Renewable energy

Here in Victoria in Oz back in the 1980's we had a Labor gov, a very bad Labor gov who brought the state into a state of bankruptcy.

The incoming Liberal gov had to do some thing.
For four years every householder had to pay an additional $100 on their council rates.
They then sold off the power and gas companies and opened up public transport to be operated by a UK company,
It worked, the state became solvent again, other states saw this as a good idea so followed suit.

Now the federal gov is going to pay some $165 million for a privately owned wind farm to be connected to the grid. Why?
No gov should ever be involved with any form of business, be it corporate or otherwise.
Such involvement is wrong, govs are there to establish the rules under which companies operate, involement is a conflict of interest.

‘BURN NOW, PAY LATER’
Net zero will not save us from climate meltdown, major environmental groups and leading climate experts have warned, and could do more harm than good if it goes unchecked. ABC reports that countries that have publicly committed to lofty emissions goals are now setting up carbon markets. What that means is they can offset their emissions from polluting industries by simply buying carbon credits — where the money is supposed to go into green practices such as tree planting. The original idea was to help a small number of essential industries such as aviation and steelmaking wean themselves off carbon, as The Conversation writes, but the widespread adoption has become what former chair of the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Robert Watson dubbed “burn now, pay later”. That’s because carbon capture and storage just doesn’t work that well yet. The Albanese government has tasked former chief scientist Ian Chubb to look into our widely criticised carbon credit scheme, Renew Economy reports. It came after the former chair of the emission reduction fund’s watchdog turned whistleblower called our carbon offsets scheme a “fraud on the environment”.

With Australia being the worlds biggest exporter of coal 35% it is always going to be an up hill struggle to get Australia fully onboard with greener energy. We have a group of worldwide politicians who talk the talk but seem to be very slow at actually following through with what they agreed at Glasgow.

Then you get the jolly to Davos and they prattle on about this and that. Nearly every plonker who attended flew in on a private jet.

The Davos Agenda is a pioneering mobilization of global leaders to shape the principles, policies and partnerships needed in this challenging new context. It is essential for leaders from all walks of life to work together virtually for a more inclusive, cohesive and sustainable future as soon as possible in 2021.

Anyone really understand what they are on about?

Australian 10 biggest exports.1.
Iron Ore Mining in Australia
$132.0B
2.
Oil and Gas Extraction in Australia
$57.7B
3.
Liquefied Natural Gas Production in Australia
$55.7B
4.
Coal Mining in Australia
$37.6B
5.
Gold and Other Non-Ferrous Metal Processing in Australia
$29.4B
6.
Grain Growing in Australia
$14.6B
7.
Meat Processing in Australia
$14.2B
8.
Alumina Production in Australia
$7.4B
9.
Copper, Silver, Lead and Zinc Smelting and Refining in Australia
$6.8B
10.
Copper Ore Mining in Australia
$6.7B

Much of the coal exports is with coking coal used in steel making, considered by many to be the best there is as it is considered very clean burning.
We also export thermal coal to a number of countries including China who if the figures are correct is still building coal fired power stations in the north of the country.
Our meat export currently goes mainly as live exports but from 2025 that will cease and only chilled meat will be exported.
Iron ore goes mainly to China, so the cars from there are made with steel from Oz iron ore.
NZ banned the export of live a few years ago, not a very nice way to move live stock.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by happy daze john in oz

Much of the coal exports is with coking coal used in steel making, considered by many to be the best there is as it is considered very clean burning.
We also export thermal coal to a number of countries including China who if the figures are correct is still building coal fired power stations in the north of the country.
Our meat export currently goes mainly as live exports but from 2025 that will cease and only chilled meat will be exported.
Iron ore goes mainly to China, so the cars from there are made with steel from Oz iron ore.
NZ banned the export of live a few years ago, not a very nice way to move live stock.

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Coke is fairly clean burning as all the crap and nasties are removed from the coal in the coking process

Mate, yes coke is very clean compared to coal. But the coking coal I speak of is the stuff used in steel making process.
As a kid I remember my aunt always used coke on the fire, hotter than coal.

If Australia stops exporting coal, Russia and Indonesia will fill in the void and make millions from poor quality product which produces far more hazardous gases and far more ash to pollute the land and atmosphere.

John, Coke maybe clean but to produce coke is not great for the enviroment. Coke making is extremely problematic from an environmental perspective, as many of the hydrocarbons driven off during the coking process are hazardous.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by happy daze john in oz

Mate, yes coke is very clean compared to coal. But the coking coal I speak of is the stuff used in steel making process.
As a kid I remember my aunt always used coke on the fire, hotter than coal.

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John, it is called petroleum coke and is still produced (as far as I am aware) at Conoco Phillips refinery in Immingham. It burns much hotter than other standard stuff. In the 70s there was a big scare when some was inadvertently sold into the domestic maket; it resulted in many household grates being melted.

Going off course here but the above post brought back a memory.

My dad has his chair by the coal fire, when he had finished a cigarette he would throw it into the fire.
We went for a visit to a cousin's house who recently had a living flame gas fire fitted. Dad was throwing his fag ends into the fire, no one
wanted to tell him because they knew he would be embarrassed.
Bet they were glad to see the back of us.