flying dog Posted March 4, 2015 Share Posted March 4, 2015 On the "killing of birds". I can't give links, but have seen the show QI. They mentioned this and it is the local pressure pulses which kill small "birds" like bats because it destroys their lungs. I am sure youtube and a quick search can yield information. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kyle Communications Posted March 4, 2015 Share Posted March 4, 2015 SA has privatised its power network, that's how capitalism works: you find something people can't live without and you gouge them as hard as you can.http://www.adelaidenow.com.au/news/south-australia/etsa-sale-cost-south-australia-2b-as-prices-soar-says-damning-report-on-privatisation/story-fnl3k6uz-1226833529725 Yes its called Bigpond 1 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
flying dog Posted March 4, 2015 Share Posted March 4, 2015 And what is going to happen here (NSW) with the state elections just around the corner an the "sell off" of the wires and poles of the electricity network? I wonder? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kasper Posted March 4, 2015 Share Posted March 4, 2015 And what is going to happen here (NSW) with the state elections just around the corner an the "sell off" of the wires and poles of the electricity network? I wonder? Well when you live in the countryside in NSW it might be nice to see a change from current ... ask for the cost of connecting electric to your new housesite in a NSW village ... 1 pole and wire was the additional infrastucture .... BUT they required me to replace their existing infrastructure that is too low spec at 100% my costs = a new transformer for the village - over $35,000 to connect ... before I turn on an actual electrical supplier. Seems solar and battery is going to win consistently out here with that sort of pricing mechanism ... even with allowance for system renewals and battery life the roof is getting some panels. 1 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fly_tornado Posted March 4, 2015 Share Posted March 4, 2015 And what is going to happen here (NSW) with the state elections just around the corner an the "sell off" of the wires and poles of the electricity network? I wonder? Bushfires due to lack of maintenance Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jetjr Posted March 4, 2015 Share Posted March 4, 2015 Cheaper overheads as is seen in vic and sa where its privitised Interesting unions are serious investors in the operating lessors Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Marty_d Posted March 4, 2015 Share Posted March 4, 2015 Hold on a minute... Cheaper overheads as is seen in vic and sa where its privitised yet SA has the greatest number, you can see the effect on electricity prices here So privatizing lowers operating costs but INCREASES price to the consumer? How can this be?? Perhaps that's how capitalism works: you find something people can't live without and you gouge them as hard as you can. is the answer. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jetjr Posted March 4, 2015 Share Posted March 4, 2015 Electricity prices have risen everywhere dramatically States where its privatised less than elsewhere As far as wind and solar go they actually dont help reduce costs Base load generators still need to have full capacity and if they are producing less the cost per mwhr goes up. Non solar power gets dearer AND we pay subsidy to fund RTS program Now if people fitting solar were forced to get off the main grid or at least have limits placed on usage, when and how much, this might help the situation Wind and solar need subsidy necause we have cheap coal Hydro only works where you have water AT HEIGHT, most of Aus is too flat and dry Nuclear is an option, we are one of a few who dont use it Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gnarly Gnu Posted March 4, 2015 Share Posted March 4, 2015 So privatizing lowers operating costs but INCREASES price to the consumer? How can this be?? Not to drift further off topic but the SA power network privatisation is a disaster* - thanks to the imbecile Liberals at the time**. The purchaser has a contract with taxpayer guaranteed him a min 10% ROI going forward - far out, who wouldn't sign up for a deal like that? So we now have amongst the worlds most expensive electricity*** due to a combination of this fact and huge subsidies to windfarms / Green RET scams. * And I'm very much pro-privatisation - but clearly it needs to be a competitive privatisation format with a number of private players competing. Would seem obvious to most. Well orgaised privatisation is great, always better than gov run. ** We have the Evil party and the Stupid party (and yes folk that jump between the two) in reality it doesn't matter which you end up with. One receives more votes but we still get the other, no big deal as they are both equal hopeless. *** In SA up to 50c kW/H. For comparison in the USA around 10c, in Canada around 7c.... guess where business isn't growing. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Happyflyer Posted March 4, 2015 Share Posted March 4, 2015 So I assume from that , Wind Turbines are over 500 feet AGL. Your assumption is wrong but if you look at the picture and use your imagination you might see that I might have been 500 ft AGL 1000 metres down wind. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bexrbetter Posted March 4, 2015 Share Posted March 4, 2015 thanks to the imbecile Liberals at the time**. The Governments of Oz, State and National, change over at too regular an interval to blame either Party. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Geoff13 Posted March 4, 2015 Share Posted March 4, 2015 Looking at the picture I would think it would be difficult to determine whther the turbulance was caused by the wind generators or the hills. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Marty_d Posted March 4, 2015 Share Posted March 4, 2015 Not to drift further off topic but the SA power network privatisation is a disaster* - thanks to the imbecile Liberals at the time**. The purchaser has a contract with taxpayer guaranteed him a min 10% ROI going forward - far out, who wouldn't sign up for a deal like that? So we now have amongst the worlds most expensive electricity*** due to a combination of this fact and huge subsidies to windfarms / Green RET scams.* And I'm very much pro-privatisation - but clearly it needs to be a competitive privatisation format with a number of private players competing. Would seem obvious to most. Well orgaised privatisation is great, always better than gov run. ** We have the Evil party and the Stupid party (and yes folk that jump between the two) in reality it doesn't matter which you end up with. One receives more votes but we still get the other, no big deal as they are both equal hopeless. *** In SA up to 50c kW/H. For comparison in the USA around 10c, in Canada around 7c.... guess where business isn't growing. It wouldn't matter if coal fired electricity cost 1c/kW/H. It's not the price that matters, it's the effect. Whether or not you believe it, science has proven that global warming has been caused by human activity since the industrial revolution. The greatest problem area contributing to global warming is carbon dioxide produced by coal-fired power stations. That, Gnu, is a fact. For all the extra cost of sustainable energy sources and the fact that they need to be subsidised at the moment, they and nuclear are the only viable solutions into the future. Until fission is achieved (which will be a game-changer), we are going to have to bear some pain in the hip pocket in order to develop these technologies until they become cost effective in their own right. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gnarly Gnu Posted March 4, 2015 Share Posted March 4, 2015 we are going to have to bear some pain in the hip pocket in order to develop these technologies until they become cost effective in their own right. No, YOU are going to bear some pain in YOUR hip pocket. I don't ascribe to your warmy religion therefore I don't wish to contribute cash to it. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Marty_d Posted March 4, 2015 Share Posted March 4, 2015 Sorry Gnu, I forgot you prefer fantasy to facts. By all means, write to the government and let them know you'll be reducing your tax contribution, I'll be interested to see the effect of that. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fly_tornado Posted March 4, 2015 Share Posted March 4, 2015 GNu I have heard that the wind farms interfere with the governments x-ray machines reading your thoughts. 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Old Koreelah Posted March 4, 2015 Share Posted March 4, 2015 Any of you want to do the maths on the installation and maintenance costs compared to what they produce.They wouldn't exist without subsidies. If you want clean, economically viable energy, hydro is it. Do the maths on the installation and maintenance costs of hydro power plants (and the dams they depend on). Would Australian governments build anything like the Snowy Mountain Scheme today? Never. It would be uneconomic in the short terms dominating their policy thinking, nor would private investors take on such a mammoth project. What is a subsidy? Coal and other fossil fuels have their subsidies buried by clever accounting. 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
winsor68 Posted March 4, 2015 Share Posted March 4, 2015 Perhaps I didn't make that point clear; SA with the highest proportion of wind turbines in the country also has the highest electricity prices, in fact on the edge of being the highest in the world. Not the consumer and not the environment.... exactly who is benefiting here? Why aren't they viable without taxpayer subsidies?Anyway, back on topic yes watch the downwind turbulence, probably don't aim at getting that close if you have the option. Why isn't coal viable without taxpayer subsidies? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gnarly Gnu Posted March 4, 2015 Share Posted March 4, 2015 What is a subsidy? Coal and other fossil fuels have their subsidies buried by clever accounting. What are these subsidies and what is this clever accounting? Is the latter illegal and if so have you notified the ATO? Or is it instead perfectly legal tax minimisation that all Australian income earning individuals and businesses do (i.e. claim deductions)? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jetjr Posted March 4, 2015 Share Posted March 4, 2015 Doubt there much debate coal generates more tax and income than it takes from taxpayers and still makes cheapest power available The trouble with the GW argument is that the coal WILL be used, just in places who cant afford alternatives Unless you want to try telling Billions of people they cant have electricity for the first time because it the Right thing to do. If we decide to spend extra money on alternative energy production how does that help if the coal is still beong used? Many overestimate how much we can spend taking high moral ground on a lot of issues. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Old Koreelah Posted March 4, 2015 Share Posted March 4, 2015 What are these subsidies and what is this clever accounting? Is the latter illegal and if so have you notified the ATO? Or is it instead perfectly legal tax minimisation that all Australian income earning individuals and businesses do (i.e. claim deductions)? These perks are legal GG, but no, they're not available to you or I. Little people like us don't contribute enough election funds to big political parties. http://paidtopollute.org.au/ptp-fossil-fuel-subsidies http://www.acfonline.org.au/be-informed/climate-change/fossil-fuel-subsidies http://www.theguardian.com/environment/southern-crossroads/2014/feb/02/fossil-fuel-subsidies-tony-abbott-spc-ardmona-corporate-welfare http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2014-11-12/fossil-fuels-with-550-billion-in-subsidy-hurt-renewables http://priceofoil.org/fossil-fuel-subsidies/ 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Marty_d Posted March 4, 2015 Share Posted March 4, 2015 Doubt there much debate coal generates more tax and income than it takes from taxpayers and still makes cheapest power availableThe trouble with the GW argument is that the coal WILL be used, just in places who cant afford alternatives Unless you want to try telling Billions of people they cant have electricity for the first time because it the Right thing to do. If we decide to spend extra money on alternative energy production how does that help if the coal is still beong used? Many overestimate how much we can spend taking high moral ground on a lot of issues. Because the more we use a technology, the cheaper and more efficient production becomes. My first PC cost $500 in 1984 which is about $1200 in today's terms. It had 16k of internal RAM and required the user to program in BASIC to run it. Look at the computing power you can buy for $1200 today. First plasma TV I saw on the shelf was priced at $40,000. Now every bogan in the country can afford one. If richer countries like ours (yes, despite what Joe Hockey says we are a rich country) trailblazes the way in developing and uptaking these technologies then they will get more economically viable to the extent that they are affordable in comparison to coal. Besides, take a walk in Delhi or Beijing and sniff the air, these countries know they have to reduce pollution already. If you're talking about rural villages in Africa wanting electricity, it makes more sense to use a combination of renewables right near the village instead of a distributed grid anyway. Many developing countries leapfrog technology - for example every bugger in Africa has a mobile phone so they don't need to develop landlines in many countries. 1 1 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dutchroll Posted March 4, 2015 Share Posted March 4, 2015 What are these subsidies and what is this clever accounting? Is the latter illegal and if so have you notified the ATO? Or is it instead perfectly legal tax minimisation that all Australian income earning individuals and businesses do (i.e. claim deductions)? Fuel Tax Credit Scheme - applies when you use diesel fuel for transport on non-public roads. Waives the diesel fuel excise. Government cost: $5.8 billion last year. Main Benefactor: Mining industry. Accelerated depreciation (statutory effective life caps) - Government cost: $1.7 billion last year. Main benefactor: Oil, gas, petroleum extraction industries. Concessional excise rates, AVGAS and AVTUR - Government cost: $1 billion last year. Main benefactor: aviation fuel industry. You're talking nearly $10 billion of subsidies to fossil fuel industries and projected to be well over that by 2017. Makes solar and wind subsidies look a bit piddly really, doesn't it? 1 2 1 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gnarly Gnu Posted March 4, 2015 Share Posted March 4, 2015 These are not subsidies at all but legitimate work expense claims which I also use (except for aviation fuel). Fuel excise is for road construction and maintenance, equipment that never uses a public road doesn't have to pay it. These items don't 'cost' the government anything as the government had no cost or claim to that income to start with, they are legitimate expenses to business. If you claim work expenses when you prepare your income tax return you are doing the same. 1 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fly_tornado Posted March 4, 2015 Share Posted March 4, 2015 GNu, apparently wind farms so badly interfere with the guvamint's xray machines they are banned building them near cities. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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