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Re: General Discussions

Reply #645 –
Quote from: LP – on
Was it you who threw the rocks through Jack Dyers front window after the 73 GF, the infamous game that saw Balme king hit Gentlement Geoff Southby?

I have an alibi ;D  Whilst the 73 GF was being played I was on Naval exercises aboard the HMAS Brisbane (Guided Missile Destroyer) with the Yanks in Hawaii - my first witnessing of the USS Kitty Hawk. Made our aircraft carrier, HMAS Melbourne, look like a match box next to a shoe box. We secured the ComCen (communications centre), tuned a top end HF unit and listened to the game. 3 of us were BlueBaggers! Lost the game, won the 'war games.'
Only our ruthless best, from Board to bootstudders will get us no. 17

Re: General Discussions

Reply #646 –
Quote from: kruddler – on
How many people have been killed/ injured by nuclear vs fossil fuels and the like?
Then look at it from an environmental point of view and weigh up the differences.
Then look at it from a mining point of view and weigh up the differences.

Then tell me with a straight face that nuclear is not safer.

But no, use 1 instance from 36 years ago as evidence.
You might as well tell me computers are no good because you had a commodore 64 36 years ago and the graphics were crap and the memory was almost non existent.
True, if you could jump in the DeLorean and go back to the 50s, going nuclear would have been better regarding climate change than fossil fuels. But if we can't get the flux capacitor to work properly and we have to deal with the here and now, then we can use renewables that weren't around in the 50s. Best of both worlds.

By the way, the Commodore 64 analogy is perfect for those who want to argue that we should just assume that renewables and batteries and the recycling of them is static. Just like the Commodore 64, as the years roll on the developments in a growth sector will make the current technology look very Commodore 64-like.

Re: General Discussions

Reply #647 –
Quote from: northernblue – on
Gra Gra had moved on, but yes I delivered to that house.
I was in Grange Rd, so yes I'm very familiar with Fleetwood Cres and Sweetwater creek !
I also had a friend who lived on Norman Ave, so plenty of mischief at the shops too.

No mention of the famed 'round house' at the bottom of Olivers Hill? As kids we used to follow Sweetwater Creek from the round house to Sycamore Road!
Only our ruthless best, from Board to bootstudders will get us no. 17

Re: General Discussions

Reply #648 –
Quote from: Mav – on
True, if you could jump in the DeLorean and go back to the 50s, going nuclear would have been better regarding climate change than fossil fuels. But if we can't get the flux capacitor to work properly and we have to deal with the here and now, then we can use renewables that weren't around in the 50s. Best of both worlds.

By the way, the Commodore 64 analogy is perfect for those who want to argue that we should just assume that renewables and batteries and the recycling of them is static. Just like the Commodore 64, as the years roll on the developments in a growth sector will make the current technology look very Commodore 64-like.

Your first paragraph is evidence that you don't have any facts to add to the debate, just emotive BS.

Your second paragraph is showing your ignorance. Moore's law - a mircrochip doubles the amount of transistors it can fit on it (or it halves its size) and halves its cost every 2 years. This is how computers get more and more powerful consistently.
However, we have almost reached the end game on this - 2025 some people think is the end.
Batteries, while different technologies have seen similar advances......but also are coming to an end with the capabilities available.

To assume a similar linear (or better) progression from here for the next few decades is extremely naive, and not possible.

So you can attempt that path, knowing the end game will not be what you require.....and waste however many years in the meantime or just skip to something that works better already, now.

Spend some time educating the public and demystifying nuclear power and we'll all be better off.

No flux capacitor required.

Re: General Discussions

Reply #649 –
Quote from: Baggers – on
No mention of the famed 'round house' at the bottom of Olivers Hill? As kids we used to follow Sweetwater Creek from the round house to Sycamore Road!

Sycamore Rd is taxing the grey matter a bit and the roundhouse people were dead to me... they didn't read the herald :D
Let’s go BIG !

Re: General Discussions

Reply #650 –
I won't bother reposting the article from ArsTechnica Kruddler but you can go back and have a look. Then you'll be able to tone down your emotional BS.

Re: General Discussions

Reply #651 –
Quote from: Mav – on
I won't bother reposting the article from ArsTechnica Kruddler but you can go back and have a look. Then you'll be able to tone down your emotional BS.

I'll summise.
Old battery bad.
New battery good.

I've been using Li batteries in cordless tools for over 10 years now. Its not a new technology.
Everything i said about them holds true.

Don't get me wrong, i love them. But they are not the answer. They don't a candle to nuclear in the large scale.

Re: General Discussions

Reply #652 –
Quote from: DJC – on
Maintaining infrastructure in marine environments has its challenges but good design, materials and maintenance will result in decades of service.  South Channel Light is a good example; built in 1874, it only began to deteriorate after the light was turned off in 1985 and maintenance stopped.
Longevity that results from a massive maintenance expenditure, a budget item that in Australia is often described as defence's biggest single operating expense. The US DoD budget for conducting R&D into how to tackle corrosion is billion$ of dollars.

I spent five years about twelve years ago doing R&D into techniques just to reduce the corrosion in one part of the rotor assembly of Seahawk helicopters, moving parts made of specific corrosion resistant alloys that have to go through a full $50K rebuild annually due to corrosion, and those parts are built out of the very same alloy that are used in wind turbine rotors.
"Extremists on either side will always meet in the Middle!"

Re: General Discussions

Reply #653 –
Quote from: LP – on
Longevity that results from a massive maintenance expenditure, a budget item that in Australia is often described as defence's biggest single operating expense. The US DoD budget for conducting R&D into how to tackle corrosion is billion$ of dollars.

I spent five years about twelve years ago doing R&D into techniques just to reduce the corrosion in one part of the rotor assembly of Seahawk helicopters, moving parts made of specific corrosion resistant alloys that have to go through a full $50K rebuild annually due to corrosion, and those parts are built out of the very same alloy that are used in wind turbine rotors.

The archaeological laboratory that I managed processed artefacts recovered from shipwrecks and I learned a little about saltwater corrosion.  And that reminds me that the Polly Woodside, launched in 1885, is still afloat.  The Polly Woodside, HMCS Sackville and HMS Belfast are kept afloat on the smell of an oily rag.  The same is true for HMAS Melbourne and ARA General Belgrano and probably for USS Blue Ridge.  HMASs Kanimbla and Manoora were too expensive to keep in service because the fabric of both ships was badly corroded before we bought them.  We still got 17 years out of them, less downtime for extensive refits.

Seahawk helicopter rotor assemblies employ cadmium-plated Cr-Mo alloy steel and 2014-T6 aluminium alloy.  Wind turbine gearboxes use steel, aluminium or brass.

My oldest brother has post-graduate degrees in metallurgy and physics and was a senior research scientist with Aeronautical Research Laboratories and the Department of Defence.  He was a key witness in the Blackhawk enquiry, if your memory goes back that far.  He reckons that comparing naval ship or aircraft corrosion with the potential corrosion of wind turbines is like comparing apples and carrots.  Of course, then there's the five and half thousand wind turbines in European coastal waters, the first of which was operational in 1991.  Thirty years later and those original turbines are still going strong.
It's still the Gulf of Mexico, Don Old!

Re: General Discussions

Reply #654 –
DJC, one highly respected expert disagrees with you:

Quote
Former President Trump is returning to one of his favorite energy subjects: bashing wind energy.

In a podcast episode released yesterday, the former president went on an extended screed about wind turbines, which included many of his years-old debunked or out-of-context claims about their cost and environmental impact.

“They don’t work, they’re too expensive, they kill all the birds, they ruin your landscapes. And yet, the environmentalists love the windmills,” Trump said on the Full Send Podcast, veering off topic from discussion of the Ukraine invasion.

“And I’ve been preaching this for years. The windmills. And I had them way down. But the windmills are the most expensive energy you can have. And they don’t work,” he continued.

“And by the way, they last a period of 10 years. And by the time they start rusting and rotting all over the place, nobody ever takes them down,” he said. “They just go to the next piece of prairie or land and destroy that.”

Trump has long been a vocal opponent of wind energy, even years before he ran for president in 2016, including an unsuccessful fight against offshore wind turbines near his golf resort in Scotland.

He has frequently made the same charges about wind turbines — “windmills,” as he almost always calls them — in campaign and White House appearances (Climatewire, Feb. 11, 2020).

Wind energy is usually cost-competitive with other electricity generation sources in the areas with heavy concentrations. Turbines rank low among threats to birds, and utilities are usually required to property dispose of the materials after they can no longer be used.

Trump slams wind power, again, E&E News.

Re: General Discussions

Reply #655 –
The fact that Chernobyl was brought up here as a con to nuclear power interesting.  It represents a failed attempt at controlling technology that wasn't so greatly understood 50 years ago now.

Thing is how many nuclear plants have been built since and how many more Chernobyl events have occurred?  How many of them have been caused by natural disasters which we generally don't experience here in Australia?

Its a blend situation.  The true reason nuclear is held back is due to the uranium factor.  It isn't abundant and no nation really trusts selling it abroad because not all of it would be used for power.  This limits the capability to profit off the product unless we start throwing caution to the wind.
"everything you know is wrong"

Paul Hewson

Re: General Discussions

Reply #656 –
Quote from: Mav – on
DJC, one highly respected expert disagrees with you:

Trump slams wind power, again, E&E News.


I think that proves my point; anything that troglodyte claims is, by definition, completely wrong.

I'm not suggesting that we should put all of our eggs in the wind turbine basket, but it's a significant part of the solution to our energy requirements.  I like the way European nations have gone about harvesting wind energy with turbines off-shore and in ports and industrial areas.  I'm not sure that our wind farm approach is the best way to go.

Aurangzeb's pontification is a bit like that of our failed treasurer/US ambassador; it's not about aesthetics, it's about our responsibility to the generations that come after us.  Sadly, the Government's appeal against Mordy Bromberg's decision that Governments have a duty to protect children against climate change was successful, but that's not the end of the matter.
It's still the Gulf of Mexico, Don Old!

Re: General Discussions

Reply #657 –
Windfarms require a lot of land and wind turbines are a cause of major issues when attaching them to the grid given the variations in wind energy, poor regulation in heavy loads causing frequency fluctuations which means they are really only useful for low load applications where you can smooth out the fluctuations easier and provide a steady frequency.So they really are useful only in low load applications with frequency drift friendly equipment.
You also have the basic requirement of having to find vacant land in an area where there is a consistent source of wind which is usually in outer areas which creates infrastructure problems .
They also create massive noise problems  which means health issues, wildlife issues, and the environmentally friendly wind source isn't so green after all.
Nuclear is the most efficient way to go..the reality is though you don't want a nuke plant providing more than 10% of your total power which means the public have to get used to living in Aus with multiple nuke plants connected. Some people have the idea it's one plant providing all the power for the country, that's not how it works as you need to be able to isolate reactors for safety and maintenance.
France has 50 odd reactors...downside in Aus is our limited water resources. Reactors need water to generate steam to turn the turbines...allbeit the water is recycled it's still a lot of water. Which means your nuke plants have to be built near decent water supplies which cuts down your choices of location in Australia.
Id see Nuclear as initially being part of a total plan with several energy sources but eventually becoming the major source down the track as the population increases.
 

Re: General Discussions

Reply #658 –
Yep DJC, it must be uncomfortable to find oneself in agreement with an absolute moron like Trump, particularly when his claims were dismissed by the Scottish courts. At the very least, checking one's facts might be an appropriate reaction to being in that predicament.

Re: General Discussions

Reply #659 –
Quote from: Thryleon – on
The fact that Chernobyl was brought up here as a con to nuclear power interesting.  It represents a failed attempt at controlling technology that wasn't so greatly understood 50 years ago now.

Thing is how many nuclear plants have been built since and how many more Chernobyl events have occurred?  How many of them have been caused by natural disasters which we generally don't experience here in Australia?

Its a blend situation.  The true reason nuclear is held back is due to the uranium factor.  It isn't abundant and no nation really trusts selling it abroad because not all of it would be used for power.  This limits the capability to profit off the product unless we start throwing caution to the wind.

Nuclear power plants were supplying a peak of 17.5% of the world's power in 1996.  They now supply 10.3% of the world's power.

The real reason why nuclear power is becoming irrelevant as a power source is ecomics; it's cheaper to use sustainable energy sources and the risk factors are much lower.  It's actually a bit scary that private enterprise is driving the change to sustainable energy sources and dragging governments along in their wake.
It's still the Gulf of Mexico, Don Old!