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Topic: The Climate, Environment and Energy Thread (Read 138101 times) previous topic - next topic
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Re: The Climate, Environment and Energy Thread

Reply #75 –
@Baggers
Whereabouts are you finding half-acre blocks nowadays?

Re: The Climate, Environment and Energy Thread

Reply #76 –
Quote from: kruddler – on
@Baggers
Whereabouts are you finding half-acre blokes nowadays?
At the bar probably!



Or maybe a Trump rally!

"Extremists on either side will always meet in the Middle!"

Re: The Climate, Environment and Energy Thread

Reply #77 –
Fair call LP. Fixed.

Re: The Climate, Environment and Energy Thread

Reply #78 –
Quote from: kruddler – on
Fair call LP. Fixing.
We all knew I couldn't resist!

Unfortunately on those photos it takes one to know one! :(
"Extremists on either side will always meet in the Middle!"

Re: The Climate, Environment and Energy Thread

Reply #79 –
Quote from: LP – on
We all knew I couldn't resist!

Unfortunately on those photos it takes one to know one! :(
When you said "at the bar", i was going to say "better than in the mirror"

Re: The Climate, Environment and Energy Thread

Reply #80 –
Quote from: kruddler – on
When you said "at the bar", i was going to say "better than in the mirror"
 Alas, age may well have wearied me, but booze certainly has!
"Extremists on either side will always meet in the Middle!"

Re: The Climate, Environment and Energy Thread

Reply #81 –
Quote from: Baggers – on
Firstly, Pauly, thank you for starting this extremely important thread.

Mrs Baggers and I are looking to move (again), very soon. Ponsing up the house to sell -- going like hotcakes on the Island at present -- getting a half acre block (approx) hour to hour and a half east through to northwest of the city and building a very small home (not quite one of the tiny / container homes phenomena - but close) and aiming for self-sufficiency in most respects - grow our own veggies (been doing that for years), electricity, water capture and so on. I'd have to go to a butcher for meat as I couldn't grow and slaughter an animal. I had the very good fortune a few years ago to bump into Paul West in Tilba whilst on holiday and we had a great chat about self-sufficiency. Terrific bloke.

Always a pleasure Baggers, and best of luck to you with the move.
 

Re: The Climate, Environment and Energy Thread

Reply #82 –
Quote from: kruddler – on
@Baggers
Whereabouts are you finding half-acre blocks nowadays?

South & West Gippy, just north of Woodend, around Creswick - that kind of ring around the city. No chance anywhere on the Mornington Peninsula  :(  :(  (my sister has 3 acres in Tyabb & my brother has a qtr acre in Hastings... but they got in early). I've always been the family nomad, the traveller.

Spotted One - got a good laugh from the guts acreage but can assure you this little black duck has never had a guts like that - one of the upsides of PTSD... anxiety sure does burn calories!
Only our ruthless best, from Board to bootstudders will get us no. 17

Re: The Climate, Environment and Energy Thread

Reply #83 –
The final report of the Australian Tidal Energy (AUSTEn) three-year project to map Australia’s tidal energy resource in detail and assess its economic feasibility and ability to contribute to the country's renewable energy needs:

https://arena.gov.au/assets/2020/12/tidal-energy-in-australia.pdf

It's still the Gulf of Mexico, Don Old!

Re: The Climate, Environment and Energy Thread

Reply #84 –
Quote from: DJC – on
The final report of the Australian Tidal Energy (AUSTEn) three-year project to map Australia’s tidal energy resource in detail and assess its economic feasibility and ability to contribute to the country's renewable energy needs:

https://arena.gov.au/assets/2020/12/tidal-energy-in-australia.pdf
Yes, there are lots of these turning up after Carnegie went belly up. There is big dollars involved, and I wish Mako well, but having CSIRO or UQ as research partners might not help them. There could be some nice technologies developed on the side along the way, as long as the partners are prepared to recognise spins offs, sometimes they are too myopic.

My problem is the claims around potential grow with every round of funding renewal, and that growth in claim often far outstrips the real world performance improvement. I'm not a naysayer just as sceptic, I've been seeing this stuff for over a decade now from the likes of SIMEC and it's precursors companies that went the same was as Carnegie. I thought the best chance was from an older technology version called vertical access turbines, think of a giant version of one of those spinning signs you see on the pavement outside shops and cafés. They at least rotate slower but with large spans they have massive amounts of torque to drive geared generators.

There is a great page that keeps track of this stuff here;
http://www.emec.org.uk/marine-energy/tidal-developers/
"Extremists on either side will always meet in the Middle!"

Re: The Climate, Environment and Energy Thread

Reply #85 –
On the wave power systems, they have to be enormous, like a hot air balloon held 15m below the ocean waves.

In tropical environments the problem of biofouling becomes unworkable, and the solutions to that are expensive which drives up the cost of energy. This often then becomes a few times the cost of solar which is already a few times the cost of nuclear, and you don't need batteries or big hydro-storage dams for a nuclear plant. There is a reason why France has the cheapest power, and supplements a huge chunk of the European grid including the green ones.

I wish both sides would argue a case free of subsidies.

btw., Hydro is probably the dirtiest source of energy, they started to realise this when studying cyclic flooding which released lots and lots of methane. Methane is many times worse than carbon dioxide as a greenhouse gas but shorter lived, not that the shorter longevity matters much if you cyclically replace what is lost!
"Extremists on either side will always meet in the Middle!"

Re: The Climate, Environment and Energy Thread

Reply #87 –
Quote from: ElwoodBlues1 – on
https://au.news.yahoo.com/david-attenborough-warns-earth-faces-collapse-of-everything-015738425.html
He laments the lack of action, the ongoing rhetoric which seems to last forever, but a problem for all of us is the flip side which is acting very swiftly is full of charlatans and profiteers, many linked to politicians.

Much like the COVID situation if it's not carefully monitored, those jerks selling Hydroxychloroquine or Ivermectin as a miracle cure or prophylactic, the green energy initiatives are just there to be milked by pricks looking for a fast buck masquerading as venture capitalists. When the government funding for Carnegie started to dry up, all of a sudden the boosters saw immutable road blocks and departed very swiftly!

When you read the spin, these inventions are all miracles, unbelievably simples cures for our energy economy, yet they all in the final paragraph list the need millions or billions from governments to get off the ground. It's a tell, because if the invention was any good at all, someone like GE or Siemens would buy them out without a single tax payer dollar to be seen!

btw., There have been some very good spin-off inventions come out of this energy research, ironically they were mostly bought out by the Saudi's or the USA, and shelved!
"Extremists on either side will always meet in the Middle!"

Re: The Climate, Environment and Energy Thread

Reply #89 –
A stooge for the panic merchants.