Will anything change for the better

General:

The irony is if the LNP had a women problem, having Dutton and Barnaby the leaders of the LP and NP will keep the LNP in the wilderness for at two terms IMO unless the party reconstruct themselves.

Hopefully Albanese can deliver the goods. For me Albanese is not about his media gaffes but what he delivers - he was good infrastructure minister in the past as well IMO

A bit of a brain dump below.

Trust:

Will trust be restored back in govt given one day debt was bad and then it became good under the LNP



At the end of the day the debt does have to be paid back, and the irony is most of the debt growth has been in recurrent expenditure, not capex spend in income generating capacity and/or one that allows the economic base to expand, so will be interesting how this debt is dealt with. Crazy with all the resources we have in this country that we allowed the manufacturing capacity to capitulate over the last 30 years, and before many yabber wages are not a significant cost in a number of downstream industries. It was a case of ideology only, given for a number of downstream activities it is infrastructure plus energy that is a key to production.

Global CO2 and Australia transitioning to renewables (key issues)

The interest for me is how the climate change newcomers are going to dictate policy, because ultimately unless you get India or China onboard what Australia does in the area will have no consequence IMO

Share of CO2 emissions - 5 Countries Producing Most Carbon Dioxide (CO2) (investopedia.com):

And here again - Report: China emissions exceed all developed nations combined - BBC News



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 - refer Post #: 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 to understand 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.

Still our Parliament is represented by people who have no clue

Having said that, the problem with both parties, and some of the independents, is that their representatives are either lawyers (both LNP and ALP), former union officials (ALP), failed teachers (mainly ALP), former índustry self-interest groups (mainly LNP here) and career politicians (both) who have never worked a day in their life at either building something, planning something, scraping a living, working low paid jobs, or running a business. And selection processes tend IMO to be stacked as evidenced by what happened to the LNP in WA given media coverage there, and the ALP IMO are no better. Greens are a waste of space, and Palmer oh boy a road to nowhere.

Compare the Parliament and qualifications of when Bob Hawke was in power, or even Malcolm Fraser and the early years of Howard and you should get the drift. The Nationals are represented by members who predominantly actually own 'hobby farms' if that, or live in the key towns in a region with no real experience. And then you only need to see how many of our wonderful politicians hold a lot of 'houses'', especially in cities that makes it a laugh that they then claim they understand the average Australian or even small business need.

As i said eons ago:

"Reading the threads the latest with farmers and lack of water is just another way to say politicians of today are useless, gutless, visionless and stupid. I wrote a post last night but in summary of that post Australia has no aspiration and soon everyone we just see the economy as a Ponzi scheme on how much my house is worth (or how much it is falling now). Visionlesss we will simply export jobs and crowwd our cities further as regional Australia self destructs even further - just look at farming and consolidation of farms into foreign ownership, as we have seen with resources.

The issue been highlighted from farmers plight to lack of infrastructure is essentially one where the government of all influences has lost long term vision. In fact they don't have one and when someone wants to put up some foresight the idiots talk about debt/cost rather than what it means for future generations. In WA some might recall Colin Barnett wanted to pump water from the Ord River inland to Perth but then everyone went ballistic with short term dummy spats about cost, role of private sector, rates of return in the short term as against looking at long term outcomes. This is why Australia is truly stuffed and our long term competitiveness is going down the toilet. farmers are now just pawns in this game too and just show how useless and out of touch the city loving National embers have become of the LNP.

A private monopoly is worse than a public monopoly as you get price gouged. Just look at your electricity bills after privatisations exacerbated by ineffective energy policy. The lack of planning and foresight in water, power generation, transport infrastructure (the list is endless) by government is appalling - it started with privatisation in the 1990s. You know, because the private sector uses high hurdle rates of return in project investments long-life infrastructure is what suffers btw and why Australia lacks foresight in providing long life infrastructure

It is quite simple, today's politician's believe totally in the free market. They do not understand economic principles around long life assets - private sector wants asset recovery (pay back periods) of 10 years or less, whilst for things such as dams, water provision, hydro, ports, rail, gas pipelines etc they don't get there returns for over thirty years (unless they are required as part of a huge resource development). Simple reason, the infrastructure cannot be done in increments - it is one lump sum oversized investment meaning demand needs to catch up to the supply capacity overtime and within your typical discounted cash flow models, where discount rates are used, this means any revenue stream after 10 years is heavily discounted to almost nothing, so the private sector won't build it. Yet governments believe it will be built and the circus continues.

It is a simple concept: "market failure", role of govt in providing 'long life economic asset's, 'free rider', 'public good' - all concepts lost to today's idiots we call politicians. Google the terms if you need to understand there meaning.

Imagine today's morons living in the past - there would have been no Dampier to Bunbury gas pipeline in WA (which in effect was the reason why the NWS project started in the first place , subsequently expanding to LNG and opening up the north west of WA to oil/gas) or the Goldfields Water Pipeline which opened up the Kalgoorlie region in WA and I am sure many of you can think of other examples. Yes they may have come at some point, but when they would have come is anyone's guess. And growth requires labour, capital and technology, so if capital is missing well that means in economic terms negative productivity growth arising a lot earlier and lower growth.

With the way things are will take time before long life infrastructure reappears and when it does we will be playing catch up waiting for the private sector to build it. As I said it might be built as part of a resource development project (ports for example) but then the company concerned will want exclusive use. and not want to share it with anyone else (so hence the role of govt in providing lumpy economic long life infrastructure.

As I said politicians in today's media cycle are only interested in the short term opinion polls as against providing long term solutions to Australia's growth through iconic infrastructure. They are all worse than each other, fighting for how much lower than can drive Australia into the ground the morons. None have a strategic vision for Australia. GDP growth in today's pollies life is about a false economy driven by a housing Ponzi scheme and immigration so the GDP numbers stay positive, but all Ponzis come to an end and what will Australia then do - nothing because the politicians today are inept and just compare todays lawyer/teacher qualified Parliament who know didely squat with yester years policiticians who new plenty and built iconic lasting infrastructure.

All politicians think about is the polls but none are like a Charles Court, WA Minister and then Premier 60s and 70s) who opened up large swathes of WA to mining development, encouraging Australian companies in but the lot of late, at both Federal and State level, are useless and getting progressively useless (a race to the bottom is Australian politics these days).

We have lots of resources but are too stupid to further process them IMO. We are also too stupid, because of our fixation on laisser faire economics to understand market failure concepts and build iconic infrastructure to facilitate economic development. The fools we have in power at State and Federal level these days would never have built Snowy, Dampier to Bunbury Gas Pipeline, Goldfields Water Pipleine etc etc, with the Milton Friedman rubbish economics people use these days.

FFS China is using our coal and gas and raw inputs to produce manufactured commodities and soon they will be using our lithium to produce electric vehicles whilst we have closed our manufacturing sector. Seriously it ain't about labour costs but idiotic governments who can't see the wood from the trees, because if it was all about labour costs why is Germany doing so well then. Distance to markets is not a factor because we export a crap load of coal and iron ore btw so that is not the answer as well - transport costs - but maybe a part answer given they are lower valued economies when compared to resource processed commodities and we can transport them.

China must be laughing at our stupidity."
Sunday rant over. I just hope the ALP can deliver. The irony is not missed on me that, like the 1980s, when inflation and higher interest rates started raising their ugly heads the ALP were called upon to fix things. Also, unemployment - the ABS statistics that people rely on are a farce as there is significant underemployment in those stats - work one hour and you are considered employed, unlike the 1970s where most were employed full time. The other irony is house prices - the 1970s and 1980s income to house price was around 4 times not 10 times as is today in many cities, noting back then wages growth was far more significant than today meaning yes some may have felt short term pain in their loans but wages growth ultimately helped out and it is why baby boomers were able to pay of debt relatively quickly. Compare today - even if you lived like a hermit and spent nothing but just pay the mortgage and house bills, and had no kids, meaning you saved everything, it will take you at least 10 years plus to pay a loan in Sydney. that is a problem in itself. It will be interesting how Albo plans to reduce cost of living pressures, noting he doesn't seem to have a plan for dealing with inflated house prices for a start and investors driving these prices up given the tax benefits around owning property for a start..

All IMO