ABC Story 10 bucks a litre

[Richo]

On ABC 1 this Thursday 1st Aug 2013 at 8:30pm.

Tricky dicky is going to tell us how to get cheap energy while he flies around in his helicopter

[acmotor]

Tricky dicky is going to tell us how to get cheap energy while he flies around in his helicopter

I get the point.... but
I thought that a small helicopter was less than 4 litres per 100 passenger km ? When cruising at least. i.e. better than maybe 90% of cars. edit: with one POB
Hovering at the lights could be wasteful though.

Yep, will be watching !

[Richo]

The Handi did 5L/100km.
So what I need is cheap heli's
I could get to work in under 10min
Parking would be a bi^9h

Still it's up there with Branson pushing for a better environment whilst cruising at 36,000 feet on a personal jet.

It all feels like a double standard.

[Simon]

I will be watching!
From some quick calculations I make it to be 59L per hour for a Bell JetRanger 206B at cruising speed of 193kph.
So 6.1L/100km per passenger (4 passengers + pilot) Not bad at all... but if you consider a Commodore can do 10L/100km / 5 is only 2L/100km per passenger.

[whimpurinter]

Hi,

The per/passenger thing kept standing out in this topic and I was trying to find a way to comment that the best calculations almost never apply.

Like how many cornflakes you would expect to find based on the volume of a cornflakes packet, or how economical a 4wd is based on its seating capacity, or how economical a city council local suburb (not busway) bus is (during the day, I have noticed, on occasion, almost nobody on a passing bus ('course, not peak times).

But, the Commodore, I always think of older ones, and, on occasion, they're out there, loaded, and cruising...just sometimes   

[acmotor]

Well said

[Richo]

Ah but mine's not a calculation it's a measurement

Here's a measurement from another dedicated person
CORNFLAKES

[whimpurinter]

Hi Richo,

I should have said "How many cornflakes in a box, (not the inner bag).

Of course we'd like to know what size 'box' the 7122 cornflakes really needed. Naturally, the manufacturer says that the box is bigger because the flakes need to 'settle' but I'm not settling for that.

I think every cornflakes box should have a compactor and the box should be made of lightweight titanium, or even unobtainium, if you can get it, so that the size of the box is the determinant of product size (weight should still be accounted for). Also, the ratio of sides of the box would need to be standard, and certain advertising restricted to certain ratios, so that each product could be compared visually, with minimal variation. That way, the manufacturers could truly enjoy competition, as they do, and the only thing left for the manufacturers to agree on would be the price, as it is now.

Finally, the containers should have to be returnable, which would result in a steady supply of unobtainium, where applicable.

[woody]

While you're talking about cornflakes, put a handful in a plastic bag, squash them up a bit and shake them, then put a decent (non-fridge) magnet near them.

[acmotor]

Ah ! dietry iron

[Richo]

Supermarket shelves would look empty if the packaging was appropriate size for its contents.
Even Pringles have the same problem and they are stacked all nice and neat!

Mind you we could halve our transportation costs by doing it.

[Adverse Effects]

why dose it sound like Dicky likes nuclear power

[Simon]

Mmm maybe it's because he really does? He made no mention of the cost of nuclear power or the long timeframe to build it and stated that going totally renewable would cost lots.

[acmotor]

Dick is no fool.
He may be considering the options but that does not mean he supports NP over renewables. (I hope)
Perhaps he knows that an open look at all energies (pro,cons,cost) will end up finding that the renewables are the best way to go anyway, without ever appearing anti Nuclear.

He is also correct that with all our coal and gas we will need to do more than hold our breath.

[whimpurinter]

I think we can all agree that nuclear production of electricity is the best way of doing it. Of course, that's irrelevant if our super has been invested in it. Then, we won't want 100% care taken at the plant because that means 100% cost. t e p c o, anyone?

I read somewhere that it costs 24 billion that's b i l l i o n to build a nuclear plant, and they are not cheap to run, but then, the "owners" or operators would need to dismantle the plant at the end of its life (I think it was 40 billion   that's b i l l i on ).

Once you've made your money running the nuclear plant, you can move on to the next plant. There's no rush.   The current old plant isn't going anywhere. It might be there, slightly dismantled for many years.

Then, we're going to have protests around train tracks or highways as the old fuel gets dumped in someone's backyard (in all of our's backyard - it's too dangerous to attempt to send it out of orbit), and if we have a total crash in the world's economy, nobody will have the will or the cash to employ enough people for hundreds of thousands of years to guard the dump sites to stop people who would rather join the afterworld, where the rewards are.

Mind you it is cleaner - oh, I mean, no co2 emissions but I think I would rather see a hotter and hotter world where we all go down together than a spotted world of high radiation, weird looking people and ongoing sickness.

Of course, renewables might have a high cost (we're talking money here, the stuff the US will continue to print until they think that they can get enough of it out of the lower paid workers). Money shouldn't be too much of a problem for the world unless they start dropping it out of aeroplanes and it starts blocking up the drains.

What was the last estimate of the cost of renewables? I never remember but it's something like 3% of the cost of arming the world each year. We could never afford it.

[coulomb]

... and they are not cheap to run

I remember the original pitch was that "nuclear power will be too cheap to meter". Well, that's changed a bit now. They'll probably say it's all those nasty regulations, but I think that if anything in the world is worth regulating, it's a nuclear power plant.

Plus of course in the original pitch they never considered the cost of decommissioning.

"The mighty atom". Well, they got that right, it's sure mighty.

[coulomb]

Available from ABC iview until about 15/8/2013:

http://www.abc.net.au/iview/#/view/41110

[unheardofinstruments]

It takes 3 coal fired power stations to run the U235 enrichment plant for starters....precautionary principals aside it still doesn't add up to much but warheads. Nobody talks about risk with solar panels.
did anyone happen to hear about the serious meltdown and leak fukashima had a fortnight ago? Not funny how quietly they are bungling trying to save our collective futures on an inadequate budget, shhhhhh lest we look into the aged plants back in the usa... I believe they greatly underestimate the role efficiency has to play, perhaps two semi trips sydney to melbourne and back just to give us the choice between weet bix and vita brits would be twice as dumb in a 10 bucks a litre world but only half as dumb as subsidy of the petrodollar by government in tax rebates. Why can't I buy an under 1 litre turbodiesel car (let alone electric) if 1/4 of the carbon footprint of Australia is vehicles? (that figure can't include industry, care to learn how much energy olympic dam uses?) 5 percent would be laughably easy if the government wasn't hand in pocket with big energy and so reliant on fuel tax for revenue and age old rhetoric about clean coal for excuses. To argue renewables can't work is bunkum. The seven evil sisters would rather make plastic anyway. Self regulated industries like pharmaceuticals and nuclear power proved beyond doubt they should be disallowed, not to be trusted with our future. If all of Sechuan provence can do it with biogas digesters we can do it too and twice as well.

[jonescg]

I finally watched the show tonight. It was realistic, at least. Perhaps the bit that didn't sink in was the old adage "The cheapest Watt is the one you don't need". Dick was almost saying that the family was entitled to keep using energy like crazy, and as long as that was the case, new energy supplies were not only desirable, but essential.

I think the nuclear thing will never take off in Australia for purely economical reasons, if nothing else. There is simply not enough demand for it to be worth spending the infrastructure dollars on. We already have lower wholesale electricity prices than any other time in history.

In parts of the world where nuclear is already established, they will probably keep their systems chugging along for decades to come. However consider that home solar generation has gone from $10 a watt to 30 cents a watt (and industrial scale solar is even cheaper) and lithium storage has also gotten cheaper, yet nuclear has actually gotten more expensive per Watt to produce.

A thought provoking show, but preaching to the converted for me anyway.

[Richo]

Perhaps the bit that didn't sink in was the old adage "The cheapest Watt is the one you don't need".

They pointed out that heating/cooling is the biggest user for a house which just shows that we still make houses as good as sieves.
Fix that problem and there goes 25% of the total demand.

[G Man]

We watch a lot of "Grand Designs" a British show. I am constantly amazed at the amount of electrical underfloor, window heating that is in use. I am also impressed by the double glazing and insulation that they use n their homes.
I wonder if its that simple (as Richo says!)

[carnut1100]

My house is old and leaks like a sieve and my winter power bills are horrendous...not to mention the resistive water heater that makes a third of my bill.......
step one is the box of LED downright about to get installed...step two is the solar roof array hopefully getting put up in a few weeks. Step three will be a solar water heater with gas boost....
Step four is each room is being renovated one by one and will be fully insulated as I go....

[Coulomb Racing]

Interesting that if we used passive solar design and actually made it law to have new houses oriented in a passive solar direction with the long axis then heating and cooling energy budget would more than halve in most Aussie homes.

I personally thought it was a well balanced show although what got me was a family of 3 with 4 huge plasma tv's.. What a waste of money, and power.

[Richo]

Most LED lighting is not any better than a Fluro at 60Lm/W.
You have to go out of your way to find the 100+Lm/W ones and they aren't cheap.
The only reason I have LED lighting is because I don't want to wait for 5minutes in moon light while the fluro "warms" up.

There is no point making the direction of a house law in Australia.
It's useful for cold climates that need every bit of sun but when it's 45DegC outside I'd rather not have any windows facing North.
not to mention it's not practical in high density urban areas.
Best to work smart with what you have.

Even if my house wasn't a sieve I still have single glazed windows sinking heat - they feel about 15Deg on a cold night and a concrete slab/tiles which feels about the same.
So I'd have to have heaters to fight just the windows and slab.
Summer is about the same except the slab is still cool but the windows are much hotter.

Most Builders now have "eco/green" houses which are the same as any other sieve box but has PV solar panels

They all need a good kick up the...

[photomac]

My understanding is that the GHG emissions of providing fuel,waste disposal, construction of and decommissioning of a Nuclear Plant gives a "well to wheel" equivalency not much less than a gas power station.
Distributed, scalable solar thermal using graphite blocks ( http://www.carbonreduction.com.au/ ) may be better and is also less prone to natural or man made catastrophes - we observed the crippling affect on Western Australian enterprise that Varanus Island gas explosion and the dry summer shorting 15 years earlier. A result of centralised power generation. Think multiple internet server nodes and their security and apply that distribution model to renewable generation. Safe, reliable with built in redundancy. This costs more than fossil fuel but less than nuclear and with no fuel dependencies. So the coal/fuel company profits shift to Western Power, the distributor. Trade is where the profits are. No wonder why state governments sold generators and held onto distributors? But our beloved state government doesn't quite look far enough ahead