On 09.03.19 11:54, Nicklas Karlsson wrote: > You are mining coal in Australia maybe you would be better of turn > some of the combustible material to bio fuel?
Spot on. The Black Saturday fires released the energy of 1500 Hiroshima bombs. As an individual, I can do at least three things: Continue to heat only with biomass (firewood), as I've done here for 30 years, and the family has done on the farm for 53 years. Each trip out there is offset by bringing back 3/4 tonnes of firewood for heating here. Make the new build on the farm carbon neutral, and preserve over 200 Ha. of forest to absorb CO2 that others produce. Vote (in May) to defeat the reigning government COALition which has reportedly been bought by the coal industry with a million dollars of campaign contributions, and fervently represents them rather than the people. Despite that, though, coal fired power stations are closing down regularly, without replacement. We have the highest domestic PV solar adoption rate in the world, according to local propaganda, and those gigawatts are replacing entire power stations despite the best efforts of big coal to thwart the people's efforts. Coal power has become so uneconomic here that no bank will lend to build a coal power station. South Australia has installed a massive battery from Tesla to fill energy gaps. A second power cable to Tasmania will make it a better accumulator for the mainland, using pumped hydro. On the mainland, several billion dollars are to be put into tunnelling through yet more mountains to convert the Snowy River hydro scheme to pumped hydro as well. More coal fired power stations will close as that comes on line, and we have the lakes and heights to provide the entire nation's dispatchable power needs without a single coal or nuclear power station. The first networked CST (Concentrated Solar Thermal) power station is about to come off the drawing board at long last. The only one in service is powering 20 Ha of glasshouses in South Australia, providing power, heating, and desalination for irrigation. In time we will catch up with North Africa on this brilliant replacement for coal. I believe they're powering an entire city for 8 hours after sunset, using molten salt. China is weaning itself off thermal coal - I think they realise that tropical storms will give them a belting if they don't. India is lagging somewhat on the technology curve, and currently needs the dangerous cheap coal fix to power their economic and technology climb - regrettably. We have slow learners here, despite all the fires, droughts, and floods. They're in denial, and refuse to open their minds to the snowballing environmental crunch which is just beginning to roll down on us. Hopefully there are not enough of them for the servants of coal to remain in power. (The number of government ministers announcing that they're not running in the election does seem to indicate that they've seen the writing on the wall.) The fires will not defeat us, but an inability to farm, due to lack of water, is already making life very hard for many. We can currently feed more than twice our population, but that will not continue. The current leaders don't know how to deal with the growing climate dislocation. We will go through a rigorous learning process which will strip a lot of delusions from folk who think the changes are temporary rather than a harbinger of greater change to come. Our children will not thank us. (Still, it might bring on peak population at a lower count, thus helping the planet in the long run.) Erik _______________________________________________ Emc-users mailing list Emc-users@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/emc-users
