6 million brace for catastrophic bushfires in New South Wales

Discussion in 'Australia, NZ, Pacific' started by Bowerbird, Nov 11, 2019.

  1. crank

    crank Well-Known Member

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    If people stop travelling, and stop buying imported goods, how long do you think those big (empty) ships will keep running?
     
  2. Monash

    Monash Well-Known Member

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    If only it were that simple. You do realize that aprox 47% (and rising) of Australia's cola exports are what is called metallurgical coal as opposed to thermal coal. As its name implies metallurgical coal is used in the manufacturer of steel while, again as its name implies thermal coal is used for the production of electrical power via coal burning power stations.

    So currently zero coal mining would mean (almost) zero steel production - across the entire world, full stop. And good luck running the modern world without that.

    There are alternatives to coal in steel making, principally electric arc furnaces(currently aprox 30% of steel manufacturing/recycling) but they are power hogs and still need some (lesser) input of carbon into the production process. Again carbon neutral sources of carbon like hydrogen gas and bio-char are options but have to be massively scaled up to be relevant, as would more recycling which is also an option.

    So your 'named year' would have to be 20 or more years down the track while every steel manufacturer on the the planet was forced to build new electric arc furnaces, plant whole forests and or invest in massive electrolysis (hydrogen) plants. Bottom line is a huge increase in the cost of steel per ton and let the games commence over who pays for it.
     
    Last edited: Dec 22, 2019
  3. alexa

    alexa Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Australia still gets 60% of its electricity from coal - this is despite having renewables which could be doing the job instead. 92% of all its energy needs are from fossil fuel.

    As far as coal is concerned it has no policy for ending its use. Their Government is still promoting it.

    https://www.climate-transparency.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/11
    /B2G_2019_Australia.pdf

    The UK still gets 78% of its energy from fossil fuels which is disgusting. We are only 21% zero carbon. That means we will have a lot of work to do if we are to get to 45% by 2030. Our coal use though has been reduced to 5%. At the moment we have a commitment to end coal use by 2025. Lets hope Boris does this. That though is the date we all should be looking for.

    and we, UK, are the best in the G20

    https://www.climate-transparency.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/B2G_2019_UK.pdf

    Australia is not doing so well at the moment. From time to time I have found myself hoping the people here are safe.

    This is todays news

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-australia-50885772

    Now I can see that there are some people so addicted to how life is now that they would rather be dead and end life on the planet if they cannot have that. I though do not believe they have the right of ecocide. I hope that soon we will have proper arrangements so that those countries which continue doing this will find themselves in a worse situation from sanctions than Iran does - and this has to happen asap now. We need massive fines and sanctions to countries not acting responsibly for the planet.

    Australia has had exactly the same amount of notice of this as every other country. In fact I found a video of Australians talking about the situation in the 70's. They had worked out that we would be much as we are now if we did not take appropriate action but did not believe for one minute we would fail to do so. How mentality has changed.
     
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  4. jay runner

    jay runner Banned

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  5. Monash

    Monash Well-Known Member

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    They can 'promote' coal power all they want, no-one is buying in. None of Australia's electricity suppliers have any plans to build more coal fired plants, not one. And of the 20 or so we do have all but about 8 are scheduled to shut down within about 20 years (half of those within 10 years) including most of the largest. By 2050 there shouldn't be any left.

    And those timings are optimistic, coal power is in death spiral. No-one will push to close the oldest plants down - we have to make up the deficit it output first via renewables. But 40% of our coal fired plants will be gone one way or the other in the next 10-13 years. Best guess is the demise of the newer plants will be sped up.
     
    Last edited: Dec 23, 2019
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  6. politicalcenter

    politicalcenter Well-Known Member

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    We had a flash drought last summer and fortunately we suffered few fires here in Bama. But what could have happened is kinda scary. Fires in dry conditions is almost impossible to control and my deepest respect goes out the people fighting this tragedy. I regret to say this may be part of a new normal facing humanity.
     
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  7. alexa

    alexa Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Ok I got my information from the link I left. It is for 2019 and it says

    https://www.climate-transparency.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/B2G_2019_Australia.pdf

    You are suggesting private companies are not going with your Government.

    Having discovered the amount of renewables you have in place I cannot see how you are not able to move onto renewables now. Scotland is hoping to have all its electricity by renewables by next year. It is a case of doing things as fast as possible.

    Your timing for getting things done is too late and what is being asked for by the IPCC now is almost certainly itself not fast enough. The demands made by the IPCC are always less than is needed as they go by what everyone will agree with which is the lowest possible and we are finding the effects on our climate are happening faster than anyone ever imagined. We really are in any emergency now and I think we must start putting heavy sanctions on countries who who have not bothered to do what they knew they had to do. That is because Australia or the US or Saudi Arabia not putting in its share puts the whole planet in danger. We are in this together.
     
  8. Monash

    Monash Well-Known Member

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    To clarify its not 'my' timing'. I was just quoting estimated closure dates reported by the power utilities themselves. If it was up to me it would be much quicker - and as I said I think the closure date for the few 'newer' plants (built post 90) will also be brought forward significantly. Of course Coal fired units are BIG capital investments with 40-50 year life spans. So if ta company is going to be told to shut down a plant 25 years into that life span someone (the taxpayer) is going to have to compensate them for the lost investment.

    As for the older plants that will shut in the next 10-20 years (60%) of the total the issue is base load. We can upscale solar and to a lesser extent wind fairly rapidly - and in the case of solar we are. But we also have to build a hell of a lot of storage capacity, mainly batteries but also pumped storage and then integrate that storage into the grid (which is a whole extra level of capital investment) before we can shut down all coal fired power. That will take a decade or so even with the best will in the world - which is not what we have in our current government. This means the older plants at least will fully depreciate before/see out their lives if not the newer ones.

    Fortunately it appears the power companies are ignoring the governments mewings. It would just be quicker and easier if they got out of bed with the fossil fuel industry and became part of the solution not the problem.
     
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  9. alexa

    alexa Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    :) Thanks for clarifying that
    That may be so. However the slower we are at getting things stabilised the more expense is going to be needed to sort out problems.
    and this is what Bowerbird mentioned earlier and indeed what I saw in programs I watched from Australia. You have massive batteries built doing nothing and you are not letting renewables onto the grid. This is crazy. You may believe you are saving money because you have coal contracts but you are way losing. Just look at the money you are losing over the fires. Cost will get worse and worse as the climate situation gets worse and one way to make that stop quicker and so save on costs is to do it quicker.

    The US, Australia, Saudi Arabia and Brazil stopped the latest climate meeting from doing anything effective. They would appear to be the most destructive countries in the world.


    It needs the people of Australia to demand and demand and I have heard they are doing a lot of demanding. Then with Australia in on saving the planet we can start making movements on the other 3. ;)
     
    Last edited: Dec 25, 2019
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  10. Bowerbird

    Bowerbird Well-Known Member

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    And yet

    This is a solvable problem

    upload_2020-1-5_17-12-24.jpeg

    A. solar furnace

    Think of what one of these could do in a place like Broken Hill
     
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  11. Monash

    Monash Well-Known Member

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    Yes but it doesn't make steel, it just just makes heat. You can have all the heat/power you want, when it comes to steel making if you don't have carbon to add to the mix all you end up with is iron. Which is not the same thing as steel (believe me on this).

    I'm all for carbon free sources of energy be it solar, hydro, wind or atomic (fusion) etc but carbon free electricity does not automatically equal carbon free industry.
     
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  12. Bowerbird

    Bowerbird Well-Known Member

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    Is that carbon entering the atmosphere though? And can we reduce the co 2 wmissions with going solar?
     
  13. politicalcenter

    politicalcenter Well-Known Member

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    I think it needs to be addressed on many levels with the focus on the industries that produce the most atmospheric CO2. The focus should not be one of punishment but one of economic incentives in order to reduce carbon output and also to reduce waste. Make it an ecological and economic endeavor.
     
  14. Monash

    Monash Well-Known Member

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    Whatever we do some carbon is going to be released into the atmosphere, albeit via agriculture, mining, industry or any other human endeavor. Human have been 'releasing' carbon into the atmosphere ever since we discovered fire. When there were a couple of hundred thousand of us it didn't matter a sod. When there are almost 10 billion of us living technologically advanced life styles in matters hugely.

    Solar is a big part of the solution but even if Australia went 100% solar power tomorrow electricity generation is only something like 30% of our total carbon emissions (don't quote me that I'm relying on memory for that figure - I'm sure you can research the exact figure yourself fairly easily). So changing the carbon equation is arguably the greatest challenge humans have faced since we built our first cities.

    BTW I am confident we can and will do it, but there's no way its going to be done before global temperatures rise by the 3 degrees centigrade (or a bit more). It simply takes to much time to turn the 'ocean liner' that is human civilization on a new course. Ultimately I believe the Earths ecosystems will survive and even prosper but we face a very difficult 100 years or so of transition.
     
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