Affordable flying?

[facthunter]

Critical COAL power stations only operate at near full output and take ages to start up and built from scratch the cost is about 55 Cents/kw Hr while solar and wind are around 8% of that figure. AND getting cheaper. . Nev

[turboplanner]

27 minutes ago, F10 said:

Yeah, I listened to this laughable little report on the ABC, that oh so virtuous propaganda machine of the left, describing a lovely little scene of all these virtuous people re charging their “unaffordable by most” Teslas at all these charging stations between Sydney and Melbourne, you could almost see the dreadlocks blowing in the wind and the barefoot girls in see-through cheesecloth dresses making daisy chains, along the highway verges, whilst out of sight over the horizon, the still standing wind farms and struggling solar panel farms hopelessly overloaded, were saved by a churning ever reliable and all weather coal fired power station, charging all these hundreds of EV’s and wrapping our happy flower children in a comfortable blanket of virtuosity, whilst they championed the satanic evils of coal.

Summed it up quite nicely, although I would like to see a comparison analysis of an electrc chainsaw vs a cow - we may have to ban drinking milk

[facthunter]

Cow juice should be better than chain oil?  You're on a winner there. It's EVEN in the Bible . Land of MILK and HONEY. APPLES caused issues earlier on and Pork gets a rough time also. How great is it to have the Wisdom of Solomon? Nev

[Marty_d]

2 hours ago, F10 said:

Barnaby “voice”! No, but to me, Matt Canaan talks some sense…especially when China puts out in 16 days what we do in a year…..like Jo Brandon says “common maaan”!

 

Not sure if you're missing a V there, but Matt Canavan has never talked sense in his life.  Sad for a 40 year old man to be stuck in the 1950's.

 

Of course, you're counting all the emissions that come from the coal we pull out of the ground and sell to the rest of the world, aren't you?

 

I really hope the "common man" has more common sense than the reactionary, self interested retards in the National party.

[Geoff_H]

13 hours ago, facthunter said:

Critical COAL power stations only operate at near full output and take ages to start up and built from scratch the cost is about 55 Cents/kw Hr while solar and wind are around 8% of that figure. AND getting cheaper. . Nev

Please quote your source of both figures.  Particularly the coal cost does not correlate with delivered cost of retail supply costs according to the official website

[facthunter]

They are ball park world figures. What "Official " website are you accessing? Nev

[kasper]

Now how about the medium term outcome of LARGE numbers of electric vehicles ... 

 

1. most vehicles sit around most of the time even during daylight hours.

2. If most of the vehicles sitting around most of the day have a large battery inside AND you plug that vehicle into the grid

you can pump electricity from solar through the network and store it in a distributive way around the nation

and if those cars are still plugged in at night you can draw back from a distributed network (consumer setting minimum levels of retained battery)

 

Yes there are larger losses when you keep transforming currency/volts and then distributing and charging ... BUT its a way of adding capacity to the wider network.

 

I have been having fun at home with old crappy stuff given away when solar system upgrade ... I took 6.25kw of retired solar panels, three 200l electric hotwater systems (from the tip) and paid $140 for three replacement 36v DC elements ... I now have a stand alone system with 600l of hot water that is on the dairy ... no battery as for this system I am storing energy as heat in the water ... but as I NEEDED hot water its actually more efficient.

 

Bit of thought and things can be done.

 

I am now eyeing off the rotary hoe to loose its petrol engine ... and the batteries can be low tech as I need the weight on the machine ...

[onetrack]

The true cost of coal needs to be measured in the vast areas of good farmland it destroys, and the lives it takes, and has taken in the past. Coal mining is one of the most destructive styles of mining on the planet, because it doesn't rip up a relatively small area for a lot of intensely valuable product - as we do with gold and lithium and nickel and cobalt.

Coal mining has taken hundreds of thousands of lives in the past, directly in underground mining (and millions more in deaths from air pollution) - now to make it safer, the coal companies only take the relatively shallow coal, which is spread over vast areas.

Yes, soil rehabilitation from coal mining takes place - but the soil structure is so disturbed by mining and replacement, it can never return to its original, valuable and productive structure. Open-cast coal mining destroys and pollutes major water aquifers. There are underground coal fires causing major destruction and pollution. The levels of methane gas released by simply mining the coal, never seems to get a mention.

The major beneficiaries of open-cast coal mining are the huge mining machine manufacturers of America, and the Global Oil corporations. Caterpillar used to make machines for agriculture, now it makes more money out of machines for coal mining, and it produces very little agricultural machinery. 

I've been a gold miner, a mining contractor, and a farmer, and I think I have a reasonably balanced view. But way too many politicians are still beholden to Big Coal and Big Oil to see the way forward is not increasing the worlds reliance on coal, but on reducing it - and making sure we utilise that massive amount of free energy that falls on us daily from that big golden orb in the sky.

I detest being held to ransom perpetually by Big Oil and Big Coal. The diversification of our energy sources makes the same sense as the diversification of your income sources.

[Geoff_H]

My petrol fuelled BMW 330i creates less CO2 emissions than a Model S Tesla.  I expect that this is also true for petrol engined vehicles that have dual cycle engines, many vehicles for sale today.  Tesla charge with power from the eastern Australian grid.  The grid hass a high emissions per kilowatt hour generated. Basically owing to the use of coal for power generation.  The Tesla in NSW generates 0.164kg/km of CO2, the BMW generates 0.147kg/km of CO2.

If this is so then why are Tesla's so successful around the world?  As an example I examined the New York grid. It is approximately the same side as the Eastern Australian Grid. New York emissions of CO2 are approximately 1/4 of ours.  Is used hydro (Niagara Falls) gas (mostly combined cycle) and Nuclear ( 3 Mile Island).  Approximately 1/3 of each. Tesla vehicles in New York state emit 1/4 when charged of their grid, and emit far less CO2 than a BMW 330i driving around New York state.

[Bruce Tuncks]

Why, Geoff H?   Cos very few have your analytical skills and so they think electric = zero emissions.

But IF you were to charge your car from solar panels, AND if those solar panels were themselves made from green electricity, then the figures for the tesla improve huh.

[Marty_d]

7 minutes ago, Geoff_H said:

My petrol fuelled BMW 330i creates less CO2 emissions than a Model S Tesla.  I expect that this is also true for petrol engined vehicles that have dual cycle engines, many vehicles for sale today.  Tesla charge with power from the eastern Australian grid.  The grid hass a high emissions per kilowatt hour generated. Basically owing to the use of coal for power generation.  The Tesla in NSW generates 0.164kg/km of CO2, the BMW generates 0.147kg/km of CO2.

If this is so then why are Tesla's so successful around the world?  As an example I examined the New York grid. It is approximately the same side as the Eastern Australian Grid. New York emissions of CO2 are approximately 1/4 of ours.  Is used hydro (Niagara Falls) gas (mostly combined cycle) and Nuclear ( 3 Mile Island).  Approximately 1/3 of each. Tesla vehicles in New York state emit 1/4 when charged of their grid, and emit far less CO2 than a BMW 330i driving around New York state.

Thank you for pointing out exactly why the Australian generation grid needs to be changed.

 

I see a few Tesla's, Leaf's, electric Hyundai's and BMW's on the roads down here.  As our state grid is hydro powered it's renewable, except for when the silly buggers running it decided to sell lots of electricity to Victoria when prices were high and ran the water supply too low.

[danny_galaga]

1 hour ago, onetrack said:

The true cost of coal needs to be measured in the vast areas of good farmland it destroys, and the lives it takes, and has taken in the past. Coal mining is one of the most destructive styles of mining on the planet, because it doesn't rip up a relatively small area for a lot of intensely valuable product - as we do with gold and lithium and nickel and cobalt.

Coal mining has taken hundreds of thousands of lives in the past, directly in underground mining (and millions more in deaths from air pollution) - now to make it safer, the coal companies only take the relatively shallow coal, which is spread over vast areas.

Yes, soil rehabilitation from coal mining takes place - but the soil structure is so disturbed by mining and replacement, it can never return to its original, valuable and productive structure. Open-cast coal mining destroys and pollutes major water aquifers. There are underground coal fires causing major destruction and pollution. The levels of methane gas released by simply mining the coal, never seems to get a mention.

The major beneficiaries of open-cast coal mining are the huge mining machine manufacturers of America, and the Global Oil corporations. Caterpillar used to make machines for agriculture, now it makes more money out of machines for coal mining, and it produces very little agricultural machinery. 

I've been a gold miner, a mining contractor, and a farmer, and I think I have a reasonably balanced view. But way too many politicians are still beholden to Big Coal and Big Oil to see the way forward is not increasing the worlds reliance on coal, but on reducing it - and making sure we utilise that massive amount of free energy that falls on us daily from that big golden orb in the sky.

I detest being held to ransom perpetually by Big Oil and Big Coal. The diversification of our energy sources makes the same sense as the diversification of your income sources.

The Economist reports that in India roughly 112,000 people die each year because of coal pollution.

[BrendAn]

Nuclear is the way forward. Probably never happen though.

It would take the government to build it as a utility  service not privatised. I don't think any private company would do it because of the time it would take to recoup the cost.  And if they did all they care about is profit.  I believe power and  Water should cover costs only. Get rid of all the grubs feeding off us 

[danny_galaga]

1 minute ago, BrendAn said:

Nuclear is the way forward. Probably never happen though.

It would take the government to build it as a utility  service not privatised. I don't think any private company would do it because of the time it would take to recoup the cost.  And if they did all they care about is profit.  I believe power and  Water should cover costs only. Get rid of all the grubs feeding off us 

Rolls Royce are developing compact nuclear power stations. They will be roughly the size of two football fields in total. They have actually said they would love to build in Australia. Nuclear is not perfect, but Australia had to be about the BEST place in the world to build a nuclear power station.

[Geoff_H]

People will say that they have solar cells that charge their Tesla so they don't cause any emissions.  One 300watt solar panel will generate, on a sunny day, enough energy for a Tesla to travel 4km.  So your Tesla has to be in your garage or you need storage batteries at your house to transfer the energy.  These batteries and inverters are expensive. But even if you do charge your Tesla using solar cells you only reduce the emissions of CO2 if the solar cells are dedicated to your car.  If you are using solar cells that are connected to the grid then while you are charging your Tesla the power that was being injected into the grid has to be generated by some other source, the only other source that allows variation is coal or gas fired generators.  So the emissions of CO2 don't change. Solar cells for your Tesla don't reduce emissions.

 

[facthunter]

One would not do much. That's the problem and an extensive grid is prone to damage. Nev

[facthunter]

Coal fired power stations are not flexible. Nev

[Geoff_H]

4 hours ago, facthunter said:

They are ball park world figures. What "Official " website are you accessing? Nev

I will have to look it up again.  I will get back to you.  It is a government site on power and emissions in Australia.  It is interesting that the 2019 average nbulk purchase price of electricity was $0.14/kWh.  I pay a lot more than that to get it into my house.y

[Geoff_H]

33 minutes ago, facthunter said:

Coal fired power stations are not flexible. Nev

Say that to an engineer at Eraring or Bayswater power stations.  They have been designed to come on Quickly and go up in very fast time.  I commissioned one of the systems.  There is so much BS out there that is put out with a political agenda.  

Greatest of all is the two most CO2 emitting countries are Indonesia and Brazil.  Land clearing!  In 2008 when I had a contract with a big mining company to investigate renewable energy I discovered this.  One eyed climate change obsessed people usually deny it.  Politically impossible to change those emissions.  In 2008 land clearing emitted more CO2 each year than all the aircraft that had ever flown since the Wright brothers took off

 

[Yenn]

I went to India in 1984 and saw the Taj Mahal by moonlight, except that I didn't really see it due to the airborn pollution. That pollution was not caused by coal, but by the burning of cow dung by every family in India.

[danny_galaga]

5 minutes ago, Yenn said:

I went to India in 1984 and saw the Taj Mahal by moonlight, except that I didn't really see it due to the airborn pollution. That pollution was not caused by coal, but by the burning of cow dung by every family in India.

It's coal particulates that causes asthma and death, not cow dung. 1984 is a long time ago.

[Flightrite]

Get used to dirty power, we will all be rotting in the ground before that’s done with!

The greenies will keep the hype at high levels forever & a day!

 

Edited November 19, 2021 by Flightrite

[Geoff_H]

1 hour ago, danny_galaga said:

Rolls Royce are developing compact nuclear power stations. They will be roughly the size of two football fields in total. They have actually said they would love to build in Australia. Nuclear is not perfect, but Australia had to be about the BEST place in the world to build a nuclear power station.

I worked for the electricity commission of NSW and in the early 1970' we looked into going nuclear with a power station built on federal land in Jervis bay.  It was not economic then.  The cost of a power station consists of the cost of money to build it, the cost of fuel and the cost of labour to maintain it.  Coal is medium for interest low for fuel and medium for labour.  Nuclear costs at least 10x a coal station. With 70's interest rates far from low interest was enormous, fuel is quite low and labour was high.  Just not worth building.  These days interest is low.  We should do it.

The eastern Australian grid would only produce 5 44gallon drums of waste per year.

[Geoff_H]

We will have blackouts.  Liddell was commissioned in 1971 designed for 20 life.  In 1988 I led a team to work out what we needed to do to extend life to 2004.  Most was done.  But I am surprised that it is running at all.  But when it comes to an end the price of electricity will increase.  Gas will fill the hole.  When coal plant keeps falling over and all the gas plant is operating then any system failure will result in blackouts.  Look at the formation of the electricity commission of NSW history.  We are back to where it was in mid 1950's.

I have just overhauled my little generator.

[Thruster88]

Just a reminder the thread is about affordable flying. Anyone beat the 6k thruster.😂