Albo to the rescue

[Bruce Tuncks]

I actually remember when John Howard sold off australia's gas for 5 cents per liter. I was the only person who took the time to convert petajoules per something to cents per liter, so this was not known at the time, or ever after from that point of view.

I don't think that Howard was so bad, I reckon he thought gas was infinite in australia.

[Bruce Tuncks]

I'm not that surprised about Japan...  I have read that  australian gas is cheaper in asia than it is here.

Why Albo is not be broadcasting these facts is a mystery to me.

[facthunter]

There are existing contracts that we are obligated to keep.    Nev

[pmccarthy]

There is much more gas in Australia to be found, once governments encourage the exploration.

[willedoo]

By it's nature, LNG contracts are normally long term. Typical export contracts for gas are in the 20 to 25 year range. If you contract to buy someone's gas for the next twenty years, you would want it at a cheapish price to reflect the contract length. Oil has always been easy to ship and handle so there's a spot market for oil. Because of the required infrastructure for gas handling and storage, there hasn't really been much of a spot market for it until recent times where it's happened on a small scale.

[pmccarthy]

World coal consumption hit a new record last year, and will increase again this year. 

[Jerry_Atrick]

There is more info here: https://www.iea.org/reports/coal-mid-year-update-july-2024/overview

 

But what's your point? 

[pmccarthy]

The point is that all the self-flagellation is achieving nothing, nor will it. We (the west) are gradually destroying our economic wellbeing toseek some moral high ground that the rest of the world does not care about. The dictatorships of North Korea, Iran and Russia will continue to gain ground against us while also dominating and subjugating Africa and much of Asia and eventually South America. 

[Jerry_Atrick]

Do you have grand kids, and if si, are you happy leaving them an increasingly ruined world? 

 

If so  different values, I guess.

 

The "economic advantage" just means two things.. first - remove the artificial subsidies and it is no longer economically advantageous anyway; and secondly, the deferred costs will have to be picked up by future generations- except it won't just be starvation, but war, too. And they will be our sproglets that will be caught up..

 

The only real saving grace from the above is that the western world population is in implosion territory, so global energy demand will naturally reduce..

 

But, from the iea website, advanced economies are removing their reliance on coal..  the great thing about new generation technologies is that the investment unlocks massive power sources very cheaply and efficiently.. which means cheaper input costs to production. Coal does not become cheaper to produce and is exhaustive, eventually.

 

The coattails of coal is shrinking. Even according to the iea snspshot, the coal demand is forecast to plateau in 2025. China uses it because it is cheap, but they want out if it. Sadly, India is not as progressive with its investment policy.

 

We don't use horses anymore, nor do we ubiquitously use V8s to get a lot of power from a clump of metal. we have been getting over 100hp oer litre from smalker engines in retail cars for 20 years now.

 

If fact, it looks like we will be decreasing using crude oil based gasoline in transport. My means if transport to work today was entirely electric from the double decker bus to the train, to the tube.. 

 

Like it or not, coal is slowly dying despite its uptick in demand. It fires less than a third of all power generation and is likely to continue to fall relative to others. It is still necessary for steel milling, but hydrogen is gathering pace in Europe and, based on cheaper power from non-coal sources (except nuclear). 

 

There is no doubt coal and other fossil fuels are still profitable and will be for some time. The world is too reliant inthe mass scaled infrastructure.. 

 

But the transition is happening, and those that own the manufacturing and infrastructure in newer technologies will gain heaps.

 

 

Unless, of course armageddon beckons

 

 

Edited Thursday at 05:19 AM by Jerry_Atrick

[pmccarthy]

Armageddon will follow from our economic weakness. There would be nothing wrong with phasing out coal if that were to happen, as long as it didn’t weaken Australia wrt our enemies. So it would require a global agreement that will never happen, and could only be applied by force of arms. Likewise for gas, which we have plenty of but refuse to use. And yes, I have ten grandchildren and fear for their future in a world that is moving toward another world war. 

[spacesailor]

OH NO.

All my 15 grandies are not trained to fight in a war .

If you expect these pampered adults to defend Australia. Without going back to

conscription,   I think it will be like the UK.were the politicians sold out the country .

( joined the EEC at massive cost ) .

to hell with the people. 

spacesailor

 

[Marty_d]

I think you're worrying about the wrong thing.

If climate change isn't brought under control it'll be the millions of refugees invading us, not some country who stuck to coal in the face of all logic and science.

[pmccarthy]

Climate change cannot be 'brought under control'. We need to start worrying about the real threats from the growing dictatorships. Climate has always changed and always will. By all means do what you can if you are worried about climate, but nothing you do now will change the climate that our descendants live in for the next couple of hundred years. But we can choose whether they live under a Putin or an Ayatollah.

[nomadpete]

4 hours ago, pmccarthy said:

But we can choose whether they live under a Putin or an Ayatollah.

Thats a valid point.

But where will you dig up a strong leader that cares about the people?

[Marty_d]

11 hours ago, pmccarthy said:

Climate change cannot be 'brought under control'.

Actually, it can. What we do now determines if it's bad or catastrophic.

If you don't accept the science then nothing I say will convince you.

Putin has been stymied by one country he thought he'd defeat in 3 days. I think we can walk and chew gum at the same time.

[facthunter]

There's NO PLANET (B).  . Nev

[Jerry_Atrick]

21 hours ago, pmccarthy said:

Armageddon will follow from our economic weakness. There would be nothing wrong with phasing out coal if that were to happen, as long as it didn’t weaken Australia wrt our enemies. So it would require a global agreement that will never happen, and could only be applied by force of arms. Likewise for gas, which we have plenty of but refuse to use. And yes, I have ten grandchildren and fear for their future in a world that is moving toward another world war. 

I get your point (I thiink). The only thing that I can see that Australia can do to defend against attack is to bolster its defences. And, of course that takes money. But, selling all the coal and gas in Australia isn't going to cure that situation. Here are the reasons:

• Australia is, relatively speaking, a free and democratic society. We don't use authoritarian tactics like artificially keeping wages low and people in economic servitude to bolster the soverign economy. Our foes you speak of do, which means they can basically force teh development of an industry and the military or equivalent of the Stasi will step in if you don't comply. On the economic front, we are fighting with one arm tied behind our back. As Australia lacks the economies of scale of a large population, we are further hindered in that role.
• We receive very little recompense for the extraction and sale oversears of our natural resources. Shareholders, and a decent chunk of them are foreign, so the money provided from these activities direct into the government coffers to support the massive real increase in defence spending is really not that great. Yes, the indistries employe a lot of people on very good salaries, and this contributes to taxation through wages and the local economy, but these people still need roads, schools, hospitals, art galleries, police, and the like..
• Our successive governments have been reliant on foreign powers to protect us, and foreign countries (mostly) to equip us. And in a global conflict, when the chips are down, especially with AUKUS, which basically has us paying over the odds for subs that are operationally less appropriate for the defence of Australia, if we are to get them, we play second or third fiddle when it comes to the supply of parts. We've now got Tomahawk cruise missiles (or maybe they are coming). Problem is, the operators are US, and sit in the pentagon, and guess where those ones with the Aussie flag painted are going in the time of need.. Not to the targets that Australia needs, if at the same time stocks are low and there is a pressing US threat.

 

But, on the bright side, operationally, Australia is a very difficult country to sttack and take over because it has the natirual barrier that surrounds it, and keeping supply lines open is key. Also, as the Ukraine war has shown, you don't need all the expensive kit if you ar innovative - but there still is, albeit a slower, brain drain of Aussie talent as it headed overseas where their skills were more able to be utilised at a more mass scale.

 

Sadly, meglamaniacs are always around.. there's not much we can do to stop them, but we can make sure we are ready for it when it happens. However, climate change can be addressed in terms of continual change... it takes the will of people. We can still use coal and other fossils.. but they are, at the end of the day, just energy sources. The won't go away, but for civilian use, we can move right off it, and remove the impacts.. and we stand a better chance of building a decent economy if we do move off it because our costs will be lower.