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Which is why neighbourhood batteries and a more distributed grid in general makes sense. Keep generation, storage and usage close where possible.

Australia currently gets around 36% of its electrical energy from renewables & this is increasing all the time as our reliance on fossil fueled generation reduces with retiring assets and increasing wind & solar with some pumped hydro on the way. Our reliance on diesel for heavy transport has to be addressed more urgently now given global volatility and ever increasing cost.

I am having a battle with an insurance company who are robbing me blind. About 45 years ago, just after moving from Sydney to Melbourne and buying a house, my sons were about to start school and my daughter was born. My wife suggested that I should get life insurance to protect her and the kids if anything happened to me. There was a company in Gippsland that offered a Private Pilot's Insurance product, as most companies steered away from PPL holders. I took out a policy which covered whole of life, ie, payable only on death. After paying premiums for over 45 years, and my kids over 40, and mortgage paid off, my wife and I decided that it was getting too expensive to keep increasing the policy in line with CPI and froze the payout at the figure at the time. However, despite a fixed payout, the premiums continued to increase. Then my wife passed away in 2022, so the beneficiaries are the kids. But the monthly premium is now 25% of my monthly pension, and I will get nothing back myself. I worked out that if I ceased paying the premiums and banked the amount with no annual increase, I would save the payout amount in 7.25 years, even less with interest. I explained this to the insurance company, saying I have only the pension as income and rely on it to live. They said they had to keep increasing the premium to pay for additional costs due to my aging. I told them that was utter bullshit as they acknowledged that the payout was frozen. They said I could cancel the policy, but I have asked them to confirm this would result in forfeiting any payout and I am waiting on their reply. I told them that while what they are doing may technically be legal, it is morally unacceptable. I said they had worse morals than an online scammer.

About 1/3rd of the Price I paid for Panels and better performance. Nev

Australia's 'burbs are overwhelmingly detached houses. Thousands of hectares of them. All with roofs which in many cases already have solar panels. Cheaper than nuclear or new gas or coal to fund neighbourhood batteries and more solar, and smart boxes on each property. Batteries could still be connected to wider grid for importing or exporting when demand changes.

So windfarms in city parklands? Was in Europe recently, Quite a few in Amsterdam and could see a WTG from the London Eye. The ones in Amsterdam that I saw close were 3MW machine, so reasonably large.

With electricty (I'm a fan by the way) we need to remember transmission losses as well.

The real waste heat is when you have to go to obvious and visible ways of disposing of it like heated water towers. All energy ends up as heat. (Entropy) Gears lose more than chains. Torque converters create heat, Hydro drives etc. electric is way ahead. Nev

They may find humus there these days

Electric motors typically run at between 85% & 95% efficiency. Energy lost is mostly heat. Older AC induction motors usually run between 75% & 85%. Modern EVs convert over 77% of the energy at the wheels. The rest is lost to heat and friction. Fossil fuelled cars are very inefficient when converting the energy in the fuel to the wheels at between 12% and 30%. Again the rest is lost to heat and friction.

I think Europe is seeing the consequences of climate inaction. My guess is even France will be seriously looking at solar and wind after this season.. The UK is in its 4th heatwave (I have suggested this is the new norm) Apart from the different tree species and narrow roads, it look a lot like an Aussie landscape in summer. And that means it too is becoming a tinderbox. This is the third year running.