ELECTION TIME
 

So the election is on us and now they are counting.

I went to my local polling station and asked both the Liberal and Labour people about what their aviation policies were. I was thinking GA and small aircraft, not airlines.
The answer from both was 'What'. I see that as a what are you talking about answer. In short GA and aviation in general meant ZERO to them.
So how did you vote?

So how did you vote?

What is your annual salary?

How old is your wife?

… some people like to keep some things private :-)

How would a polling station volunteer know anything about any of the policies, let alone GA?

Yeah, because GA is what makes the world go round and puts food on the table for the majority (!) of the people ... Did you also ask them on their policy on golf courses and other decision-relevant causes?

Ah yes .... Election time ....

Now it appears that we have a Labor Green Accord and a host of teal climate changers in control, my crystal ball shows $9.00 Avgas and $6.00 mogas in the not so distant future as we head towards net zero by 2030. Goodby GA my friend. RIP

Hope I am wrong :-)

RIP GA, you have been a good friend over forty years.

NoMilk: Way down in the bowels of the Labor Party, there WILL be someone who has developed a policy position on both of those issues. The fact that it isn't published or if it is, you don't know it, means nothing.

Starting with golf courses (these are not my personal views):

1. They are major irrigators using lots of our scarce and precious water. (strike one).
2. They use lots of fertilizers which creates a run-off problem, blue green algea in local waterways. (pollution, strike two).
3. They use lots of chemical insecticides and weed killers to maintain the greens (more pollution, strike three).
4. They require exclusive use of what should be public open space - parks (exclusive land use, strike four).
5. The private golf courses are elitist, exclusive and predominantly the abode of rich white males (strike five - they don't vote for us).

Anyone think an Albanese Government is going to be friendly to golfers?

Now lets look at GA.

1. They use lots and lots of leaded petrol and are thus a major source of lead pollution (strike one).
2. All Private aircraft are very expensive and thus owned by rich white males who don't vote for us, pilots are also stuck up elitists. (strike two).
3. GA aircraft use internal combustion engines that contribute to global warming. (strike three).
4. GA aircraft use airports that take up scarce public land that could be better used by the community as parks, kindergartens, etc. (strike four)
5. Recreational aircraft burn scarce, polluting, fossil fuel for private enjoyment, how dare they? (strike five)
6. And finally, aircraft make lots of noise that enrage our supporters living close to airports.

Yep, we are right down there with the golfers. We will be lucky if we get no attention at all.


You need to own an electric aircraft that requires no training because that would be elitist and its also got to be LGTPQI whatsit friendly.

Electric helicopter you mean? Land it on your roof next to the solar panels.

“We’ll be lucky if we get no attention at all.” !
Aren’t we lucky then . Because that’s exactly what we’ll get.

Someone is already in the ALP document vault trying to find Labor’s last ****e ,,sorry ‘White Paper’ which had SFA in relation to GA. May or may not be regurgitated.
Kiss goodbye to anything good that may have come out of Sen Susan’s material.

Might have to spent my declining years in quiet enjoyment with an electric motor sailplane….
Aw shucks …can’t recharge it … no power today. Or tomorrow Calm and overcast. Bugger.

Far more airports have closed down than golf courses in my neck of the woods. The one at Moorabbin closed due to the Airport not extending its lease.

Politics aside, if you had your own batteries and solar cells you could charge. Cells still charge in overcast conditions just not as much. If your not happy with your power provider stop whinging and provide your own.

Look she's 18, ok? If you don't believe me I can show you the mail-order invoice.

PDR

Cedrick. Where I live we have only a monopoly power provider. I did have an order in with RussCom for a very small nuclear pack, but that’s now not allowed for either export or import.
I would gladly provide my own but until batteries of any decency don’t cost the earth or keep blowing up then I’ll
just have to live with it.
No worries tho, I’ll take an aero tow.

The pathetic ‘****e paper’ was something Albo was very proud of when it was delivered. In reality is just another glossy feel good document that is only useful for starting BBQ’s or for placing in the bottom of your cats litter tray. It did nothing for GA, aviation, or the space race! On a seperate note, it would’ve been nice to see Rex Patrick win a senate ticket again or even see Xenophon return to the senate, but it was not meant to be. The Greens/Teales/Impotent Labor will only want to snuff out GA due to its drastic impact on our precious environment. I mean, with just a handful of GA aircraft left, the guvmint will need to save our future. I mean, it’s not as if India, China, Indonesia and the USA are causing global pollution.

The problem is that per capita Australia produces double the CO2 that China does and 6 times the amount India does, it sounds crazy, but poor people don't use as much as rich affluent citizens. So in order to reduce the carbon footprint in those countries you would create some huge humanitarian issues by removing what little access the poorer population has to modern services. Where in Australia the impost is far less as those at the middle and top are excessive consumers of energy and CO2 producing goods.

Simple way of illustrating it, Australia has 1.8 cars per household, China has 1 car between 3 households. In India the figure is lower than 1 car per 11 households.

Once you get the handle on those figures it is quite clear we produce more pollution than we should, ie for comfort, fun, pleasure, whatever, while those other countries are producing pollution just to sustain population. What that means is they have almost no way to reduce the figure in reality without causing humanitarian disasters.

When one digs a little deeper into the "broad" figure that is thrown around of 70 odd % of Australian emissions being from dirty power generation, it becomes more apparent that that is BS. They always bundle the first 4 into that figure. As depicted below, from the CSIRO November 2021 statistics.


Energy production is the largest contributor to Australia’s carbon emissions. This is followed by transport, agriculture, and industrial processes. Specifically:

• energy (burning fossil fuels to produce electricity) contributed 33.6 per cent of the total emissions
• stationary energy (including manufacturing, mining, residential and commercial fuel use) 20.4 per cent
• transport 17.6 per cent
• agriculture 14.6 per cent
• fugitive emissions 10.0 per cent
• industrial processes 6.2 per cent
• waste 2.7 per cent.

So, to supply the "third world" emerging economies with the material and fuel to "survive"; as the worlds quarry, we contribute a large chunk of emissions to merely allow these nations to function and manufacture. Therefore, per capita: we wear those emissions for them to dig it up and supply it.

Greens policy is to not mine it ourselves, or mine it to sell it to others..... that will end well.

We will even wear the carbon footprint for the massive solar farm in the NT that will supply Singapore. Yes, solar does have a carbon footprint. Where do you think the 4500km cable will come from?

And? Construction of a coal or gas fired power station has a carbon footprint too. Said coal or gas fired power station will have massive carbon emissions for every GWh of electrical energy produced. The cable and associated solar panels will have close to zero. Add it up over the lives of the respective power stations and see what you get.

All countries are about 30-40% power generation and 20-30% transportation, look at most developed countries. The difference is our type of usage and fuels. The UK only has 1/3rd of Australias per capita, because they are thrifty with their usage, have switched to renewables, drive miserly vehicles short distances and rely on renewable powered public transport. Unfortunately Australia and the US are way behind these ideals. The UK has dropped rapidly from 12ish metric tons CO2 to 5 metric tons per person in pretty much the last 20 years due to pretty much wiping out coal use and turning the whole island into a wind farm. They also have strict vehicle emmission targets and large uptake of EVs. Meanwhile Autralia and the US sit around 15+ tons per capita. For goodness sake our top selling vehicles last year were the Ford Ranger and Toyota Hilux. The top 10 UK cars sold were mostly compacts and 2 in the top 5 were Teslas, only one mid sized SUV made the list (if you can even call it an SUV, it looks like a tall compact).

Australia is not the UK. The Poms have teensy villages with skinny streets that a Ranger wouldn't fit in, the villages are a few km apart, the pub is walking distance from the terrace house. Poms in big cities pay a levy to go in there, so they avoid it.

We have bigger distances to travel, more farms that need big vehicles to cart stuff around, and the pub is a drive away, if you are allowed to drive home afterwards. We don't have the public transport infrastructure - get out of the major cities and there is a bus every 30 minutes that goes to a place that you don't need.

I am helping the averages along with 3 vehicles - 2 work vans and one personal car. But I also have 10Kw of solar to relieve me of paying for electricity.

A coal-fired or "nookular" base generator is still needed for nights when the wind doesn't blow.

Yeah we have solar abundance where they have to rely on wind. The rest of what you are saying is a result of resting on our arses and saying it's too hard. Lack of public transport and Infrastructure is a failure of governance, not a factor of Australia's size. The vast majority of Australians live in Urban centers and cities, yet still own vehicles designed for mine sites and barely fit in modern car parks. You just have to drive on the Monash or M1 in Melbourne and Sydney in peak and you will see thousands of new, fresh paint Rangers and Hilux, DMax and Triton, driven by a single driver with nothing in the tray (and probably will never carry more than a slab of beer). If you don't own the mini monster trucks than more than likely you own a full or mid sized SUV, again way more car than the average commuter needs. Goes back to what I said that an affluent nation can afford these luxuries which is more the reason you don't see them in the UK, it's just too expensive and a hassle to own more than one car especially large ones. No where to park it, larger cars won't fit, taxes massively sting big and multiple car households. The toffs still own multiple Benzes and Range-rovers but only the top can afford that now.

Europe has laws now as well that you can't own a car unless you have a registered garage for it.

The UK tried to artificially stump up it's coal industry in the 50s by continuing to run steam trains until it was obvious that diesel and electric were massive factors cheaper and more efficient. The coal industry then had to die a more sudden and violent death than if it had been allowed to die off naturally with the rest of the world, culminating in the Thatcher cull off. Oil is in the same throws now, as major countries reduce their reliance on oil the price of it will increase, not decrease as it has been held artificially low to promote industry. The supply chains will switch to the electrical economy and oil supply will drop off pushing the price up, even though there's less demand. When you think about it, who will invest billions in oil supply chains, such as tankers, pipelines, terminals and refineries going forward with the mandates for change presently. Australia is a good example of being down to bare necessities for oil supply as everyone is waiting on the next thing.

And the UK and countries like France have lots of low carbon nuclear. Very sensible!

Bit hard to recharge a EV on Fraser Is.

In the street here I live, we have a public bus service. in over 30 years I cannot recall the last time I saw that service stop to pickup any of my neighbors.

43 inches, my arse is wider than Britain which is a tiny country. Furthermore our cities and suburbs have been modeled on American ideas which are predicated on cheap private transport.

Translation: We drive 10+ km to Woolies, Coles or Aldi. There is no full service "village shop" within 500m walking distance. We do not have the population density outside the peoples republics of Balmain or Northcote to fund European style public transport. We cannot afford the recharger networks for EV and neither can the rest of the undeveloped world, even if we had the double capacity grid to power it.

We are not constructed of tiny well integrated cities.

You are just another of the impractical dreamers with no grasp of logistics.

Yes, we do need to move towards EV, but in a deliberate well planned operation over 50+ years.

How about you start with local delivery trucks within say 20 km of city centre? See how easy that is. Strangely enough, the mining industry may be all EV befere cities.

43 inches - Thatcher cull off

Many people seem to have forgotten that this was when Authur Scargill was trying to bring the country to its knees. Thatcher defeated the hard left/communist troublemakers, and the majority of citizens thanked her for it!

Sunfish, we don't have 50+ years. For most people living in cities and large towns plugging into a 10A 240V socket will suffice most of the time. How often do they drive 250km in one day? Once a fortnight? Once a month? 500km+ range EVs exist now and it won't be too long before that trickles down to the cheaper end of the market. What percentage of Australians live in 10,000+ towns and cities? 90%. Sure there will be outliers but a large majority would manage a large proportion of the time without resorting to charging away from home or at slower chargers. The average annual distance travelled in Australia by passenger vehicles is 11,100km or 213km/week.

https://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/[email protected]
https://www.abs.gov.au/statistics/in...latest-release

The Magical Land of Oz. Big heaps of uranium for export. And No nuclear power stations for reliable base load power. Que?

No reliable power, no manufacturing.

Read ‘Green Murder’ (Plimer) for some scientific background.

Penguin, do the maths.



1. Recharging maths -


(a) Base load to power all the electric vehicles?

(b) Public recharging network? Number of recharging sites?

(c) Public recharging network? Inter city recharging? How many recharging stations and amperage needed between say Melbourne and Sydney?

(d) Recharging security and distribution? How do you propose rolling out a network to even the poorest least secure suburbs, not just Balmain, Toorak, Northcote and Double Bay?


2. Purchase Maths _


(a) Initial cost of vehicles?

(b) recycling of vehicles?

(c) Road user charges? Victoria already has them. Did you think you would have free abundant power forever? Think again.

(d) The big one: Finding and mining the huge quantities of the various elements required including copper, Lithium and rare earths.


3. Truck networks - perhaps easier than large scale domestic use. EV prime movers would be great because they can produce maximum torque at zero revs.


4. Off road, construction and agricultural equipment?


....and we are talking Australia omly. What about the third world?


I would like an electric vehicle myself. The performance and convenience of EV's is stunning. However to handle my current "mission" there is no EV on the horizon except the Tesla "Pickup" somewhere in the future or perhaps a hybrid Landcruiser one day.

What you say is just not true, everywhere I have lived in Australia I have been no further than 1km from a store such as Coles/Woolies/Aldi/IGA, every one has been easily walking distance. I've never needed anything more than a small hatchback for shopping, not sure what justifies a Ford Ranger for picking up bread. If I look at my street of mostly older Australians who have retired, No one drives a compact, large sedans are the smallest cars, with three owning Dual cabs and don't even work anymore or transport anything bigger than a suitcase. I own the smallest car which probably travels the most distance out of anyone in the street.

I assume you live in Melbourne, A city that had a huge chunk of it's rail network dismantled in the 80s, and then reserved land used for development, governance failures. Massive spends on freeways with until recently almost nothing to rebuild the rail and bus network, again governance failures. No rail to the airport when it was built with the intention of a rail link in the 1970s, again governance failure. The bus system is token at best, the subsidy system for it is a joke, they subsidise a 15 minute interval bus to run from Frankston to the Airport in an arc via Dandenong, a 5 hour trip for $3, but can't get a 15 minute interval bus service to the next suburb to provide links to the trains in the outer suburbs. The stations have enough parking for 1 train carriage with 6, 6 carriage services per hour at most, there's no park and ride system. These are all government failures that should have been fixed years ago, yet stagnate.

Now repeat the above in every city in Australia.

Victoria still burns BROWN COAL for base load, its basically rotten wood, if you've ever held brown coal you would see how bad the stuff is. A nuclear powerplant could easily provide cheap and reliable base load to several cities, meaning all the electric transport in that city becomes a lot greener.

A simple and significant start would be to provide electric school buses for all government schools within the school zone, enough to actually service the local area and get the mums off the roads in en-masse SUV rushes.

I use the UK as an example, why, because they have changed in the last 20 years, most of which in the last 10 years. They went from nearly 50% reliance on coal for energy to 0%. That was not a gradual or stepped change, they did it in a few short years.

A Ranger or Hilux only costs a few grand short of a Tesla or other Electric models, price is obviously not the issue in Australia, it is a choice. I want my mini monster truck, that's it.

One thing I do find funny is that the Dual Cabs have truck style chassis and suspension, made for loads, not necessarily for off-roading, and more truck style suspension. Most don't have good roll qualities, so you are seeing more and more of them upside down in various fail pictures. As opposed to if you got a older style Land Cruiser or Pajeros which were tailored to offroad performance and some ride quality. The poor road handling means they are more tiring on long journeys both from directional control and the limp porposing they do when ever they hit a small undulation.

It's lights out time folks. It's already upon us, just not visible yet (pardon the pun).

I've been involved in the delivery of upstream energy projects for more than 35 years, in almost every corner of the globe, however I speak as an observer, rather than claiming any authority. I think we’ve been asleep at the wheel whilst we careen ungracefully towards an energy future that will divide our population into the energy haves and the have nots, as the cost of conventional energy increases due to dwindling supplies. Fortunately our climate extremes are benign enough for us to survive this, mostly. But it’s going to be uncomfortable for some and very, very divisive for our society.

Based on this election we seem to have convinced a majority that conventional energy is totally bad and conversely renewable sources are totally good, that green power will get the job done and all we need to do is have political will and the rest will sort itself out.

This demonstrates no understanding of exactly how dependent we are on existing conventional energy and just how intensive, difficult, costly and prolonged it is to find and exploit new sources of conventional energy. There are many reasons for this lack of understanding, perhaps best discussed separately. But the reality in my view is that very soon, there will be a widening gulf in society between those that can afford to maintain the standard of living we have enjoyed, and those that cannot.

This will include costs for transportation, lighting and heating/cooling. We are seeing this play out in Europe, and coupled with the interruption to supply chains and food distribution, the future is possibly grim for them. In case you overlooked this, we have just had two energy wholesalers collapse on the eastern Seaboard because they can’t afford to finance the escalating cost of the gas they buy from the producers.

It's my contention that we have to preserve, promote and maintain our reliance on conventional energy in this country until we are able to securely and seamlessly transition to a fully renewable energy supply, or bear the consequences as outlined above. This includes efforts to secure energy independence and disconnecting from overseas supply chains.

The populist mindset that supports prevention of any new conventional energy developments, banning new oil and gas, no more coal mines etc. - the thinking that these well intentioned actions will simply drive investment in renewables and all will be ok condemns us to switching the lights out and walking a lot more. It's probably too late already. It is a deeply flawed position to take, based on a lack of comprehension of how things actually work.

So for me the election has highlighted either this is a price the majority are prepared to pay, or they are completely blind to our utter dependence on conventional energy. Perhaps many are very willing to accept a significant decline in living standards, but I doubt it.

This is to not even contemplate the smashing apart of manufacturing and industry in this country as costs rise, and the total reliance on overseas supply chains that are so vulnerable to disruption. We're are 14 days away for fuel rationing at any given moment of any day, 24/7 as it currently stands.

I'm all for taking sane, logical steps towards a carbon free future but unless we get the optics and the politics right, you'll be wishing you has bought that 50 acre property outside of town where you can be off grid in some comfort and burn some tree’s for your heating in winter. We're in a downward spiral of increasing energy cost, dwindling supplies, a declining industrial and manufacturing base and without the political skills to manage a transition towards renewable and zero emission energy.

All of this is rolling downhill towards us, gathering speed whilst we argue about government subsidies for electric vehicles, wind turbines and solar panels for goodness sake.
It’s going to be interesting.

Again doomsday talk, Victoria is a good example of a state that could easily follow the UKs lead.

66% of the state uses brown coal, the dirtiest of dirty power production. However it has a huge reserve of natural gas from Bass Strait, so straight away you could build gas fired power that could take over base load, that would reduce CO2 emission from power generation by up to 2/3rds. There is your stop gap, or should have been 20 years ago. Moving on you build solar wind and nuclear for base load, in 20-30 years you have Victoria at 1/10th of its current per capita energy footprint. Cost wise, nothing compared to 7 nuclear submarines.

Why has it not been done? Pretty simple, the gas fields are commercial, the coal fields are dug up by the power stations themselves. No one wants to siphon off the profitable gas supply for general power generation.

For interest sake, there was a trial plant constructed that converted brown coal to gas for burning 'clean', that was constructed back in the 1980s. So gas as a clean energy provider has been a consideration for past governments back when it was the SEC. The privatisation of the power industry culled most of the R&D in the area so it quickly was shut down in the 90s, as was most of the community there.

43, not doomsday talk, reality.
You seem to agree that we need to develop existing conventional energy sources?

Try getting approval for an offshore development (subsea wells and tie-back or otherwise, drilling rigs, pipeline tie ins, new beach crossing etc), a new gas plant or an expansion of the one at Longford to process and supply it? Then you'll need approval for the power station as well. Love to see it happen, but it'll fall over at the first environmental approval hurdle.

And that's on the assumption you could find a private or public company that would be willing to finance it in this brave new world.

In fact there are huge reserves of onshore gas in Gippsland that would be far easier to exploit, but the Andrews government has banned this approach to appease the green-left factions of the Labor party.
Snookered there too I suspect.

The problems at Longford are both political and penny pinching by the oil companies. Again you would need plans like the UK had to push things along. Ask anyone that's worked the rigs they are maintained to bare minimum safe standard, ie don't walk the lower gantries. Victoria needs a shift from distributed gas to households (which will save billions) to gas fired power and the households using electrical power for heat from the grid and self generated from solar and even wind. The infrastructure for distribution is mostly there, you can build the stations in the Latrobe valley and you only need to divert the gas line to the stations. The electrical infrastructure is already there, especially after the 'gold plating' that happened a few years ago. Look how quickly they built a desal with piping when they wanted to. A large gas powerplant would be easy. Biggest problem is that they privatised the industry, so government has to work with them and the greens to get anywhere.

43, seems like we are in agreement.
If we don't do as you propose, do you thinks the lights will go out for some?

Oh I think that's a possibility if we don't change. I think we have a window over the next few years to start aggressive change in states like Victoria. If not conventional fuel and coal prices are going to swamp us.

https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-48711649

That's a good article highlighting what the UK relies on now, shows the shift to gas to replace coal and the climb of renewables slowing taking more and more share.

I would say a certainty, not a possibility.
We've failed at every turn to educate the electorate about how things actually work and why we need to move towards a zero emission world in a steady and controlled fashion.
Conventional energy has become demonised to the point that independent candidates displace long-held traditional seats (both blue and red) simply on a platform of talking about the environment.

It's a car crash in slow motion.

I agree to a point that Gas should be really promoted as a gap filler, on the way to renewables. Coal though should have been consigned to the past a 20 years ago, and gas should have replaced it by now. There should be no talk whatsoever of new coal plants, new gas, yes, coal, no. The Morrison Government really set us back years with its fascination with appeasing the coal industry, it's a loss making industry that needs subsidies to survive. Except for high grade coking coal, which is another matter, thermal coal is a dead duck production wise, both environmentally and economically. Gas however is profitable and 3 times better than burning brown coal, twice as good as high grade black coal.

Isn't the normal drilling option still available? It's only fracking that has been stopped?

100% agree. But the greens now have the balance of power in the Senate as I understand it, and are totally opposed to any new gas development as well.
The Scarborough development just made it over the line in the nick of time for FID, probably the last for a long while.
Dorado is going ahead, the oil from there should be nationalised to prevent export.

So no new coal, switching off the thermal coal generation we have now, no new gas developments.
Where is the energy going to come from? Windmills, solar panels and batteries?

On batteries, I'm mucking about with a Lithium Hydroxide processing plant at the moment, and I can tell you that;
a) they are hugely complex and very expensive
b) take a long time to build and commission
c) Are totally dependent on abundant gas and electricity supplies to operate
d) Need to be built as close as possible to spodumene and gas supplies.

It's going to take a crash before we collectively wake up and pragmatism returns.