Australia Criticized For Ramping Up Gas Extraction Through '2050 and Beyond' (bbc.com) 132
Slashdot reader sonlas shared this report from the BBC:
Australia has announced it will ramp up its extraction and use of gas until "2050 and beyond", despite global calls to phase out fossil fuels. Prime Minister Anthony Albanese's government says the move is needed to shore up domestic energy supply while supporting a transition to net zero... Australia — one of the world's largest exporters of liquefied natural gas — has also said the policy is based on "its commitment to being a reliable trading partner". Released on Thursday, the strategy outlines the government's plans to work with industry and state leaders to increase both the production and exploration of the fossil fuel. The government will also continue to support the expansion of the country's existing gas projects, the largest of which are run by Chevron and Woodside Energy Group in Western Australia...
The policy has sparked fierce backlash from environmental groups and critics — who say it puts the interest of powerful fossil fuel companies before people. "Fossil gas is not a transition fuel. It's one of the main contributors to global warming and has been the largest source of increases of CO2 [emissions] over the last decade," Prof Bill Hare, chief executive of Climate Analytics and author of numerous UN climate change reports told the BBC... Successive Australian governments have touted gas as a key "bridging fuel", arguing that turning it off too soon could have "significant adverse impacts" on Australia's economy and energy needs. But Prof Hare and other scientists have warned that building a net zero policy around gas will "contribute to locking in 2.7-3C global warming, which will have catastrophic consequences".
The policy has sparked fierce backlash from environmental groups and critics — who say it puts the interest of powerful fossil fuel companies before people. "Fossil gas is not a transition fuel. It's one of the main contributors to global warming and has been the largest source of increases of CO2 [emissions] over the last decade," Prof Bill Hare, chief executive of Climate Analytics and author of numerous UN climate change reports told the BBC... Successive Australian governments have touted gas as a key "bridging fuel", arguing that turning it off too soon could have "significant adverse impacts" on Australia's economy and energy needs. But Prof Hare and other scientists have warned that building a net zero policy around gas will "contribute to locking in 2.7-3C global warming, which will have catastrophic consequences".
gas = renewables (Score:4, Informative)
Re:gas = renewables (Score:4, Insightful)
none of us have ever heard of batteries and there definitely aren't examples of them working in Australia, so your argument is very persuasive.
please, explain how because capacity doesn't exist right now it never can. Go on. We've never heard this argument before.
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Batteries are used over periods of hours already, to smooth output of solar and wind. Obviously if you are looking for a whole-country UPS then that's a different matter, but fortunately there is no need for such things.
Re:gas = renewables (Score:4, Informative)
"It’s not the only BESS in the area. Just down the road is AGL’s proposal for a 500MW grid-scale battery with up to four hours of storage, as partial replacement for decommissioned Liddell coal power plant."
Batteries are useful however 4 hours is not useful for anything other than balancing the load while a Gas fired power station winds up.
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I think what bothers me is many people think we have the ability to end fossil fuels today without impact and that's dangerous. But it's also dangerous to just maintain the status quo.
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Well, 'Twiggy' is one of Australia's richest and likes to offset his positions against another prominent billionaire, Gina Reinhart who has the ear of prominent National and Liberal party leaders.
Re: gas = renewables (Score:3)
I'm certain everyone has heard of batteries. I just don't think anyone has found a renewable energy producer willing to pay for one. Just like the Little Red Hen [wikipedia.org], everyone is willing to wait for someone else to do the work. But they want first dibs on the benefits once they are available.
If wind and solar had to install storage capacity to meet contractual delivery obligations just like every other producer, we'd see a lot less claims of their economic viability.
Australia wil not go the way of Germany (Score:1, Flamebait)
Just because much of the EU has planned to become an energy-short third world nation, does not mean the rest of the nations have to. Most will engage in common sense and make sure citizens have enough power... and in Australia power literally means life because of the need for reliable AC.
And since Australia only emits around 1% of global CO2 emissions [ourworldindata.org], does it really matter if they go up a little? What Australia does is literally nothing compared to choice China and India make.
Re:Australia wil not go the way of Germany (Score:4, Informative)
And since Australia only emits around 1% of global CO2 emissions [ourworldindata.org], does it really matter if they go up a little? What Australia does is literally nothing compared to choice China and India make.
Ok, now apply the same logic to every third world country, except China and India. Now what do you get? About half of the world's population is ok continue to spew out as much CO2 as up to what Australians are happily doing, then the world is doomed and it no longer matters what China or India do anymore (which, of course, then China and India will use to say to justify their CO2 emissions).
When rich first world nations, emitting 3-10x more CO2 per person above average, refused to suffer any pain to cut their emission, why the fxxk should poor third world nations do anything, suffer any pain, to do so?
Re: Australia wil not go the way of Germany (Score:1)
Re:Australia wil not go the way of Germany (Score:4)
This isn’t about choosing pain and suffering. Or even choosing pollution.
It’s about choosing a viable fucking solution that meets the need. All needs. And so far, not even first world countries have an answer. Just sales pitches running into reality.
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This isn’t about choosing pain and suffering. Or even choosing pollution.
It’s about choosing a viable fucking solution that meets the need. All needs. And so far, not even first world countries have an answer. Just sales pitches running into reality.
The answer is assloads of renewables on power supplying side, which means more wind turbines, more solar panels, and more nuclear power plants, and then less fossil fuels on the consumer side, which means literally thousands of EVs.
And what do first world countries do? Raise tariffs on EVs and solar panels, and sometimes outright banning their imports.
No, the first world countries knew the answer all along, they just don't like the answer because it is not one that let them live in more luxury.
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This isn’t about choosing pain and suffering. Or even choosing pollution.
It’s about choosing a viable fucking solution that meets the need. All needs. And so far, not even first world countries have an answer. Just sales pitches running into reality.
The answer is assloads of renewables on power supplying side, ...
I think All Needs include the earth. Climate change is but one of the problems the earth is facing due to our number and way of life. The sixth mass extinction is well underway and assloads of renewables will worsen it.
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I think All Needs include the earth. Climate change is but one of the problems the earth is facing due to our number and way of life. The sixth mass extinction is well underway and assloads of renewables will worsen it.
"The Earth" has no need, the Earth will be eventually swallowed by the Sun, and along with it all species that did not fly off the planet. Right now, the only beings that have a chance to leave Earth before that is homo sapiens, while it is nice for humans to preserve as many other species as possible along the way, it is not a must.
Claiming that Earth have some "needs" that is different from human needs is just a fake target to detract from what we, humans, as a whole needs to do. We need to survive and
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I think All Needs include the earth. Climate change is but one of the problems the earth is facing due to our number and way of life. The sixth mass extinction is well underway and assloads of renewables will worsen it.
"The Earth" has no need, the Earth will be eventually swallowed by the Sun, and along with it all species that did not fly off the planet. Right now, the only beings that have a chance to leave Earth before that is homo sapiens, while it is nice for humans to preserve as many other species as possible along the way, it is not a must.
Claiming that Earth have some "needs" that is different from human needs is just a fake target to detract from what we, humans, as a whole needs to do. We need to survive and develop and build colonies off-planet so we will not get swallowed by the Sun. If some species cannot survive the process, that's too bad. Don't forget that if humans fail, all surviving species will very likely just die when the Sun goes nova anyway.
Well said! These folks who claim everyone is short sighted are in fact the short sighted ones. We should be using our resources to find a way to colonize other planets/systems otherwise we are domed to extinction no matter how many EVs we build. I guess their parents never told them the one about having all your eggs in one basket.
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This isn’t about choosing pain and suffering. Or even choosing pollution.
It’s about choosing a viable fucking solution that meets the need. All needs. And so far, not even first world countries have an answer. Just sales pitches running into reality.
The answer is assloads of renewables on power supplying side, which means more wind turbines, more solar panels, and more nuclear power plants, and then less fossil fuels on the consumer side, which means literally thousands of EVs.
If anyone were questioning the sales tactics of Green marketing, you would be the last one they question, cheerleader.
Re: Australia wil not go the way of Germany (Score:3, Insightful)
They have to.
Why?
Is there some all-powerful being that will smite them with thunderbolts from heaven if they don't? I mean besides Greta Thunberg.
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What about the need for a planet capable of sustaining human life?
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"baseload" is not a separate kind of electricity, it is just a concept which made sense in the context of the generation technology of the time. Total load is typically highly variable. In the past we had generators (typically coal fired steam turbine) which were expensive to build but cheap to run, slow to ramp up and slow to ramp down, We also had generators (typically gas turbine) which were expensive to run but quick to ramp up and quick to ramp down. It made sense to use maximize the use of the cheap t
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baseload is not some out of date concept, if anything it is more critical today than it was when first used due to the highly variable nature of renewables you need to have a consistent baseload that covers the requirements when renewables are at their low points.
You need something to cover the requirements when renewables are at their low points. But it's going to be anything but consistent.
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And since Australia only emits around 1% of global CO2 emissions [ourworldindata.org], does it really matter if they go up a little? What Australia does is literally nothing compared to choice China and India make.
Ok, now apply the same logic to every third world country, except China and India. Now what do you get? About half of the world's population is ok continue to spew out as much CO2 as up to what Australians are happily doing, then the world is doomed and it no longer matters what China or India do anymore (which, of course, then China and India will use to say to justify their CO2 emissions).
When rich first world nations, emitting 3-10x more CO2 per person above average, refused to suffer any pain to cut th
Re:Australia wil not go the way of Germany (Score:5, Insightful)
And since Australia only emits around 1% of global CO2 emissions [ourworldindata.org], does it really matter if they go up a little?
If they are increasing natural gas usage to replace coal fired power plants, their CO2 emissions will go down.
Re:Australia wil not go the way of Germany (Score:5, Funny)
If they are increasing natural gas usage to replace coal fired power plants, their CO2 emissions will go down.
There's always one killjoy stepping in with facts to try and stop everyone's perfectly good hysterical ranting.
Re:Australia wil not go the way of Germany (Score:4, Interesting)
" There's people in rural Australia that are getting fed up with rising energy costs and having their land being turned over to windmills and solar PV panels"
Name them. Most news articles I see - and I live in Australia - are about farmers overjoyed to lease a bit of pasture to a wind turbine, or PV.
They don't care primarily about farming, they care about income. At least the ones that I service care more about income - farming just happens to be the traditional way. Fixed income from a wind turbine lease is generally a popular thing among farmers. Doesn't suit broadacre crops, but for grazers like beef, dairy, and sheep, it's great.
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" There's people in rural Australia that are getting fed up with rising energy costs and having their land being turned over to windmills and solar PV panels"
Name them. Most news articles I see - and I live in Australia - are about farmers overjoyed to lease a bit of pasture to a wind turbine, or PV.
They don't care primarily about farming, they care about income. At least the ones that I service care more about income - farming just happens to be the traditional way. Fixed income from a wind turbine lease is generally a popular thing among farmers. Doesn't suit broadacre crops, but for grazers like beef, dairy, and sheep, it's great.
Yep, high power prices are largely due to decades of privatisation and subsequent neglect of infrastructure bearing fruit. Who'da thunk selling off the power companies then ignoring them as they ran them into the ground to maximise profit. Western Australia, which should have some of the highest prices simply due to it's low population, extreme isolation and huge land mass has some of the lowest because WA didn't privatise it's electricity company in the 90's (it was corporatised, meaning it's run like a pr
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There's always one killjoy stepping in with facts to try and stop everyone's perfectly good hysterical ranting.
I know, right? We can't have facts here, this is Slashdot!
Another inconvenient truth, Australia has copious amounts of uranium they could use for producing low CO2 and reliable energy. It's a bit ironic that a nation that produces so much uranium has no nuclear power industry of their own.
Totally agree. What would we all do without a strong daily dose of stupid, mindless, clueless rants from a large cast of AC?
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Australia is not the US or EU. We do not have a nuclear (power) industry and it would take at least decade if not longer to develop. We missed the Nuclear boat 30 years ago as we were addicted to coal.
The actual truth is 40% of Australia's power already comes from renewables and on the current trajectory is set to double that before the end of the decade. Gas will be only used for dispatchable generation, which is perfect for. Nuclear isn't dispatchable, expensive, slow to develop. Just because we have ampl
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There's always one killjoy stepping in with facts to try and stop everyone's perfectly good hysterical ranting.
I think the GP used the word "If" facetiousl. If not, they maybe should have given that this is Australia we're talking about, and their announcements to approve new gas extraction comes in the same year as announcements to approve new coal mines too.
Australia has shown one thing very clearly in the past 2 decades: Having lots of gas does not mean you build gas power plants, especially when you sell a significant portion of capacity to China in one of the largest trade deals on the planet.
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As a Canadian (1.67% of global emissions) I've tried to make this point before. People just can't get past "per capita", even though the climate does not give a flying fuck how many people it took to emit the quantity. Which makes it an emotional argument... not a logical one.
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As a Canadian (1.67% of global emissions) I've tried to make this point before. People just can't get past "per capita", even though the climate does not give a flying fuck how many people it took to emit the quantity. Which makes it an emotional argument... not a logical one.
Canada's carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuel combustion and industrial processes totaled 548 million metric tons (MtCO) in 2022 @ 14.2tons for each Canadian.
What happens when everyone has your attitude?
So as long as me and a few mates only emit say 400 million metric tons between the 4 of us it's ok? There's only 4 of us and we're cleaner than Canada.
I mean sure "per capita" pfft we're extremely dirty and over 7 million times worse than you. But there's only 4 of us. Why should we cut back when Ca
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The planet doesn't care about "per capita". The planet cares about totals.
"Per capita" is a generally useful metric used to bring complex statistics and circumstances down to the level where the average consumer can at least try to wrap their heads around the issues at hand.
It's not useful at all when actually dealing with emissions.
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The planet doesn't care about "per capita". The planet cares about totals.
So we'll just push emmissions responsibilities out to each of the 50 states. And drop our totals way down in the charts.
Except for California. Who will just stick out like the pariah that they are.
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https://www.macrotrends.net/gl... [macrotrends.net]
Peak CO2 emissions happened in 2000 and 2005 (more or less) in the United States, and it's been downhill ever since. The data from ourworldindata is cumulative, and is therefore misleading (at best).
The whole "who cares if the US is cutting CO2 emissions, punish them anyway" attitude needs to go. Eventually Americans are going to stop carying about climate change if they're constantly treated as the problem rather than the solution.
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You're making the emotional argument again.. "What if everybody thought that way?" Well, what iif? Near as I can tell, most everybody does, Regardless, Canada's total CO2 output is small. Output by unit of land mass is absolutely tiny. You have to reach for per capita to find outrage, even though it's not the thing that matters. At all. Except... as an appeal to emotion.
Your four man 400 million ton emitter is a form of reduction ad absurdum. Stop that.
Canada cannot move the needle globally. If they could
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You're making the emotional argument again..
I'm just showing you the absurdity of your position.
Canada cannot move the needle globally.
No individual can. No collection of people the size of Canada can. Did you have a point?
39 million Canadians will have more impact than 39 million of any other countries people though. No other country with people as polluting as Canadians even have that many people.
If you're not going to get a Canadian in the top 2% of emitters in the world to do anything. Why would you expect one of the 98% of people who are already less polluting do anything?
If they could cut their output by half, which they can't, it wouldn't change much of anything.
If you h
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"the absurdity of your position" - that's exactly what reductio ad absurdum is. Extend the argument until it's absurd and then pretend you're refuting the original, and not the absurdity. It's a fallacy for a reason.
But I'll reverse the discussion. If you're all that concerned about Canada's per capita emissions as "heavy polluters", then I have the perfect answer. Let's swell the Canadian population by enough people to bring down our per capita emissions to a more acceptable level, while not affecting actu
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Except yours is the absurd position and I just refuted your original position in my previous post.
You've nothing to say about the facts mentioned there, but just distract with more silly games and absurdities.
What makes you think the extra Canadians will be producing zero CO2? It's just as absurd as everything else you've been saying.
As an average, Canadians are in the top 2% of polluters. It's just a fact. Adding more average Canadians won't change that.
This is the bit where you foolishly claim The ec
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"You're the one pleading to emotions claiming it's too hard for Canadians to do anything because they're a small country"
Sigh... I'm so very, very tired of illiteracy on the internet. Sadly it's not going anywhere.
I did not claim Canadians can't do anything, and I challenge you to say I did. I said Canadian's can't do enough for it to matter on the global level. And I claimed that Canada can't halve it's CO2 output.
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You're technically right you didn't claim that. Here's the correction then.
"You're the one pleading to emotions claiming it's too hard for Canadians to do anything meaningful because they're a small country"
You claimed Canadians can't do enough to matter. And I showed that they can do more than the same number of people in any other country on average.
Which you had no counterargument for.
Even though you've replied to it twice now.
A Canadian emits 3x the worlds average ~15 vs 5. So they're 3x as capa
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You know, you declaring I have no counterargument doesn't make it so. You're tripling down on the per capita argument and demand I follow you into the muck. My point is that the per capita argument doesn't hold water, and makes no sense to focus on if you want to actually solve the problem rather than point at individuals and bitch about them.
The fact that you think triple the per capita emissions means 3 times more capable" of cutting tells me everything I need to know to eject. Besides mixing math with in
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So your "counter argument" to per capita being relevant is to just claim it isn't?
You can't just wish away the fact that A Canadian person is more polluting than most people. You've given some reason why that may be the case (distance) but done nothing to explain why other people should cut but not you.
Your initial argument was the there are only 40 million, not enough to make a difference. When 40 million of anybody else would make even less of a difference.
You keep claiming it's some kind of emotional
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Re: Australia wil not go the way of Germany (Score:2)
Germany made itself highly dependent on Russia because those two were engaging in Nazi fetish play. Then Russia invaded Ukraine because Putin felt it would be even more kinky, which gave Germany the hots really bad until their neighbors shamed them for doing that. Now they're trying to pretend that they knew that building those pipelines was a bad idea all along, but they still have the hots for Russia.
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And since Australia only emits around 1% of global CO2 emissions ...
If true then that's still 3x more than an average person on earth...
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And since Australia only emits around 1% of global CO2 emissions [ourworldindata.org], does it really matter if they go up a little? What Australia does is literally nothing compared to choice China and India make.
This logic allows everyone to avoid cutting any emissions. Just change this argument to state/province level for China, the US and India and everyone can argue that their emissions are so small it doesn't matter anyway. China used to argue for ages that since have so much less emissions per capita than then west, they are not obligated to do anything until the west does. It's all just a variation of wanting someone else to fix the problem for you, when it's clearly everybody's problem.
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Your moderation of your comment is ridiculous.
Just cleaning up the awful air and water pollution of India and China would _significantly_ cut the world's pollution, period. I mean, look at how much air pollution India and China now emit and the polluted rivers of both countries, especially plastics.
Re:Australia wil not go the way of Germany (Score:5, Insightful)
Everything you just said was a story you tell yourself about why the justice you believe in isn't manifest in the world.
We're all sorry... but you're just inventing an enemy. There is no singular way 'the west' thinks. That's not a weakness in practice.
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this is adorable.
buddy. nobody will take away your precious coveted bigliest country status. there there.
Labor supports gas! (Score:1)
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I'm not so sure.... LNP pushing nuclear largely at the bequest of fossil fuel industry, knowing it will take decades and delay any transition away from FF.
ALP support is due to captured by the Western Australia fossil fuel industry. Like the state government they've realised they can only retain government with support from the powerful FF industry. ALP have learnt their lesson with the MRRT, where the PM was rolled by a well resourced campaign by the miners.
The industry contributes little to WA or Australi
Looking to reduce some carbon? (Score:2, Funny)
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fossil fuel extraction and use is tech, computer weenie.
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It has long been turned into DU, Daily KOS, or other hard left message board. As it say in the mod instructions ,surf at -1, and see if you can see a common theme.
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You ever find out the hard way that intelligent people think your virtue signalling is a weird kind of desperation...?
Also, water is wet and people avoid poverty (Score:2)
The English majors-turned-climate-activists talk as if replacement sources and stores of energy are readily available.
They are not.
Get back to me when they are. I might want to buy one.
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Australia missed the nuclear boat 30 years ago. It was an easy argument to sell to the green and it also entrenched the coal/gas industry, who line to pockets of politician on both sides.
By the end of the decade, 80% of power generation in Australia will be from renewables. This isn't some crusade against fossil fuels, but rather a consequence of economics. Wind, Solar and Hydro are multiple times cheaper than FF and gas will only feature as a dispatchable option.
Natural gas is still viable though. (Score:3)
For a couple of reasons:
1. We now know that natural gas is a lot more common than people think. Thanks to new gas field discoveries and vastly improved extraction techniques in the last 40 years, the available natural gas supply has literally gone through the roof. No wonder why coal-fired power plants are being phased out in favor of CNG-fueled power plants.
2. Unlike coal, cleaning up natural gas emissions is vastly cheaper. We don't need to deal with particulates, heavy metals and (for the most part) oxides of sulfur and nitrogen, and pollution controls for natural gas don't need expensive means to remove particulates, heavy metals and sulfur compounds from the exhaust.
UK has other 2050 plans (Score:1)
https://www.theguardian.com/bu... [theguardian.com]
While Australia is looking to expand their natural gas supplies by 2050 we see the UK looking to expand their nuclear power capacity by 2050. To be fair, I have suspicions that UK is also looking to drill for more natural gas, no need to put all the eggs in one basket.
Australia is not lacking in uranium reserves so it's not like they'd be dependent on other nations for energy if they turn to nuclear fission for energy. With tensions rising in the region because of Chinese
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You are conflating a lot of issues. The vast majority of the this new gas development is for export. It has nothing to do with Australia power needs. ALP are just running scared of the FF industry.
Nuclear boat sailed years ago. By the time we established a nuclear industry, renewables will reach +90% with dispatchable gas filling the rest.
Bringing in the subs is just ridiculous. The nuclear submarine program is simply the acquisition of three to five Virginia class submarines in the 2030s. The promised AUKU
Hence this morning's fossil shill article (Score:2)
The Aussie screed claiming that small modular reactors shouldn't be tried because be assured they wouldn't work anyway. I believe that as much as I believe any other political stand from coal producers.
Fortunately China is not only plowing ahead with modular reactor research with all possible speed, but with use of molten salt as a coolant as well.
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but with use of molten salt as a coolant as well
But why? They already have a 200 MW gas cooled design in commercial operation [world-nuclear-news.org] now. What great advantage does molten salt deliver over this?
Molten salt requires a complex chemical processing system for continuous processing of high temperature, highly radioactive fluid. This HTR-PM that China has built involves handling high temperature, highly radioactive solid "pebbles." I don't know which is worse. And neither do you. So I fail to see any great advantage for either.
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But why? They already have a 200 MW gas cooled design in commercial operation [world-nuclear-news.org] now. What great advantage does molten salt deliver over this?
You're confusing two different technologies. The biggest advantage of molten as an internal reactor coolant instead of water is that it allows a much higher operating temperature. This opens up a greater variety of heat sinks, the environmental feature into which waste heat from the reactor is dumped. The existing water-cooled designs are limited to about 600F output temperature, and to achieve that teh water has to be put under high pressure. The second advantage of molten salt is that its high melting poi
Good to know Australia has sane people, (Score:2)
Ozzies been embarrassing themselves for a while. (Score:2)
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But I thought the Chinese are the world bestest at green everything way ahead of the US and everything!
How dare you accuse China of not being the greenest ever!
It seems politicians... (Score:1)
Good form them (Score:2)
They are prioritising their own interest, their own energy security. This is what a sensible, realistic and responsible governments do. I'd do exactly the same.
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Except this expansion is for export. We already have more than enough. We export 80% of our gas. This expansion does nothing to enhance the security of our energy.
The main issue is Australia has no domestic gas reservation policy. Thus we pay global prices. https://www.accc.gov.au/media-... [accc.gov.au] When domestic supplies get tight, we have been known to re-import our own gas from Korea at a premium. The one good thing is, it has priced out gas as a major power supply option in favour of renewables. It's will now be
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Not doing that constitutes the bulk of what articles talk about as "subsidies to the oil and gas industry." To me that term is a bit misleading, but I do think selling gas below market value crosses line into promoting and extending the use of fossil fuel.
Natural gas if done right (avoiding leaks in the extraction and distribution) is a lot better than coal, so the key question is whether this natural gas is
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The bottom line there is no benefit for this increase. Australia practically gives it's resources away for nothing and much of the tax they pay is offset against developments costs and the bulk of the profits go offshore.
If Australia cease gas exportation, if would have little material impact to the local economy, which begs the question why this government has back flipped, adding to the global warming problem.
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This what happens when the industry captures governments and get to set the tax policy. Hugely profitable, just not for Australia.
https://www.theguardian.com/bu... [theguardian.com]
Elitist demands (Score:1)
> despite global calls to phase out fossil fuels
TFA conveniently fails to report who are making these calls. The entire world isn't going to drop their standards of life to please a very loud and small elitist crowd. The media are trying to replace democracy (the majority of the public decides) with something else (the loudest and most obnoxious get to decide)
Gas extraction woes (Score:2)
Um, gas extraction leads to increased levels of CO2 in the atmosphere. I'll grant you that. But, I'd like to remind you that methane is a stronger GW gas. And decomposing human corpses launch just a bloody lot of methane into the atmosphere. Perhaps it would be wiser to keep the humans alive as well as keep energy research alive. And for the bloody damn hell of it how about figuring out how to cope with the consequences you fear?
{o.o}
Everytime I spot some group (Score:1)
ranting about AGW, (it's real - deal with it), and fossil fuels - I love to enumerate the number of kids they have.
Because it's almost ALWAYS a case of "No, see, I'm excluded because I'm special".
No. Fossil fuels are *not* the underlying problem. The sheer excess of humanity is the problem and, here's the kicker, we will do NOTHING about our breeding habits. Even if it kills us
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Having food shortages solves the problem eventually. I don't get why people are so hyper focused on population being the cause AND the solution to climate change.
It's probably a good idea to stop taking captured carbon from the ground and adding it to the system. If we stop adding more carbon to the system, we will eventually reach an equilibrium of biomass versus atmospheric carbon dioxide. While we may no like what that equilibrium is, we can manage it (up to a point), and make long-term plans based on wh
translation assistance (Score:2)
Looking for American to Australian translation for:
Smooth move, Ex-Lax!