octave
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Posts posted by octave
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Seek the facts, don’t drink the Koolaid.
NASA coolaid?
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Octave, unless the law has changed, it's a legal obligation under the Lands Act (in my State at least) for a landholder to control feral animals.
Yep that is my understanding
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where I live we can raise grass fed beef using the water that falls on the land and what is collected in dams and creeks.
The grass requires water and the cattle require water as opposed to just a crop whether it be beans or wheat or barley or whatever. Your assertion is that do gooders make statements without knowing the facts so what I am asking you is what are the facts. Now is your chance to educate us. You say that you grow beef with water from dams and creeks on your property you are you saying that vegetable growers are unable to do this? Why?
I would also have much more carbon emissions from the tilling, harvesting and transportation of the crop, plus where would the labour come from.don't you transport your cattle to the saleyards and are they not then transported to the abattoir?
It may be a different matter on the Darling Downs, or down South, but land here is not suited to growing crops .Obviously certain areas are suited to different types of farming, if crops cant be grow ion the Darling Downs then fine, who is saying they should be?
If the tree huggers have their way cattle would be banned,I think there may be a little paranoia here, yes there are people who try to convince people to switch their diet to vege but this is surely no more annoying than the bloke on TV who tries to convince me to eat lamb on Australia day but I can deal with that.
The tree huggers wouldn't even let us shoot the wild pigs.For twenty years I owned and lived on 44 acres on the southern tableands and during that time no one stopped me from arranging for feral pigs to be culled. I am not even sure what mechanism they would use to prevent me from doing that, in fact I had it done because I was compelled to by the Rural Land Protection Board. Someone may express displeasure because they don't believe in culling pigs but so what? It is you right and at least when I lived on the land it was my obligation.
Notice do gooders have been elevated to tree huggers.As soon as name calling is used instead of evidence I usually assume that the evidence may be difficult to come by. Tree hugger or redneck are just stupid stereotypes people use.
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Where would the money come from? The government is funded by taxes, they take money from us, not the other way around.
Firstly I don't know enough about this to form an opinion but I understand there are places where this is up and running, Alaska, Finland etc. Not sure whether these systems work or not. In terms of the tax take, most people would still work and pay income tax. I think most universal income schemes are a pretty basic amount and I would imagine the majority would still rather earn enough to buy a house and travel etc. Also income tax is just one source of taxation, even people who only receive the aged pension ( a form of social wage in that you get it whether you have paid tax or not) are still tax payers by virtue of the fact that they pay gst and sales tax etc. As I say I am not too knowledgeable about this idea but I have seen it supported by serious economisits so I think it is fair to assume that the question of taxation is not just a whoops forgot to consider that scenario.
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Here's a debating point in the climate change discussion...
Climate-change opposer are doing more harm to the future lives of our kids than the jailed pedophiles ever did. Therefore climate-change opposition is worse than pedophilia and should be punished accordingly.
One of these things is caused by unawareness and or wanting to cling to the past (in my view) and the other is caused the direct exploitation of another human whilst knowing the harm caused.
By way of an example buying a consumer product that is made with child labour is bad if you are aware of the origin and method of production. Most people are unaware or at least try not to think about it. Yes it has a levell of wrongness about it but human nature being what it is we are able to ignore wrongness that is not right in front of us. In terms of climate change I do not think shaming or name calling ever works. I am a strong believer in information and data. I think people find it hard to accept that anything they do (or I) could be anything less than wonderful.
Personally I try to do the right things but I am self aware to understand that I still drive my car, fly a plane and travel overseas. For this reason I think we need to tackle these problems at a society level so that we can maintain a modern comfortable life.
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By do gooders I was meaning those who push a barrow without knowing what is in it. For example there are a load of people saying we should eat beans rather than beef. I just wonder how eating beans will reduce the methane or other greenhouse gases. To grow beans you have to plant, them water them, harvest and then transport and mill them. To eat beef, you put cattle out on the dry country where I live, they water themselves in water holes or dams, eat the dry cellulose that grows, then you ship them off to an abbatoir. Much less use of fossil fuels and fertilisers, but I suppoe the downside is that it is less labour intensive.
Basicly they are people who believe any sort of bullshit poked out by greenies.
Nev. I never read the Courier Mail, otherwise I agree with you wholeheartedly. Hazlewood always appalled me with its pollution, but so did most other power stations. I did spend over a decade working on those places, building chimneys designed to spread the pollution further away, so that it wasn't so obvious.
I was talking to someone the other day who reckoned Calcap power station, built in the sixties was a very low producer of carbon dioxide, he installed the gear to collect it. Now of courst it is closed and Callide has taken over the pollution.
I am not convinced that is correct re beans and cattle but of course the only rational way to know is to examine the hard evidence. I am wondering what information you used to come to these conclusions? By the way I dont give a toss what others eat. I am not in a position until later today to check the facts and figures but I would be willing bet a reasonable sum of money that it takes more water to produce kg of beef compared to a kg of vegetables. But again evidence and data is the only way to know.
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I suspect that the definition of a do gooder is determined by the beliefs of person making the judgement. The term is often used as an alternative to a rational fact based critique. I give a small monthly donation to .a charity that helps educate people in third poor countries and contributes to projects that help provide clean water etc. Am I one of those nasty "do gooders"?
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It isnt the intelligent, well reasoned do gooding thats the problem its the mindless, knee jerk do gooding thats the problem
I would agree that "doing good" should be evidence based. All too often people confuse their gut feeling with what the evidence suggests. It is all too easy to cherry pick evidence that supports what we want to believe.
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I just wonder how politicians all over the world appear to care very little about the people they are supposed to represent. We seem to be run by greenies and do gooders who never think anything through.
I am always bemused by the term "do gooder" What is wrong with doing good?
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Fear not, after drone attack on Saudi oil facilities Trump is "locked and loaded" Sounds reassuring to me -not!
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That Tom Lehrer recording must be at least 30 years old. I nearly fell out of my cot when I first heard it. It goes well with poisoning pigeons in the park.
Even older than that, I think this recording was made in the 60s. I do tend to judge people on whether or not they have heard of Tom Lehrer. ? Poisoning pigeons in the park was my first introduction to Lehrer.
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Some great musical satire by mathematician and satirist Tom Lehrer, written in the mid 60s but still relevant today.
Who's next
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Best argument for not believing climate change comes from the green leader today in a statement about the Queenland bushfires. . Di Natalie is rapidly becoming another speak before you think expert. Please, all you greens out there, speak to the people on the land, people who actually know what the situation is and live with its effects before you get on your high horses in your city dwellings, turn off your airconditioning and actually think using facts and real world evidence not rubbish spouted by "experts" with no experience. There may be a problem but walking off the cliff with everyone else because some "expert"says so turns people into sheep. Talk to real life people living with the land and climate, not high rise plastic tree huggers...
Tree huggers like NASA etc.? That argument is similar to anti vaxxers and anti evolutionists, the experts are making it up. Bottom line is this If I am unfortunate enough to get cancer I will consult an oncologist. If 9 of the "experts" give advice that is contradicted by 1 I am going with the 9.
You dont really provide any evidence you just warn us to not listen to experts (or at least the ones you dont agree with)
Of course it is important to listen to the views of farmers
https://www.farmersforclimateaction.org.au/climate_change_and_agriculture
https://www.foreground.com.au/environment/the-farmers-fighting-climate-change/
People talk about climate alarmists but I would like to point out that there are also renewable energy alarmists. Australia has a very small percentage of its power generated by renewables, there are countries with much more renewable generation. By and large these countries are not economic basket cases.
The fact is that the denial club is quite small and getting smaller. Whilst governments tend to be bad at this sort of thing private enterprise is surging ahead.
BP https://www.bp.com/en/global/corporate/sustainability/climate-change.html
BP rolling out EV charging network
https://www.electrive.com/2019/08/15/bp-opens-150kw-chargers-at-uk-service-stations/
I am a bit over debating this. I am happy to discuss the merrits of the evdence but other than the odd graph not much is actually presented here. I will take EASA, NASA, CSIRO, Brithish accademy of science if science, I could go on but the list is too long over the odd retired geologist or meteorologist or Andrew Bolt.
Aas long as we take a measured and science based approach to moving to the next energy age, I do not forsee massive problems. If the climate science turns out to be wrong then we have just moved to the next phase long before fossil fuels run out. If the deniers are wrong..........
Quote from a Mining Journal -
"The electric revolution and digital transformation are two parallel streams that are coming together. High-capacity batteries and smart communication will rapidly change the way we operate.
"We live at a very interesting time."
History not repeating, perhaps.
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[ATTACH]3238[/ATTACH][ATTACH]3239[/ATTACH]
Electricity prices related to installed wind and solar capacity. No politics, just the facts at present.
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Background
The ACCC’s preliminary findings are that, on average across the NEM, a 2015-16 residential bill was $1,524 (excluding GST). This average residential bill was made up of:
- network costs (48 per cent)
- wholesale costs (22 per cent)
- environmental costs (7 per cent)
- retail and other costs (16 per cent)
- retail margins (8 per cent).
The ACCC which certainly does not go easy on renewables claiming that rooftop solar should have it's subsidies reduced but none the less finds the environmental costs of electricity in Australia are 7%. I am assuming you reject these findings, it would be interesting to know where you believe its findings are faulty. As for your above offerings the first chart shows a correaltion but only compares some countries and not others. I note that Australia in 2016 was at 14.5% renewables and th UK was 27.9% in 2016 and yet the per capita price is more in Austraila than in the UK. Norway 97.2% yet fairly low prices. Finland 44.2% and yet cheaper than Australia. New Zealand 83.9% yet does not appear on graph. There are many reasons for differences in cost of electricity. The ACCC goes into this in a lot of detail.
The second graph is a table of electricity costs, it does not give any reasons. I would suggest that given our sparse population and large land mass direct comparrison may be problematic.
Like it or not new technologies are coming.
- network costs (48 per cent)
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Interesting video on lithium battery recycling.
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I would agree that it is easy to get info about how to do anything in the handyman line, but I don't see anywhere near as much handyman work being done now, compared to 20 years ago.
The current idea seems to be get rid of something and replace it with new. There is very little repair of existing things.
There are very few owner builders of houses and I know of only one aeroplane being built in this area, whereas ten years ago there were 4 or 5. I seldom see a boat being built in the backyard and 20 years ago there was one in every street. Nowadays everyone is too busy looking at their mobile phone to have time to build anything, even though the information to do so is freely available.
Not partcullary my experience but I guess it is about who you know. There are extremely vibrant makers" communites online Also it is my go to place to find out how to repair something. To the extent that people dont repairs thing is I believe nothing to do with people being less willing but lets face it many appliances are specifically made not to be fixed.
The kind of people I know are like this fellow, who is my sons business partner. This is the 3D tank he designed and built, nearly entirely by 3D printing. Oh and he built the 3D printer himself.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IO3M_ODuiZU
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I feel that my General Knowledge, which was pretty good before the year 2000, has increased markedly in the past couple of years since I've had the chance to spend more time researching stuff. I know for sure that I wouldn't have been able to create a family tree back to the 1690's without the internet. On the home front, Youtube taught me how to correctly sharpen a chisel; to create scale scenery; produce realistic painted scale models. Then there is the knowledge I have gained about aircraft hardware, fuels, engine operation and so on. Finally I would never have established the world-wide acquaintanceships that I now enjoy via the 'Net.
Pre internet we owner built a house ultimately successfully but with many missteps. Post internet we renovated our house and now we are renotvating our present place. Youtube is a fantastic resource. How the hell do I tile around that corner? What tool can I use for this job? Why doesent my oven work?
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I agree, and it also has liberated commerce (something it was not originally designed for). I was listenting to a radio show here where an Aussie entreprenuer stated the internet has reduced the barriers to entry of a global market so much, that it is cheaper to do that than set up in a local market (i.e. bricks and mortar - or even clicks and mortar).
It certainly has created many opportunities that did not exist before. My son started an indie PC games development company which started as a 2 person operation in Melbourne. Because his market is the whole first world the company became successful. One day he and his business partner decided that they could operate their business from anywhere and so they moved to Wellington NZ. In my own business I am tied pretty much to a geographical area, my customer base is much smaller than his.
In terms of the bad stuff, I suspect some of it was happening anyway, pedophiles networks still existed the difference is now perhaps we are more aware of it. The existence of snuff films is not a new phenomenon, I heard of such things many years ago. Perhaps now the chances of getting caught may be greater than when the method was sending pictures in the post although I have no evidence of that assertion either way.
The internet is a tool just like a hammer most people use it to build something useful and occasionally someone beats someone to death with one. It is easy to trawl through the net and be dismayed at what seems to be a post facts era but I believe that it is early days with this new tool. We will get better at using it.
Personaly I think the good far outweighs the bad.
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The precautionary principle would say we should not allow batteries to proliferate until we understand how the dead ones can be disposed of or recycled at the scale required. Who will pay for that? Yes, a little tongue in cheek, but it could become a problem to dwarf coal sludge dams and nuclear waste. Imagine ten million installations in Australian homes, each say 400kg, recycled every ten years. That’s 400,000 t of highly toxic waste each year. Then scale up to the whole world.
We already have allowed batterires to proliferate, phone and tablet batteries and many more. To compare litheum batteries to Strontium and Cesium etc. is a bit of a stretch.
Quite rightly though the question of the life cycle of large litheum batteries (and small but I guess you are not as concerned about them). This is a common objection people have and fair enough. Imagine if we had held up the proliferation of the mobile phone because at the beginning we weren't sure what would happen to the used batteries? In the early days of the home PC old machines probably did go to land fill but because they contain valuable materials we found ways to recycle.
So what does happen to all of these batteries?
First of all EV batteries are generally exceeding expectations
https://www.engadget.com/2018/04/16/tesla-battery-packs-live-longer/
Last year my son bought a BMW I3 second hand, it was 4 years old. The funny thing is I have so many times by the doubters have told me that the batteries will only last 4 years. As my son says, they come with an 8 year replacement warranty so he is pretty relaxed about it. The real world case is this after 5 years this battery is at about 97% of its original caapcity. I have driven this car many times and it is a delight to drive and cost very little to run and maintain. I wont get to drive this car again as he has bought a Tesla model 3 which I will be very excited to drive.
Although batteries dont last forever, their life is not yet over. When EV batteries degrade to the point when they are no longer viable for a vehichle they still have plenty of life left in stationary applications.
https://greenlight.nl/expert-views/a-second-life-for-old-ev-batteries/?lang=en
https://www.digitaltrends.com/cars/nissan-reborn-light-ev-batteries/
In terms of recycling things are definately happening.
Tesla is developing a so called "closed loop" system https://electrek.co/2019/04/16/tesla-battery-recycling-system/ The need for these EV companies to build enough cars is ample incentive to ensure the raw materials are available.
“A common question we hear is, “What happens to Tesla vehicle battery packs once they reach their end of life?” An important distinction between fossil fuels and lithium-ion batteries as an energy source is that while fossil fuels are extracted and used once, the materials in a lithium-ion battery are recyclable. When petroleum is pumped out of the ground, chemically refined and then burned, it releases harmful emissions into the atmosphere that are not recovered for reuse. Battery materials, in contrast, are refined and put into a cell, and will still remain at the end of their life, when they can be recycled to recover its valuable materials for reuse over and over again.”
The fact is that large lithium batteries are being recycled, sure it is a slow start but as volume increaeses, so will encentive to reuses those valuable materials. China is doing a lot in this area but also other countries.
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There is a report along the lines of what you guys are saying, and that is that solar and wind are cheaper. My only problem is that storage was not mentioned. Gas fired plants for emergency high loads were referred to but only in passing.The trouble with this argument is that I hope to be wrong, because solar and wind suits my politics of independence. But so far the figures don't show the cheapness I want to see.
Dick Smith was lamenting that Australian food was manufactured much cheaper in France and they used Australian uranium in nuclear reactors and had much cheaper power costs than here.
I certainly don't want to see subsidies to build and run nuclear power, but neither do I want to see artificial costs and delays built in. Anyway, the nuclear argument has been lost I reckon. At least until the Chinese begin making cheap and modern reactors.
If you want to read about the economics of storage here is an extensive report Annual update finds renewables are cheapest new-build power - CSIRO full report available as a PDF. This report is quite long and I have not read it yet but I will.
In terms of cheapness, we need to take into account various scenarios. If we factor in climate change it is a no brainer but my understanding is we are reaching or may have reached the point where renewables are cheaper without factoring in climate change.
Annual update finds renewables are cheapest new-build power - CSIRO
"Our data confirms that while existing fossil fuel power plants are competitive due to their sunk capital costs, solar and wind generation technologies are currently the lowest-cost ways to generate electricity for Australia, compared to any other new-build technology.
“At a global level, the investment costs of a wide range of low emission generation technologies are projected to continue to fall, and we found new-build renewable generation to be least cost, including when we add the cost of two or six hours of energy storage to wind and solar.
“This also holds when the cost of fossil generation technology is adjusted for climate policy risk or not."
Critics of renewables seem to assume that the renewables sector has not considered the area of storage. How often does someone say "but what about when the sun doesn't shine or the wind doesn't blow" der never thought of that. Here is a list of storage projects around the world
List of energy storage projects - Wikipedia
I can foresee a time when every house will have its own battery pack interconnected with the grid. As EVs become ubiquitous we will have enormous battery capacity interconnected to by a smart grid.
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Conservative means to conserve things the way they are. In other words, don’t stuff around with the system. Obviously a majority of Australians think that way.
Conserve things the way they are when? Before the Wright brothers? Before Penicillin?
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A nuclear power plant well away from cropping country and big enough to provide power for most of Australia was what I was referring to. Alas it will never happen because we are too stupid to see the benefit. And why could you not recirculate the cooling water?If stored solar and wind could be made cheaper, I would like that but have yet to be convinced that it is possible. The price of electricity here should be the cheapest in the world, not the most expensive.
According to the ACC enquiry environmental costs are not the main driver of power price increases.
The ACCC’s preliminary findings are that, on average across the NEM, a 2015-16 residential bill was $1,524 (excluding GST). This average residential bill was made up of:
- network costs (48 per cent)
- wholesale costs (22 per cent)
- environmental costs (7 per cent)
- retail and other costs (16 per cent)
- retail margins (8 per cent).
As far as nuclear goes, I am not philosophically opposed, I just don't think at this point the figures stack up. Nuclear power plants are not built purely with local expertise money or ownership. The cost of building is enormous and the time required is long. Hinkley Point C
Hinkley Point C nuclear power station - Wikipedia
Certainly not cheap or easy.
By the way this I found this video interesting. It is not hysterically anti-nuclear but does describe the process and problems.
Owners and operators must be responsible for the security and safety for hundreds of years into the future.
- network costs (48 per cent)
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I couldn't lug A 10 litre bottle of water Anywhere
It's called" Convenience".
spacesailor
I just go to the tap, even more convenient
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Check the supermarket price of a bottle of water. ( close to $4. )
Woolworths 10 litres for $4. It pays to shop around. But yes the more expensive water is about the price you say. I can't for the life of me understand why people buy bottled water.
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The climate change debate continues.
in Science and Technology
Posted
I am sure you are aware that NASA does more than build rockets. i am sure you are aware of it's Earth observation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earth_Observing_System JPL is a facilty that mangaged for NASA by Caltec. So you believe NASAs site is a beautifully funded propagander site. I feel you need to expand and this. SoUS government (under Trump) is funding this "propaganda. I think it is fair to ask you to what end? Under Trump I imagine that the surest path to more funding would be to support Trump's position on climate change ie give us another few billion and we will produce propaganda that supports your case.
So Peter what other sites are propaganda? I am guessing CSIRO and Bom as well as Australian Institute of Physics the list is too long to reproduce here. I guess the geological world may provide you with some support because of course geologists are the natural experts when it comes to the physics of the atmosphere however it seems like most geological bodies accept the science.
I guess you believe BHP are drinkers of Koolaide? https://www.bhp.com/media-and-insights/reports-and-presentations/2019/07/evolving-our-approach-to-climate-change
Or perhaps Shell? Shell oil says it will quit a lobbying group that opposes global climate goals
As for Russia and China, I cannot comment on what an "unnamed spokesman" said without out knowing who they are and what exactly they said. I do note however that both Russia and China are signatories to the Kyoto agreement and the Paris agreement.
The term drinking the Koolaide infers that you think my positions is a little crazy. I would suggest that it is a lot more difficult to support your position. Your position is contrary to the majority of the scientific community.
I did go back a read this whole thread and in our interactions I did pose many questions which mostly you have not addressed. I have always posted detailed (I am sure many would say tedious) answers to your questions.