 4WD configuration. Why couldn't a model with an EV power system be made to this design? Toyota has a Hilux EV, but it is a big monster like the Shark.

The Federal Government has just announced that work on the inland rail route between Melbourne and Brisbane will cease when the track reaches Parkes in Central NSW. The given reason is that to complete the trtack from Parkes to Brisbane would cost $46 billion dollars. The purpose of the route was to reduce reliance on road transport between Queensland and Victoria along the Newell Highway which is the inland route. Already millions have been spent on preliminary geophysical investigations along the proposed route north of Parkes. Rural properties have been purchased. The Gilgandra Shire created a residential estate will all the road and water infrastructure for the building of housing to rent to the construction workers employed on the nearby section. Once the work was completed those houses would be placed on the public market for sale. However, demand for housing follows demand for employment, and there is not much locally. There was nothing wrong with the concept of a dedicated freight line between these two States. The problem, no doubt, is that the ability to generate the funding for the project, amongst all the other demands on government, is beyond the capacity of a Nation with such a small population compared to its area. Perhaps if our natural resources had not been sold off at bargain basement prices, or tax concessions to foreign companies were curtailed, the Government might be able to provide the funds to finance the many demands made of it. Here's a link to the Inland Rail website: https://inlandrail.com.au/

Holy cow! GON posted something which positively promotes the discussion. Good onya, GON!

It sems that all is not doom and gloom. Trump will go down in history as the creator af a new World Order. A new World Order based on cooperation amongst Nations for the good of all peoples. That new World Order will have the USA as an orbiting satelite.

The USA has been on Israel's side since Day-1 if the State of Israel. At the birth of the State of Israel, the Middle East was territory overseen by the British and French under United Nations mandates. The USA shouldn't have had anything to do with things there.

These baby videos are so funny.

That's ironic. Isn't one of their beliefs that governments should have no control over the individual?

Ironically, $600-$700 per week would be sufficient to service a mortgage, if there was a house to purchase.

Trump's 60-day DIY war declaration power has expired. Will Congress kowtow to him, or stand up for the rights of the rest of the World?

Post here or in the AI thread? An enjoyable use of AI to make a cute video.

Oh my Lord! That might be satisfying, but as an investigator of motor vehicle collisions it sends shudders down my spine. Very many serious or fatal collisions are the result of an offender running a red light and T-boning a vehicle which has just been released to cross the intersection by a green light. There is usually a delay of about 3 seconds between the display of a red light to one road and the display of a green light to the crossing road. However, we all know that does not prevent collisions. Might I suggest that one does not use traffic control light signals on public roads in the same way as a "Christmas tree" is used at a drag strip?

A reason might be that the Law has not caught up to the technology. I will say, though, that the rapid acceleration of EVs is something that could get any driver into a bad situation. I'd guess that teh new owner of an EV with a bit of grunt would have to practise handling that grunt.

On a trip to Sydney and back, my ICE uses more fuel coming home because I have to climb from near sea level in Sydney to about 3,500 ft at the top of the Blue Mountains. The gradient of tht climb is steeper than the climb coming from the other side on the way to Sydney. Also I don't have to "drive" the car from the top to the bottom when I an on my way to Sydney. The need for more fuel to go up a steep hill is commonsense. The same commonsense that applies to an EV, hybrid, plug in or diesel.

Gripe: Because of my soft-touch keyboard I keep having to go back into posts to correct typos. I think that I might be being pressing the keys too softly. Also, I often type "the" as "teh". That's muscle memorty, I think. Also I keep hitting adjacent keys. These things are set to try us.

Trump's latest threat to bomb Iran to pieces surely must raise the hackles of every other country in the World. Maybe it's time to decalre war on the USA. The first step should be to evict all US miltary from bases in those countries. Let's start painting "Yankee go home!" on a few walls. Strangely, I feel sympathy for the American People who are suffering becasue of the mistake they made due to the effects of the jingoistic propaganda they were raised with.

I don't know the details of the latest media reports on how far an EV will go on a charge, but I wonder if a lot of the problem comes from peoples' ignorance of how to operate a new technology. Perhaps people do not know how to properly manage batteries.

Anybody intersted in talking about EVs?

Ice cores are great for paleo-meterology, but contemporaneous sampling is what is needed for contemporary analysis. Besides, ice cores can't help us monitor CFCs since they did not exist before the middle of tthe 20th Century.

Everyone goes on about rising CO2 levels in the atmoshere. But rising compared to what? How does science determine a base value for comparison. There must be some way to determine exactly what "fresh air" is. Just south of the isolated north-west tip (Woolnorth Point) of Tasmania, at a place called Cape Grim, the Bureau of Meteorology and the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) fund and operates the Cape Grim atmospheric observational facility. The Cape Grim Baseline Air Pollution Station first began measuring the composition of the atmosphere in April 1976 and has been in continuous operation since that date. The air sampled arrives at Cape Grim after long trajectories over the Southern Ocean, under conditions described as ‘baseline’. This baseline air is representative of a large area of the Southern Hemisphere, unaffected by regional pollution sources. Air samples are analysed at the station to determine concentrations of greenhouse and ozone-depleting gases, other air pollutants, including aerosols and reactive gases, and radon. Since sampling began at Cape Grim, more that 3 billion measurements have been taken. Among these are measurements of greenhouse gases (GHGs), including carbon dioxide (CO2), methane (CH4), nitrous oxide (N2O) and synthetic GHGs such as hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs), perfluorocarbons (PFCs) and sulfur hexafluoride (SF6). The number of atmospheric greenhouse gases measured at Cape Grim now exceeds 50, as well as concentrations of natural and anthropogenic aerosols (particles such as sea salt, mineral dust, carbon particles etc). Some of the air samples collected at Cape Grim have been archived for further analyses as required. This picture shows some of the samples stored in "fresh air archives". Because we have these measurements and samples going back 50 years, we are in the position of being able to say that the atmoshere has changed over that time. Happily, all is not doom and gloom. The growth of some GHGs (for example methane) has slowed recently and some are in decline (CFCs and halons for example). Read more here: https://capegrim.csiro.au/

A concern that I have does not involve future terrorist activities of the wives, but the attitudes of their children. Those kids have grown up an an certain environment. They have been indoctrinated by the controllers of that environment. Just consider the outlook of German kids who grew up under the NAZI regime. At the end of WWII, when the world hey grew up in came to an end, they lost all that they knew. They had to undergo education to let them learn that what they believed in, one could say their morality was not the truth. I wonder how many of them were mever able to fully change their ideas. The same can be said for all children, no matter what ideological system they grew up in. Isn't the Aussie Spirit we try to instill in our children just another ideological system? I say, let those adults amongst them who were Australian citizens, return. However, let us give the children of those people all the help we can to detoxify from what they have been lead to believe was acceptable.

Unfortunately, due to the mesh that is global economics, if the USA collapses, then so does the global economy. Don't know about the civic-minded bit, but the rest sure describes China. I really wonder if it is the goal of China to implant its form of communism on the rest of the world. I don't think so. I think China is happy with economic dominance. It has fought economic fire with economic fire.

No koalas around the proposed site of the windfarm near me. However, it would be good if they got rid of the pigs and foxes. I mentioned in another thread that BEFORE approval was given for construction a two-year study of flight patterns of bats and birs had to be conducted. I can't see the developers killing off bats and birds. I suppose a good anti-windfarm claim could be an application of the butterfly fluttering in the Amazon causes hurricanes in the Carribean.

Cobalt is an essential trace mineral for ruminants (cattle, sheep, goats) used by rumen microorganisms to synthesize vitamin B12 (cobalamin). It is critical for energy production, glucose synthesis, protein metabolism, and growth. Deficiencies cause severe loss of appetite, anemia, "wasting disease," and poor productivity, with young, rapidly growing animals and sheep being most susceptible. https://csiropedia.csiro.au/cobalt-deficiency-and-the-cure-for-coast-disease/