kgwilson

25 million panels & 3000 wind turbines on 15,000 sq km is able to produce more than the current output from everything we have now.

Trevor Jacobs is a complete idiot. This has been a long time coming. He is lucky he only got 6 months.

The problem in Australia is that each State has different laws so what is a requirement in one State in not a consideration in another.

I don't think there is an age limit for a CASA medical. I read of a 90 something year old still flying Tiger moths in the Melbourne area & the CFI at Coffs was still training at age 90, and he smoked like Chimney. That's (lung cancer) what got him in the end.

Whether windmills will withstand a cyclone or not doesn't matter. There are none in Australia. We do have quite a few wind turbines though and as far as I know none are actually in cyclone zones. The owners of Eraring, Australias biggest coal fired power plant, Origin refused a takeover offer due to a major Superannuation investor tipping the vote. Eraring is losing origin a fortune as like all coal plants it has to run pretty much flat out all the time and during the day green energy from solar and wind has reduced the spot price so much it sometimes goes negative. The price of coal is hastening its own demise as it cannot hope to compete with cheap renewable energy. I reckon that if Origin invested heavily in huge battery storage close to Eraring it would be able to use the existing infrastructure both to store cheap renewable energy during the day and supply it at night.

Brendan, your position is quite clear and I respect that. I visited Calder Hall, the worlds first Nuclear Power Station in Cumbria in the 70s. It took 3 years to build & was originally built to produce plutonium for nuclear warheads. It was shut down in 2005 and full decommissioning will not be complete till 2027 when radiation shielding is completed and it will remain like this forever. 3 years to build, 22 years to decommission and 3000 years before the waste decays to its half life and no-one can go near it for that time. The UK has 7 Nuclear submarines that have been decommissioned & they are stored in Rosyth dock in Fife & another 14 in Devonport waiting for someone to figure out how to get rid of the nuclear waste. Locals are very unhappy about this and the official line is progress is being made but they have been there for years with no end date in sight. The problem is worse in the USA & in Russia they don't care. Do you really want a similar situation here in Australia?

Nuclear fission reactors are now old technology. No-one is building them any more as the capital expenditure, operational risk, timeframe to build, operational cost, disposal of waste cost, water supply required, as well as opposition from the populace are all far too high. None of the so called new technology has been proven in practice yet. Rolls Royce have a modular small reactor that will power a submarine for 30 years but it won't run even a small town & the sub has all the cooling water it needs. Scaling such things presents usually far more problems than they resolve. Now if you are talking Nuclear Fusion I am all for it and we already have it. It is just 150 million km away & provides us with more energy in a day than we will ever need in a lifetime and it is called the sun. There is a proposal to set up around 15,000 sq km of solar with 25 million panels and and 3000 wind turbines somewhere around Esperance in WA which would produce more energy than all of the current combined coal and renewable energy along the Eastern seaboard combined and use a lot of this energy to produce 3.5 million tonnes of green hydrogen a year. A MOU has been signed by WA & Korea Electric Power Corporation. It is a 20 year project, will employ thousands and there is no waste or fallout.

I doubt that many owners of amateur built aircraft whether they are GA or RA registered, have bothered to get an approval. The only time it will be required is if you crash into someones house and there is an investigation. Many aerodromes controlled and uncontrolled are close to populous areas and a lot have approach paths over populous areas. I have never heard of a prosecution because an aircraft did not have an approval to fly over populous areas.

It was a pretty lame goose. That's the only flight it ever made & that was its maximum altitude.

You don't. I just thought you may be interested to find that solar and agriculture can co-exist productively together. In this particular instance the owner has decided not to do this. Possibly this is due to the fact that it would cost a bit more to raise the panels higher or most likely that the income from solar is pretty much guaranteed whereas prices for meat swing wildly and getting worse with the large weather changes we have been seeing in the past few years.

Studies have already been done. Crops are sown & harvested and stock are quite happily grazing under and around solar farms. Google it. There are heaps of real world examples in Australiua

It doesn't matter if you provide real world experience, anyone who has pre conceived ideas will believe whatever supports those. The daily mail article was clearly false & I said so & especially the 31/2 hours of charging time I subscribe to the MG EVs community forum and on return from Noosa to home in Corindi Beach I posted the actual stats for the return trip. "Topped up at the Evie charger about 50 meters from where I was staying in Noosaville last night while I had dinner & left at lunch time today with 96% charge. I needed a pee at Chinderah but carried on to Ballina where there is a BP pulse 75kW charger. SOC was about 19% & by the time I'd had a comfort stop & snack it had charged up to 80% & I left for home. "I set the car on ECO, OPD & LKA off with the Aircon on all the way. Total distance was 491 km & 15.8 kWh/100km. I'd say 80% of the trip was at 110 km/h with a couple of slow road works for 5-6km & the rest 100km/h other than the starts & stops. 35% SOC when I arrived home."

The figures I quoted are not sales talk. That comes from actual testing. Also a bloke just around the corner has an Ioniq5. I haven't spoken to him about it but he is well aware of this sort of rubbish. The Daily Mail and other UK based tabloids have been rubbishing EVs for years and is largely why Fully Charged created their "Stop Burning Stuff" web site to debunk these false claims and narratives. Social Media and Youtube is full of it. The claims are almost all just opinion with no evidence to back them up. Just like what an orange ex president does all the time.

I don't need to look at the social media baying hound mob to realise that the person who posted this has no idea about charging an EV. The timeframes provides show this person was likely charging to 100% which is the dumbest thing to do. Charging especially with fast chargers slows down dramatically as the battery gets past 80%. I assume the battery uses NMC technology. This is the most common with highest energy density.The last 10% will take as long as the first 60% if not longer. It all depends on the battery management software. 10% to 80% will take about 18 minutes in an Ioniq 5 and a 5 minute charge at a fast charger will provide 100km of range in 5 minutes. So what was this idiot doing charging for 3 1/2 hours. Just after a sensational headline to appeal to ICE addicts and get clicks. So if they had started with 100%, all they would need is 2 x 20 minute charges on the way. Only just enough time to have a couple of quick toilet and food breaks.

What do you expect from the Daily Mail? My 1100km trip cost me $53.00. One charge at 30c (50kW charger Helensvale), one at 50c (50kW destination charger Noosa) & one at 55c (75kW charger Ballina). At Noosa the charger was next to the hotel so I topped up to 100% while at Dinner. I had 100km local travel around Noosa - Coolum The other 2 were 20 minute charges one on the way there & 1 on the way back. The same time as I would normally stop for a bite. I left home with 100% which I pay 19.5c/kWH for & got back with 35% left so add another $7.80 so $61.00 total. I would fill the old car twice on that trip so $236.00 at $2.00 a litre so allowing for fuel left when I got back home the cost in fuel alone is about $190.00 to $200.00. Then of course very low maintenance and absolutely zero emissions. Then daily driving is all at my home off peak rate. I only have a small solar system so don't charge during the day. If I had an 8kW system (pretty average size these days) I'd charge during the day as my wall charger is 7kW & I charge from about 10% to 80% once or twice a week between 11pm & 5am. None of this is rocket science but there are some dumb people out there. Spend about 5k on a decent solar system & running costs are virtually zero for daily running once the payback is complete. What is not to like about that.

Hybrid maintenance is somewhat higher than pure ICE largely due to the complexity of the combination of drive trains. The fire risk is also 300% higher than pure ICE. At this point they are a good option for many who are obsessed with range. I had one stop on each of my 500km journeys for 20 minutes to top up the charge. This was on fast DC (50-75kW) chargers and not 350kW superchargers which would have chopped the charge time in half. I cruised at 110kmh most of the way. Time to destination was no different than in my old ICE car. There is so much less stress in the EV. I don't know if that is due to no vibration or noise from the engine or what but I felt fresher after 400km than I felt previously. As an EV owner I am of course biased but I have been bitten & am now smitten.

Most caravanners spend a large amount on the assets and a large amount of fuel. Most say it is the lifestyle that counts. For me I'd rather get there fresh with someone else doing all the work & spend the money on 5 star accommodation & hire something to get around in or just get taxis & buses. I can do this once or twice a year for less than the depreciation on the giant caravan & 4WD let alone maintenance & fuel.

Servicing is once every 2 years or 40,000km & that is about $250.00. The brake fluid is replaced every 2 years as well as the A/C filter. Other than that the service book has lots of Check statements. In year 4, 8 etc the cost is $900.00. What they do for that I don't know other than replace the transmission and battery coolant as well as the brake fluid. The book justs has a lot of Check statements again. It sounds like a rip off to me given Teslas require nothing. If you don't do it you void the 7 year warranty & the free roadside assist, so I guess I only need to do it once after 4 years & then find a good EV service outfit. I am assuming by then there will be a lot more than there are now. When I took it back for the free 1000km check the service people didn't even know how to start the car so I spent a few minutes showing them a bunch of things.

I am not saying that everyone who doesn't have an EV can get stuffed at all. I am saying that we need to adapt our way of living to reduce using fossil fuel use or get to a tipping point where change is unable to be reversed for hundreds or thousands of years. With all the climate talks etc over the past 20 years the insatiable appetite of the human race has for consumption has pushed emissions higher despite all the empty promises. Known oil reserves will only last another 45 years at current consumption. Australia has an obsession with large cars. In the last 20 years they have grown bigger every year with the SUV sector now easily the most popular. A large percentage of the huge 4WD SUVs never get off the tarmac & clog the already congested city roads. Our car culture is very America centric as the government paid Ford & GM to keep large car manufacturing going here for over 50 years. Look what happened when the European 2 litre saloon car class arrived on the racing scene. The V8s weren't competitive so the 2 lites were banned & the V8 supercar racing is still hugely popular. Transport is only one part of this. Buring coal to generate electricity is the worst part. Why should I care, I'll be dead before everything turns completely to custard. I would rather be part of the solution, if there is one rather than keep my head in the sand and continue to be part of the problem.

Well my EV has a 64kWH battery & cost 50k, has a 450km range & will get me 400 km at 110kmH. It just did 3 weeks ago. It has a 7 year unlimited km warranty & the first service is at 40,000 km. CATL who make the battery say with appropriate battery management it should last about 1 million km. Battery management software is built in to the car so that's easy. If you have 6-8 kW rooftop solar the running costs can be reduced to a fraction of the grid price, less than 20c a litre of petrol equivalent. Add to that the quiet comfortable ride and excellent driving dynamics. The percentage of cars driving on main highways is tiny. Once you are out of the city there are not many & I am talking Pacific Highway between Coffs & Brisbane. This all changes at holiday time but I avoid this like the plague. Toilets overflowing and stinking of urine/excrement, queues at pumps and food outlets. But for most travellers going on holiday, they leave with 100% charge & get to their destination & just use the granny charger plugged in to a standard wall socket overnight. The problem lies with successive governments. Australia has the highest uptake of rooftop solar in the world and one of the the lowest EV percentage though that is changing. In 2022 EVs made up only 1.8% of new vehicles sold This year by the end of September that had jumped to nearly 9%. Also Australia is one of only 2 countries without an emissions standard & we share that unenviable title with Russia. This means car companies can dump their dirtiest cars here at very cheap prices because they can't sell them anywhere else. We have to stop burning stuff if we are to survive. The planet won't care that we have used all the resources it took 4.5 billion years to generate in 3-400 years. It will continue around the sun for billions of years to come without us.

I lived in London from 1973 to 75 a city of around 8 million people at the time. Most people didn't own a car. There was no need. There was a tube station or several in every suburb and in peak times there was a bus every couple of minutes. In Australia we have become addicted to cars and have failed to build decent public transport and continue to build more and more motorways while everyone buys more cars. Sydney is an absolute nightmare to get anywhere. Now the newly opened Rozelle tunnel complex to connect everywhere with everywhere else is a total initial disaster. It will eventually work but won't resolve the problem as more and more cars clog the streets until our addiction to private transport changes. That won't happen any time soon. certainly not in my lifetime.

Hybrids are currently very popular mostly by people who realise the EV revolution is coming even though it is in reality already here but suffer from range anxiety. Sure there are not many chargers in the outback but what percentage of vehicle owners are going out there? This is being overcome as we write. A company in Darwin is in the process of building transportable Charging stations to remote locations. They have a small batch of solar panels and a big battery to store the electricity and 4 to 6 charging bays. This is done at a fraction of the cost of building a Petrol/Diesel station in the outback and of course the fuel does not have to be transported by huge tankers for thousands of kilometres. As the sunniest place on the planet Australia is the perfect place for such infrastructure of the future.

You can argue all you like but ICE cars running on fossil fuels are in the twilight of their existence. They have served us well for 100 years and are now very refined but they are being superceded very rapidly. They now have so much electronic equipment in them and electric everything including everything that keeps the ICE engine running except the fuel they use, that they are electric except for motive power. EVs have all this equipment as well but also a clean and almost silent electric motor or 2, some even 3. Yes they cost more. The battery is typically 40% of the cost of the vehicle but they produce zero emissions and the motor only has one moving part plus bearings. There have been numerous studies that show the total cost of ownership over the expected life of the car is considerably less that the equivalent ICE car. Toyota has been downplaying the EV revolution and losing. China is about to overtake Japan as the worlds largest car exporter and the Tesla Model Y is the largest selling car in the world knocking the Toyota Corolla of the perch it has held for many years. 40% of Chinas car production is now pure EV. Toyota keeps talking about its revolutionary solid state battery but the delivery date keeps getting put back every time they make an announcement. The reports circulating about the emissions from EV production have all been debunked. ALL EV batteries are recylable and ALL the rare metals used are recoverable. To date only crash damaged batteries are being recycled. Those deemed to be no longer viable for running a car are sold for use as energy storage in commercial and domestic properties. There are also thousands of old Teslas with up to 800,000km on the clock still on their original battery. Also in a desperate move Toyota has announced that it will be producing 10 new EVs by 2026. They are now so far behind the 8 ball they may never catch up. UK based business & Youtube channel, Fully Charged has launched a spinoff business called Stop Burning Stuff (Stop BS) to expose the myths about EVs which are being championed by the baying right wing media. I made the leap 3 months ago & bought a new MG4 Essence 64 (UK car of the year 2023 & Carsales Australia Car of the Year 2023 plus 15 other major awards). I'll never go back to ICE. Quiet, comfortable, effortless power (EV torque is instant & dramatic) fantastic to drive & I never need a petrol station. I charge at home on off peak power or solar during the day. I've been on one 1100km road trip & did 3 topups at fast chargers. Spent about 20 minutes at 2 which was only just enough time to get a snack & use the dunny. The other was by the hotel & I had dinner & the battery was at 100% when I finished. Total cost $53.00. My first service is in 2 years or 40,000km when the A/C filter is replaced, Brake fluid replaced & running gear, cooling fluid etc checked. Cost a bit over $250.00 Electric is the future Now. Hydrogen may supplement this but currently storage and production are expensive and difficult.

I had a ritual and I wrote on my flight log "Change tanks every 1/2 hour" and yellow highlighted it & I put the time in when I did it. It didn't have to be that often but that was just a personal thing & kept the weight balanced as well. Always worked for me.

Jacobs engine brakes may be efficient on large trucks but are so noisy they are banned in towns and cities. One pedal driving in my EV requires hardly any braking at all. In fact in the handbook they recommend using the brakes occasionally to prevent them rusting and pitting. After 100,000 miles (160,000 km) in 2 years an EV wagon used as an industrial work vehicle showed no brake pad wear at all https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kj7fJ5JI-yI and the battery will outlast the rest of the car. Just look at the Tesla high mileage club & you will see Teslas with 200,000 to 500,000 miles & many of these on older battery technology. And of course the largest selling car in the world is the Tesla model Y. All this will have a beneficial effect on electrically powered aircraft. Weight is the only archilles heel.