Adelaide in for a storm!

[Flying Binghi]

Via Ultralights:
Actually, $0.396 tax goes straight into federal consolidated revenue, not roads, yet only 1% of fuel taxes are actually spent on road infrastructure, or $0.09 from every $0.40 collected according to other sources(http://www.mynrma.com.au/blog/2014/0...8533026)(UNDER THE PUMP: Where the government is really spending your petrol taxes)
as for licence and rego fees, $0 of that goes into roads, the never ending argument against cyclists has proven that, all of that goes straight to the states consolidated revenue, so based on those facts, my EV, weighing more than your average SUV, pays more in rego taxes, so, yes, im paying my fair share considering most road funding come from general revenue payed by all taxpayers in the country, EV's cost more, so pay more stamp duty, and more GST, and possibly luxury car tax,
but if you really want to get down to it, i pay road taxes on the Unleaded fuel i burn in the air.. after looking at the figures now, i might just apply for a rebate. as my aircraft doesnt use roads. and no, the NSW govt doesnt have a 3x3 fuel levy either
(Fuel Tax Inquiry - Government Submissions)
So, the only subsidy i could really take advantage of is the Huge subsidies given to the Coal industry to provide the power to charge the car, (if i wasnt using Solar or renewables) but hey, lets attack EV's because they apparently pay less road tax, and encourage people keeping cars that keep pumping out more poisonous gasses that kill 10's of thousands of people every year, and contributes to a massive health care bill. (paid by taxpayers)
as a test, pick 2 cars, one an EV, one the most fuel efficient petrol car on earth, put both in a sealed room, and choose one to spend a day inside with the engine running, which would you choose to spend a day sealed inside with?

Funny how the very small proportion of EV's on the roads are getting the blame for the reduced fuel tax revenues, when, over the past decade, most cars are twice as efficient now than they were, therefore reducing revenue by the same percentage, so, yeah, blame the 1% of cars on the road for that one.

and not only that, EVs can be used to help balance power grids, and provide power in times of unreliable power generation, but lets abandon that idea as well, because, less road tax!

and as for the argument, "your just moving emissions from the tailpipe to the power station"... well,

Only 1%.... Hmmm...

At the end of the day, how-ever yer want to spin it and however much wordage yer use, us petrol/diesel road users still pay a 'tax' for road usage that the electric cars don't pay. So a subsidy by any other name..

Ultralights, what subsidies do the coal industry receive ? Considering coal is about 13% of our exports l'm a little mystified here. Coal mining also contributes to Oz aviation in a big way, so tell us more about these subsidies.




.

[Brian Abraham]

tell us more about these subsidies

Might be referring to not paying diesel tax.

[Ultralights]

Add to that that coal produces more considerably carbon dioxide per Kw of energy extracted than gasoline:
https://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.cfm?id=73&t=11
And that between 5-10% of electrical energy is lost in transmission
And more still in generation (three energy conversions: coal to heat, heat to kinetic, kinetic to electric)
and they start to look the same.

Yes, correct, but you are forgetting something,
the cost to get the oil from the ground to your car.. to produce a fuel, that is 70%wasted as heat via an exhaust pipe and engine block heating.

Coal,-- mined,---- transported------ burned---- electricity----car.
Oil, -- drilled,--- shipped,---- refined (using huge amounts of coal produced electricity)--- transported again---- stored---- pumped into car, 70% wasted as heat.

so, whats the carbon footprint comparison of both these process to get energy into a car?

so what will happen when all cars are taxed based on mileage travelled per year? and the old dinosaur powered cars are still taxed for the fuel they burn? will that be better? or will it still be unfair because, hydrocarbon burners pay even more tax?

and what about the Avgas taxes if this technology takes off..
http://hy4.org/zero-emission-air-tra...r-aircraft-hy4



but i can see where this is going, No point in reducing our carbon footprint, reducing not only greenhouse gasses, but pollution in general, cleaner air, all that greenie hippie crap, and a possible side effect of providing a reliable renewable energy source in times of energy grid fluctuations, because electric cars dont pay enough road tax via burning hydrocarbons... got it..

[Ultralights]

Might be referring to not paying diesel tax.

so i guess $4 Billion annually is a tiny subsidy?
Australian coal, oil and gas companies receive $4b in subsidies: report - ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)

[Traffic_Is_Er_Was]

Kudos to South Australia for having 40% of their power supplied by renewables.

And kudos to them for sitting in the dark a couple of times over the last few weeks when it doesn't work.

[rutan around]

Mikewil states

The "per capita" clams of the greenies are deeply flawed. The only reason our rates are seemingly high compared to other western nations is because we have a small population and it is spread out over a massive area compared to other nations. Our high carbon emissions per capita are the result of distributing goods, services and electricity across such a vast land mass to a small population.

To put it in his terms the claim is 'Absolute Crap'

90% of Australia's population lives in the urban cities and towns which are situated on the coastal fringe of the continent. No matter how hard you spin it to suit your agenda the fact remains it doesn't take much carbon to supply a mere 10% of the population with goods and services they require no matter how far flung they are. The vast majority of carbon emissions are created by the demands of the population dense coastal dwellers.

I didn't want to turn this into a debate about renewable energy policy but I am sick of the greenies and their attack on our standards of living because of cherry picked statistics. If they had their way, aviation would be the first industry to close.

You are not even cherry picking your statistics. You're just making them up as you go along.

[Ultralights]

nd kudos to them for sitting in the dark a couple of times over the last few weeks when it doesn't work.

you do know what caused the outage right? nothing to do with its power sources.

[mikewil]

Kudos to South Australia for having 40% of their power supplied by renewables.

Yeah Kudos to them. The rest of Australia must be so envious of SA power prices which often approach double that of neighboring states.

[Traffic_Is_Er_Was]

Their reliance on interconnects means that any issues in their own system which causes withdrawal of supply by those interconnects, be it for price or self protection, means that people sit in the dark who shouldn't have to.

[Band a Lot]

Cut and pate from "private" section.

Long overdue CO2 emission's!

The aviation colour Code for Katla has been changed from green to yellow, meaning that the volcano is experiencing signs of elevated unrest above known background levels.

Icelandic authorities have also started contingency plans in case of an eruption. Katla is now long overdue a full-blown eruption, the last being in 1918. Seismic activity has been ongoing since the end of August and the authorities are now taking the necessary steps to prepare for what may come.

Katla Volcano: Civil Protection Uncertainty Phase Declared | Iceland Review

[cattletruck]

Strong winds in Melbourne today and driving along the tramways I did notice a few wires flapping about wildly at a harmonic that didn't seem to be dampening. The infrastructure appeared to be holding...

Wonder if the same phenomena could have brought down those towers?

[601]

you do know what caused the outage right? nothing to do with its power sources.

Sure the towers came down, a lightning strike on a power station and the interconnector from Vic dropping of line as the start.

But why did the power to all of Eyre Pen. and Port Augusta fail when there is a solar power station at Port Augusta and wind turbines on the Eyre Pen.?

There areas are north of the fallen pylons so should have been able to be isolated from these towers.

[Ultralights]

because the whole grid shut itself down to protect itself from failing power lines.

[Slippery_Pete]

But why did the power to all of Eyre Pen. and Port Augusta fail when there is a solar power station at Port Augusta and wind turbines on the Eyre Pen.?

Why is this so hard to understand? It's been said ad nauseam by the owners of the infrastructure and the SA government. The entire state was shutdown due to hundreds of separate protection circuits. You can't just dump a 300,000V cable on the ground and leave the state connected to wind farms and the interconnector. If the entire state been left connected when the towers went down and the interconnector not been isolated, Victoria and potentially Tasmania would have been without power too.

Once these protections trip all over the state, it takes significant time to test, isolate the faulty infrastructure, and re-energise carefully by ensuring demand and load is balanced. Do you think they just need to lift the cables off the ground with one hand and flip a big, novelty ON/OFF switch?

[Ultralights]

this is the real question, why did so many towers collapse in winds that are pretty mild compared to what others can withstand. Cyclone Yasi, only 2 towers failed, and due to land slides, against 235Kp/h winds. the Snowly scheme regularly sees winds of over 150 Kmh without issue.

https://medium.com/@andynehl/why-did...6b1#.g5hedihtn

[Cloudee]

There were tornados reported in the area. Some mangled farm buildings that certainly copped far more than the reported winds.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-09-2...towers/7888470

[Pinky the pilot]

There were tornados reported in the area.

There was some albeit very brief video footage shown on TV News of the storm clouds in that area and one brief clip, to me at least, was a perfect example of a small Tornado.

When I did my CPL Met theory many years ago, the Met Lecturer (Bob S. At YPFL TAFE in the early 80's)was a qualified Meteorologist, CPL Holder and Instructor as well, and he told us that Tornados are far more common in Australia than a lot of people realise.

[Kulwin Park]

As stated above, the winds were pretty strong in Melbourne, that apparently a piper warrior without an engine blew up onto a hangar roof landing upside on it! Pictures are floating around but not in my possession. The SOAR aviation building by looks of it.

[gerry111]

"... and potentially Tasmania would have been without power too."

Have they fixed the interconnector from Victoria to Tasmania, yet?

Once upon a time, S.A had three State owned utilities: ETSA was the 'Electricity Trust of SA'. E&WS was the 'Engineering and Water Supply'. SAGASCO was the 'SA Gas Company'. They reliably supplied electricity, water, sewerage and gas. And then at an affordable price for all residents.

Then along came quite a few spivs who sucked the State government in that privatisation of their utilities was the way to go. The then national electricity marketer NEMCO etc..

P.S. Those that designed those rather solid Stobie poles sure didn't design the transmission towers that fell over..

[601]

The entire state was shutdown due to hundreds of separate protection circuits.

So we had "hundreds of separate protection circuits"

So it is one big grid that cannot be isolated into "sections"
If the interconnector can isolate SA as a state from the national grid, surely one can isolate sections within a state.

When the towers in NQ were blown over a few years back, all of Qld did not black out.