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The PM is swooping into WA with a cheque to revive the Sculpture by the Sea for its 20th anniversary as he arrives for a three-day visit to Perth.

Albo trying to buy WA votes.
 
I've had a potbelly wood fire and later a slow combustible fire box. Even used a wood fired range working in Albany. All had flues and out the smoke went in hot air, thankfully drifting down into the valley of my Glen Forrest suburb in the hills above Perth.

Getting wood delivered, paid for and stacked under a tarp was a job. Then cutting it up with axe or splitter and restacking into piles. My favourite memories were dashing out into the half dark and rain to get more wood. Also the time I walked into a giant Orb Spider's web 'and its Spider' with its bulbous body and crimson legs.

So all that effort to have a real fire. Seemed right at the time, especially for Hills folk like I an' we was. I brewed me own beer too.

Landing back in the lowlands of suburbia 3 decades ago, gas seemed a good option, especially for two gas fires. So easy and cheap. I like the glow of a fire, even gas, to channel my deep ancestor's intrigue of flames.

Even my beloved Gas heaters and hot water system may get a bureaucratic red cross in our greener future. Not before I go I hope. Still, renewables powered electricity for heating and coolng seems the way we're headed in Australia. Back up is an issue with some having pipe dreams wishing for nuclear reactors on decommissioned coal power plants. They're safe enough now but too expensive to build and too late to affect climate change imho. Also more costly electrical power to consumers.. However, to back up a sometimes unreliable green power input, solutions need to be found apart from Nuclear in the context of Australia's present position. Hydro storage is costly to build but Oz's mega SnowyRiver 2.0 hydro project is nearing completed despite the typical delays in tunnelling. 🤞
The alternative I've watched is massive electricity battery storage systems developed and developing. Home power batteries are avilable even now, and their prices are decreasing and their efficiency improving. Like EV's.🚘

Even people in EVs almost draining thier car's battery to keep the lights on in their home or to pump back into the grid. for $$. That power feedback to the grid has actually overcome the ability of some power plants to cope with so they've had to curtail and put limits on their power feeds from homes. 🤔
Australia is a top global user of solar panels. We have the Power.⚡

The big picture paints me rightly ungreen in some ways. Not as bad as wood burners like I was ... I regret to say 😔. All the pollution and Co2 released is indeed impinging on people's health and longevity.😢
Just look to parts of China or India to see the evidence of that.
It's a work in progress and we all need to do our parts, as best we can or afford. The world is burning.🥺

But also our personal health and safety from the dangers of possible Co2 build up in our homes from wood and gas heaters as Craig mentioned. With closed windows and little air flow the situation can be unhealthy or even deadly ☠.
 
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Grier said:
Back up is an issue with some having pipe dreams wishing for nuclear reactors on decommissioned coal power plants. They're safe enough now but too expensive to build and too late to affect climate change imho. Also more costly electrical power to consumers.. However, to back up a sometimes unreliable green power input, solutions need to be found apart from Nuclear in the context of Australia's present position. Hydro storage is costly to build but Oz's mega SnowyRiver 2.0 hydro project is nearing completed
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Terry we cant go alone with only renewables as much as we'd like that to be the case. So we need a mix of energies, green hydrogen, hydro, retain gas and personally I'd like to have nuclear in the mix too if we build the small modular variety. Not in our lifetimes probably but for the next gen. That or some other alternate energy form that our visionary Aussie scientists may discover.
 
Richie said:
Terry we cant go alone with only renewables as much as we'd like that to be the case. So we need a mix of energies, green hydrogen, thermal, hydro, retain gas and personally I'd like to have nuclear in the mix too if we build the small modular variety. Not in our lifetimes probably but for the next gen. That or some other alternate energy form that our visionary Aussie scientists may discover.
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How about these two theories.

At $500 billion, Peter Dutton’s 2045 nuclear plan is not only late, it’s expensive. At that price, we could put $33,000 worth of batteries on each of Australia’s 15.2 million buildings and abandon the grid altogether.

Rather than pouring hundreds of billions of dollars into nuclear submarines, our money would be better spent on building a national fast train network to the advantage of all Australians. The estimated cost of the submarines is $368 billion, while the estimated cost of a national fast train network is $150 billion. The days of manned submarines are limited, and nuclear subs bring with them all the attendant problems of basing, manning and maintenance – for a questionable defense benefit.

There are more Here:
 
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Richie said:
How about these two theories.

At $500 billion, Peter Dutton’s 2045 nuclear plan is not only late, it’s expensive. At that price, we could put $33,000 worth of batteries on each of Australia’s 15.2 million buildings and abandon the grid altogether.

Rather than pouring hundreds of billions of dollars into nuclear submarines, our money would be better spent on building a national fast train network to the advantage of all Australians. The estimated cost of the submarines is $368 billion, while the estimated cost of a national fast train network is $150 billion. The days of manned submarines are limited, and nuclear subs bring with them all the attendant problems of basing, manning and maintenance – for a questionable defense benefit.

There are more Here:
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Fast trains as we know them today will probably be obsolete soon. We need to be looking at building a next generation national hyperloop network.
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Richie said:
How about these two theories.

At $500 billion, Peter Dutton’s 2045 nuclear plan is not only late, it’s expensive. At that price, we could put $33,000 worth of batteries on each of Australia’s 15.2 million buildings and abandon the grid altogether.

Rather than pouring hundreds of billions of dollars into nuclear submarines, our money would be better spent on building a national fast train network to the advantage of all Australians. The estimated cost of the submarines is $368 billion, while the estimated cost of a national fast train network is $150 billion. The days of manned submarines are limited, and nuclear subs bring with them all the attendant problems of basing, manning and maintenance – for a questionable defense benefit.

There are more Here:
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I don't object to Nuclear or even Fusion power for Australia in the future, but not now with the urgency needed to combat global warming NOW!
Opposition leader Dutton is away with fairies wanting nuclear power stations. Australia's main Scientific body CSIRO gave Duttons idea the thumbs down saying a twenty year timeline is too long and hugely expensive to build nuclear reactors, and to run them which would only increase electricity prices.
Our colourful dumb redneck pollie from the banana state Queensland reckons we could build reactors in three years only. He's dreaming.🤣
 
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Dr Andrew Forrest's Fortescue Zero technology arm is developing a 6 megawatt (MW) fast charger unit that will convert their hundreds of huge haul trucks into electric powered. The fast charger will be by far the most powerful in the world and could promise huge export dollars for the Aussie mining giant. Fortescue aims to reach “real zero” terrestrial emissions for its operations at its giant Pilbara (WA) mines, which means ceasing the burning of fossil fuels for power generation, transport and mining operations by the end of the decade.
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Earlier this year, Germany’s Cyber Agency awarded Australian company Quantum Brilliance a contract to develop the worlds first mobile quantum computers by 2027.

You aware of this Thomas. Bewildered as I'd have expected this the other way round. Shows you how hi tech savvy my nation has become in the past decade.
 
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Richie said:
Earlier this year, Germany’s Cyber Agency awarded Australian company Quantum Brilliance a contract to develop the worlds first mobile quantum computers by 2027.

You aware of this Thomas. Bewildered as I'd have expected this the other way round. Shows you how hi tech savvy my nation has become in the past decade.
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All I can vaguely remember is that research into it was to be intensified. I wasn't aware that an Aussie company is on board yet it doesn't surprise me either. However, Quantum Brilliance cooperating with an Austrian company is one of six companies one of them being a German startup which are engaged in the project but will work on different aspects. Apart from the know-how, it's always a question of funding which, in turn, is based on a national or corporate strategy. It seems that Germany is ambitious to become a player in this field for which cooperation is vital and inevitable.
 
Richie said:
Dr Andrew Forrest's Fortescue Zero technology arm is developing a 6 megawatt (MW) fast charger unit that will convert their hundreds of huge haul trucks into electric powered. The fast charger will be by far the most powerful in the world and could promise huge export dollars for the Aussie mining giant. Fortescue aims to reach “real zero” terrestrial emissions for its operations at its giant Pilbara (WA) mines, which means ceasing the burning of fossil fuels for power generation, transport and mining operations by the end of the decade.
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I like Twiggy Forrest, he's a very decent billionaire philanthropist. Totally opposite to Clive the Palmer.
 
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