Guaranteed I will be the first person to drive a Tesla onto the Vacant Crown Land right outside outside your mineral lease. Which of course any Tesla owner is allowed to do.
The battery pack in that Tesla will have a mass of 480KG, and contain 4,416 type 2170 cells.
A 2170 cell weighs about 66g so the mass of all the cells will be about 292 kg.
With a generous allowance of 2% of mass for lithium, that equates to about 4.4 kg of lithium (whatever).
Correct me if I am wrong above.
Let us assume I drive from Noonamah, to the gates of Mordor at Grants project, a distance of 50.2 kilometres.
Of course I have filled up at the Noonamah free charging with electrons for the car*. It's coming.
I also filled up on one of their famous cow based meals, because apparently I am "green, vegan, lefty, communist, pinky ".
As I am filling up, I notice a block from CXO. Easy to spot in his V8 trooper ute with Pimero plastered all over it. Just a young lad, beginning his career.
I notice the fuel gauge caning, this thing must have the dual long range tanks. He came from the south, so I asked him what his mission was.
He said "Charlotte from them trucking Queensland mob was having her birthday in the office. They sent me to Noony to get some pies and chips, and some Gatorade for the crew. Its a lovely drive too."
Indeed. It's a very lovely drive.
I get to Darwin River and the Tesla is running sweet. Get across the Blackmore River bridge, into the 110 zone, and off we friggin go mate.
I had already passed young mate with all the pies and chip in the V8 Landcruiser back before Berry Springs turnoff. There were no CXO road trains in that 2 minutes so I considered myself lucky.
Anyhow I digress, the Tesla is running sweet, and we are averaging 7 km per Kwh. Thats driving at optimal Tesla speeds.
We overtake 14 boats, and pass another 6 going the other way. Thats before we get to Fog Bay Road.
Each boat is worth 100 brownie points to my kids.The Full Self Driving computer wins this game every time. Anyhow...
I pull up to the Grants gate (they won't actually have a gate nor a fence, you know that right?) and check the parameters.
I left Noony about 24 minutes ago, and used about 7Kwh of energy to get there.
I didn't pay for that energy because its "too cheap to meter". The proprietors of the 2 Noony businesses made way more money from me while I was there, rather than worry about $1 or 3 for some electricity.
Had I paid for that Noonamah energy at published NT commercial rates , that would be 7(Kwh) x 35.26c/Kwh = $2.46.Thats half the price of just one, just one, 600ml double expresso coffee milk
Anyhow, some 11.5 minutes later, young mate turns up with Charlotte's pies. He knew the challenge was on from the friendly wave we gave each other as I passed at exactly 130 km/hr while the Toyota was just up to about 90km/h.
As he pulled over I had the temerity to ask young mate "How much fuel did the Toyota use?".
He said, "Well. it used 15.9L/100km, so I reckon that's about 8 litres from Noony."
Thanks bro I said, and off we drove. Young mate didn't a shit because he was just "doing his job", he was not paying for the fuel, and thankfully for you, he was old enough to not care about climate change.
Let's crunch the numbers a bit.
Landcruiser : 8 x 1.80 = $14.40
Tesla Model 3 : 7 x 0.35 = $2.46
Anyone who tells you that Vogons in Landcruisers are cheaper to run than dedicated runners in EVs is pissing in your pocket.
Despite all the rhetoric about CXO being a "low cost operation", it will be nothing like that. These people have not even worked out a simple EV Strategy for lowering their own simple operating costs, let alone a proper climate centric decarbonisation strategy.
You know, things like their own traffic from the Darwin office (they don't have), or the traffic to the port maybe.
What about the traffic of CXO directors from the airport?
Never once have they ever articulated a simple cost lowering strategy, like using EVS for local transport operations.
The reason is simple. Because this proposed enterprise, is all about how to use as much diesel as possible. They don't give a shit about the climate, nor their impact upon it through their operations.
Anyhow, Charlotte got her pies and chips. Young mate smuggled a can of warm can of Noonamah Bundy onsite for her, so he is well in the good books.
She really felt like the company cared about her, and dutifully drove every morning from Bellamack (about 63.1k).
You see Charlotte, being a mum and all, only had a 2003 Hilux 4 door. After dropping off the kids, and doing all the mum stuff, just the drive to CXO from Bellamack, cost over $20 each way.
One day Charlotte realised that the Qld and SA FIFO workers were being put up at H hotel and Vibe, and then they got the new ferry to the new wharf at Mandorah, and then a new bus (diesel powered of course) took them just 36 kms from that jetty to the Grants site. With no traffic.
After pondering this for some time, and then smoking some sort of plant based substance at the Humpty Doo Tavern one night, Charlotte suddenly realised exactly how modern corporate Australia works.
That old hippy Young mate talked about all the time, with his bloody mung beans, and his electric car was correct.
How come I am slaving here to dig up lithium, while the bosses all turn up in 120K Landcruisers (diesel of course), the FIFO all get air conditioned company diesel transport, and yet here she is driving to work every day in a car she cant afford to run properly?
Welcome to the new working poor of Northern Australia.
Anyhow the rest of the illustrious story about the enlightenment of Saint Charlotte, Young Mate the diesel pie warrior, and their intrepid journey with Rummy the innocent Tesla driving hippy, raconteur, carnivore, bystander, will have to await another day.
And if any of you mob, or any of those lithium lightweights from CXO or their contractors, manage to get any sort of a decent EV, onto the Vacant Crown Land of your exploration licenses before myself (with documented photographic evidence here on HC) , then I will shout all the people in that car a huge feed and many many many libations at Wenty's Rum and Grill on Mitchell St.
夏洛特是赢家。 她将统治世界。
祝所有股東好運
(20min delay)