nomadpete

Until now (thanks, OME) I have never given it much thought. Except maybe something didn't quite seem right about the populat hulk-convict story. I never believed the Brit government would go to all that trouble and expense just to carry out a social experiment in prison reform.

How can we have a half decent argument if you say stuff like this?

The words "New Grid" are BS. That implies tearing down the old grid and replacing it with a new one. The grid has been growing steadily since it started. There has been constant increase of demand, increasing population and increasing sprawl of cities along with the steady increase of power stations (such places as Millmerran & Kogan Ck). Over the years many many towns were connected to grid power. Also greater industrial needs such as extending the grid fmall the way out to Roma gas fields. Expansion for all the above is simply a continuation where the new 'building' is beefing up some pathways and adding new bits to connect new sources abd customers. The entire grid is not going to be rebuilt.

As Jerry points out, the financial balance must be separated from the political and media (vested interests). The big players are voting with their dollars against fossil fuel power stations. They don't give a rat's about environmental issues. Their investments are based upon best return for dollar. And they don't see value in fossil fuel, or nuclear energy.

Another comparison is that the South Australian 'big battery' is... The battery features 150 MW/194 MWh of installed capacity, as well as grid inertia support services. It looks like Australians are not waiting for the government to make the transition happen

When I post posting re-read the above, I realised they referred to GWh of storage capacity. Not actual GW generation supply (as a reduction of generation to meet peak demand). Still, it's a consequential amount of distributed energy getting stored

According to google... "Australia has surpassed 400,000 home battery storage installations with 11.2GWh of cumulative capacity installed in less than a year "

Into the above arguments, we could factor in the rapid adoption of home batteries. According to one report there are about 400,000 home batteries installed in the first half of 2026. This alone must noticably reduce peak load on the NEM. Consequently, lowering peaking generation and therefore driving down overall retail electricity prices even for non solar householders. Even small home batteries are designed to reduce peak load on the grid. Sure, it isn't a complete transition to 'intermittents'. But the trend is gathering momentum in the right direction.

The risk posed by relatively slight increases in atmospheric temperature, is high. A wet-bulb temperature (WBT) of 35°C is the theoretical human survivability limit. This recently occured for six consecutive hours in July. Such conditions prevent evaporative cooling, rendering outdoor exposure potentially fatal without artificial cooling. Above 35 wbt, even lying down in the shade is fatal. All biological systems have a range, and beyond that range the chemistry of life ceases. A body designed to operate with a core temp of 37C, can briefly sacrifice optimal performance to inhibit pathogen replication at 40c (fever), but will start failing, including seizures, at core temp of 41 or 42 c. If we get prolonged wbt over 35deg, the only humans that survive, will be those in A/C or underground.

We do get a fair bit of forum ipsum around here

Unfortunately that is true. But the ball is rolling, and so far this year, about 400,000 home batteries have been installed this year. The whole system is changing. This transition is going to require some socialist support for those who are disadvantaged by the changes.

I hope someone points out that this will result in the public buying more solar panels? I'll make sure my surplus solar power covers the connection fee.... until I am confident I can disconnect. Then those companies will find they killed the goose.

Not unexpected.

The saga of the green reflecting pool is classic trumpfook. First he personally gave the repair contract to a buddy. Then he insisted it painted a darker colour in spite of the known fact that dark = warmer = faster algae growth. Then within 10 days the water turned warm & green and they tipped insufficient Hydrogen Peroxide in. Then the blue Epoxy paint started to peel off & float about in the green water. Then we hear about another contract to fix all this.... the National Park Service contracted not only the coating and painting of the pool under a no-bid contract, but also an additional $1.7 million contract for a water purification system. That no-bid contract went to a firm whose ultimate owner is the J.J. Cafaro Investment Trust, led by Trump donor John J. Cafaro, whose wife chaired the 2017 International Red Cross Ball at Mar-a-Lago and who lives near Mar-a-Lago at a mansion that is listed as the water treatment company’s address in Florida corporate records. The name of the firm is Greenwater Services. What? He hired Greenwater Services?.... If only he'd thought to hire "Bluewater Services"......

I once applied for a tech job @ Exmouth. The US had handed over ops to Aust ADF, whe handed it over to Contractors. The work was with VLF submarine comms, HF radio, and Sat. I guarantee that no Aust personnel were privy to any comms content. Back when US set up Pine Gap, everything came in on big unmarked grey jets, usually at night. As far as US is concerned, Australia is an untrusted foreign country.

In my working life I drove just about every road in Qld. Numerous times. My territory was from Grafton, west to Birdsville, up to Threeways, across to Torres Strait. As you know, working doesn't really let one see the country properly. So since retirement I've been visiting places that I promised myself to come back to, to see properly. Thanks for the tip.

Yeah, that last one should go into the revised Oxford dictionary. Priceless word for present day polytiks

When I worked in Timor, I saw a family of 5 on a stepthru. No tank for junior, and mum sitting modestly riding sidesaddle on the rack at the back. They show us how underutilised our road transport is.

Thanks Wille. Not the sort of view that Tourism Australia would caption "Where the bloody ell are ya?" But it representative of a bloody lot of our wide brown land. When I first travelled the outback in my teens, all I saw was endless monotony. But the country grew on me. Now, I miss it too. We are heading to that country today.

I hope it has a good subwoofer.

To balance my whinge about hospitals, I must add that in spite of frequent past experiences of looong wait times, our health system is generally good. I attribute this to the exceptional diligence of nursing staff, and doctors. The admin, financing, etc..... well that needs work.

Looks like Iran (or, rather Israel) couldn't wait for Trumps Tuesday Taco. The ink had hardly dried before they suspended the MOU. https://www.ibtimes.co.uk/iran-halts-us-negotiations-lebanon-strikes-1803651 Are we still winning.... again?

Don't take it so badly. Soon HE will drop out of the picture and a new face can earn that title. There is quite a queue of similar types waiting in the wings.

Well, yes, and no. Public system is a bit of a lottery. You must have had good timing. I have been taken in to the Royal by ambulance - true, I was not actually at death's door but I was in great pain - and I was ramped on a gurney, in the ER hallway along with other unfortunates. The silly thing about it is that we were technically still under the care of our respective Ambulance staff because we were not yet admitted to the hospital. So we were surrounded by a bunch of First Responders (two to each patient). These were regularly checking on each of us, not the hospital staff. So there was a queue of empty ambulances blocking the driveway, unable to respond to further emergencies.