kgwilson

I think there are plenty of older age group Russians who yearn for the old Soviet days when everyone was poor but they had a roof over their head and were well fed. I agree though that there are probably few if any of the Putin worshipers who have the appropriate skills or balls to pick up his mantle. The younger generation who have embraced Western culture and its trappings are mostly keeping quiet to stay out of jail but will pretty quickly jump back on the freedom wagon if the wheels fall off Putins. The wealthy will have a bob each way. Whatever comes to pass they like corruption as it enables them to stay rich & get even richer.

At present it doesn't matter that Utes and SUVs are the most popular vehicle types purchased new in Australia because the demand for what is currently available (BEV cars & SUVs) far outstrips the supply anyway. A friend has placed a deposit on a Kia EV6 but won't get it till 2023. As for the mining industry among others BHP, Rio Tinto, FMG & others are investing in the electrification of their businesses starting with electric land cruisers, dump trucks and excavators.

That is if you believe there is a god. Putin has to as his aggressive efforts to date have seen his armed forces severely weakened and his country and people suffering as well as being ostracised by almost everyone except Kim & Xi.

From 2035 there will not be many new ICE cars to choose from. There will continue to be quite a demand for oil for use in the chemical & plastics industry. Aramco & others are making their hay now while their sun still shines. The oil price may drop but it will never get down to prices we knew last century. Even when the price of crude went negative during the pandemic the average price at the pump never went below $1.29 a litre. By 2027 the costs of transport and refining will most likely mean prices well North of $2.50 a litre even if they give the crude away.

New battery technologies that are cheap to produce but unsuitable for EVs or technology items are easily able to be used in the home. The price is dropping all the time & it scares the crap out of the electricity retailers who only see a reducing market as people move off grid. The other option of course is neighbourhood batteries though they generally still use the existing supply network. The energy supply shakeup has only just begun even though Australia has the largest uptake of rooftop solar in the world with absolutely no thanks to the previous federal government.

There is a lot of information out there which is historically correct but is promoted by anti EV and efficiency circles to the nth degree to pour scorn on EV production. They don't look at the latest developments and the fact that battery technology is increasing at exponential pace. Things like Tesla installed almost 22 GWh of solar panels by the end of 21, its Nevada gigafactory is carbon neutral, & the manufacture in house of its new 4680 batteries has reduced energy consumption by more than 70% etc. The current demand for lithium for batteries will be quite short lived. Sodium ion batteries now have similar energy density & are 30% cheaper to make. There are dozens of new battery technologies under development which will make existing high end batteries look like the old Eveready carbon D cells of the 60s. The Apterra may not suit everyone but its efficiency and price were previously unheard of. Making the wheel the electric motor might be new but it is the most logical way to gain efficiency you can get at this stage. Swappable batteries are ideal for large trucks with a huge front end that used to house an enormous diesel engine & transmission but I personally don't think they will gain much traction in the personal transport market. There are 300 EV manufacturers in China alone producing more than 700 models of every size & shape and for multiple roles. 1000 km of real world range is already there in quite a few of the new larger sized Chinese EVs and the latest CATL innovation of cell cooling of LiFePo4 batteries has increased this even more. New batteries can be fully charged without degradation and last 500,000km, the latest from 10% to 80% in only 5 minutes. All this was unheard of only 1 year ago. And now the BYD Dolphin is being sold in Australia for about 35k so why would you buy a new ICE car that will cost more to run as time goes by and be virtually unsaleable within 10 years. There is absolutely no doubt that my next car will be an EV (if I live long enough). The only problem at present is demand is far exceeding supply.

Scomo is a failed marketing man & now a disgraced politician although most of us knew that already. I am always amazed that most of the worst religious nutcases end up as senior politicians.

Janus Electric had a prototype in 2020 & said they would begin operations in late 2021 between Sydney & Brisbane with Coffs Harbour being a major battery swap centre. The cost of conversion is about the same as a diesel overhaul and the trucks grill opens like a clamshell, the battery is quickly disconnected, removed by a forklift & a fully charged one put in all in under 4 minutes.

There is a 4 part doco on Netflix called "The Age of Tanks". It is French produced but in English and tracks the history of Tanks from their invention through many wars, invasions and insurrections etc to the modern day. It is well worth watching. The end conclusion is that while there are some pretty impressive technological developments in recent times their time is basically up.

The King Island design is ingenious deriving its concept from blowholes which concentrates the energy from the wave and unlike other designs sits on the sea floor. A lot of other designs have failed when they end up being damaged by rough seas. Tidal energy has been around for a long time using water turbines where there is a large tidal flow. The first one in the world was the Rance tidal power plant opened in 1966 in Brittany, France and at its peak generates 240 megawatts with an average of 57 megawatts.

After Hansons latest racist gaffe in the Senate I would not be surprised to see Dutton cuddling up to it/her.

I have just installed a new water heater. The original that was installed when the house was built in 2010 was a heat pump and after 4 years the compressor unit failed. It was out of warranty but it was replaced for free anyway with a series 2 unit so credit to Rheem for that. It was still going but had a fault and the backup 3.6kw element was now operating. I only noticed it when making my monthly energy usage check & it had skyrocketed. The model I had got the worst rating from consumers of any on the market but when it was working properly provided about 2900 watts of energy for 800 watts of input. It had a 325 litre tank which is way bigger than needed by 2 people The new one is far better and got many excellent reviews and came out on top of an industry test of a whole lot of different brands. It is from Brisbane company Evoheat and uses 450 watts of energy to create over 1700 watts with a tank size of 150 litres. It has all sorts of excellent features including a timer so I have set it to run only when my solar PV system is producing power so it essentially costs nothing to run. It is also hooked up to my wifi so I can change anything and check the water temperature etc from anywhere. Quality isn't cheap though & it cost $3,400.00 but I got just under $1000.00 by selling the STCs so the total cost was $2,400.00 plus the plumbers $220.00 installation charge.

Most LPG (62%) actually is refined from natural gas & the rest from the petro-chemical industry. Currently it only provides about 3% of all energy consumed and burns very cleanly (mostly butane & propane) producing no soot, very little sulphur and no ground water pollutants but it does produce a lot of CO2 so is a source of green house gas. Like everything we will adapt to not having it so long as a race we survive till then. It has only been around for 100 years or so & in common use for less than 50 years.

While the Russians now control most of the cities in the Donbas they have nothing to offer as they have a scorched earth policy so most of the cities are rubble and burned out buildings devoid of people. Ukraine says it still controls 45% of the Dondas region.

Many countries have either banned or set a date for banning of new gas connections. Even the days of LPG BBQs are numbered. This will creep up on us faster than we might think (but I will probably be dead then).

The Russians, well it was the Soviets then, won by the overwhelming supply of man/women power. In Stalingrad many were sent in without arms & were told to pick up the rifles from their fallen comrades. They lost over 20 million people in WW2. They killed more of their own people than the US lost during the entire war. They also built factories so remote from the war that the Germans had no way of combatting their war machine. They got a lot of stuff from the US & Britain during the time they were ramping up their own production. For example they built over 57,000 T34 tanks during WW2. They built between 31,000 & 36,000 Ilyushin II-2s more than any other combat aircraft of WW2.

Governments should always do better but they always do worse. They set up a department to do something but because the people charged with running that dept have no idea how to do anything, they employ people who say they do. These people don't know so they get in consultants and then they employ all sorts of people who either know everything about nothing or nothing about everything & very soon a new bureaucracy is in place. The bureaucrats think up all sorts of ways to make everything so complex that even they don't know how anything works so they employ even more people to explain everything to the public. In the end they decide it is all far too hard and it would be far better to privatise it. Simples.

About 80%of the batteries made for EVs come from just 4 manufacturers. CATL is the largest followed by LG, Panasonic & BYD. Tesla gets its batteries from the top 3 & Panasonic is to make its new 4680 batteries. Development is expanding at an exponential rate with the cost decreasing per KW as capacity and quantity increases. Battery life is also increasing dramatically with latest offerings providing up to 1 million km & even after that they are still good for installing in your home. Tesla has its own battery recycling plant but it has recycled virtually none of the batteries from old vehicles as they get used for other purposes so is only recycling damaged or defective batteries at this stage. So as a potential EV purchaser what do I do. Prices are decreasing. The cheapest now come from Chinese manufacturer BYD. The Atto 3 is now available in Australia for under $45k & the Dolphin is likely to be around the $35k mark. Reviews from motoring experts are heaping praise on both vehicles with the only complaints being the crappy Chinese tyres. The only problem is supply. All of the production for Australia so far is pre sold. With demand outstripping supply by miles there won't be any discounts till new models start appearing with longer range batteries & current owners start trading in their existing EVs. It looks like I may have to wait a while yet.

I have spoken to quite a few EV owners and have yet to find one who is not absolutely enamoured with his/her EV. All have day jobs and charge the vehicles overnight at home. Most don't have high capacity chargers, just the standard 10 amp socket. Fast charging stations are few & far between at this stage and Australia is miles behind the rest of the world but now with a change of Government attitude things should improve. CATLs new QILIN battery technology will start being installed in cars in early 2023. It has dramatically improved energy density and can be charged from 0 to 80% in about 10 minutes with energy density of 255W per KG at the pack level. This will provide real world driving range well over 1000km for medium size cars. For most people though charging from home at night will work just fine. If you also have a battery linked to your PV system then power can be transferred both ways. To the car when it is low and from the car when there is a power cut. The current development is mind boggling and dramatic improvements will be here before we know it, certainly within a couple of years

It is a common problem with politicians both mainstream and fringe, they all have a belief system and that clouds their judgement when they should be pragmatic and make decisions based on evidence and not their beliefs.

It is like going back to the 60s. The new model actually has a heater. Why would the previous model not have a heater in a place where the Winters are some of the coldest on Earth. The Russians have certainly learned western spin. It has 4 speakers but no audio system or screen & they are touting this as "Multimedia Ready". Hilarious. Meanwhile Putins "scorched earth" policy has seen Siervierodonetsk turn into another Mariopol. This time though they are dug in under a Chemical factory and are getting supplies despite the Russians blowing up all the bridges. Hopefully the supply of new western weapons will get there soon to push them back.

Another religious nut job bites the dust

How are you a hardened criminal at 3 years old? That is learned behaviour based on the lifestyle chosen much later on in life and all of this is in the Australian community. Drive by shootings between gangs in Auckland was never an issue till Aussie trained criminals got deported after they had served their time. Yes they should be locked up but you have to catch them first. It happens all the time in Western Sydney & Melbourne & only some get caught. Some also get shot or disappear. The police seem to know who all these people are but can't do anything until they get evidence & witnesses prepared to testify. Virtually none do as they know what their fate will be. Even when there are raids and police purges and they find heaps of weapons, drugs, stolen property and cash a few go down but the gang pops up again almost immediately. I don't have a solution as we live in a civilised society. In Saudi it is simple, they execute them all even if they are not guilty.

Albo is hosting Jacinda Ardern today after her recent rock star reception in the US where she spoke of their gun laws & what NZ did about the Christchurch massacre to Biden & a host of TV shows which was basically what Howard did after Port Arthur. NZ has had an increase in drive by shootings between gangs fuelled by the deportation of hardened crims from Australia that were born in NZ but arrived as toddlers. Albo may have a softer approach to this than Dutton but I can't see much change here. NZ sees it as Australia exporting their problems & Australia sees it as a valid deportation of hardened criminals who are not Australian citizens.

Not sure about the cullinary habits of Jews and Muslims but they are missing out on the 4 most important food groups which are bacon, bacon, bacon and protein which is also bacon. Court records have aptly shown many Catholic Priests do have sex, mostly with Altar boys.