Katoomba Monthly Temp average set to be SMASHED!!! AGAIN!!!

[Bushmiller]

I haven't looked at Snowy 2.0 in any detail, but have been sceptical about it from day 1. Apologies if I've mentioned this before; pumped hydro requires the water to be kept as far upstream as possible, irrigation and the environment require it to be distributed downstream.

Alex

From my reading that is exactly the problem. There are four dams in the sequence that cascade down the line. If the water gets to the lowest dam it is not recoverable.

Regards
Paul

[FenceFurniture]

I don't care if he's Jesus Christ, he still needs his butt kicked. Individually or collectively. These idiots have been able to get away with BS for years.
Almost all our bush fires start in National Parks and have done so with monotonous regularity. The new mentality of "Oh just let it burn itself out" is not going to cut it. This fire is the largest and most devastating on record and all caused by inefficiency and apathy. There is no place for either quality in management, be it business or running a Country. All in the interest of creating a surplus. About time we started getting our priorities right.

Agreed Ken. You've been through two fires that I know of in the last 5-6 years, and your anger and frustration is palpable after this last monster. Perhaps it's time for management to bite the economic bullet early and send in the 737s to put out lightning strikes in remote areas, if they don't want to support permanent staff on the ground.

How many times do they have to pay MUCH more in the long run to learn that early intervention is far far less costly, albeit not particularly cheap. They are yet to discover the cost to long term tourism, just to think about one aspect (let alone the lost property and lives costs).

I forget where I learnt this (maybe the local rag) but one of the hotels in Mt Victoria has had a wedding cancelled for coming October because of bushfire fears. Clearly that's fairly irrational thinking, but there's no controlling it, and the clients are the ones with the mula.

[Bohdan]

How many times do they have to pay MUCH more in the long run to learn that early intervention is far far less costly, albeit not particularly cheap. They are yet to discover the cost to long term tourism, just to think about one aspect (let alone the lost property and lives costs).

That is exactly the problem.

They aren't the ones paying the real cost of the fires, they are only worried about the cost to their budget so they cut their spending and we have to pay the real costs.

Even though their money is actually ours (i.e. taxes) and they are failing to do their job and in their responsibility to us.

[FenceFurniture]

Certainly the Govts (State & Federal, even local) aren't paying an emotional cost, but it has cost them a helluva lot of money to fight those fires, and in lost revenue. Even the leases on the extra aircraft were much higher because of the short term notice.

[AlexS]

Alex

. I am sure that is very good advice. While the original Snowy scheme was primarily intended for irrigators with hydro electricity as a secondary benefit, I think version 2.0 may be the other way around and I don't think the government gives an agricultural toss this time.

Regards
Paul

Correct about the original purposes of Snowy 1 & 2. However, I suspect that any government is likely to crumple in the face of an irrigator (or environmental or urban power user) push. All can be loud and assertive, and governments don't always make the best decisions under pressure.

[woodPixel]

Agree with AlexS. My wife uncle (a top bloke) owns a big chunk of productive farming land in Griffith. ALL he talks about is water.

It is the lifeblood of his business.

[rwbuild]

Australian scientists close to developing holy grail of clean energy

Physicist Heinrich Hora in UNSW’s photonics and opto-electronics laboratory on Thursday. Picture: Britta Campion

• exclusive
  Graham Lloyd
  
  ENVIRONMENT EDITOR
  
  
  
  
• An hour ago February 21, 2020
• 609 Comments

Australian scientists are tantalisingly close to developing the holy grail of clean energy, using high-powered lasers to fuse boron and hydrogen atoms together to generate electricity without any emissions or toxic waste.

A team of scientists at the University of NSW is developing the hydrogen-boron fusion technology, which is said to hold the promise of limitless, cheap baseload electricity with virtually no carbon dioxide emissions and zero radioactive waste. The only waste product is helium.
The pioneer of the technology, Heinrich Hora, said: “The clean and absolutely safe reactor can be placed within densely populated areas, with no possibility of a catastrophic meltdown such as that which has been seen with nuclear fission reactors.” Boron is cheap and naturally abundant, with sufficient known reserves to power the world for thousands of years.
Patents for the technology have been granted in the US, Japan and China to UNSW spin-out company HB11 Energy.
The research, which was conceived by Emeritus Professor Hora, has been under way for more than four decades.
It is a genuine moonshot on the pathway to a low-emissions world. If successful, it will follow UNSW’s other success in transformative energy technology with solar photovoltaics.
READ MORE:PM pushes tech target for climate
The announcement by UNSW of progress on its fusion research coincides with a new focus by the Morrison government on technology to combat climate change. The Australian revealed this week that the government would adopt a technology investment target as the best way to meet the net zero emissions goal countries signed up to in the Paris Agreement.
Professor Hora said Scott Morrison’s comments and a business group target of $22bn a year for investment in new technology represented “a new direction” in tackling climate change.
The government is planning to release a technology road map that will include advances in carbon capture and storage and other emissions technologies. Work is also progressing on a coal-to-hydrogen project based on Victoria’s brown coal reserves, with delivery of a hydrogen refining plant to AGL’s Loy Yang facility in the Latrobe Valley.
The plant will be used as part of a pilot phase of the Hydrogen Energy Supply Chain project, a world first to establish the feasibility of supplying clean hydrogen from export from Victoria.

Fusion research has attracted billions of dollars in funding around the world. Many are claiming to be on the verge of a breakthrough similar to that of the UNSW team. However, others believe the technology is 30 years away.
Professor Hora said advances in laser technology had been the key to realising his theories of how to produce fusion energy without the massive amounts of heat needed by other approaches.
The laser technology’s developers, Donna Strickland and Gerard Mourou, were awarded the Nobel Prize for Physics in 2018.
With patents in place, HB11 will seek funding for final testing and development of a prototype. If all goes well, developers expect a pilot plant could be built within five years. The company will seek $1m for preliminary testing over 12 months. A further $5m would be needed over two years for international research collaborations to achieve experimental proof of concept. A pilot fusion electricity generator would require a further $80m.
“After investigating a laser-boron fusion approach for over four decades at UNSW, I am thrilled that this pioneering approach has now received patents in three countries,” Professor Hora said.
“These granted patents represent the eve of HB11 Energy’s seed-stage fundraising campaign that will establish Australia’s first commercial fusion company, and the world’s only approach focused on the safe hydrogen – boron reaction using lasers.”
Professor Hora said his reactor design was simple: a largely empty metal sphere, where a modestly sized HB11 fuel pellet is held in the centre, with apertures for the two lasers. One laser establishes the magnetic containment field for the plasma and the second triggers the “avalanche” fusion chain reaction.
A statement by UNSW said the alpha particles generated by the reaction would create an electrical flow that could be channelled almost directly into an existing power grid with no need for a heat exchanger or steam turbine generator.
HB11 Energy managing director Warren McKenzie said the approach could be the only way to achieve very low carbon emissions by 2050.
“As we aren’t trying to heat fuels to impossibly high temperatures, we are sidestepping all of the scientific challenges that have held fusion energy back for more than half a century,” Dr McKenzie said.

[rustynail]

My greatest concern is the forthcoming inquiry. Closed to the public. Well that rings an alarm bell. If we are going to lock up millions of acres in one of the most fire ravaged countries in the world it just may be a reasonable notion to have a few qualified firefighters toddling about with a bit more than a knapsack spray to show they mean business.
There is no greater threat to this country than bushfire. Oh, and politicians that are clueless. (I'd like to see the dumb bedstead try to shake my hand.)

[NeilS]

“As we aren’t trying to heat fuels to impossibly high temperatures, we are sidestepping all of the scientific challenges that have held fusion energy back for more than half a century,”

Yes, my FIL (Prof of Physics) was working on the magnetic bottle problem over 50yrs ago.

The problem that they were trying to solve with fusion back then was the unwanted byproducts and safety of traditional nuclear reactors. Issues with CO2 emissions weren't on the agenda back then.

Good to hear that there has been a breakthrough.

[woodPixel]

See! You buggers ignored my comment! Number 472....

RWbuild posts a nice little article on fusion and limitless energy using lasers! But they haven't quite cracked it yet.

Why?

No ball bearings.

You should listen to me! I'm a prophet!

[FenceFurniture]

You should listen to me! I'm a profit!

That's what Rupert said to his fourth wife.



That's also one reason (profit) why I was somewhat sceptical about any news article in the Australian - even supporting alternative energy source breakthroughs. Such is the level of trashing that that fine newspaper has endured. I was/am kinda expecting somebody to say "Nah, that's all discredited crap" even though the research is at UNSW.

However, if it does have legs (and only needs some ball bearings yer mad bastard)...it sounds pretty good. How much helium would be produced and can it be captured and used for something else rather than just pushed into the atmosphere? At 0.0005% of the atmosphere, it is 1/60 of the natural CO2 component at 0.03% which makes it 60 times easier to disturb the balance of, and we now know how disturbing the balance of things can go.....even though He isn't a greenhouse gas (and neither is Him).

[woodPixel]

Helium is utterly inert, plus its a natural by-product of radioactive decay that occurs within the earth.

I believe (and I could be wrong) that it burps continuously and with some force from oil wells and other such holes we punch into the earth.

I was thinking capture myself, but the only real use I can think of, outside of party balloons, is for MRIs....

Though, speaking of which, the techs at my wifes quarterly MRI were wringing their hands at getting parts and a continued supply of helium for their machines here.... seems there is something going on in China....



Yes, heed my words, Ball bearings.

The Fat Profit.

[NeilS]

Though, speaking of which, the techs at my wifes quarterly MRI were wringing their hands at getting parts and a continued supply of helium for their machines here.... seems there is something going on in China....

Or, in Qatar and the US.

How The Helium Shortage Will Impact Your Healthcare

[woodPixel]

Here is an article on China... 40% of all energy is now renewables. Offshore wind could ..."provide more than 6,000 terawatt-hours, or 200 percent of total energy demand"

Offshore wind farms could power much of coastal China: study

6000 TWh !!!!

[NeilS]

Offshore wind could ...

And, here is a wind map of Australia....from the earlier document I cited in support of my east-west interconnector idea. The warmer the colour the more wind available. Sorry about the resolution, the original was very small.

Winf map of Australia.jpg

WA has abundant wind available waiting to be distributed as electrons to the east. The additional expense of offshore turbines may not be necessary.