Two stroke engine ban

[kasper]

Kasper,Are you suggesting that we strip away the forested hills of the Snowy Mountains to cover them with Solar Panels ?

 

The Greenies will be burning you on the stake

 

We will have to go past Canowindra with your run of panels, because the 6,000 Kwh is the States Minimum usage.

No. There is already more than 10 times that area under water up there. Who said you can't float solar over the dam surface.

Sorry about the boats n fishing limits but if you want a hot latte in Sydney you have to live with the outcomes.

 

And besides. The sizing I was running a thought experiment in as a minimal size was just to show how damnably small the area of solar cover is required to generate what we have. As has been pointed out there is already significant solar panel on roof that will add to that and honestly a few dozen large solar farms around the state providing distributed daytime electric with near water storage solar used to charge in day and hydro at night.

 

Yes it would be more than 25km of panels by a roadside. But it's a thought

 

 

[Ron5335]

I think the Government have solved the problem anyway.

 

Since privatizing the energy system, they have realised that any problems are now a Private Sector thing to fix, and they can move on to addressing the needs of the greater population, such as providing them a Space Agency.

 

 

[Mike Borgelt]

This guy can cure your ignorance: Blowout Week 195

 

Also look at the comments and past posts on the site. It is remarkable how seemingly good ideas fall over when you do some numbers. Do note the pumped hydro for storage sites in Australia as promoted by Alan Blakers, Professor of Sustainable Energy Systems at ANU (yes, we actually pay this guy).

 

Solar panels are great when the sun is shining and there aren't too many clouds and windmills when the wind is blowing just right but they need to be essentially 100% backed up with something else - hydro, coal, gas or nuclear. All except gas and hydro are difficult to ramp up and down quickly, even gas when you want to use the much more efficient combined cycle plants. So you end up paying twice in capital investment for your power system, the electricity costs much more and supply is less reliable (if you search around you can find a nice graph of increase in electricity costs vs % penetration of "renewables" in various countries around the world. Australia is punching above its weight as our costs have increased about twice as much as the world average). Batteries you say for storage instead of reliable backup? Vast costs, need to be renewed (as do wind turbine parts) and how much are you going to need? I've seen blocking highs in winter across most of SA, Vic and NSW for a week. No wind and usually accompanied by nearly 100% strato cumulus cover. Likewise the SW of WA.

 

Demand "management" just means they turn off your electricity when there is a shortfall. Great.

 

I'm in favour of installing smart meters in all houses and businesses. When done you get to sign a contract that says you want to be powered by x % renewables. When they aren't able to supply, the folks who put x = 0 get first dibs and a lower bill because coal is cheap. Until the green madness power stations could supply at 4c/Kw-hour delivered at the power station at a profit. Lets see how many are in favour of renewables then.

 

Green fantasies are just that.

 

 

[onetrack]

The greatest single failing of our entire system is electing people who couldn't run a sweets shop adjacent to a girls school, at a profit - and then expecting them to run the country with managerial skills and foresight.

 

We lack politicians with the intestinal fortitude and personal leadership qualities, to lay out a roadmap for Australias development for Australians security and liveability.

 

That roadmap should be untouchable by political parties, and should have as its centrepiece, a solid energy infrastructure, development and establishment policy - controlled by the Federal Govt.

 

That roadmap should also address water security, housing development, a national wealth fund, and major support and grants for promising research and ideas.

 

Instead, we have politicians that believe national development and national energy security and infrastructure development should be handed over to corporations, who make decisions based on just how wealthy their directors and shareholders can become, by ripping off every Australian - and by carrying out selected development that is only designed to make those corporations so much wealthier.

 

We currently have politicians who place little value on our wealth assets, which are being drained daily by other countries, and by global corporations.

 

We sell our minerals for a pittance in royalties and taxes, and allow multi-nationals to indulge in tax evasion and "minimisation" schemes, that must make the Mafia and 'Ndrangheta jealous.

 

We have politicians who are prepared to acquiesce to greedy corporations demands for more and more concessions - even though those corporations are already rolling in monstrous wealth, like Scrooge McDuck in his money bin.

 

We have the worlds second-largest deposit of natural gas on the NW Shelf of W.A. - yet we let global corporations sell that gas to Asian countries that are our competitors, at $8 a terajoule - while our Australian industries have to fight for "limited" supplies of natural gas, and pay $16 a terajoule for it.

 

Then we have politicians saying our Australian industries are "too expensive to compete", and are happy to see them destroyed - rather than assisting them to remain competitive.

 

America has a multitude of high pressure gas pipelines, criss-crossing the country, installed before and during WW2 as a national grid of crucial importance.

 

We have nothing like it - and we have politicians who are too dumb to even see the massive long-term benefits of such a national gas pipeline grid.

 

One looks at Norway, who demanded, and got, vastly increased royalties from their oil and gas production, and who poured that vast income into their sovereign national wealth fund.

 

That fund is currently the worlds largest fund, bigger than any Arab petrodollar fund - and it benefits every single Norwegian.

 

Our natural gas reserves should be re-allocated to Australian use, first - with export demands, second - and the royalties payable on that exported gas should be upped to a level on a par with Norways oil and gas royalties.

 

Of course, pigs might fly, too, before that happens.

 

I can see what is more likely to happen, is some smart-arse entrepeneur, starting up an import-export company based in a 3rd-world Asian country - entering into a contract with Chevron and other NW Shelf operators, to buy our natural gas - with the stated aim of supplying it to that infrastructure-deficient 3rd-world country - then sending the gas-laden ships straight around to the East Coast of Australia, and selling the gas at double the cost to desperate Australian energy suppliers - and claiming it legally came from a 3rd world country - and therefore, there's no tariffs to be paid on it, thanks to generous trading terms we have with those "developing" countries!

 

 

[jetboy]

From the link earlier in this thread I see it does not apply to aircraft engines, even if that did creep in it would be only those under 25hp.

 

"The proposed standards would only apply to exhaust and evaporative emissions from newly imported or manufactured NRSIEE. The standards will not apply to NRSIEE that Australians already own. When the standards come into force, NRSIEE suppliers and dealers would not be permitted to provide non-compliant NRSIEE to the Australian market. The categories to be covered are: • Spark ignition engines rated 19 kilowatts (25 hp) and below used in household and commercial operations such as: lawn mowers, ride-on mowers, mulchers, brush/ line cutters, generators, pumps, chain saws, and other small handheld and pushed/pulled engines.• Spark ignition engines used in marine vessels, including: outboard engines, personal watercraft, inboard/ sterndrive engines."

 

 

[bexrbetter]

Jetboy, can you not go off topic, thanks.