Essential Research, which now comes to us courtesy of The Guardian Australia, records no change this week on two-party preferred, with Labor maintaining a lead of 52-48. On the primary vote, the Coalition is steady on 36%, Labor is down a point to 34%, One Nation is steady on 10%, and the Greens are up a point to 10%.
Also featured this week are a semi-regular question on climate change, which finds 60% saying it is real and attributing it to human activity – up six points since the question was last asked in December, with 25% favouring the normal fluctuation response, down two. A remarkable 65% approve of Labor’s 50% renewable energy target by 2030, with 18% disapproving, and 71% say the federal government is not doing enough to ensure “affordable, reliable and clean energy” (albeit that that’s a few too many positive adjectives for my tastes), with 12% saying it’s doing enough and 3% too much. Only 16% offered that recent blackouts were the result of too much renewable energy, with 45% instead blaming failures of the energy market and 19% opting for privatisation. Nonetheless, a solid 31% offered support for building new coal-fired power stations, with 45% opposed.
Other findings: 29% approve of the Liberal-One Nation preference deal in Western Australia, with 38% disapproving; and 82% support penalty rates, with only 12% opposed.
I think that the libs have found the perfect way to stop leadership speculation: have absolutely no talent on your front bench.
You did that on purpose, as a joke, right? 😛
Yes Thorium is a good long term solution. The problem is there have only been a few test reactors built, decades ago, and much more R&D to get it going.
That said, if Australia wanted to build strategic capacity in high-end technology, we could do much worse than a state-backed push to develop a commercial Thorium reactor.
William,
I was wondering as the results are now in the guardian each week are the figures still a two week rolling average or weekly results ?
Cheers and thank you nadvance
libertarian unionist @ #2 Tuesday, February 21, 2017 at 3:36 pm
Could we please not let Ziggy Switkowski anywhere near it?
Ziggy is to nuclear energy what Mal is to the Republican movement.
I rather like alumnuses.
And walri.
Frednk,
I concur with this. Building out massive amounts of conventional gas turbine plants is too much of a risk. However, you can design a generating plant that has a future worth investing in and can sensibly include gas as a heat source.
Its fairly simple in engineering terms, scalable and can be built tomorrow. What you essentially do is design a concentrating solar thermal plant with storage. The core is a modular molten salt storage system. But you don’t need to build the storage system out to full scale initially. On top of that a gas heater. No gas turbine. The gas is simply there to provide heat to the molten salt. The back end of the system is a conventional super-critical steam turbine.
You don’t need a huge amount of storage initially. Instead you get your cash flow going as quickly as possible and upgrade the plant storage (in modules) over time and as the market allows. Initially what you have is a plant that is capable of driving late afternoon/early evening loads. That’s the kind of load we need to meet in the immediate future. The plant would also have a role in the medium term as a backup generator in the rare circumstances where wind does not provide enough power late at night.
Point here is that you’re building a future proof generator so its investable. In future you can upgrade it with other sources of heat – even carbon neutral fuels. So there isn’t the risk in having stranded assets as there would be if you were to build pure gas turbine systems on a tens-of-GW scale (as a certain idiot here seems to be advocating).
Yes Doyley, nothing else has changed.
Ratsak
Bloody hell, for guitar?! I use 1mm Dunlop Nylon Standards and they’re too thick for most people who ask to borrow one. Which works out pretty well come to think of it, coz you never get them back.
William,
Thanks.
LU,
There are also good uranium based liquid nuclear reactor designs. My problem with nuclear is that as much as I love really seriously complicated engineering, they are forever going to be more expensive than solar/wind/geothermal. Its like building something to go into space. Its complex and every nut and bolt has to be certified and every step has to be documented and cross checked.
That doesn’t rule out some really nifty reactors (or even fusion) going into space vehicles 🙂
Here’s one for balancing the books.
Sell a museum sitting on prime city real estate which should raise a couple of million, and move it to somewhere else throwing straw men around everywhere so on one will notice the slight of hand, and …oh … what’s that? A new one will cost upwards of 2 billion! And these people are bankers. Who can’t fund new schools. You Know Who wept.
http://www.smh.com.au/nsw/powerhouse-museum-could-cost-almost-2-billion-to-move-20-kilometres-to-parramatta-20170220-guh3fh.html
From previous thread:
phoenixred @ #1212 Tuesday, February 21, 2017 at 3:17 pm
jenauthor Tuesday, February 21, 2017 at 3:11 pm
The reason I am a bit of a grammar ‘stickler’ is that as a writer I see grammar and punctuation as my road rules. These elements sharpen meaning/tone etc.
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Some tips to write good :
1.Parenthetical words however must be enclosed in commas.
2.It behooves you to avoid archaic expressions.
3.Avoid archaeic spellings too.
4.Don’t repeat yourself, or say again what you have said before.
5.Don’t use commas, that, are not, necessary.
6.Do not use hyperbole; not one in a million can do it effectively.
7.Never use a big word when a diminutive alternative would suffice.
8.Subject and verb always has to agree.
9.Placing a comma between subject and predicate, is not correct.
10.Use youre spell chekker to avoid mispeling and to
catch typograhpical errers. 11.Don’t repeat yourself, or say again what you have said before.
12.Use the apostrophe in it’s proper place and omit it when its not needed.
13.Don’t never use no double negatives.
14.Poofread carefully to see if you any words out.
15.Hopefully, you will use words correctly, irregardless
of how others use them.
LOL!!!!!!!
So one of todays big ‘bluey’ is Dan Andrews saying ‘learnings’?
No doubt this originates from ‘lessons learnt’ – the output of a very standard military way of trying to work out what ‘went on’.
This sort of examination of an event doesn’t just go on for ‘disasters / losses’ but also for events that go better than expected.
I’ve been involved in a few of both types.
Doyley – of course, it is quite possible that a lot of Liberal voter (Small L Liberals) are moving to Labor/Greens and working class Labor voter are moving out to One Nation. The trend is more circular.
Apparently the plural of platypus is platypodes, not platypi.
Itza
They could put another ‘Toaster’ in it’s place.
cud chewer @ #6 Tuesday, February 21, 2017 at 3:42 pm
My, we have managed to learn a lot in the last few minutes, haven’t we?
But let’s not forget – it’s first and foremost about the money. Reducing C02 levels is just a nice side effect, right?
CTar1 Tuesday, February 21, 2017 at 3:51 pm
This sort of examination of an event doesn’t just go on for ‘disasters / losses’ but also for events that go better than expected.
I’ve been involved in a few of both types.
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events that go better than expected = swimming across the Thames without drowning
‘disasters = but getting collar felt by the Filth on the other side – who don’t appreciate angry civil servants doing a bit of swanning around in their premiere river …..
kakuru @ #15 Tuesday, February 21, 2017 at 3:54 pm
Wow! I have them in my river, and I never knew that!
Scrub Latin, OK.
And FFS insert ‘real’ paragraph breaks, not f’en line breaks, in appropriate places. There’s nothing worse than a long block of turgid text to put readers off.
I use the orange ones, if anyone cares.
Anyway, enjoy: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=46h7oP9eiBk
P1
“Wow! I have them in my river, and I never knew that!”
Who says PB is a waste of time?! 😉
Player One Tuesday, February 21, 2017 at 4:02 pm
kakuru @ #15 Tuesday, February 21, 2017 at 3:54 pm
“Apparently the plural of platypus is platypodes, not platypi.”
Wow! I have them in my river, and I never knew that!
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I envy you P1 – they are such beautiful creatures !!!!! …… forever fascinated with them …
On the off chance that Colton’s still out there:
From the previous thread.
Zoomster
#1098 Tuesday, February 21, 2017 at 12:28 pm
It’s a regular frustration when teaching English, you see something that appears wrong, but on searching you find references to it and your view.
And then there is American English, don’t get me started. 🙁
If you built a new gas or coal power plant, how long would it take you to recoup your investment and start making a profit?
To Don (from previous thread):
Don,
Congratulations!
But would it be churlish of me to ask how many did 3 unit Latin?
Thank you.
Barney in Saigon Tuesday, February 21, 2017 at 4:10 pm
And then there is American English, don’t get me started
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Give the Septics a break Barney ….
As Oscar Wilde said they are the only country that went from barbarism to decadence without experiencing civilisation …..
What’s the difference between the US and yogurt?
If you leave yogurt alone for 300 years, it develops a culture.
PoenixRed
I wasn’t thinking that amounted to an event that needed examining.
(On the ‘Filth’ – the CoL Sergeant was smart. Her assessment was that I’d easily make the City side without her and the probational constable needing to get wet. She was a bit amused.)
Depends how many others you own. Eg. if you are CS Energy or Stanwell in Qld, or AGL in SA, then not long.
Ai yay yay! The rest of my post got it in the neck!
Here ’tis:
Don,
Congratulations!
But would it be churlish of me to ask how many did 3 unit Latin?
Thank you.
As I understood it, most of the Private Schools at the time still did it, as well as my Selective Public School and others like it in the Public system, actually a lot more then than now, so I would have put the 2 Unit cohort at about 1000 and the 3 Unit numbers at about 250.
I also remember that we went to Sydney Uni once for the Latin Speaking Competition (though I don’t know why, to this day, as it’s a dead language
Bolt must have known his obsequious dealings with Milo would come unstuck.
He is probably right about Milo condemning paedophilia – Milo does seem to approve of hebephilia though
http://www.heraldsun.com.au/blogs/andrew-bolt/on-my-shows-how-milo-crashed-and-why-free-speech-isnt-an-excuse/news-story/7d5c1afae521887390db693e0d41dd5d
Joizus! It did it again! (Note to self: no emoji in copy & pasted text!)
Sorry guys…. 😳
Again, without embedded emojis, except the last one:
Don,
Congratulations!
But would it be churlish of me to ask how many did 3 unit Latin?
Thank you.
Aaaarrrggghhh!!!
I am not going to type it all again!
No emojis at all this time!
Don,
Congratulations!
But would it be churlish of me to ask how many did 3 unit Latin?
Thank you.
As I understood it, most of the Private Schools at the time still did it, as well as my Selective Public School and others like it in the Public system, actually a lot more then than now, so I would have put the 2 Unit cohort at about 1000 and the 3 Unit numbers at about 250.
I also remember that we went to Sydney Uni once for the Latin Speaking Competition (though I don’t know why, to this day, as it’s a dead language ), and there were about 150-200 competitors from schools all over the State, I think even TAS(The Armidale School) was represented, but mainly the Sydney Privates and Selectives. I didn’t do very well in the competition to speak Latin, btw. However, it was fun to be given a text and then to give it your best shot at pronunciation.
I think I loved 3 Unit Latin because we were given a whole text to translate and learn about. I did ‘De Rerum Natura’ and found it fascinating to learn about the scientific principles that the Romans were discovering and how they viewed the scientific world.
It chimed in very nicely with the 12 Units of Science that I was doing as well. As the History of the different arms of the Sciences was also part of the curriculum.
I have also studied a bit of Classical Greek, which I learned when I went to Classics Camp one year.
However, put a Latin text in front of me today and I would struggle.
A very good comment piece regarding sharia.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/feb/21/yassmin-abdel-magied-said-nothing-wrong-she-should-not-have-to-face-this-venom
CTar1 Tuesday, February 21, 2017 at 4:17 pm
PoenixRed
I wasn’t thinking that amounted to an event that needed examining.
(On the ‘Filth’ – the CoL Sergeant was smart. Her assessment was that I’d easily make the City side without her and the probational constable needing to get wet. She was a bit amused.)
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CoL Sergeant was smart …… she realised that most Poms are very allergic to water – so YOU must have either been special or a visitor to England
Where do Poms hide their money where no-one will look ???
Under the soap
libertarian unionist @ #30 Tuesday, February 21, 2017 at 4:18 pm
No, I’m asking about one plant considered on it’s own.
barney in saigon @ #26 Tuesday, February 21, 2017 at 4:14 pm
Gas – well, obviously it depends on the gas price – but scientific american calculated the EROI (energy return on investment) for gas and solar at very similar rates (not sure how to translate EROI into years):
Coal – well, actually coal wins out from both gas and solar on EROI. But it is the risk that is now steering investors away from it.
Libertarian: You did that on purpose, as a joke, right?
[Libertarian: You did that on purpose, as a joke, right?
Bummer … crikey clipping my post!
……
Libertarian: You did that on purpose, as a joke, right?
give up!
*Libertarian: You did that on purpose, as a joke, right?
Glad someone was awake to the fact that I had a clash of pluralisms in the one sentence! I saw what I’d done and decided to not fix it to see what would happen!
I understand about the Thorium reactor being untested on any scale as yet … but we’re talking long term. Son says (and I looked it up after but the science is a bit above my pay grade) that Thorium would avoid China Syndrome and much of the waste issue …
Ahhh – so my smiley face told it to cut the post
jenauthor @ #44 Tuesday, February 21, 2017 at 4:34 pm
Wikipedia has a good summary of advantages/disadvantages – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thorium-based_nuclear_power#Possible_benefits
But some of it is still a bit theoretical. Still, as LU said – we could usefully start researching it, and if we didn’t have such nongs in our governments, we would probably have at least one perfectly safe trial reactor here in Australia by now.
Ok, it depends on which region you are in, forecast load growth and transmission congestion, and whether you can express market power by withholding supply to push up prices. So if you own 1/3 of the generation in Qld, you can expect to recoup your capital invested in Qld more quickly than in Vic.
Nonetheless, typically we are talking at least 20 years for new plant (with at lifetime of 30-40 years). Fast-ramping gas might be quicker if we continue to see volatility grow in the wholesale markets. But at the same time, if demand side participation takes off, this could kill volatility stone dead.
Short answer: I’m not sure.
PhoenixRED
I didn’t exclaim ‘I was a visitor’ or otherwise or ‘good with soap’, I was a ‘Resident’ at that point … It was just something silly to do, on the gap before the ebb tide, to skyte about.
Yes, P1, I really have learned that you are a technically illiterate, ill-informed, mindless idiot. Took me all of 2 days to rule out any other possibility.
CTar1 Tuesday, February 21, 2017 at 4:47 pm
PhoenixRED
“so YOU must have either been special or a visitor to England”
I didn’t exclaim ‘I was a visitor’ or otherwise or ‘good with soap’, I was a ‘Resident’ at that point … It was just something silly to do, on the gap before the ebb tide, to skyte about.
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Well I subscribe to the George Carlin view of swimming and what constitutes a SPORT …
Swimming. Swimming isn’t a sport. Swimming is a way to keep from drowning. That’s just common sense. Sailing isn’t a sport. Sailing is a way to get somewhere. Riding the bus isn’t a sport, why the fuck should sailing be a sport?
To my way of thinking there are really only three sports: baseball, basketball, and football. Everything else is either a game or an activity.
Hockey comes to mind. People think hockey is a sport. It’s not. Hockey is three activities taking place at the same time: ice skating, fooling around with a puck, and beating the shit out of somebody. If these guys had more brains then teeth, they’d do these things one at a time. First go ice-skating, then fool around with a puck, then you go to the bar and beat the shit out of somebody. The day would last longer, and these guys would have a lot more fun. Another reason why hockey isn’t a sport is that it’s not played with a ball. Anything not played with a ball can’t be a sport.
Boxing is not a sport either. Boxing is a way to beat the shit out of somebody. In that respect, boxing is actually a more sophisticated way of hockey. In spite of what the police tell you, beating the shit out of somebody is not a sport. When police brutality becomes an Olympic event, fine, then boxing can be a sport.