NIMBYs and a Sunday roast

What I like about the Greens and their supporters as well, as inner city types, is that they like to lecture everyone on climate change, sustainability etc etc but when it comes to actions that could help their philosophy they are the first to whinge and whine about 'greening and sustainability' plans.

These are what one calls "Not In My Backyard (Nimbys)" - which means one who likes to lecture everyone on what to do but doesn't walk the talk. If they truly believed in 'the importance of greening' a key to sustainability and reducing resource waste (and maximising economies of scale through existing infrastructure, notwithstanding how it saves money on government budget when compared to urban sprawl) is the need for urban infill (as against urban growth where the city constantly expands). Urban infill also reduces land area, noting a lot of water - another critical resource - is wasted on lawns but you can still develop infill but have a 'greening environment'.

This article says it all too me - ALP too scared to actually do anything meaninful with urban infill in Sydney when that urban infill is in their own electorates and LOL the 'greeny' types then become the first to protest to Council about development, but then these same types are the first to blabber about cost of living and affordable housing and the importance of climate change actions. Have to laugh. The article I am having a bit of a laugh on is in the link below:

Suburbs in Labor's heartland left off priority shortlist for housing density rezoning along Sydney metro routes (msn.com)

And then we have many not really understanding how things are made. As background the below is rethreading this post in full that I posted in Sept 2022 as the RBA started raising rates - Post #:63836050 been energy costs as they contribute to inflation and interest rate rises. Point of the post was the importance of energy costs to the price of goods and inflation in a number of areas - and how things like EVs are made.

1. China's use of cheap sourced Australian energy to grow industry. The cost of energy in a number of manufacturing processes is the key to competitiveness, not wages.
2. The role of high energy costs feeding into inflation and hence interest rates.

I also, suspect Europe has finally or will soon come to the realisation that energy security is its own country's problem and resolution to come to terms with, and not again mask its stupidity by saying hey I support climate change but I will buy my gas/coal elsewhere so that I don't have the supposed CO2 production amounts in my countries table of CO2 emissions. Renewables have not fixed the energy problem, and so many on these threads still do not have one iota of a clue how things are made.

Take fertilisers which are the lifeblood of the agricuture industry - they need gas and now Europe has a crisis there as well and probably soon will have a possible food crisis and by that I mean the inflationary pressures that will be generated by food prices rising again through shortages.

Inflation will not be kept under control until countries address energy issues, meaning many will suffer with unnecessary interest rate hikes from pure ideology stupidity. Energy costs are a key to most things we consume and build and transport, and if you don't keep energy costs down then inflation gets out of hand, and poor old home owners end up suffering through interest rate rises.

Refer this article on fertilisers and how gas is a problem now for that industry:
Europe's fertiliser shutdown as gas prices soar - ABC News

For those who went through the 70s and 80s, the two key triggering factors to stagflation causing high inflation in the were in part related to two oil price shocks (one in 1973 and one in 1979) with long term impacts until the inflationary pressures were brought under control through high interest rate policies. This then fed into high wages - noting right now wages growth is not keeping up with inflation.

I just wonder now how many countries will keep to their 'climate change' numbers now realising that you have to produce your own gas/coal to fire power stations than buy elsewhere and make that production someone else's CO2 problem.

Returning to Australian affairs, we all sit here and debate an aspect of an energy policy but the elements to cheaper energy are complex and are all inter-related:

1. Need access to cheap energy reserves whether that be gas or coal or wind and a legilslative framework that allows that resource to be used for Australia's benefit. Well on the gas side of things Australia has completely stuffed it up allowing gas to be exported on the east coast to the detriment of consumers whilst at a State level politics has stopped virtually onshore gas exploration been undertaken. Australian gas provides cheaper electricity prices in China than what people are paying for gas on the east coast which is a joke.

2. In terms of renewables, renewables are either at a household level, a regional level or at a base load level. I think renewables certainly have a role at a household level and at a regional level. As a base load power solution I dare say where the competitive nature of them are it is in stupid government policies that have led to the cheaper options been stymied. If renewables are a base load option well we should have been seeing more uptake and lower energy prices, full stop.

3. An energy mix requires all fuel sources to be considered but currently govt policy is about renewables.

4. The role of privatisation has been a disaster when you privatise public monopolies which lead to price gouging by the private sector.

5. Finally role of batteries in power storage and use of interruptible tariffs to flatten the demand curve (so not installing capacity to just meet a few hours of peak demand a day where new expensive capacity is then required) and conserve electricity through efficiencies of use. the role of households and use of solar panels also a key here in managing peak demand

If Australia wants cheap energy it is not about one element of policy but the the total mix of policy across the whole value chain of electricity generation - been the right policy mix for 1.) encouraging discovery/technology improvement and exploitation of the fuel resources, 2. determining the government and private sector role in distribution, transmission (poles and wires), generation (producing electricity), wholesaling and retailing and what regulatory regime you have in place. Included in that is the infrastructure needs and how that will be done (i.e such as pipelines or poles and wires etc)

Australia won't get low cost electricity if don't have an across the board strategy and that is lacking. The gas/coal/renewable debate is really the first step (fuel source and we have enough issues there) before we even get to the other issues of distribution/generation/transmission and role of the public/private sector.

Australia has a fragmented approach to energy policy that now doesn't achieve objectives, unlike the 1980s by the way (yes privatisation along with incomptenet governments have made a disaster of energy policy in Australia).

Anyway, not much more to say. I am not hopeful at all that electricity prices over east especially will ever reduce when liasser faire economics runs supreme to the detriment of locals (i.e. non recognition of market failure in energy policy). The inflationary pressures building in Europe were essentially the result of an over reliance on Russian oil and gas.

We debate energy policy but only ever debate an element of policy. For example, it won't matter whether the fuel source is gas/coal/gas if say the government doesn't control electricity providers in price gouging buyers. As I said a private monopoly is worse than a public monopoly.



In terms of energy storage - large scale energy storage is actually the sphere of vanadium batteries, but again producing vanadium (for battery grade storage) is energy intensive. I see a key area for batteries is actually energy storage. The problem with electricity generation is that current technology doesn't operate efficiently - take coal, most coal gas fired power stations operate at 35% efficiency, meaning that your wasting 65% of the energy content in coal in electricity generation. Gas is 50% efficiency.

In terms of lithium batteries, you need at the moment about 1kg lithium per kWh, but the actual theoretical efficiency of lithium should be 0.4kg lithium per kWh. Need to be able to develop the technologies to ensure you actually get the best out of your inputs, and technology will improve. To understand theoretical efficiency versus actual efficiency, if interested I have gone through data in various stocks as HC is about stocks by and large - Section 4 of this post is an example of how current technology doesn't get the best out of your raw material inputs -Post #:37817451

The problem about people not understanding process is people who do get shut down because explanations are complex and what they have to say is against the norm or what people think is the norm through what they read in newspapers/told by politicians in one liners (fossil fuels are bad and renewables are good without understand9ing how renewables are produced). I mean take the issue around magnets and the way wind electricity is generated - the Greens generally oppose rare earths mining which is one of the critical elements in the generation here. To optimise efficiency you need the best inputs.

Producing hydroxide, which is a key input in lithium ion batteries, is not carbon neutral, so you have to have offset policies to make it carbon free - plant trees etc, which is what needs to be encouraged. Yet politicians in Europe want net ESG in its lithium purchases, can't get it and then cry because China is dominating the industry and its residents are none the wiser why they don't have a EV industry and China leads the way - because you can't do what they want is the point, but having offsets would work better (i.e. plant trees etc etc)

Gas fired power stations are a good transition source to a carbon free economy - been the bridge from moving from coal fired to renewables. They have 1/2 the CO2 than coal. Gas power is also good for those industries where fossil fuels are still a key to a production process. Gas is also a good fuel soure where there is a requirement for a fossil feedstock to a production process like producing your hydroxide that goes into EV batteries - referPost #:52696128

The real problem, i.e. one of the major problems, is the price of gas to gas power station economics because the governments overeast were too stupid to reserve gas, and allowed it to be exported. This meant that domestic customers were paying more for gas going down a pipeline than gas been exported as LNG (a much costlier process by the way) and then been regassified to gas in China and used by end customers - a disgrace in itself. Ditto for electricity in gas fired power stations.So gas power stations over east are not viable because of the high operating costs due to the gas feed price, when a project proponent also has to build the thing (i.e. the capex cost) when assessed on a NPV basis. So what does the government do to improve project economics - well rather than reserve gas and deal with the actual problem - we will now build the gas fired power station (i.e. code for lets give it to the private sector later on) and just allow the gas price to sit where it is (meaning high opex costs for the station). That will keep LNG producers happy and govt hoodwinking consumers that it is resolving the gas question via subsidies.The gas industry overeast is proof of the reality of market failure and government not willing to tackle the heart of the problem. I won't bother talking more as dealt with idiotocracy a while back in this post -Post #:44186292

Some need tounderstand the chemical conversion process for producing an EV - you need to convert say 6% grade spodumene (what your hard rock producers sell from Australia) to lithium carbonate or lithium hydroxide and that is done by using kilns that calcinate and roast the spodumene at 1080 degrees first (calcination) and subsequently 280 degrees (roasting), and the kilns at the moment can only be gas or diesel fired (read fossil fuels). So you know, producing 1 tonne hydroxide is the equivalent to a very large share of one Australian households energy consumption per year, and 1 tonne hydroxide forms the basis for about 25 EVs - here is the maths for that conversion -Post #:50427529. Converting bauxite to alumina and then aluminium is also energy intensive using fossil fuels as the base. Producing steel you need metallurgical coal - thermal coal is power stations - so no substitute at this stage for steel production is my point.

Many arguing for EVs and other renewable technologies haven't a clue how they are made - hence the word 'fossil feedstock'. If you want to reduce CO2, whilst transitioning to a CO2 free economy (net note the word net) need to work out new technologies to be able to do that. And before anyone asks - solar is not the answer in kilns because EV hydroxide feedstock relies on consistent and uninteruptible energy feedstock (i.e. maintaining consistent heat a key to its production). Some may also want to educate themselves how solar panels are made as well as what goes into your wind turbines (the latter rare earths which I know the Greens think shouldn't be mined either LOL).

It will be interesting too me how the policy framework works going forward.

A bit of a rant.

All IMO

All IMO