Byebye Carbon Dioxide Tax....

[_BlackHawk_]

...and that stupid direct action plan. The only bad thing is we are keeping the renewable energies target because Al Gore's investors have a monetary interest in Australia using the horrendously expensive and utterly unreliable wind and solar power, but hey, it's a good start. This should help QANTAS, saving them 120 million dollars a year on their fuel bill!

Here's a list of dud predictions from the global warming alarmists.

NASA said burning fossil fuels would trigger a new ice age.
Snow at our ski fields was a thing of the past.
Arctic ice free by 2000.
Manhattan under water by 2008.
Arctic ice free by 2013.
Antarctica will soon be the only place to live.
Skiing was doomed in Scotland.
Snow would never fall in Victoria ski fields again.
6 degrees of warming by 2020 (predicted in 1986).
Arctic ice free by 2014 (how many times can they be wrong!!!).
Sydney would run out of water.
Brisbane would run out of water.
Perth would be a ghost town.
Adelaide would run out of water.
It would never rain in Victoria like it has in the past (leading to the building of the now mothballed billion dollar desalination plant because oops, it rained again).
Great Barrier Reef is dying.
Giant hail stones will smash through your roof
Sea levels will rise and swap Pacific islands.

I could keep going, here's another 100 odd. How many times can these people be wrong?

http://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/04/02/t ... edictions/

[_BlackHawk_]

Ah...so true this cartoon is.

[_BlackHawk_]

....and after all that, it's gone. Woohoo, no more tax on air.

[Adam the Akrodude]

There's a "Code Blue" on our economy at the moment - where's the "Crash Cart"?

Wife's a coronary care nurse - just using some of her jargon! Got to get rid of that stupid Mining Tax next. With our dumbing down society, we do need the miners/mineral processors spending money on new projects - it's pretty bad out there at present.

Probably shouldn't get political here on what is after all a aeroplane modelling site, but the last mob cost this country dearly. I guess if we're all poorer, this means less models to buy and that is BAD!

[_BlackHawk_]

Damn straight Adam. Just have to get rid off all the renewable power now...keep mining that coal boys, my air-compressor doesn't run on good will and profanity.

[Adam the Akrodude]

I've no issue with renewable energy - I do think there is a place for solar and wind power. What most "greenies" don't get is the need for base load power - you know the 24/7 kind to run what is left of our industry. This is just not possible with wind and solar alone.

I used to work for ICAL/Transfield and spent a lot of time down in the Latrobe Valley seeing Loy Yang B built by fellow company employees. Coal fired boilers are pretty impressive, yet as far as technology goes it's pretty old hat. Smaller combined cycle units (gas) are more efficient (up to 50%) - the trend in USA when nukes not an option.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Combined_cycle

Nuke power for some idiotic reason isn't favoured here, even though we mine the stuff - bizarre really. I'm with Dick Smith in this regard. There are potentially much safer nuke processes too - using Thorium for example, of which Australia has bucket loads of - check out that process.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thorium-based_nuclear_power

The power source I'd like to see up and running (getting there slowly) is fusion. Rather that waste the billions it did, perhaps the previous government could have become involved in ITER. Not sure is there ever was the opportunity to do so but would have been great if possible - get in early in the development of fusion power. Matters not I guess. If we ever get a fusion reactor(s), it would be US/UK/French or German designed and built most likely. Unlikely in my lifetime I think - perhaps 40-50 years off.

http://www.iter.org/

It is still very economically viable to use all our coal and gas deposits for base load power generation - probably will see out our lifetimes. The answer of course is to use a number of technologies - renewables (solar & wind), coal, gas combined cycle and potentially nuke in the future (Thorium and fusion reactors). All the solutions are there - it's just having the political will to realise them.

Power should be cheap.

[_BlackHawk_]

Nuclear...oh nuclear. I want those to be built out here so I can buy up all the suburban property around them for cents on the dollar before everyone overcame the massive scare campaign that would be run against them. I could then build houses and sell them at a stonking great profit!