The climate change debate continues.

[pmccarthy]

Snowy hydro now $42 billion! Nothing mor needs saying.

[old man emu]

14 hours ago, facthunter said:

Not all ores are oxides. Nev

 

I was thinking about Nev's comment and I began to list all the different things that contain oxygen. Things like water and DNA and carbohydrates and proteins and so on. The amount of oxygen in free air is easily calculated, but what about all the other places oxygen hides? Food for thought, if you want a feed.

[facthunter]

There are Mixtures and compounds. When it's a Compound you can't just squeeze it and get water out. nev

[old man emu]

10 minutes ago, facthunter said:

When it's a Compound you can't just squeeze it and get water out.

I agee. The point I am trying to make is that there is much more oxygen present on Earth than the 21% in free air. 

[facthunter]

But it's not available to DO as Oxygen does, so it's purely academic.. nev

[Siso]

Why don't we heat them to high temperatures here!

[facthunter]

That wouldn't do much for your efforts. Nev

[onetrack]

Quote

Why don't we heat them to high temperatures here!

Because no-one can produce an economically sound, profitable business case, for doing so, and thereby gain the necessary funding to carry the process out.

 

In addition, Australia has a low level of available suitable labour for major projects such as you propose - and especially, cheap labour.

[Siso]

because we care more about our enviromental and worker conditions then other countrys.

[pmccarthy]

There is a lot of oxygen tied up in CO2. Trees release it as they sequester the carbon.

[facthunter]

The ones we haven't YET cut down and it can Never correct for what we use in fossil fuel Burning. Deserts are  growing. Jungles and Rainforests  are receding. Nev

[pmccarthy]

Hmm, I'm not sure about that. The Sahara has shrunk by about 8% in the last 20 years due to increased rainfall and greening programmes. In Asia jungles and rainforests have mainly been lost to plantations of oil palms, a lot of that is used to produce biofuel to replace fossil fuels. In South America it is agricultural expansion, logging practices, infrastructure development, and illegal mining. In Australia in the last decade, clearing for wind farms has had a significant impact.

[onetrack]

Clearing for suburban developments and clearing for minesites and minesite access roads and facilities also takes up a substantial majority of the level of native vegetation clearing going on.

Farmland in W.A. has been subject to highly restrictive clearing bans since 1985. In the 1960's, the catchwords of W.A.'s conservative politicians were, "we're aiming at clearing a million acres a year!".

We've gone from one extreme to the other as regards farm clearing, but there's only minimal restrictions on clearing for roads and subdivisions.

 

 

[facthunter]

Erosion by wind and water continues to degrade the soil in this country Plus widespread salinity caused by bad Irrigation Methods. Add the effect of rabbits Cane toads and imported Weeds and there's nothing at all to be proud of, here. Our top soils are thin and Low in carbon. Superphospate increases  acidity (lower Ph) and native gums do not like it. Nev.

[old man emu]

And yet Australia possesses 17% of the World's forest.

[facthunter]

I don't now what quality the Alpine forest is Now because of the too frequent bushfires. There's a lot of Plantation  "Radiata"pine which in treated form is used for a Lot of House frames. America's forest quality leaves ours for dead.  Cedar is all but gone. Silky oak  coachwood, etc also. Pin Oak makes a good timber. A lot was planted in Armadale in NSW I have a few Mature ones here on my block that I planted. They drop a lot of leaves and I am 1500 ft above sea Level. at 36 degrees Lat, so they thrive.  No diseases and they don't drop branches, IF you prune them correctly there's no sign of where the Branch was left in the Bark..  Nev

[old man emu]

10 minutes ago, facthunter said:

I don't now what quality the Alpine forest is Now because of the too frequent bushfires.

As I said, I drove down to Sydney last week. For most of the way from Mudgee to Mount Victoria in the Blue Mountains the dead trunks of thousands of trees destroyed by bushfires in 2019 stand as ghostly reminders of the ferocity of our bushfires. While most of the damage was done to native forest, there are hectares and hectares of pine tree trunks marking to path of the fires.

[randomx]

And sadly the wildlife , which we seem hell bent of wiping out too.

[Siso]

On 26/04/2026 at 10:08 AM, onetrack said:

This is the biggest BS statement ever, one that ignores basic chemistry, and which is typical of Trump/MAGA scientific ignorance. A lot of minerals are made up of compounds, not just elements. Once you combine elements, or compounds of elements into other compounds, you get entirely new compounds, which have virtually no properties recognisable from the original elements or compounds.

 

Oxygen is a fundamental element that only comprises 21% of the Earth's air. 78% of our air is Nitrogen, another fundamental element. The other 1% is a range of minority gases. 

Hematite, the most common form of our iron exports is an Iron Oxide, and there are quite a number of Iron Oxide forms, all possessing different qualities and abilities.

 

These Iron Oxides are largely stable until heated to high temperatures, or become involved in chemical reactions. The bottom line is, Hematite is approximately 65% iron content and the Oxygen content of Hematite would be extremely low on a weight-comparison basis, so your argument that we are exporting air simply doesn't hold up to rigorous chemical examination.

 

I don't know what Trump has to do with this, or the amount of O2 in the atmosphere. After googling it, it appears that 30% of the weight of the ore is o2. This means for every 100,000 tonnes of ore we send overseas the ships are displacing 30,000 tonnes of o2. This weight is how much extra water the ship needs to be displacing so it is quite a significant number burning a lot more bunker oil. These ships carry between 180,000 and 400,000 tones of ore by the looks of it. The useful part of the ore is the iron!

[facthunter]

To turn the Ore into Fe you need Coal and Lime in gigantic fire brick lined Blast furnaces. We shut our  Facilities to do this down in Newcastle and Port Kembla years ago. Cruise ships use a lot of Bunker oil also as do Coal and Gas (and everything else) transporting ships.  Nev

[Siso]

 Be better for global emissions and Australia if we processed here though. Put some of the governments emissions  subsidies into building more furnaces. They won't because of the perception that it is dirtier even though we get told its a global problem.

 

You are right cruise ships burn bunker oil, fail to see what this has to do with steel production. that we can and have done here before.

Edited 1 hour ago by Siso